I am surprised that the oil company--whoever and wherever --didn't automatically jump into action WITHOUT THE PRESIDENT'S DIRECTION.


THIS IS A JOKE! IS THIS ON THE JOB TRAINING FOR President Obama, WHO DOESN'T KNOW SQUAT ABOUT RUNNING A HOT DOG STAND WITHOUT AN OIL SPILL! IS OBAMA GOING TO BE COACHED FROM THE INSIDERS AND AN ARMCHAIR GENERAL AND SUPERVISE THE OIL COMPANY ON WHAT TO DO NOW?

THE OIL COMPANY SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE BILL BY THE HORNS IMMEDIATELY UPON THE SPILL. The American People are dependent on the oil company for their epertise, as, e.g., the oil company is dependent on the farmer for milk.

IS PRESIDENT OBAMA GOING TO TELL THE FARMER HOW TO MILK THE COW NEXT--PUN INTENDED?

I want Obama to say tonight, "I effectively resign from the Presidency. I have no expierence running anything".

I want to hear him say:
"I did not have relations with that oil Company"

Mags,if that was true I'd watch this cartoon character for once

And he's worried about greenhouse gasses??? Is this guy on crack?
OMG this guy has to be voted out of office

the president should reassure americans that Bp will pay all costs associated with cleanup. There is not much the president or congress can do to force a cleanup as the oil co has the expertise and techical knowledge to stop the leak. But I can not see why they want to continue deep drilling until they find out why the safety devices did not work on BP well. They could continue on wells that are in shallow water.

President Obama Says the Oil Spill Is Like 9/11

This man is a DISGRACE PURE AND SIMPLE
What a moron-shame on this ........never mind I can't write that

TEXAS REPUBLICAN SENATOR PHIL GRAMM & ENRON MANIPULATING OIL PRICES. / Michael Greenberger, Former Director, Commodities Future Trading Commission 1997-1999.
Michael Greenberger discusses the role of unregulated oil speculators on the buying and selling of oil futures. He says legislation passed in 2000 created an environment where oil speculators influence the current day price of oil and other crude products.
WASHINGTON, DC: June 24, 2008
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/062408Greenberger.pdf

I can understand the President giving BP a chance to step up and do the right thing, because if he had gone in with his strong arm tactics he would have caught hell from all the other large conglomerates who would have reminded him we live in a democratic society. Now that BP is looking more at their $$$ instead of the people its affecting, he should force BP to set up that fund and fine them simultaneously; until the situation is resolved….BP is making money still through all this, their bottom line is not yet affected. Let BP feel the squeeze. Yes, we all know he inherited Bush’s bubble gum, plaster and toothpaste mess, and unfortunately he is going to realize more of this mess as his term goes on because stuff will continue to fail…unfortunately on his watch…but if he holds BP accountable for everything and do right by the people that are affected…these large companies that believe they are above the law will think twice about some of their practices.
Let us not forgetthe mess he inherited....

Obama: Gulf seafood is safe to eat



YEAH-just as safe as the air was a ground zero

It this guy just stupid,or brain dead?????

Obama: Gulf seafood is safe to eat



YEAH-just as safe as the air was a ground zero

It this guy just stupid,or brain dead?????

====================

Doug, this proves Obama is a corporate hack just like Bush and Cheney were.

It has nothing to do with being stupid on his part.

Caspian-I'm just shocked at this guy.He's really let this Country down and quickly

But when he had the balls to say the oil spill was like 9-11.....
To compare a attack on America by terrorists and the loss of so many incident lives to a incident that deals with corporate greed and short cuts,payoff and donations....
This ass needs to apologized to America for this stupid remark
You can't even compare this to Katrina-that was a act of nature the spill a act of a greedy company

He's a talking suit,looks good,speaks good (with a tela-promptor's help).But he's just empty-Yep corporate hack pure and simple

And I DO NOT want to see the US put one finger to helping BP for once they do the taxpayers will be left holding the bag as BP goes merrily into the sunset going bankrupt

What Obama Won't Tell You Tonight
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/109782/what-obama-wont-tell-you-tonight?mod=bb-budgeting

"It this guy just stupid,or brain dead?????"

Caspian, I really think the decisions he makes are not about what is best for the country but how he can save his presidency or make himself look better then he really is. Lets, face it, he is not a man of ACTION but a man of WORDS and that is why in my opinion, he is failing.

For example, I feel Obamacare was not about what is best for us but about trying to make his mark in history.

Sending more troops to Afghanistan, how many months did it take him to make that decision? Did he care about the soldiers or himself?

How much oil had to spill in the Gulf before he decided to take some action? Actions speak louder then words and quick decisive action, makes the best leaders.

The Democratic Left Pledge of Allegiance:

"Never Let a Serious Crisis Go To Waste"

How Very Obama!
---------------------------------------
Has anybody noticed that Obama used his speech tonight solely to plug and advance his Democratic Wish list of Cap and Trade and Global Warming instead of plans to plug the oil spill or even discuss massive organizational directives to attack the oils slicks before wrecking havoc on the shores? Anyone who can still criticize the last Administration's handling of Katrina after seeing this pathetic act must be on very heavy drugs.

Never Letting a Serious Crisis Go to Waste:

On June 3, 2010

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel gained notoriety for declaring his credo: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste [1].” In other words, when there is tragedy and suffering, intense human pain and disaster, a political expert enjoys a unique opportunity to push the least popular parts of his agenda past a distracted electorate.

No sooner had President Barack Obama entered the White House than the Emanuel Doctrine was put into motion with the 1,073-page $787 billion “stimulus bill” that had to be rushed through Congress, seemingly overnight [2]. As Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said [3]: “We have not had a single hearing on anything in front of us….We’ve been told that even one hearing would be one too many, and that we have a single day to approve these five complex propositions that will affect the lives of millions.”

Faced in January 2009 with a looming national financial catastrophe, as a crash in the residential real estate market prompted a grave Wall Street crisis, the Obama White House detected cover to raid the public till and reward staunch Democrat loyalists under the rubric of a “stimulus bill.” Beneath the public radar and buried within the bill’s 1,073 pages [4], the “stimulus” allocated inter alia $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts, nearly half a billion dollars for people interested in researching “global warming,” even at least $18 million for the website [5] that reports how the “stimulus” funds are allocated. Overturning a prime achievement of the Clinton Administration, the “stimulus” restored key elements of the welfare practices [6] that America had abandoned. Over time, the “stimulus” has trickled down to fund $233,825 for explaining voting patterns in Africa [7] and $363,760 for two jobs “[d]evelop[ing] ‘real life’ st[or]ies [8] that underscore job and infrastructure related to [the Stimulus Bill] research findings.”

In sum, there was crisis – thus opportunity. The sweaty-palms sense of crisis that demanded virtually overnight passage before Congressional representatives could read its encyclopedic contents has long since proven exaggerated. The vast majority of the bill’s funds still have not stimulated anything. Much of it still has not been infused into the economy.

This is the Emanuel Doctrine: never let a crisis go to waste. This doctrine similarly was implemented after the ObamaCare health measure had been all-but-abandoned [9] when Scott Brown surprisingly defeated Attorney-General Martha Coakley in the race for United State Senator from Massachusetts. Soon after, unexpectedly, a national pseudo-crisis emerged when Anthem Blue Cross, a California health insurer, sought to raise its health premiums by as much as 39 percent [10]. The crisis was not wasted by Washington. Within days, ObamaCare was rushed back onto the House calendar. Forgotten amid the federal legislative carnage that followed – most recently credited with helping bring down Rep. David Obey [11], Rep. Bart Stupak [12], and Sen. Arlen Specter – is that Anthem Blue Cross ultimately withdrew their rate-hike request [13] as the California insurance oversight system effectively regulated as intended.

Considered in the light of this prior experience, it becomes understandable why the Obama Administration has opted to curtail oil-exploration, suspending and rescinding permits, in response to the tragic Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill off the Gulf of Mexico. The story is fresh in the public mind. In raw numbers, eleven have died, and between 18 million and 39 million gallons [14] of oil have gushed along America’s Gulf Coast, already exceeding the Exxon Valdez disaster that spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil into the waters along Alaska. One of America’s fiercest Democrat partisans, New Orleans resident James Carville, went on an extraordinary tear [15] last week against the Obama Administration: “The President of the United States could’ve come down here. He could’ve been involved with the families of these 11 people….These people are crying. They’re begging for something down here, and it just looks like he’s not involved in this. Man, you got to get down here and take control of this. Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving. We’re about to die down here.” Observing that “[t]he political stupidity of this is just unbelievable,” Carville emphatically repeated his call: “There’s a thousand things that he could do. He just needs to get down here and start doing something, people are dying.”

By last Thursday, the daily Rasmussen tracking poll [16] revealed that 26 percent of Americans strongly approve of the President’s job performance, while 42 percent strongly disapprove, giving Mr. Obama a Presidential Approval rating of minus-16. A USA Today/Gallup survey [17] found that 53 percent of Americans rate his handling of the crisis as “poor” or “very poor” while only 43 percent still are satisfied. Nevertheless, Americans continue to support oil exploration. By a significant margin, Texas voters [18] still want more offshore oil drilling. Similar percentages hold nationally. [19] However, for this White House, proceeding with new drilling would “waste” the crisis.

If Obama’s goal were to evaluate ecologically responsible alternatives to drilling for oil a mile below the gulf’s surface, the White House could reconsider exploring for oil and natural gas in ANWR [20], the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the north Alaskan coast. Of ANWR’s 19 million acres, there is enormous potential in a small section, the “10-02 Area,” which still would leave 92% of ANWR untouched. Only one-ten-thousandth of ANWR – a section smaller than LAX airport – actually would have surface drilling rigs. ANWR exploration could pump scores of billions of dollars into the national economy, create half a million great-paying jobs, and reduce American fuel-import expenditures by hundreds of billions of dollars. Moreover, the local caribou population fare better around oil pipelines [21] than environmentalists ever expected.

The Obama White House also could focus its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster by intensifying federal efforts to clean the environmental catastrophe to Louisiana’s fishing waters, and by moving rapidly to approve [22] Gov. Bobby Jindal’s almost-frantic pleas for federal permission to erect more protective sand berms [23] along the coast. However, prior crisis behavior by this White House – whether prompted by a devastating Wall Street collapse or an outlier health insurer inordinately applying to raise rates by 39 percent – reflects that President Obama deems moments like these as unique opportunities for “transformative [24] social change.” Thus, we may well anticipate an intensified effort in the near term to resuscitate the moribund “Cap and Trade [25]” bill which would add between $1,761 and $3,100 in annual energy costs [26] for most American homes.

For the President’s longer-range vision [27] of this crisis, we again encounter his determination to pursue ideological goals that clash with the American people’s concerns [28]. He is now stopping new oil exploration: suspending plans for exploratory drilling off the Virginia and Alaska coasts; stopping 33 exploratory drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico, and; continuing a six-month moratorium on all permits for offshore drilling. Although our Outer Continental Shelf contains as much as 86 billion barrels of oil [29], with possibly 130 million barrels off the coast of Virginia [30] alone, the President’s response means that we instead will continue importing approximately 13.5 million barrels daily [31] – more than twenty percent of that from the Persian Gulf dictatorships [32] – at prices that now hover around $70 a barrel. We will send Arab Gulf despots some $175 million daily or some $65 billion a year, even as our deficit-driven economy starves for capital, and as our unemployed search for good-paying jobs at home.

Our nation consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil daily [33], importing nearly sixty percent [34] from foreign countries whose production standards are far less friendly to the polar ice caps than ours. Saudi Arabia, for example, ranks last [35] as the dirtiest emitter of greenhouse gases among the 57 countries rated on one NGO’s “Climate Change Performance Index.” Moreover, our imported oil necessarily arrives in tankers – the petroleum obviously cannot be delivered any other way – and those tankers pose even more extreme environmental risks [36]. The 1979 Atlantic Empress tanker spilled 88.3 million gallons of oil. The ABT Summer tanker spilled 78 million off the Angola Coast in 1991. The Castillo de Bellver spilled 78.5 million. The Amoco Cadiz tanker lost 68.7 million gallons off France’s Brittany coast. The Odyssey spilled 43 million off Nova Scotia. The Haven poured 42 million gallons in the waters outside Italy. The list goes on. [37] Yet oil-importing tankers have not been suspended from sailing America’s waters. Nor do we suspend air travel after a tragedy in the sky nor rail transportation after a train wreck.

President Obama has long opposed new oil exploration. In November 2005 [38], he voted against oil and gas leasing in the Alaskan Coastal Plain. On April 20, 2007, rolling out his “Initiative to Combat Global Warming,” he told students in New Hampshire that “[i]t will take a grassroots effort to make America greener and end the tyranny of oil [39].” Weeks later, he told a crowd: “The age of oil must end [40].” In his second Presidential Debate [41] against John McCain, he stated: “[W]e can’t simply drill our way out of the problem. And we’re not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming.”

Now, with a crisis too opportune to waste, the President has chosen not to respond with a comprehensive proactive approach to America’s energy choices. He could have encouraged safe new exploration by directing his Interior Secretary henceforth to administer and enforce competently the safety regulations already on the books, but which his Minerals Management Service ignored on his watch [42] during the construction of Deepwater Horizon. He could reconsider opening ANWR to drilling, encourage efforts to expand clean-coal technology, and even order a prioritized review aimed at reviving the construction of nuclear power plants in America. (America has not built a new nuclear power plant in more than thirty years [43], even as France’s sixteen nuclear power plants generate nearly 80 percent [44] of that country’s electricity.) Instead, this Administration, which knows that it can take ten years [45] from licensing exploration until newly discovered oil reaches market, is prepared to risk laying the foundations for a future crisis by presently deterring new exploration and instead tilting disproportionately at windmills.

And I DO NOT want to see the US put one finger to helping BP for once they do the taxpayers will be left holding the bag as BP goes merrily into the sunset going bankrupt

=====================

Doug,

Most Republicans are gangsters and most Democrats are racketeers who work in the interest of Wall Street and NOT Main Street.

----------------------

Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich- and Cheat Everyone Else
http://tinyurl.com/ydf6r6 / April 18, 2004
One of the country's top investigative reporters reveals how the richest people within the top 1 percent of the country has rigged the tax code and other laws in its favor.
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston has been breaking pieces of this story on the front page of The New York Times for nine years, work for which one business school professor calls him ìthe de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United Statesî. With Perfectly Legal, he puts the whole shocking narrative together in a way that will stir up media attention and make readers angry about the state of our country. And he has sound advice on what to do.
http://www.booknotes.org/Program/?ProgramID=1776

Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense
(And Stick You with the Bill) January 18, 2008 / http://tinyurl.com/2yequa
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston joins us to talk about his new book, “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill).” Johnston reveals how government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/18/free_lunch_how_the_wealthiest_americans

For example, I feel Obamacare was not about what is best for us but about trying to make his mark in history

===================

Mike G.,

Obamacare was very similar to Bush/Cheney Senior citizen prescription drug bills which mostly benefit Big Pharma and the HMOs.

This is the parameters in which presidents and Congress must work.

To give some crumbs to the people while giving the whole loaf of bread to the wealthiest.

Mitt Romney did the same in Massachusetts with his health care.

=======================

Neil Cavuto discusses Mass. Health Care Law with Mitt Romney
http://tinyurl.com/yf653xt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h__s18YXcMs

Caspian, That is one angle but not the only angle. I think this president, more then any other, is trying establish a place in history and is selling an image.

It's more about himself then about anybody or anything else. That's just my opinion.

It's more about himself then about anybody or anything else. That's just my opinion.

=========================

Mike G. that is true of EVERY president.

For the most part they work for Wall Street and their corporate masters.

Who benefited the most during 8 years of Cheney/Bush?

Who benefited the most during 8 years of Cheney/Bush?

Caspian, I agree the Corporations gained an advantage but Bush did not pretend he was here to save us from the Corporations. He was who he was, like him or not.

This president likes the lime light in controlled environments, to try and look good. He seldom puts himself out there for the tough questioning. It is all about image and what he can sell. It SEEMS to be more about his legacy then anything else. It would appear the facts often change for the purpose of protecting that image and that is his reason for his slow deliberation, rather then making immediate decisions when necessary.

Mike G. I think your really talking about Bush and how "ALL" his town halls were staged and press conferences were limited.

I don't think Helen Thomas was called upon during 8 years of Cheney Bush.

BTW: How many Czars did Bush have?

"Who benefited the most during 8 years of Cheney/Bush?"

Everyone, including you. He kept your sorry ass safe since the sneak attack of 9/11 whether you have it in you to ever admit it or not. Facts are facts.

The Obama Agenda:

The Fall of America Through Orchestrated Crisis

Sun June 13, 2010

Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are deliberately and unapologetically engaging in economic sabotage; simultaneously targeting numerous sectors of the American economy using orchestrated systemic crisis in an effort to overwhelm the U.S. economy and effect the destruction of capitalism and America from within. By using the Cloward-Piven Strategy to promote economic and social change through the exploitation of misfortune, national crisis and disorganization the Left is advancing government as the tool for reorganization. The tactics and intended consequences of the Obama administration include:

* Strategically planned “crises” to systematically takeover private industry.
* Flooding government with impossible financial burdens until the debt becomes unsustainable.
* Destruction of the middle class and sustained unemployment through “bailouts” and “stimulus” packages promoted as “revitalization of the American economy.”
* Devastation of the housing and financial system through the continued requirement of subprime mortgages to low-income Americans who have little to no hope of repayment
* Expansion of federal powers over states and individuals.
* Expansion of the powers of the Executive.
* Overloading electoral systems with successive tidal waves of new voters.
* Complete control over the media through “net neutrality” and the “reinvention of journalism“
* Promoting social unrest and violence.

First promoted in 1966 by Marxist Columbia University professors Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the Cloward-Piven Strategy seeks to hasten the destruction of capitalism in America by expanding the welfare system to the point of collapsing the economy and implementing socialism by nationalizing large sectors of private industry. In their Nation article, The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty, Cloward and Piven explicitly defined the kind of “crisis” they sought to create:

By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.

No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:

* The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.

* The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.

* The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.

The radical Left worked insidiously for decades to establish the needed framework to dismantle the capitalist system in America as outlined in the Cloward-Piven Strategy. Concentrated efforts were devoted to increasing welfare rolls and expanding the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), established in 1977 under the Carter administration. According to Discover The Networks, the CRA,

For purposes of “racial equality” – outlawed redlining and required banks to extend credit to undercapitalized, high-risk borrowers in low-income, mostly-minority areas. The Act also established extensive government oversight to monitor how well banks were complying with its mandates.

Any bank wishing to expand or to merge with another was required to first demonstrate that it had complied with all CRA requirements. Final approval for bank expansions or mergers could be held up or derailed entirely by complaints — however frivolous or unfounded — where community groups like ACORN or the Greenlining Institute accused a bank of having violated the CRA.

The New York Post explains what happened next:

As ACORN ran its campaigns against local banks, it quickly hit a roadblock. Banks would tell ACORN they could afford to reduce their credit standards by only a little — since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage giants, refused to buy up those risky loans for sale on the ’secondary market.’

That is, the CRA wasn’t enough. Unless Fannie and Freddie were willing to relax their credit standards as well, local banks would never make home loans to customers with bad credit histories or with too little money for a down-payment.

So ACORN’s Democratic friends in Congress moved to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to dispense with normal credit standards. Throughout the early ’90s, they imposed ever-increasing subprime-lending quotas on Fannie and Freddie….

ACORN’s intimidation tactics, and its alliance with Democrats in Congress, triumphed. Despite their 1994 takeover of Congress, Republican attempts to pare back the CRA were stymied….

ACORN had come to Congress not only to protect the CRA from GOP [Republican] reforms but also to expand the reach of quota-based lending to Fannie, Freddie and beyond….

[In June 1995] the Clinton administration announced a comprehensive strategy to push homeownership in America to new heights — regardless of the compromise in credit standards that the task would require. Fannie and Freddie were assigned massive subprime lending quotas, which would rise to about half of their total business by the end of the decade.

Despite warnings of impending financial collapse, Democrat after Democrat continued to cover up and attack the regulations to protect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, denied the existence of the housing bubble and continued to advocate for government expansion of home ownership programs. The CEO of Fannie Mae even publicly described the “family” connection between Fannie and Democrats, specifically Barack Obama and the Congressional Black Caucus.

The proliferation of risky subprime loans, to underqualified borrowers eventually led to the financial collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the mortgage industry and many of the banks forced to issue subprime loans. The Cloward-Piven strategy is the taproot that triggered the financial crisis of 2008.

Francis Fox Piven continues to encourage use of the strategy. During the foreclosure crisis, Piven advocated civil disobedience by home owners facing foreclosure as a way to leverage the crisis to their benefit. Not surprisingly, ACORN was listening.

"Doug, this proves Obama is a corporate hack just like Bush and Cheney were."

"Obamacare was very similar to Bush/Cheney Senior citizen prescription drug bills which mostly benefit Big Pharma and the HMOs."

"Who benefited the most during 8 years of Cheney/Bush?"

"Mike G. I think your really talking about Bush and how "ALL" his town halls were staged and press conferences were limited."

Caspian, whoa there, slow down, you seem to have a Bush/Cheney fixation. Bush WAS in charge, just like Clinton, Reagan, Carter and so on. That's the past my friend, this is now and Obama is running the country and his policies and behavior deserves to be scrutinized.

We can certain have a discussion about former presidents and the mistakes they made and when it comes to Bush I will probability agree with you on many points. However, I can criticize Obama without having to compare to Bush and it makes me wonder why you are not able to do the same?

Perhaps it is because I never agreed with him from the start and you lost favor with him over time. Either way we I hope we can agree there is room for lots and lots of improvement...wait...I know, just like Bush and Cheney..oh boy!

Everyone, including you. He kept your sorry ass safe since the sneak attack of 9/11 whether you have it in you to ever admit it or not. Facts are facts.

==================

Bill F. Read My Lips!

Government is incapable of protecting its citizens in a free society.

The cops always show up in large numbers "AFTER" the crimes are committed.

===================

Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends
January 17, 2006 http://tinyurl.com/2cnkcy
WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.
But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics/17spy.html?ex=1186632000&en=f6e8291b062b21f5&ei=5070

=====================

Flashback: Bush’s FBI Director Said Torture Didn’t Foil Any Terror Plots
Now that Bush administration officials have launched a major campaign to persuade us that torture “worked,” perhaps it’s worth recalling that George W. Bush’s own FBI director said in an interview last year that he wasn’t aware of a single planned terror attack on America that had been foiled by information obtained through torture.
Robert Mueller, who was appointed by Bush in 2001 and remains FBI director under Obama, delivered that assessment at the end of this December 2008 article in Vanity Fair on torture:

I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?

“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate:“I don’t believe that has been the case.”

That stands in direct contrast to Dick Cheney’s recent claim that torture has been “enormously valuable” in terms of “preventing another mass-casualty attack against the United States.”

You’d think that this sort of thing would throw a bit of a wrench into the Bushies’ campaign. But as Charles Kaiser notes, these types of statements haven’t really broken through the media din.

Caspian, whoa there, slow down, you seem to have a Bush/Cheney fixation. Bush WAS in charge, just like Clinton, Reagan, Carter and so on.

==========================

Mike G.

Presidents have the last word by signing or vetoing bills.

The "REAL" power is the money behind Washington DC.

Bush admitted publicly that he delegates "EVERYTHING" proven by he took the most vacations of "ANY" president in history.

LOL

Is McCain Another George W. Bush?
19 August 2008 / http://tinyurl.com/4cnyfn
New York - Russia invades Georgia and President Bush goes on vacation. Our president has spent one-third of his entire two terms in office either at Camp David, Maryland, or at Crawford, Texas, on vacation.
His time away from the Oval Office included the month leading up to 9/11, when there were signs Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America, and the time Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city of New Orleans.
Sen. John McCain takes weekends off and limits his campaign events to one a day. He made an exception for the religious forum on Saturday at Saddleback Church in Southern California. http://www.truthout.org/article/is-mccain-another-george-w-bush

=========================

Vacationing Bush Poised to Set a Record
With Long Sojourn at Ranch, President on His Way to Surpassing Reagan's Total

WACO, Tex., Aug. 2, 2005 -- President Bush is getting the kind of break most Americans can only dream of -- nearly five weeks away from the office, loaded with vacation time. http://tinyurl.com/9cjj7

The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening for a stretch of clearing brush, visiting with family and friends, and tending to some outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

The August getaway is Bush's 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford -- nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents' compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush's time away from Washington even further.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201703_pf.html

"Bush admitted publicly that he delegates "EVERYTHING" proven by he took the most vacations of "ANY" president in history."

Caspian, without verifying the math, I agree with you. Bush seemed to always be golfing or away on vacation. Still, nothing to with Obama, who took less vacations so far.

However, if we must go through the comparison thing. I would say Obama is more available and definitely showing more exposure then Bush. However, in most cases, it is not equating to quicker decisions or more definitive actions. So he might as well be on vacation.

So he might as well be on vacation

-------------------

Mike G. I agree.

Obama is just like any other lying politician.

He bailed out Wall Street just like Bush did without bailing out "We The People"!

A pox on both their houses!

=====================

Americans need a viable third and fourth party who will represent “We The People” instead of the wealthy few who own Congress!

Progressive Democrats / http://pdamerica.org/

Green Party / http://gp.org/index.php

Ralph Nader / http://www.votenader.org/

Ron Paul / http://www.campaignforliberty.com/

Libertarian Party / http://www.lp.org/

"He bailed out Wall Street just like Bush..."

Caspian, come on, your kidding, you can't go through one post without comparing to Bush?...ha ha.

Like Ed Koch, "this is uh Ed Koch, I want you uh to know the uh people through me out now the people must be uh punished"

He couldn't stop himself from saying "uh" and you can't stop yourself from mentioning Bush..very funny!

"That stands in direct contrast to Dick Cheney’s recent claim that torture has been “enormously valuable” in terms of “preventing another mass-casualty attack against the United States.”


Sorry Caspian: Even Obama's National Intelligence Director, Adm. Dennis C. Blair agreed with Cheney's assessment as well as scores of others from the intelligence community. Besides, it was pre-emptive action that was Bush's greatest deterrent to further attacks on our homeland.
----------------------------------------

Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’ Memo Says:

Published: April 21, 2009
NY TIMES

WASHINGTON – President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.
“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture. Among other things, the Bush administration memos revealed that two captured Qaeda operatives were subjected to a form of near-drowning known as waterboarding a total of 266 times.

Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday. Also deleted was a line in which he empathized with his predecessors who originally approved some of the harsh tactics after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past,” he wrote, “but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.”

A spokeswoman for Admiral Blair said the lines were cut in the normal editing process of shortening an internal memo into a media statement emphasizing his concern that the public understand the context of the decisions made in the past and the fact that they followed legal orders.

"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means,” Admiral Blair said in a written statement issued last night. “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

Admiral Blair’s private memo was provided by a critic of Mr. Obama’s policy. His assessment could bolster Bush administration veterans who argue that the interrogations were an important tool in the battle against al Qaeda.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Mr. Bush, said on Fox News Sunday last weekend that “the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in a separate interview with Fox, endorsed that conclusion and said he has asked the C.I.A. to declassify memos detailing the gains from the harsh interrogations.

Several news accounts, including one in the New York Times last week, have quoted former intelligence officials saying the harsh interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a Qaeda operative who was waterboarded 83 times, did not produce information that foiled terror plots. The Bush administration has long argued that harsh questioning of Qaeda operatives like Zubaydah helped prevent a planned attack on Los Angeles and cited passages in the memos released last week to bolster that conclusion.

The White House would not address the question of whether the tactics have been effective on Tuesday but fired back at Mr. Cheney. “We’ve had an at least two-year policy disagreement with the vice president of the United States,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary. “That policy disagreement is whether or not you can uphold the values in which this country was founded at the same time that you protect the citizens that live in that country.”

Mr. Obama’s team has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the harsh interrogations, but in a visit to the C.I.A. this week, the president did not directly question that. Instead, he said, that any sacrifice from banning those tactics was worth it to uphold the nation’s belief in rule of law.

“I’m sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we’re operating with one hand tied behind our back or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naïve,” he said. “I understand that. You know, I watch the cable shows once in a while.”

But he added: “What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.”

The assessment by Admiral Blair represents a shift for him since he took office. When he was nominated for the position and appeared before the Senate intelligence committee on Jan. 22, he said: “I believe strongly that torture is not moral, legal or effective.” But he declined to assess whether the interrogation program under Mr. Bush had worked.

“Do you believe the C.I.A.’s interrogation detention program has been effective?” Senator Christopher Bond, a Missouri Republican, asked him.

“I’ll have to look into that more closely before I can give you a good answer on that one,” Admiral Blair answered.

He couldn't stop himself from saying "uh" and you can't stop yourself from mentioning Bush..very funny!

====================

The last time I checked Bush Republicans along with Blue Dog corporate Democrats destroyed America during 8 years of Bush/Cheney.

9/11 the greatest attack and the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression was on George Bush's watch.

With All Due Respect,
Hurricane Katrina Aftermath

"The last time I checked Bush Republicans along with Blue Dog corporate Democrats destroyed America during 8 years of Bush/Cheney."

Caspian, yes I agree, JUST LIKE Obama and his administration has done but in only 1.5 years. Highest spending, highest private sector unemployment, dividing and angering the nation with Obamacare and one sided policy, appeasing enemy's, standing on the side of Mexico against Arizona state law, two attempted and one Fort hood terrorist attacks, worst U.S. environmental disaster in history, on his watch.

Let's hope he is out in 2012 because we could not endure a full 8 years of this..no way!

Let's hope he is out in 2012 because we could not endure a full 8 years of this..no way!

--------------------------

Mike G.

It is the system that needs to be changed.

Even term limits won't help.

We the people have to demand that Washington DC stop "Pay To Play" and force Wall Street to lessen the stranglehold of influence on these prostitutes called Congressmen & Congresswomen.

The Tea Bags are going to get a rude awakening when they help elect another corporate Bush Republican like Mitt Romney.

The liberal/progressives also learned and realized how Obama reneged on most of his promises and continued most of the Bush/Cheney policies.

==============================

Revolving door for health care aides / 9/15/09 / http://tinyurl.com/q243zq
Some of the most influential aides in the closed-door Senate Finance Committee negotiations over health care reform have ties to interests that would be directly affected by the legislation.
Before she was hired last year as senior counsel to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Liz Fowler worked as a highly paid public policy adviser for WellPoint Inc., the nation’s largest publicly traded health benefits company.
Mark Hayes, health policy director and chief health counsel for Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), is married to a registered lobbyist for a firm that represents drug companies and hospital groups, although the couple says she doesn’t lobby Grassley’s office.
Frederick Isasi, a health policy adviser to Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), was a registered lobbyist at Powell Goldstein, where his clients included public hospitals and the American Stroke Association.
Kate Spaziani, senior health policy aide to Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), was also a registered lobbyist at Powell Goldstein, although Conrad’s office says she worked as a lawyer — not as a lobbyist — for public hospitals on Medicare issues.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27155.html

standing on the side of Mexico against Arizona state law

=============

Mike G. stop kidding yourself because even after the worst attack on September 11, 2001 Bush and Cheney NEVER closed our borders and ports.

NAFTA and money who only benefit the weathiest trumps the safety of our citizenry.

".......stop kidding yourself because even after the worst attack on September 11, 2001 Bush and Cheney NEVER closed our borders and ports."


Only because he couldn't get it through Congress, like most other things independents, Blue Dogs, Republicans and Conservatives would have wanted. The left has been ruining this country in many many ways ever since they engineered a loss for America in the Vietnam War. The misery we have today is a predictable example of what happens when the left has their way. Never Again!!!

The BP Oil Disaster -
Big Government’s Dream Come True:

June 17, 2010

If you thought President Obama’s address to the nation this week would have focused on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that is destroying the Gulf Coast economy, you would have been only partially correct. The president did mention what he called the “menacing cloud of black crude,” but the heart of his remarks was a political speech that attacked the president’s political enemies while pushing for a stock “green” agenda, including cap-and-trade legislation, that had no obvious connection to the menace in the Gulf Coast. What was supposed to be a leveling with the American people about the oil crisis became an impromptu pitch for Big Government.

The president’s political feint, while disappointing to anyone who was hoping for solutions to contain the ongoing disaster, was not entirely surprising. A significant portion of the Left is almost giddy about the disaster, because in their minds it demonstrates that industry is dangerously under-regulated and thus provides the all the evidence they need to further extend the long arm of government into aspects of the economy and industry that aren’t even remotely related to oil drilling.

Thirty one years ago the Three Mile Island incident, which didn’t actually hurt anyone [1], effectively shut down the nuclear power industry in the United States. Environmental activists hope to achieve much more in the wake of Deepwater Horizon: to not only stop American off-shore drilling, but to use the disaster to apply a bureaucratic strange-hold on American industry in general. The focus of the president’s address to the nation about the spill proves the point. He didn’t appear half as worried about the disaster in the Gulf as he did about passing cap and trade.

He probably won’t get that legislation, judging by the disgusted reaction of lawmakers [2] on both sides of the aisle, but there are other ways to sabotage the energy sector and the administration is hard at work doing just that. Last week, the Obama administration’s already over-the-top Environmental Protection Agency proposed new rules to regulate non-utility power generation that go beyond extreme and enter the realm of the ludicrous. But, with the shadow of Deepwater Horizon hanging over America, the EPA has a very good chance of pushing them through. An oil spill, it seems, excuses every bureaucratic excess that progressives can imagine. Scores of sources – from the boilers that provide heat to college campuses to the boilers that power ethanol plants, paper mills and food processing plants – will find it impossible to comply with EPA’s proposed boiler regulations and these rules will give bureaucrats unprecedented authority to decide how these industries are run.

The proposed rules are supposed to set new limits on emissions of potentially toxic materials from power plants. The regulation is generically known as “Boiler MACT [3],” with the acronym standing for “Maximum Achievable Control Technology.” However, what USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has proposed goes well beyond the toxic realm, with the Agency attempting to use these rules as a back-door way of regulating greenhouse gases and to give Big Government a role in making operational decisions.

A little history is in order. When the Clean Air Act first came into being in its present form in 1970, the EPA was directed to develop rules limiting potentially toxic emissions based solely on risk. That is, if the Agency determined that a particular compound was being emitted in quantities sufficient to present an actual health hazard, then the EPA should develop rules to limit emissions of such a compound. Using this approach, the EPA developed rules to limit emissions of seven potentially toxic materials. This upset environmental groups, who accused the EPA of shirking their responsibilities. That wasn’t true, the Agency simply couldn’t find significant risk anywhere else, but not matter: the environmentalists demanded change, and change they got.

When the Clean Air Act was amended in 1990, the EPA was directed to limit emissions of 188 potentially toxic materials [4], using a technology-based approach. Very little actual science went into selecting those 188 (now 187) compounds, but the list made the Sierra Club and similar groups happy and that’s all that mattered. Under the new approach, the Agency was directed to evaluate how industries were controlling toxics, to determine the top twelve per cent doing the best job and to use these top twelve per cent to set the standard for each compound. Thus, the philosophical question behind controlling potentially toxic air pollutants shifted from “what should we do?” to “what can we do?” The EPA calls those the requirements developed using the top twelve per cent approach “MACT” and scores of industries [5] have their own MACT, outlining the way each is supposed to control potentially toxic materials and setting numerical emissions standards.

Boiler MACT, covering the industrial sector, was first proposed in 2003 under the Bush Administration. The Sierra Club challenged it in court and EPA was directed to rewrite it. The problem that the Sierra Club had with Boiler MACT did not so much involve substance as it did style. They weren’t happy with the form of the regulation, or how the universe of regulated sources was defined. No surprise there, George W. Bush’s EPA could have proposed shutting down every coal-fired power plant in the United States and the Sierra Club would have still said that he didn’t “go far enough” to protect the environment. That’s always the green mantra when a member of the GOP occupies the White House. None-the-less, everyone expected that the “new” version of Boiler MACT would look a lot like the old one, just with more data to back it up, more justification with regard to affected sources and reformatted (but still impossible for an average Joe to understand) language. And, up until recently, that’s what EPA staffers led the regulated community to believe would happen.

But Jackson’s EPA proposed something quite different and disturbing. It effectively abandoned the “top twelve percent” formula, choosing instead to use laboratory detection limits to set limits in many cases. In other words, under EPA’s proposal industrial boilers many potentially toxic pollutants will have to be controlled so tightly that they won’t be able to find what they’re looking for. That’s one step removed from setting emissions limits at zero, and just about as unrealistic and unachievable a goal.

The proposal also requires industrial boiler operators to implement a government-approved energy management program. This program will contain multiple elements, including: a review of available architectural and engineering plans, facility operation and maintenance procedures and logs, and fuel usage; a list of major energy conservation measures; a comprehensive report detailing the ways to improve efficiency, the cost of specific improvements, benefits, and the time frame for recouping those investments; and a facility energy management program developed according to the EPA’s Energy Star [6] guidelines for energy management.

One can argue, and Lisa Jackson’s EPA surely will, that getting the government involved in energy efficiency – i.e., how boilers are run – can affect the amount of potentially toxic emissions a facility puts out, but that’s a very thin argument, especially when the rule in question already contains draconian limits. Energy efficiency requirements are rather a backhand way of achieving the Obama administration’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, without having to go through the tiresome process of addressing “climate change” directly. Further, we’re only talking about industrial boilers here. The EPA is still formulating MACT rules that will affect the big, electricity-producing utility boilers [7] that are far more significant in terms of size and greenhouse gas emissions than the industrial sector.

Can there be any doubt that this radical EPA will ask the power industry to accept equally unachievable limits and submit to even more government control? As far as this administration and progressives are concerned, the disaster in the Gulf is justification enough for every excess that Big Government can dream up.

“The Tea Bags are going to get a rude awakening when they help elect another corporate Bush Republican like Mitt Romney.”

Caspian, you don’t give the Tea Party or the American people enough credit. Who do you think voted out the Republican congress in 2006? Do you think it was only the Democrats? It was also the Independents and some Republicans. The same people that represent the Tea Party and the American people. So why did they vote them out? Because they moved away from principle and became hard of hearing. The American people had to shout at them to get them to try to back down from their wrong headed policies, which did not line up with the public. It did not happen because the Democrats were better.

So now, we have a Democratic administration that is not hard of hearing but completely deaf. No matter the polls and strong protests they continue to go against the majority of the public wishes, without any thought of backing down. The Republicans are showing they will stand in solidarity with the American people on many of these wrong headed policies. So does anybody with even the slightest objectivity believe these Republicans would be voting the same way, if they were voting for Romneycare instead? No way. Very few believe they are sincere or can be trusted in the least. The hope is that they will have learned something and perhaps be able to hear, even just a little, which would be better then what we have now. A government with incurable deafness.

Nu . . . nu . . . nuclear
Go ahead and say it loud, Mr. President:

June 17, 2010

As a conservationist, I have long understood the condition of the air, soil and water is an important barometer by which we can measure our own health and priorities as a society and culture.

It was not too distant in our past that American rivers literally caught fire. Our cities were covered in smog from smoke stacks and automobiles that belched pollution.

Largely through American innovation, entrepreneurship and a national commitment to improve the environment, things have changed dramatically for the better. Our air is cleaner, our water more pure.

And while cleaner air, soil and water continue to be the goal, I am also an energy pragmatist. Green energy - wind, solar and hydro - will not meet our tremendous energy demands today or tomorrow - possibly ever.

The lifeblood of America continues to be petroleum and will be so for many years to come. That is an inescapable reality.

One of the reasons BP was drilling a mile underwater in the Gulf is that it and other petroleum companies have been pushed further and further away from our energy-rich coasts by so-called environmentalists and short-sighted politicians. We have vast energy riches off our coasts on the Outer Continental Shelf, the Gulf and off the coast of California - energy that the federal government forbids us to extract.

This is maddening considering that, according to President Obama, we send a billion dollars a day to other countries to meet our energy demands when it is estimated by the Minerals and Management Service that there is 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf alone.

Failing to harness this energy is bad policy, harms our ability to be energy independent and continues to keep America addicted to energy from countries that don't like us all that much.

This does not mean America should not look for other forms of energy to quench our thirst for power. However, we must not rush to embrace alternative forms of energy without first doing due diligence.

Green energy may sound appealing and alluring, but the reality is much different. We currently get about 5 percent of our energy from wind, solar and hydro energy. There is little evidence to suggest this will dramatically increase in the coming years. This, too, is a reality.

As I outlined last year in my book "Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto," what we should do is embrace nuclear power. It is the cleanest, safest and most efficient of all energy in the history of mankind, and yet the president rarely mentions it as a key pillar to satisfy our thirst for energy. Until he fully embraces and endorses nuclear energy, he will not be taken seriously by those of us who seek energy independence.

In his Oval Office address on the Gulf oil spill, the president stated he wants us to move forward with green energy and believes more government regulation of the oil companies is prudent. This policy will virtually guarantee outrageously higher, likely crippling energy costs across the board for American companies and citizens.

We should pause to remember that government regulations are the key reason America has not built a new oil refinery or nuclear power plant in more than 30 years. This is a perfect example of government policies and regulations that strangles, stifles and retards progress.

As do most other conservatives, I support reasonable, pragmatic and measurable government policy that is managed by even smarter and pragmatic regulators.

The problem is not that we don't have enough regulation, but rather that we have too much. America is drowning in stacks of regulations that are written by a multitude of bureaucrats in various federal, state and local agencies and departments. We should enforce our existing regulations before arguing for even more regulations and control.

We need a realistic energy vision, a target to shoot for. Similar to President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon, I believe the goal should be for America to be completely energy independent in 10 years. We can do this with the proper leadership, national commitment and if we have a realistic approach to meeting our energy demands.

Unleash the genius that is the American entrepreneurship; don't strangle it.

The left has been ruining this country in many many ways ever since they engineered a loss for America in the Vietnam War

=====================

Bill F.

This statement of yours is a fabrication and unfortunately still believed by many Americans.

Enclosed is the TRUTH ......

....... There is no such thing as liberal mainstream media in America and liberals never had power in Washington DC.

Some liberal philosophy did get implemented with Lincoln, FDR, JFK, and LBJ.

Only FOUR Presidents in the history of the United States.

================================

Reagan and Bush were not conservative and Carter , Clinton, and Obama are not liberals

Who said the following?

Government cannot solve our problems, it can’t set our goals, it cannot define our vision.

Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide energy.

And Government cannot mandate goodness.

Ronald Reagan?

No, those were the words of President Jimmy Carter, in his 1978 State of the Union address.

=======================================

And who said this?

We know big government does not have all the answers.

We know there’s not a program for every problem.

We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington.

And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means.

The era of big government is over.

George W. Bush?

Actually, that was President Bill Clinton in his 1996 State of the Union address.

=========================

One year ago, Ralph Nader on an Obama
One year ago on election night, The Real News spoke to presidential candidate Ralph Nader Pt1 / November 5, 2008 / http://tinyurl.com/5ssswa
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2717

Caspian, you don’t give the Tea Party or the American people enough credit.

--------------------

Mike G. absolutely right.

I don't give credit because most Americans work three jobs ( Husband/Wife ) and children in school and sports with no time to really know what goes on.

They listen to a little of corrupt corporate mainstream media "And Or" right wing radio propaganda and still believe Clinton was the greatest liberal and Reagan was the greatest conservative which are myths.

I do agree many Republicans and Independents went for Obama after seeing what Cheney/Bush did to America.

( Obama is continuing most of Cheney/Bush policy BTW ).

It is my HOPE that people will start to realize BOTH parties work in the interest of Wall Street and not Main Street.

Sincerely,
Caspian the dreamer

"It is my HOPE that people will start to realize BOTH parties work in the interest of Wall Street and not Main Street."

Caspian, You certainly have preached that for quite some time now. I think people do realize that there are corrupt politicians bought and paid by corporations and they should be voted out but there are not a lot of alternatives available in order to make any substantial difference.

In general however, backing corporations does not automatically mean it is contrary to the interest main street. People liked Reagan and Clinton because there was a lot of job growth and wealth when corporations did good back then. The average person on main street that owned stocks in those corporations also prospered.

It is the excess, abuse, greed, and corruption that needs to be regulated so we don't have another meltdown but the average person wants good American corporations to succeed. It often means more money in their pockets as well.

Caspian, You certainly have preached that for quite some time now. I think people do realize that there are corrupt politicians bought and paid by corporations and they should be voted out but there are not a lot of alternatives available in order to make any substantial difference.

---------------------

Mike G. there are ZERO alternatives because both parties are in cahoots with corrupt corporate mainstream and rightwing media to obfuscate the issues.

Both parties lie and the media repeats and parrots the lies instead of asking the tough and pertinent questions.

Mike G. most talking air heads on Radio and TV do not have our interest at heart.

There only mission is to divide and conquer while they laugh all the way to the bank.



=======================

The Great American Bubble Machine

From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they're about to do it again


-------------------------

"From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they're about to do it again"

Caspian, I'm glad to see you blamed Goldman this time and not Bush/Cheney!
lol

However, I know what you are saying, especially gas prices are a complete farce. The masses are being manipulated by the powerful but that is an age old story. As united individuals we could encourage them to change their ways by adjusting our spending habits accordingly but they have some powerful friends on their side, a government that is no longer by the people and for the people and a media that does not tell the truth.

Mike G. I'm glad we are in agreement.

Now lets focus on changing the system "Pay To Play" to Representing We The People!

Caspian, Pay to Play?

Is that where a company contribute's toward a campaign in exchange for government contracts? How much of a difference is that going to make? Are you thinking it will allow more people to have a chance to win or that the politicians would be more fair minded? Every little bit helps but the system itself is tainted no matter who gets in. We gotta get back to basics somehow.

"There is no such thing as liberal mainstream media"



There is little else other than the liberal mainstream media. The last administration can duly attest to that fact. But then again, that is the way you liked it and wouldn't have had it any other way.

Eleven US warships, one Israeli vessel transit Suez Canal to Persian Gulf:

June 19, 2010

An armada of 11 US warships and one Israeli vessel passed through the Suez Canal Friday June 18 on their o the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, debkafile reports exclusively from its military sources. The fleet, the first of this composition to navigate the Suez Canal, is led by the USS Harry Truman carrier and its Strike Group of 60 fighter-bombers and 6,000 seamen and marines.
Egyptian port authorities imposed exceptional security measures for the ships' passage. All commercial and civilian traffic through the Suez Canal was halted and beefed-up security forces posted along both its shores. Egyptian fishermen were recalled to port from their grounds in the Bitter Lake.
The massive movement of this large US naval-air force plus an Israeli contingent is a strong new factor in the continually rising Middle East tensions of the last two weeks, to which Iran has not so far responded.

Every little bit helps but the system itself is tainted no matter who gets in.

================

Mike G. exactly right.

That is why there needs to be less money behind Washington DC.

Every Congress person devotes half of the time to making phone calls for donations from BIG CORPORATIONS for the next election.

Congress = Two Year Term and One Year on the phone begging for money.

Senate = 6 year term and Three Years begging for funds from Big Business.

THIS IS "PAY TO PLAY" and We The People are not at the table.

======================

Revolving door for health care aides / 9/15/09 / http://tinyurl.com/q243zq
Some of the most influential aides in the closed-door Senate Finance Committee negotiations over health care reform have ties to interests that would be directly affected by the legislation.
Before she was hired last year as senior counsel to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Liz Fowler worked as a highly paid public policy adviser for WellPoint Inc., the nation’s largest publicly traded health benefits company.
Mark Hayes, health policy director and chief health counsel for Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), is married to a registered lobbyist for a firm that represents drug companies and hospital groups, although the couple says she doesn’t lobby Grassley’s office.
Frederick Isasi, a health policy adviser to Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), was a registered lobbyist at Powell Goldstein, where his clients included public hospitals and the American Stroke Association.
Kate Spaziani, senior health policy aide to Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), was also a registered lobbyist at Powell Goldstein, although Conrad’s office says she worked as a lawyer — not as a lobbyist — for public hospitals on Medicare issues.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27155.html

==================

Who Is Funding the Health Care Furor?
WALL STREET IS BEHIND REPUBLICAN DICK ARMEY AND THE TEA BAGS! / September 18, 2009 / http://tinyurl.com/nhnz68 A Bill Moyers essay on the protests in Washington, D.C. and whose funding opposition to health care reform.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09182009/watch3.html