Let The Games Begin

[cincygreg]

Should be very very interesting.

(from USNEWS.com)

WASHINGTON NEWS
Bush Balanced Budget Challenges Congress
With Democrats poised to take control of Congress tomorrow, President Bush is reaching out, offering to work with the new Hill majorities in governing the country. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning, Bush says he "will have the privilege of working with" the Democrats "for the next two years -- one quarter of my presidency, plenty of time to accomplish important things for the American people. ... To do that, however, we can't play politics as usual." But, as the Wall Street Journal and AP note in their analysis of the op-ed, the President sounded a tone of bipartisanship, but makes it clear he won't back down from his stated priorities on terrorism and Iraq. In addition, the President appears to be readying a gambit on the domestic front: This morning, he announces that he will propose a plan to "balance the federal budget by 2012 while funding our priorities and making the tax cuts permanent." While 2012 comes four years after the end of Bush's presidency, the balanced-budget issue could potentially give Republicans an issue to rally around while splitting the Democratic caucus.

At any rate, chances for bipartisanship do not appear strong in Washington, DC. Gannett News Service reports incoming House speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi "has vowed to push six key measures during the first 100 legislative hours of the 110th Congress, which begins Thursday." But the Washington Post reports Democratic leaders "are facing mounting pressure from liberal activists to chart a more confrontational course on Iraq and the issues of human rights and civil liberties, with some even calling for the impeachment of President Bush."

Also criticizing the Democrats' "limited" agenda is Mario Cuomo, who writes in USA Today's website, "After years of chaos in Iraq, which has led to neglect of many critical domestic issues, voters are looking for dramatic ideas and courageous leadership to deal with the nation's most difficult challenges. ... So far, the Democratic agenda...offers a laudable but light list of issues, such as increasing the minimum wage, greater stem cell availability, job training benefits and adopting ethics reforms. I doubt that kind of agenda would be enough to keep control of the Congress, let alone to win the next presidency."

House and Senate Republicans, meanwhile, appear to have settled on their opening approach to the new majority that will be critical -- though not harshly so -- of Democratic moves during the first month. "We're still feeling our way, obviously, but for the first couple of weeks we won't be bombastic," a senior House GOP leadership aide tells the US News Political Bulletin. "They won so we'll let them have their day," added the aide. Another aide said that the Republicans also don't want to look like they are being mean to Nancy Pelosi, who is to be elected the first-ever woman House speaker.

Finger pointing, mudslinging, and a whole lotta he said she said (and that's within the parties [img]wink.gif[/img] )

Welcome Congress, we all hope you can do what we need you to do, but if not...
At least continuie to entertain us!

[craig in northside]

I got a large-charge out of Cindy Sheehan showing up at the Democrats press conference demanding that they bring the troops home NOW!!

Be careful who you lie down with.
She may just follow you home!! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Beachcomber]

Originally posted by craig in northside:
I got a large-charge out of Cindy Sheehan showing up at the Democrats press conference demanding that they bring the troops home NOW!!

Be careful who you lie down with.
She may just follow you home!! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">[img]biggrin.gif[/img]

[Beachcomber]

The Democrat who bothers me the most, and I think he could be very dangerous for this country is Obama. He tries to come across as this down to earth, guy next store, all American. He's a serpent ready to strike as soon as he gets the chance. Mark my words...

[cincygreg]

He's got the personality and charm thing down.
Should be interesting, and remember...
He allready admitted to inhaling.

Barack Obama, asked about drug history, admits he inhaled

By Katharine Q. Seelye The New York Times

Published: October 24, 2006

PHOENIX, Arizona Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who said Sunday that he was considering running for president in 2008, has created a little sunlight between himself and both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For one thing, he said, "When I was a kid, I inhaled."
"That was the point," Obama told an audience of magazine editors.
The direct admission was in contrast to Bill Clinton's denial in his 1992 campaign for president that he had smoked marijuana.
"I didn't inhale," Clinton said, cementing the idea that he liked to have things both ways.
Obama had written in his first book, "Dreams From My Father" (1995), before entering politics, that he had used marijuana and cocaine ("maybe a little blow"). He said he had not tried heroin because he did not like the pusher who was trying to sell it to him.
In an interview here at a meeting of the American Society of Magazine Editors, Obama said he was not making light of the subject.
"It was reflective of the struggles and confusion of a teenage boy," he said. "Teenage boys are frequently confused."
The question of drug use has become a standard one for politicians, sometimes as a test of their ability to be straightforward. If the politician has used drugs, conventional wisdom says it is best to try to get the question out of the way early.
Obama was also asked for his views about Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Democrat who has been a dominant figure in discussions about potential presidential candidates. Obama praised her but made clear that he did not agree with her vote for the Iraq war.
"I think very highly of Hillary," he said. "The more I get to know her, the more I admire her. I think she's one of the most disciplined people I know. She's one of the toughest. She's got an extraordinary intelligence, and she's somebody who's in this stuff for the right reasons. She's passionate about moving the country forward on issues like health care and children."
But, he said, they clearly had "different assessments" about the wisdom of going to war in Iraq. Perhaps mindful that he could end up as her vice presidential running mate, he added that he had it easier because he was not in the Senate at the time, while she had to vote.
Asked how he might campaign against her in a primary, he said he had not thought about that.
But he did sound like a candidate in criticizing the Bush administration in somewhat stronger terms than he had previously.
"This administration has done great damage to this country," he said, citing the Iraq war as the chief reason.


THis could be a very very tough campaign for all involved as far as the road to the white house in 2008 goes.

[Beachcomber]

His possible drug abuses as a teenager don't worry me nearly so much as this. It is difficult to find references to his muslim background now that he is the darling of the Dummycrats, but it's there if you look for it. I knew about it when he first came into prominence, then ofcourse the info was brushed under the rug in most discussions about him:

Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim
Debbieschlussel.com ^ | Dec 19, 2006 | Debbie Schlussel


Posted on 12/20/2006 1:48:52 PM PST by Stone Mountain


Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim


By Debbie Schlussel


Many months ago, readers began asking me whether Barack Obama is Muslim. Since he identifies as a Christian, I said, "no," and responded that he was not raised by his Kenyan father.

But, then, I decided to look further into Obama's background. His full name--as by now you have probably heard--is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali's son--Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim.

And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.

Then, there are the other items in his background. As best-selling author Scott Turow wrote in Salon, Obama went to a Muslim school for two years in Indonesia. His mother, Anna, married an Indonesian man (likely another Muslim, as Indonesia is Muslim-dominated and has the largest Islamic population in the world).

And Obama has a "born-again" affinity for the nation of his Muslim father, Kenya, and his Kenyan sister. (Although Kenya is largely Christian, it has a fast-growing Muslim population that has engaged in a good deal of religious violence and riots against Christians. And Kenyan courts will apply Sharia law, when the participants are Muslim.) Wrote Turow:

Obama's father died in a traffic accident in Nairobi in 1982, but while Obama was working in Chicago, he met his Kenyan sister, Auma, a linguist educated in Germany who was visiting the United States. When she returned to Kenya in 1986 to teach for a year at the University of Nairobi, Obama finally made the trip to his father's homeland he had long promised himself. There, he managed to fully embrace a heritage and a family he'd never fully known and come to terms with his father, whom he'd long regarded as an august foreign prince, but now realized was a human being burdened by his own illusions and vulnerabilities.

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

[Beachcomber]

And anyone who votes for a muslim in this country is a damned fool, you muslim ass kissers like Raven who want to paint anyone who sees them for who and what they are as "racist" are going to be the ruin of this country and Western Civilization. They are on a campaign of conquest and intolerance, period. There should be ZERO tolerance for muslims or islamics in our government in any shape or form.

[gae]

I'm with GL.

Locked and loaded there in FL?

[LanDroid]

Friggin brilliant. Congressman Keith Ellison was just sworn in on a Koran - do you find any significance in that book was owned by Thomas Jefferson? Or any significance in Article VI of the Constitution?

[travelinman]

Originally posted by LanDroid:
Friggin brilliant. Congressman Keith Ellison was just sworn in on a Koran - do you find any significance in that book was owned by Thomas Jefferson? Or any significance in Article VI of the Constitution?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The idea of swearing on the Bible arises from Christian belief that requires honesty and eschews all dishonesty as coming from the "Father of Lies." The permissions to be dishonest in the Qur'an are not mitigated by Islamic belief, tradition, and theology, but are in fact reinforced -- by Muhammad's statements that "war is deceit" and that lying is permissible in wartime, and more.