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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (12588)	10/16/2003 9:03:00 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793921

Don't get between a Mother and her Son! ________________________________________ New York Daily News - nydailynews.com Mama Bush raps the Dems By THOMAS M. DeFRANK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF Thursday, October 16th, 2003 WASHINGTON - Former First Lady Barbara Bush calls the Democrats trying to unseat her eldest son "a sorry lot" - and says she thought he would lose in 2000. In an NBC interview with Mrs. Bush to be aired Sunday and Monday, former President George Bush also sounds off on the Democratic contenders. "They're all together on this vicious rhetoric," George Bush interjects. "And then that's the sound bite, you see, the one who makes the most ... outrageous charges against the President and then gets his 20 seconds on the evening news. "Hey, I didn't ride here on a watermelon cart. I know how it works." Barbara Bush said she feared that her son would lose the 2000 election because "my gut feeling is that all the media is against George ... any Republican." Reading from her new book, "Reflections: Life after the White House," the tart-tongued matriarch of the Bush clan offers some unexpectedly sympathetic observations about former Vice President Al Gore. "I find myself thinking of Al Gore and what he must be feeling," she noted on the day her son was sworn in as the 43rd President. "I'm sure he thinks he won the race, although I don't. I do feel sorry for him. We've lost [before] and losing is not easy." "It seems a bit beneath her," Democratic National Committee spokesman Tony Welch said of Barbara Bush's shot at the Democratic field. "But we understand her nervousness. Her husband was beaten by a Democrat and she must be worried her son will also be beaten by a Democrat."

To: KyrosL who wrote (12588)	10/16/2003 9:42:48 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793921

Rebuilding Iraq -- The Contractors [Note: I mentioned this site last night...you will find it interesting as well....note who the various companies donate money to, and what party. Also, I looked up Halliburton Corp last night, and when time will look up who the members of their Exec Officers and BOD give money to as well. Each of the companies had to bid to receive contracts for Iraq. One would hve to look up what other companies were competitive with products and services as well. ] opensecrets.org Even before the war in Iraq began March 20, the Bush administration was considering plans to help rebuild the country after fighting ceased. According to news reports in early March, the U.S. Agency for International Development secretly asked six U.S. companies to submit bids for a $900 million government contract to repair and reconstruct water systems, roads, bridges, schools and hospitals in Iraq. The six companies -- Bechtel Group Inc., Fluor Corp., Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, Louis Berger Group Inc., Parsons Corp. and Washington Group International Inc. -- contributed a combined $3.6 million in individual, PAC and soft money donations between 1999 and 2002, the Center reported on its news site, CapitalEye.org. Sixty-six percent of that total went to Republicans. The bidding process has been criticized for including only a handful of companies, some with substantial political clout and none of which is based outside the United States. USAID officials said the recent invitations to bid on reconstruction contracts went to U.S. corporations for security reasons, and that foreign companies may compete for subcontracting work, Bloomberg News reports. As the winners* of this and other contracts to rebuild Iraq are announced, we will post their campaign contributions -- large or small -- below. (Figures represent total contributions made between 1999 and 2002, and include PAC, soft money and individual contributions to federal candidates, party committees and leadership 8888888888888888 Go through the entire list of companies. You will see what companies got contracts that donate 100% to Democrats as well. Some of these seem to be in the #3 on your list as "highly paid consultants" as well.

To: KyrosL who wrote (12588)	10/19/2003 9:04:11 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793921

You really ought to cheer up, put on a happy face! ______________________________________________________ SHOTS ACROSS THE BOW - BLOG Chalk another one up for Dubya! The UN Security Council unanimously agreed to the US sponsored resolution on Iraq. In essence, the the US is in a 'can't lose' position. If the UN helps with Iraqi reconstruction, great; if they don't, they are shown to be ineffectual, irrelevant, and hypocritical. Once again, they've given President Bush what he wanted, something they had no intention of doing. Their underestimation of his acumen continues to cost them. But there's another factor at work here, one that needs exploration. The UNSC has agreed to support the reconstruction of Iraq, without requiring a specific timetable, increased authority, or anything else pushed by France, Germany, and the rest. Why? In short, had they continued to balk, then they would have been demonstrating their increasing irrelevance. Here's the thing; the unanimous passage of this resolution signals that things are going well in Iraq, much better than France or Germany thought possible. As long as they thought the US was stepping into another Viet Nam, their best strategy lay in sniping from the sidelines, allowing the US to flounder, digging itself in deeper, until at last we would have to crawl to the UN for help. By agreeing to the new resolution, they abandoned that strategy, and that has telegraphed their evaluation of the situation in Iraq. If it were a quagmire, as most of the press would have us believe, France and Germany would have at the very least abstained from the vote, hoping to add to the US troubles. Since they approved the measure, that signals that they know things are going well in Iraq, and that they are rapidly losing leverage. The only way for the UN to maintain any relevance now is to be seen as allied to the US efforts, rather than opposed. Additional pressure was put on the Security Council by the Japanese, who agreed to donate just over $1 billion to the Iraqi reconstruction effort. By making their move when they did, Japan demonstrated to the UN just how dangerously close they were to becoming totally irrelevant. Just as importantly, they also demonstrated that the US has political and economic partners that do not answer to the EU, something that is probably keeping Chirac up late at night. 63.247.132.5