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And..Now..
the rest of the $tory....
"The sooner Congress lifts the ban, the sooner we can get this oil from the ocean floor to your gas tank," Bush said.
Critics of the offshore drilling plan noted that the Energy Department released data this week showing that U.S. exports of finished petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel, soared to 1.592 million barrels per day in May.
The exports set a record for the month and were up 31 percent from a year ago.
re
mac clown is sooooooooooooo disliked
in az and now u know why
possibly....
the
D
I
V
O
R
C
E
thingie....??
or was it his
choice of ties...??
LOL
If he wins..
AND raises SS taxes..
Im getting a DIVORCE..
and will
marry some rich
Country Clubbing
Heiress
Following The Leader..
seems like
a Winner
<g>
Got Syrup...??
McCain backs off his no-new-tax pledge
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain's signal that he may be open to a higher payroll tax for Social Security, despite previous vows not to raise taxes of any kind, is drawing sharp rebukes from conservatives.
McCain's shift has come in stages, catching some Republicans by surprise. Speaking with reporters on his campaign bus on July 9, he cited a need to shore up Social Security. "I cannot tell you what I would do, except to put everything on the table," he said.
He went a step farther Sunday on ABC's "This Week," in response to a question about payroll tax increases.
"There is nothing that's off the table. I have my positions, and I'll articulate them. But nothing's off the table," McCain said. "I don't want tax increases. But that doesn't mean that anything is off the table."
That comment drew a strong response from the Club for Growth, a Washington anti-tax group. McCain's comments, the group said in a letter to the Arizona senator, are "shocking because you have been adamant in your opposition to raising taxes under any circumstances."
During a town-hall meeting in Sparks, Nev., McCain insisted anew Tuesday that he would not raise taxes if elected.
He frequently has promised not to raise taxes.
At a July 7 town-hall meeting in Denver, he said voters faced a stark choice between him and Democrat Barack Obama.
"Sen. Obama will raise your taxes," McCain said. "I won't."
In a March 16 interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, McCain said he would cut taxes where possible, and not raise them.
"Do you mean none?" Hannity asked.
"None," McCain replied.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25906611/
In God...
We Trust
Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 27, 2008; A10
Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling.
Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.
re
why are people allowed
to knowingly post lies
day after day?
I believe its called..
Payola...
eom
re
He could sell people
shares of many penny stocks here no problemo...hehe
got Harken Oil....hehe...?
22,000 hot line calls....?!
could these possibly be
the whimpering masses..
Ass Clown Phil Gramm
was referring to..??
..........................................
here's
a photo
of
Troubled
Ted Steven's..
castle..
As it should be..
http://www.sharkattackphotos.com/Shark-in-roof-of-a-house.jpg
wondering aloud here..
can a new presidents..
'signing statements'
over rule a former ones..
pardons..
??
re Ambien
sorry dont know.....
but now
I see a link between Mac's blunders
(Iraq-Pakistan border ..statement..
ect..ect...ect
and his
poor choice in ties..
<g>
http://www.tvpredictions.com/mccain1.jpg
re
is there proof of these insinuations ???
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/05/23/mccain.health.records/index.html
try google S..
lots there..
http://www.google.com/search?q=mccain+ambien&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
McCain's Ambien Use: a Security Threat?
Sleep Drug Known for Memory-Linked Side Effects; Most Doctors Unconcerned
By DAN CHILDS
ABC News Medical Unit
May 23, 2008—
In a presidential race marked by references to preparedness in the face of the 3 a.m. call, the revelation that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has taken the sleeping pill Ambien during his travels raises concerns that the rare side effects of the medication could impair his judgment.
"Taking more than the recommended dosage of Ambien or combining it with other sedative-hypnotics for example, alcohol may result in amnesia, fugue states and sleep walking," said Dr. Peter A. Fotinakes, medical director of the St. Joseph Sleep Disorders Center in Orange, Calif. "Used appropriately, Ambien is a relatively safe medication."
Though rare, such side effects associated with Ambien have made headlines.
Patients who claimed that they engaged in a bizarre variety of activities while asleep after taking the drug from binge eating to driving their cars while asleep lodged class action lawsuit in 2006 against Sanofi-Aventis, the maker of the drug.
The unusual side effects of the drug once again made headlines a few months later, when Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy smashed his Ford Mustang into a barrier near Capitol Hill. He later released a statement saying that he had been disoriented by two prescription medications he had taken, one of which was Ambien.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has uncovered more than a dozen reports of sleep-driving, all linked to the drug. Partly in response to such reports, the FDA urged sleep drug manufacturers on March 14, 2007 to strengthen their package labeling to include warnings of sleep walking, "sleep driving" and other behaviors.
Still, some sleep experts maintained that the rarity of these side effects, coupled with the wide use of the drug, make it unlikely that a problem would arise if the commander-in-chief were taking the pills.
"I suspect that drugs like Ambien are used very commonly by government officials, particularly when crossing time zones," noted Dr. Donald W. Greenblatt, director of the Strong Sleep Disorders Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
"Temazepam was used extensively to facilitate British troop transport to the Falkland Islands years ago," he added. "You may recall the talk of President Bush Sr. taking his "little blue pill" Halcion to help sleep when traveling. These drugs Ambien less so than Halcion have the potential to alter behavior and actions if the person taking them tries to stay awake."
Dr. Emmanuel Mignot, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, agreed that McCain's use of Ambien would likely pose little concern.
"It is perfectly legitimate to use Ambien when traveling," he said. "I would say that overall I would prefer to have a commander-in-chief well rested when he is traveling after taking Ambien rather than someone who is sleep-deprived because of jet lag.
"The only potential issue is if there is an emergency in the middle of the night, but honestly, I am not sure it is worse than being sleep-deprived there too. Of course, Ambien can have side effects, for example on memory sleep deprivation too. Life is a trade off."
Timing Is Everything
But while the overall risks of behavioral and judgment effects due to Ambien may be low, sleep experts agree that in a high-importance role such as the presidency, proper planning is needed when considering its use.
"Ambien should only be taken when you have a window of seven to eight hours for sleep," Greenblatt said. "Your staff should know that you've taken the medication, and that you should not be involved in any decision-making during that time."
Fotinakes added that sleeping pills and other sedatives have been proven to be more potent in the elderly. In light of this, he said, "It may not be the best idea for the commander-in-chief to be under the influence when he or she may have to make a snap decision regarding national security in the middle of the night; Hillary's so-called telephone call at 3:00 a.m."
Other sedatives such as antihistamines and alcohol could have similar effects, he added. "Yet, most people would not turn a hair if the president had a few shots before retiring to bed."
And as long as he is cautious in his timing, McCain may have little problem with the side effects of Ambien a widely used drug which accounted for more than 45 million prescriptions in the United States in 2005.
"The key is to use Ambien-like sleeping medications in moderation and don't mix them with other sedative drugs or alcohol," Fotinakes said. "Most importantly, avoid use in the event you have to consider escalation from Defcon 4 to Defcon 3."
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
re
McCain IS Geritol Man
this guy...??!!
http://www.tvpredictions.com/mccain1.jpg
re
McCain's son abruptly resigns
from boards of Henderson bank in Nevada
Maybe he just has..
bad gas....
eom
Why didn't McCain want to see the troops in March?
Sun Jul 27, 2008
The curious thing about John McCain's dishonorable attack on Barack Obama is that McCain himself visited Europe in March, but didn't visit the wounded troops in Landstuhl, Germany.
It's true that McCain's trip to Europe bypassed Germany -- he only went to London and Paris. But as you can see in the map below, it turns out that London and Berlin are about the same distance from Landstuhl, and Paris is just a four hour drive away.
So if McCain wanted to visit the troops, it would have been trivial to arrange -- no seismic event needed. But it's clear McCain didn't want to visit them, and as a result, it should be fair to ask McCain why he now feels entitled to attack Barack Obama.
I'm not trying to say that John McCain didn't have other important things to do. For example, he hauled in much-needed cash at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a British Lord.
But it's pretty ridiculous for McCain to be making this absurd, hypocritical attack on Barack Obama. They've both visited wounded troops in the past. And as commanders-in-chief, they would both work for the best interests of the nation, even if they would take it in different directions.
McCain is desperate now, in full-fledged panic mode. If this is how he'd handle a crisis as president, it's all the more important that Barack Obama win this election.
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/07/why-didnt-mccai.html
July 23, 2008
Britain Plans Pullout of Most of Its Iraq Force
By JOHN F. BURNS
LONDON — Only days before he is to meet in London with Senator Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined a tentative plan on Tuesday for withdrawing most of Britain’s remaining troops from Iraq early in 2009.
Mr. Brown told Parliament that Britain planned a “fundamental change of mission” at the turn of the year for the 4,100 troops it has in its Iraq contingent, the second largest group of foreign troops serving in Iraq. About 140,000 Americans will be deployed there after current American troop withdrawals are completed.
The prime minister gave no fixed timetable for British withdrawals, and left open the number of troops who would be returning home. He also said troop reductions would depend on the “advice of our military commanders on the ground” when detailed decisions are made. A spokesman at 10 Downing Street said the British leader was reluctant to give details because of a recognition that security conditions could deteriorate in southern Iraq, where most of the British soldiers are based.
But Defense Ministry officials said the aim was to withdraw most of the troops in the first half of 2009, if the security improvements of recent months are sustained. They said more details would be announced in the fall by the defense minister, Desmond Browne. Current British troop strength in Iraq is a fraction of the force of more than 40,000 troops who took part in the invasion of 2003. Britain has 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, and has said that it intends to concentrate on its future combat role there.
Mr. Brown made his statement after a weekend visit to Baghdad and Basra that included talks with senior American officials in Iraq, including Gen. David H. Petraeus.
But commentators in the British news media said that the timing of the statement, and of the plan for troop reductions early in 2009, appeared to have been at least partly determined by the imminence of the visit to London this week by Senator Obama, who has said he would order most American troops withdrawn from Iraq over a 16-month period if he is elected president in November.
Mr. Brown announced last fall that Britain would move by the spring of 2008 to reduce its military presence in Iraq to a strength of 2,500, but that plan was set aside over the winter, partly in response to pressure from the Bush administration.
In renewing the withdrawal plan, officials of the Defense Ministry said Mr. Brown was responding to an improved security situation in Basra, where most British troops are based, and to a call by the chiefs of Britain’s forces for relief from the “overstretch” they say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have imposed on British troops.
Some are leaders..
some are lead around..
Imagine..
the change
In Presidential Appeal..
A different tie
would make....
http://www.tvpredictions.com/mccain1.jpg
Clear and present endangerment
Republicans block subpoena of EPA climate document,
while Boxer releases choice excerpts
Posted by Kate Sheppard at 6:44 PM on 24 Jul 2008
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has been foiled in her attempt to obtain and make public a U.S. EPA document on the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases, thanks to Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee that she chairs.
The document in question is an endangerment finding that the White House refused to accept when the EPA emailed it to the Office of Management and Budget in December 2007. EPA staffers have said that their findings -- that global warming poses significant threats to human health and welfare, and that greenhouse gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act -- were rejected by the OMB, which declined to even open the email containing the document.
Earlier this week, former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason Burnett testified to Boxer's EPW committee that the White House feared the agency's conclusions would force the administration to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions -- not a legacy it wants to leave behind. The White House has been blocking public release of the document.
Boxer convened her committee this morning to vote on whether to issue a subpoena for the document, but Republicans on the committee boycotted, depriving Boxer of the two GOP votes she would have needed to push the subpoena through.
EPW committee members and their staffs were allowed to view a copy of the document last night and take notes. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, had also been permitted to view a copy a few weeks ago. According to reports from those who saw it, the document showed that the EPA's experts and EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson came to the conclusion that climate change is a major threat and thus the federal government should regulate greenhouse gases. That's a far cry from what the Bush administration has said publicly. Rather than finalize regulations on greenhouse-gas emissions, Johnson announced on July 11 that the administration was seeking additional months of public comment on its rule-making notice, effectively running out the clock on Bush's presidency.
"The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency concludes in this document that there is an endangerment to the American people based on the strongest possible evidence," said Boxer, according her prepared remarks for this morning's meeting. "It is clear. It is chilling. It is detailed. In this document, in EPA's own words, we see that the law is clear, that the scientific evidence is sufficient, and that we must act."
Boxer released several excerpts of the document that her staff recorded last night , highlighting the conclusions reached by Johnson:
• "The Administrator believes that there is compelling and robust evidence that observed climate change can be attributed to the heating effect caused by global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions."
• "Based on the evidence before him, the Administrator believes it is reasonable to conclude current and future emissions of greenhouse gases will contribute to future climate change."
• "The Administrator is aware that the range of potential impacts that can result from climate change spans many elements of the global environment, and that all regions of the U.S. will be affected in some way."
• "The U.S. has a long and populous coastline. Sea level rise will continue, and exacerbate storm surge flooding and shoreline erosion."
• "In areas where heat waves already occur, they are expected to be more intense, more frequent, and longer- lasting."
• "Wildfires and the wildfire season are already increasing and climate change is expected to continue to worsen the conditions that facilitate wildfires."
• "Where water resources are already scarce and over allocated in the Western U.S., climate change is expected to put additional strain on these water management issues for municipal, agricultural, energy and industrial uses."
• "Climate change also introduces additional stress on ecosystems which are already affected by development, habitat fragmentation, and broken ecological dynamics."
• "In sum, the Administrator is proposing to find that elevated levels of GHG concentrations may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public welfare."
Boxer also announced today that she and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had called Johnson to testify before Leahy's committee at a July 30 hearing entitled "Is the White House Interfering with EPA and Impeding Congressional Oversight?" According to Boxer's office, Johnson turned down that invitation.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/7/24/101933/347
The Oil Man Cometh
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: July 24, 2008
There he is, the sound of money in a wizened Texas drawl, the tired realist looking a bit like the John Huston character from “Chinatown” as he warns in national television ads that we should just listen here and do as he says.
And what the 80-year-old T. Boone Pickens says, in a $58 million campaign, is that we can’t drill our way to lower gas prices. By implication, anybody who tells you otherwise — including the fellow Texan he helped put in the White House — is a fraud.
This is a political parable for the ages: the guy who was behind one of the knockout punches to John Kerry four years ago is now doing Democrats the biggest favor of the election by calling Republicans on their phony energy campaign.
“Totally misleading”
is the way Pickens describes Republican attempts
to convince the public that if we
just opened up all these forbidden areas
to oil drilling then gas prices would fall.
He’s not against new drilling,
but he is honest enough to say it wouldn’t do anything.
Republicans are furious at their longtime benefactor. Senator John McCain is currently running an ad in which he directly blames Barack Obama for $4-a-gallon gas at the pump — as bogus a claim as anything yet made in 2008.
Then along comes Pickens, Texas oilman and billionaire corporate raider, overwhelming the McCain attack with a saturation message that has the added value of being true, as Henry Kissinger once said about another matter.
Pickens was a geologist before he found a deep pool of money, so when he says “the geology just isn’t there” to reduce oil imports through new drilling in offshore areas, he has some cred.
But, more importantly, Pickens is betting $10 billion in constructing what he says will be the world’s largest wind farm in the gusts of West Texas. If the mighty winds of the American midsection were harnessed, it could free up plentiful natural gas for vehicles — a relatively quick step away from foreign oil.
Would it enrich him further? Yes. But perhaps it’s not about money. In “Chinatown,” the old man played by Huston was asked by Detective Jake Gittes what more he could possibly buy at his age.
“The future, Mr. Gittes. The future.”
But before T. Boone poses for his statue, he has to answer to his past. Pickens was the moneybags, to the tune of $3 million, behind the Swift Boat attacks that made Senator Kerry’s honorable service in Vietnam sound like Rambo tangled up in lies. He even promised to pay $1 million to anyone who could challenge the veracity of the claims.
After a group of veterans presented him with documents identifying 10 lies of the Swifties, Pickens broke his promise. The vets misunderstood the precise details of the $1 million offer, he said last month. Sorry, but thanks for your service, boys!
The old-fashioned term for this is welshing on a bet, which dishonors Wales.
Because so much is at stake in the energy debate, some are quick to embrace Pickens. An endorsement from Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, is prominently displayed on the Pickens Web site.
“To put it plainly,” Pope says, “T. Boone Pickens is out to save America.” I asked Pope why he lent his words to someone who had so much to do with giving us another four years of the oil intransigence of the Bush administration.
“Ten billion dollars gets my attention,” he said.
No doubt, the Pickens plan makes sense. Just last week, Texas state officials gave preliminary approval to the biggest investment in clean energy in American history, backing a $4.9 billion plan to build transmission lines for wind energy.
Meanwhile, looking bravely to the past, Bush and McCain are trying to convince us that more oil drilling will save us from $5-a-gallon gas. History says otherwise. The number of oil and gas permits on federal land doubled in the last five years, with no effect on price or supply. And Bush’s own Energy Information Administration says increased drilling wouldn’t move the market in the short term.
McCain knows this, despite the brazen lie in his Obama gas ad. He now says drilling offshore would have “a psychological impact.” Just like that “mental recession” his former chief economic adviser Phil Gramm spoke of. These guys need to get off the couch.
It’s sad to see McCain go down this path, an easy sell for a fast-food nation. Straight talk distress.
Winning the argument may depend on who has the bigger megaphone. Advantage Pickens. Which means advantage Obama. Unless, of course, McCain wants to Swift Boat him, and then he knows who to turn to.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/opinion/24egan.html?em&ex=1217044800&en=1e478b4347228419&a...
Hey Amiga...
been busy
doing
Stuff..
hope alls well..
T
re
make this agnostic have to wonder just a bit if maybe there is someone out there tweaking things here and there every once in awhile
might be..
Sen. McCain's
Adultery ..thingie..
coming back to haunt him...
He's a baptist..
dont cha know.....
"let no man put asunder...
ect..ect..ect...."
Had a wonderful meal there years back..
a Great Place..
http://www.boonetavernhotel.com/restaurant.asp
re..George Bush Jr. Sewage Plant..
my eldest voted for it..
lets hope the citizens..
make it so..
lol
re
NASA needs 8 gals of urine a day..
they ought to set the
Presidential Punch Bowl on the
front lawn of the WH..
and invite
the voting public to
fill it up
If they are displeased
with Lil Jr.s 'abilities..'
my guess is
they will need an Olympic sized swimming pool
to catch
all the offerings...
(hourly...)
LOL
re
Cheney shot a guy in the face pretty accurately?
Lard Heart
was using a scatter gun..
how accurate
does a drunk shooter
need to be..??
"its most costly provision simply gives tax cuts worth $25 billion over the next few years to businesses like home builders and banks."
guess who ..'pays' for this...
instead..??
Bankruptcy aid dropped
from Senate plan
Judges could have altered mortgages of homeowners facing foreclosure
The Associated Press
updated 7:19 p.m. CT, Thurs., April. 3, 2008
WASHINGTON - Republicans and business-friendly Democrats on Thursday scuttled a plan to give people threatened with losing their homes more leverage in winning favorable loan terms from their lenders in bankruptcy courts.
The Senate killed the bankruptcy plan by a 58-36 vote on the first full day of debate on a bill designed to boost the slumping housing market.
The Democratic-backed bankruptcy law changes, opposed by banks and their GOP allies and a handful of Democrats, would have given judges the power to cut interest rates and principal on troubled mortgages to help desperate borrowers trapped in subprime mortgages keep their homes.
The idea was to give borrowers duped into abusive mortgages leverage in getting their loan terms adjusted. Such power, said the plan's chief proponent, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would have helped "more people than all of the provisions combined" in the rest the bill.
But Republicans and 10 Democrats, along with Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman, voted to scuttle the bankruptcy provision. Opponents argued that, despite modifications by Durbin, the proposal would hurt more than it would have helped by leading mortgage lenders to ratchet up interest rates and thereby put another drag on the soft housing market.
The defeat of the bankruptcy plan highlighted a weakness that many people find with the bill _ that it showers generous tax breaks on money-losing businesses like home builders but does little to help people facing foreclosure.
The measure is advertised as helping people keep their homes and injecting demand into the teetering housing market. But its most costly provision simply gives tax cuts worth $25 billion over the next few years to businesses like home builders and banks.
Meanwhile, it provides just $3 billion in tax relief to homeowners over the same period, according to an estimate by the Joint Tax Committee, which explores for lawmakers the effects of tax legislation on the Treasury.
The benefits to businesses also dwarf the $4 billion in the measure that would be provided to cities and towns to buy up and refurbish foreclosed and abandoned homes. That provision is aimed at stabilizing communities and preserving values of neighboring homes.
Homeowners would benefit from $100 million to provide counseling to people threatened with foreclosure and help them in negotiating with their lenders. The measure also would provide new authority for states to issue $10 billion worth of bonds to be used to refinance subprime mortgages.
The bill opened to unenthusiastic reviews among many Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised improvements when the House takes up the measure and negotiates a final bill with the Senate.
"Hopefully the balance will swing more in favor of the families in danger of losing their homes," Pelosi said.
The tax provisions in the measure enjoy sweeping support but deliver the bulk of their benefits to businesses _ regardless of whether they're involved in the housing market _ that are losing money in the current downturn.
Such businesses would be allowed to deduct current losses against taxes paid up to four years ago, when times were profitable. The current limit is two years of such operating loss "carrybacks."
The tax breaks, said Jerry Howard, the chief executive at the National Association of Home Builders, would provide smaller home builders with an infusion of capital that would allow them to stay in business.
The home building lobby has great power on Capitol Hill, but plenty of detractors as well, as do the banks who are currently suffering losses and also stand to benefit.
"Our goal ought to be preventing foreclosures, not just propping up home builders and big lenders," Durbin said.
"It's just a giveaway," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
The four tax provisions would cost $28 billion through the end of 2010, but would deliver just $1 billion in immediate relief this year.
"When they unveiled the package, the main theme was ... 'help families keep their homes,'" said Bob Greenstein, who heads the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. "Three of the four provisions would do little or nothing to accomplish that goal."
The bill also would provide a temporary $7,000 tax credit awarded over two years to people buying foreclosed homes in the year after the bill is enacted. It would cost about $1.6 billion, which assumes about 240,000 home buyers would benefit from the credit.
The bill attracted several amendments to cut taxes further, including a plan by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., to give a temporary $7,000 credit to first-time home buyers and a plan by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., to let homeowners who are late on their mortgage payments withdraw money penalty-free from their retirement accounts to avoid foreclosure.
The measure contains a broader rewrite of Federal Housing Administration law that would permanently raise the dollar limit on mortgages that FHA can insure to $550,000 in the most costly real estate markets. The economic stimulus bill approved by Congress in February temporarily raised the limit from $362,790 to $729,750.
But Republicans rebuffed efforts by Democrats and the White House to reduce down payments on FHA-insured loans. Instead, the down payment requirement would be raised to 3.5 percent from 3 percent. Democrats sought to lower it to 1.5 percent.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23944893/
MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2008 MSNBC.com
Book:
McCain temper boiled over called wife a 'c...'
04/07/2008 @ 10:19 am
Filed by Nick Juliano
http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=10016
John McCain's temper is well documented.
..........................................
..........................................
more...above
re
I think they were fully confidant that they were there
No way..
we had Iraqi insiders..
High Up
who stated..
the
WMDs were history..
it was a scam...
here's Powell and
Rice...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6456.htm
On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in keeping him "in a box".
Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
re
only the brain dead can't see thru this sham.
The Corrupt
will try
and
try
again
Remember: They Are Liars
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Tuesday 08 April 2008
No one is such a liar as the indignant man.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, along with a slew of administration underlings and a revolving-door cavalcade of brass hats from the Pentagon, have been making claims regarding Iraq for many years now.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, "enough to kill several million people," according to a page on the White House web site titled Disarm Saddam Hussein.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of 500 tons, which equals 1,000,000 pounds, of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of nearly 30,000 munitions capable of delivering these agents.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was in possession of several mobile biological weapons labs.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq was operating an "advanced" nuclear weapons program.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq had been seeking "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa for use in this "advanced" nuclear weapons program.
They lied.
They claimed Iraq attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes "suitable for nuclear weapons."
They lied.
They claimed America needed to invade, overthrow and occupy Iraq in order to remove this menace from our world. "It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country," went the White House line, "to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."
They lied.
"Simply stated," said Dick Cheney in August of 2002, "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Liar.
"Right now," said George W. Bush in September of 2002, "Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of nuclear weapons."
Liar.
"We know for a fact," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in January of 2003, "that there are weapons there."
Liar.
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction," said Colin Powell in February of 2003, "is determined to make more."
Liar.
"We know where they are," said Donald Rumsfeld in March of 2003. "They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, south, west and north somewhat."
Liar.
"The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about," said Paul Wolfowitz in March of 2003. "Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator."
Liar.
"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were," said Condoleezza Rice in June of 2003, "where they were stored."
Liar.
"I have absolute confidence that there are weapons of mass destruction inside this country," said Gen. Tommy Franks in April of 2003. "Whether we will turn out, at the end of the day, to find them in one of the 2,000 or 3,000 sites we already know about or whether contact with one of these officials who we may come in contact with will tell us, 'Oh, well, there's actually another site,' and we'll find it there, I'm not sure."
Wrong.
"Before the war," said Gen. Michael Hagee in May of 2003, "there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found."
Wrong.
"Given time," said Gen. Richard Myers in May of 2003, "given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction."
Wrong.
"Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do," said Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton in May of 2003, "because I think there's a lot of information out there."
Wrong.
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, is about to give testimony before the Senate regarding the current state of affairs in that battle-savaged country. He is a political general, one of many America has seen and heard over the last five years, one who would leap nude from the Capitol dome before telling the real truth about matters in Iraq ... or who would speak using words fed to him by liars, and thus be wrong.
Remember: they lie. They all lie, from the top man down to the bottom. If their lips are moving, a lie is unfolding. If they say water is wet, get into the shower to make sure.
They lie.
Period.
End of file.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.
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Its Election Time..
Let's listen to Dick Cheney's Blubberings ....
once again..
except..
here's an interview from a couple of guys
who paid
The Ultimate Price
for talking....
about those pesky
WMD's
In the transcript of the interview, Kamel states categorically:
"I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed"
The interview with Hussein Kamel: the text of the transcript is here
Gen. Hussein Kamel,
the former director of Iraq's Military Industrialization Corporation, in charge of Iraq's weapons programme, defected to Jordan on the night of 7 August 1995, together with his brother Col. Saddam Kamel. Hussein Kamel took crates of documents revealing past weapons programmes, and provided these to UNSCOM. Iraq responded by revealing a major store of documents that showed that Iraq had begun an unsuccessful crash programme to develop a nuclear bomb (on 20 August 1995).
Hussein and Saddam Kamel agreed to return to Iraq, where they were assassinated (23 February 1996).
The interview was conducted in Amman on 22 August 1995, 15 days after Kamel left Iraq. His interviewers were:
* Rolf Ekeus, the former executive chairman of Unscom (from 1991 to 1997).
* Professor Maurizio Zifferero, deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and head of the inspections team in Iraq.
* Nikita Smidovich, a Russian diplomat who led UNSCOM's ballistic missile team and former Deputy Director for Operations of UNSCOM.
During the interview, Major Izz al-Din al-Majid (transliterated as Major Ezzeddin) joins the discussion (p.10). Izz al-Din is Saddam Hussein's cousin, and defected together with the Kamel brothers. He did not return with them to Iraq in 1996, moving instead to Jordan and now to an unknown European country.
In the transcript of the interview, Kamel states categorically:
"I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed"
(p. 13).
Kamel specifically discussed the significance of anthrax, which he portrayed as the "main focus" of the biological programme (pp.7-8). Smidovich asked Kamel: "were weapons and agents destroyed?"
Kamel replied: "nothing remained".
He confirmed that destruction took place "after visits of inspection teams. You have important role in Iraq with this. You should not underestimate yourself. You are very effective in Iraq." (p.7)
Kamel added: "I made the decision to disclose everything so that Iraq could return to normal." (p.8)
Furthermore, Kamel describes the elimination of prohibited missiles: "not a single missile left but they had blueprints and molds for production. All missiles were destroyed." (p.8)
On VX, Kamel claimed: "they put it in bombs during last days of the Iran-Iraq war. They were not used and the programme was terminated." (p.12).
Ekeus asked Kamel: "did you restart VX production after the Iran-Iraq war?"
Kamel replied: "we changed the factory into pesticide production. Part of the establishment started to produce medicine [...] We gave insturctions [sic] not to produce chemical weapons." (p.13).
Despite the significance of these claims, it was not known that Kamel made this assertion until February 2003. Kamel's claim was first carried on 24 February 2003 by Newsweek, who reported that Kamel told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims (Newsweek, 3/3/03).
Credit crunch costs '$1 trillion'
By Steve Schifferes
Economics reporter, BBC News
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that potential losses from the credit crunch will reach $945bn (£472bn) and could be even higher.
The IMF says that losses are spreading from sub-prime mortgage assets to other sectors, such as commercial property, consumer credit, and company debt.
It says that there was a "collective failure" to appreciate the risky borrowing by financial institutions.
And it warns that tough measures and government intervention may be needed.
The IMF's Global Stability Report warns that "despite unprecedented intervention by major central banks, financial markets remain under considerable strain, now compounded by a more worrisome macroeconomic environment, weakly capitalised institutions, and broad-based deleveraging."
The IMF, which oversees the global economy, says that the effects of the credit crunch are likely to be "broader, deeper and more protracted" than in previous downturns, due to the "degree of securitisation and leverage in the financial system".
And it warns that national governments must prepare contingency plans "for dealing with large stocks of impaired assets" if "writedowns lead to signficant negative effects on the real economy."
And it blames lax regulation by governments and poor supervision by banks for allowing the situation to develop.
IMF plea
Earlier this week, the head of the IMF said that tackling the credit crunch required government intervention at a global level.
The need for public intervention was "becoming more evident", Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the Financial Times.
This, along with more intervention in the banking sector, would offer a "third line of defence", Mr Strauss-Kahn said.
The report comes ahead of a gathering of world financial leaders at the IMF's spring meeting in Washington DC.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7336744.stm
Published: 2008/04/08 13:15:23 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
Ron Paul.....
Condi Rice
"It ended with an Iranian-brokered deal that saw the militias off the streets but retain their weapons."
Turncoat' Basra police pursued
The BBC Online....
Ten percent of Basra police are facing punishment over their conduct in recent fighting in the southern city, says Iraq's interior ministry.
About 1,600 officers have either been discharged, detained or are wanted for court martial for dereliction of duty, Maj Gen Abdulkarim Khalaf told the BBC.
He said they were being investigated for failure to open fire at outlaws, joining them or giving them weapons.
The government's operation in Basra tried to crush powerful militias there.
The operation, which involved Iraqi troops and was personally instigated by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, began about two weeks ago and saw fierce fighting.
It ended with an Iranian-brokered deal that saw the militias off the streets but retain their weapons.
The police facing punishment have links with the main militia group, the Mehdi Army, which is loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, say local sources.
Maj Gen Khalif said the alleged renegades are being charged under Article 20 of the Security Law - violation of which, he said, carries a maximum penalty of death.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7336386.stm
Published: 2008/04/08 11:14:29 GMT
© BBC MMVIII