Very sad....where has the middle class gone?
The rich get richer, mission accomplished.
Hi Charlie C. Nice to see ya and I hear ya bud!
Bush's compassionate conservatism has wrecked havoc on our wonderful country for nearly eight years now!
Ain't you glad he was <s>elected</s> selected?!?!
[img]graemlins/wilted.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/broken_heart.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/broken_heart.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/wilted.gif[/img]
Gus
GD & C1: Read it and weep !!!!
Bush Blames Congress for Failing to Act on Energy (Update1) [img]tongue.gif[/img]
By Roger Runningen
April 29 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush blamed Congress for blocking his initiatives to mitigate rising energy costs by expanding domestic production and said lawmakers also are delaying action on other measures to address higher food costs and the mortgage crisis.
``It's a tough time for our economy,'' Bush said at a news conference today at the White House. While the public is demanding action, ``on many of these issues, all they are getting is delay.''
Bush said lawmakers have been ``vocal'' in opposing measures to expand U.S. oil production, including exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
He dismissed calls by to stop oil purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A group of 14 Senate Republicans earlier today asked Bush to stop filling the reserve to ease price pressures, matching a similar request previously made by Democrats in the House.
Bush said ``it is in our national interest'' to get the reserve filled, and halting purchases wouldn't lower the cost of oil because it amounts to 0.10 percent of global demand.
``I have analyzed the issue and I don't think it would affect price,'' Bush said.
Gasoline Taxes
In the presidential campaign, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain propose a ``gas tax holiday'' by suspending the 18.4-cent per gallon federal gasoline tax and the 24.4-cent tax on diesel fuel. Democrat Barack Obama opposes a tax suspension, saying it will do little for consumers and divert money needed for highway and bridge repairs.
Bush said he would ``take a look'' at any proposals that may come from Congress. He said Congress would open more domestic land to oil exploration if it was ``truly interested'' in solving the problem of high gas prices.
Gasoline is averaging $3.60 a gallon nationally, up 66 cents from a year ago. Diesel, used by trucks that transport many goods to retailers, is at $4.24 a gallon, up from $2.92 last year, according to a survey by the American Automobile Association.
He declined to say whether the U.S. economy is in a recession.
``Economists can argue over the terminology,'' Bush said. ``The average person doesn't really care what we call it.''
Food Prices
On the rising cost of food, which Bush said is related to higher energy prices, the president said lawmakers also were partly at fault because they have failed to overhaul the ``massive, bloated'' farm bill. Now is the time for ``reducing unnecessary subsidies'' to wealthy farmers, he said.
``We are deeply concerned about food prices here at home,'' he said. This year, Bush said, the U.S. would be ``generous'' in food donations because of scarcities overseas.
He also called on lawmakers to act on his proposals to ease the housing crisis.
``Americans should not have to wait any longer for their elected officials to pass legislation to help more people stay in their homes,'' Bush said.
Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in February by the most on record, pointing to an imbalance between supply and demand that shows no sign of ending.
Prices will probably keep sliding as foreclosures push even more properties onto the market just as stricter lending rules limit the number of qualified buyers. Shrinking home values have contributed to a slowdown in consumer spending that may already have tipped the economy into a recession.
To contact the reporter on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at [email protected]
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...Unw&refer=home
White House admits fault on 'Mission Accomplished' banner [img]tongue.gif[/img]
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
Thu May 1, 3:40 AM ET
WASHINGTON - The White House said Wednesday that President Bush has paid a price for the "Mission Accomplished" banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.
Thursday is the fifth anniversary of Bush's dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Bush said at the time. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on." The "Mission Accomplished" banner was prominently displayed above him ? a move the White House came to regret as the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.
After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the "Mission Accomplished" phrase referred to the carrier's crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq. Bush, in October 2003, disavowed any connection with the "Mission Accomplished" message. He said the White House had nothing to do with the banner; a spokesman later said the ship's crew asked for the sign and the White House staff had it made by a private vendor.
"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."
She said what is important now is "how the president would describe the fight today. It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy."
At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.
Now in its sixth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of at least 4,061 members of the U.S. military. Only the Vietnam War (August 1964 to January 1973), the war in Afghanistan (October 2001 to present) and the Revolutionary War (July 1776 to April 1783) have engaged America longer.
Bush, in a speech earlier this month, said that "while this war is difficult, it is not endless." [img]graemlins/bat.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/bat.gif[/img] [img]confused.gif[/img]
Five years since "mission accomplished" was declared by that ******* !
The U.S. death toll is now 4065 and he is still making excuses about that "end of war" photo op!
It's disgusting!
[img]mad.gif[/img]
GD
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by gus danger:
There he is! The man responsible for all of that death and destruction!
I wonder how he sleeps at night?!?!
[img]graemlins/hmmm.gif[/img]
GD
Hey Gus...This Is Quite A Surprise !!!!
Fox News Host Guilfoyle Doubts Palfrey Suicide [img]graemlins/wonder.gif[/img]
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
May 2, 2008
So shady is the ?suicide? of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, even Fox News has questions. For instance, Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former prosecutor and talking head on Fox News, doesn?t buy the now commonly accepted ? on corporate media venues, anyway ? assertion that Ms. Palfrey was so depressed she went out in the car port of her mother?s mobile home and hanged herself.
Guilfoyle made mention of Palfrey?s appearance on the Alex Jones Show where she declared she would not commit suicide.
But Palfrey?s vow was not mentioned anywhere on the corporate media, with the recent exception of Fox News.
As Alex said on his show this morning, it is indeed a ?strange world we live in? now that Fox has allowed Guilfoyle to cast apsersion on the official version of reality. [img]graemlins/wonder.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/hmmm.gif[/img]
http://www.infowars.com/?p=1882
Baghdad - Reports of the Iraqi Army's performance in the last month have ranged from proud to disastrous.
But with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pursuing a fight with militias that has him squared off against the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ? and with the drawdown of US troops continuing to pre-surge numbers this summer ? Iraq's security forces may be facing their biggest test yet.
The Americans, who will fall back from more than 160,000 troops to about 140,000 by August, are asking the Iraqis to do more: lead more of the fighting, man more of the checkpoints, carry out more of the security missions on their own.
The question is, are they up to it? The answer will play a crucial role in the assessment the commander of US forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, will make at the end of summer to decide if the drawdown of troops should continue. More long term, it will help determine how fast the US can safely withdraw most combat troops from the country.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seems to have no doubts about the answer. While in Baghdad recently to show support for Mr. Maliki's willingness to take on the militias she said that Iraqis "are, quite rightly, proud of their security forces and the way they've performed."
That contrasted with an assessment by British officers of the initial offensive against Mahdi militiamen in the southern city of Basra at the end of March. Their take: The Iraqi Army's performance was an "unmitigated disaster at every level." Earlier this month The Daily Telegraph quoted senior British commanders leveling those charges, and adding that the poor Iraqi performance would delay Britain's planned pullout from the southern region for "many months."
US commanders involved in the fighting in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City this month have no such dire descriptions of the Iraqi units they oversee. But they do point to shortcomings the recent fighting revealed.
Among the weaknesses: a shortage of mid-level officers ready to lead troops, problems with the Iraqis properly supplying their own troops, and a lack of training and experience that shows up in soldiers shooting indiscriminately and in wild volleys when under attack.
"There have been some instances when they haven't performed as well as we'd want them to," says Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff for the Baghdad Multi-National Division. "We're definitely seeing some willing soldiers, [but] the mid level [of leading officers] has yet to be developed."
Iraqi military officials say the recent campaigns in Basra and Sadr City are being carefully analyzed.
"You have to remember this is a young army, and these were the first instances of our forces taking the lead against the militias, against the Mahdi Army," says Brig. Gen. Mohammed al-Askeri, spokesman for the Iraqi Defense Ministry. "Before, it was always Iraqis following the American lead."
____________________________________________
I think the British are much more honest in their assessment of the situation than Condoliar Rice and her ilk,
who lied us into this war in the first place
Ol Sparky
9/11 Conspiracy Connection To DC Madam Murder ?
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, May 5, 2008
Former NSA analyst and Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen tells the The Alex Jones Show that one of the key motives behind the DC Madam?s murder may have been the information her call girls picked up from Washington?s top brass concerning foreknowledge and government complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
Madsen also connected another suspicious death - that of former CIA agent Roland Carnaby who was gunned down by Houston police last week - to another individual who was involved in both the 9/11 cover-up and the D.C. Madam scandal, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Noting that Palfrey and her defense team had tried to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act in the U.S. District Court in Washington, which is only used when classified information or the names of people who are intelligence officers needs to be discussed, Madsen said Palfrey, "Had information which could have a bearing on the 9/11 attacks that some of her employees may have picked up information beforehand that would have been very useful to the 9/11 investigation."
Madsen added that most of Palfrey?s call girls had been active around the area of McLean Virginia, which is where the CIA and other intelligence agencies are based and where Dick Cheney lived at the time.
Host Alex Jones recalled that during interviews Palfrey had told him that her escort service was in fact being used as an intelligence operation to gather intelligence on individuals who used the escort service, particularly those connected to the military.
Madsen, who spoke personally to Palfrey on numerous occasions, recalls one conversation where Palfrey told him, ?I have information that would have been of great interest to the 9/11 Commission - there?s information that they have (her call girls) that would have been very important for the 9/11 Commission to know having to do with intelligence they picked up about 9/11 before it happened?.
The former NSA official noted that some of Palfrey?s call girls were being chauffeured by Sherlington Limousines to poker parties attended by former CIA director and co-chair of the Joint 9/11 Intelligence Inquiry Porter Goss. One of the reasons cited for Goss? abrupt resignation in May 2006 was his alleged involvement in a prostitution scandal where lobbyists were holding parties for GOP lawmakers that featured hookers and gambling at the Watergate Hotel in D.C.
On the morning of 9/11, Goss was having breakfast with the head of Pakistan?s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmoud Ahmad, the man who ordered a wire transfer of $100,000 to alleged lead hijacker Mohammed Atta.
In addition, Madsen pointed out that Jack Abramoff, who was also connected to the DC Madam scandal, allowed at least two of the 9/11 hijackers to use one of his casino boats in the days before 9/11, and this is what Palfrey was probably referring to when she spoke about her call girls picking up information about 9/11 before it happened.
"There?s the link, when you?ve got Abramoff and you had two of those hijackers on his casino boat a few days before 9/11 - I just wonder if that?s what Jeane was talking about," said Madsen, "Because now I?m looking at this crazy incident in Houston with Roland Carnaby, a retired CIA guy who was still contracted to the CIA, being gunned down in broad daylight by the Houston police department - now I?ve been told by Agency sources in Houston that one of the people he was looking at was Abramhoff and the casino boats - so here you?ve got two people in the same week, looks like they were both assassinated in broad daylight," he concluded.
Many readers will recall that Newsweek reported that military brass in Washington received a warning the night before the 9/11 attacks which led to a September 11 flight being cancelled. "NEWSWEEK has learned that while U.S. intelligence received no specific warning, the state of alert had been high during the past two weeks, and a particularly urgent warning may have been received the night before the attacks, causing some top Pentagon brass to cancel a trip. Why that same information was not available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked commercial aircraft may become a hot topic on the Hill," according to the September 13 2001 issue.
The connection to 9/11 is tantalizing and provides a key motive for why numerous power brokers would have wanted Palfrey to be shut up for good before she had the opportunity to release information in court that her call girls picked up about 9/11 pointing to foreknowledge and government complicity in the attacks.
http://www.infowars.com/?p=1930
Tom Hanks announces support for Obama's presidential bid
[img]//images.businessweek.com/ss/06/07/roi/image/04_tom_hanks_b.jpg[/img]
OBAMA-HANKS IN 2008 !!!
NEW YORK (AP) - Tom Hanks is supporting presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
Hanks has taken to his MySpace.com page to pledge his support for Obama, who is competing to be the first black president. Obama, who faces rival Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, has also been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen and Scarlett Johansson.
"As an official celebrity, I know my endorsement has just made your mind up for you," the 51-year-old actor says in a short video titled, "Beware: Celebrity Endorsement."
"History with a capital `H' is going to be made this November, no matter who the president-elect is. I want Barack Obama to be president of this country, a country that once said people with his skin color were only three-fifths of a human being."
Hanks, who won Oscars for his roles in "Forrest Gump" and "Philadelphia," explains his decision: "It's because of his character and vision, and the high road he has taken during this campaign. He has the integrity and the inspiration to unify us, as did FDR and Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy and even Ronald Reagan when they ran for the job."
The actor says Obama and Clinton have each "pretended to eat cheese-steak sandwiches and go bowling," "committed gaffes" and distanced themselves from supporters who could damage their campaigns.
But Hanks thinks an Obama presidency could bring about a "seismic shift," and "live up to the great promise once shaped by our founding fathers."
Signing off, the star says: "I'm Tom Hanks, I wrote and approved this message, and I'm now going to turn off the camera."
http://ktar.com/?nid=37&sid=827477
OBAMA - HANKS 2008 !!!
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