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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (24223)	3/28/2008 8:18:41 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224744

Dems have a barrel filled with rotten apples with a couple unblemished ones, while Repubs have a few bad ones in their premium apple crop.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (24223)	3/28/2008 8:23:05 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224744

Holy Baloney Wright! elections.foxnews.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (24223)	3/28/2008 9:47:57 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 224744

Saddam And The Three Stooges By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY \| Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008 4:30 PM PT Diplomacy: Three congressmen were caught traveling to praise prewar Iraq on Saddam Hussein's dime in 2002. Others have made pilgrimages to pay tribute to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. This is getting out of control. As the U.S. prepared for war in October 2002, Washington state's Jim McDermott flew to Iraq on a Saddam-praising junket with fellow Democrats Mike Thompson of California and David Bonior of Michigan. Rather than support the U.S., they condemned U.N. sanctions, vouched for Saddam's probity and publicly declared America's democratically elected president a liar. None of it had anything to do with the congressmen's claimed concern for Iraqi children, but it did undermine the U.S. alliance-building effort. And by coincidence, it was exactly what Saddam wanted. Now we learn the junket was just as it seemed at the time — a Saddam-paid propaganda production, starring three U.S. dupes. The congressmen say they had no idea, but they should have known and must be aware that people will seek to manipulate politicians. In this case, however, Bush derangement syndrome seemed to trump all judgment in freelance diplomacy, and the result was a sellout of our interests. So was another trip taken to the Andes last year by another Democratic threesome — Reps. Bill Delahunt and James McGovern of Massachusetts and George Miller of California. With at least two of them in hock to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez for supplying cheap heating oil to their districts, the trio decided to meddle in Colombia, a democracy Chavez seeks to overthrow. Claiming they were just interested in the humanitarian release of American hostages, they flew to Bogota and Caracas and initiated contact with Chavez's best terrorists — Colombia's Marxist FARC. Secret correspondence from the computer of dead FARC warlord Raul Reyes suggests that the real aim of the trip was to muscle Colombian President Alvaro Uribe into restoring Chavez as a mediator between Colombia and the FARC. That would have enabled Chavez to expand his cash and political influence into Colombia. The junket followed other favors that McGovern and Delahunt did for Chavez. Both were influential, for example, in slashing Colombian military aid by 30% in 2008, and now both intend to vote down Colombia's free trade pact. Such stoogery isn't helped by the bad example set by congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi. It was the speaker of the House, remember, who took two senators on a pilgrimage to Syria a year ago, at a time of high tensions with Iran, making tyrants there very happy. These activities have little to do with the duties of congressmen to their respective districts or states. They're also inherently secretive, leaving the citizens in the dark about the funding and the favors. Worst of all, they manage to sell out American interests for the price of undermining the president, as if there were no national interests beyond politics. The State Department and White House have no authority to stop such shenanigans, so it's up to Congress to start making its actions more accountable and the media to make them more transparent on the spot.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (24223)	3/28/2008 9:53:45 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 224744

Wright's Words Were Part Of Black Tradition By E.J. DIONNE JR. \| Posted Thursday, March 20, 2008 4:30 PM PT Let's ask the hard question about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Is he as far outside the African-American mainstream as many of us would like to think? Because Barack Obama's speech on race in America was so candid about both the legitimacy of black and white grievances — and the flaws in those grievances — it carries the risk of offending almost everyone. The man who, by parentage, is half black and half white took it upon himself to explain each side's story to the other. Obama resembled no one so much as the conciliatory sibling in a large and boisterous family shouting: "Please, please, will you listen to each other for a sec?" One of the least remarked-upon passages in Obama's speech is also one of the most important — and the part most relevant to the Wright controversy. There is, Obama said, a powerful anger in the black community rooted in "memories of humiliation and doubt" that "may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends" but "does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. . . . And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews." Yes, black people say things about our country and its injustices to each other that they don't say to those of us who are white. Whites also say things about blacks privately that they don't say in front of their black friends or associates. One black leader who was capable of getting very angry indeed is the one now being invoked against Wright. His name is Martin Luther King Jr. An important book due out next month on King's rhetoric by Barnard College professor Jonathan Rieder offers a more complex view of King than the sanitized version that is so popular, especially among conservative commentators. In "The Word of the Lord is Upon Me," Rieder — an admirer of King's — notes that the civil rights icon was "not just a crossover artist but a code switcher who switched in and out of idioms as he moved between black and white audiences." Listen to what King said about the Vietnam War at his own Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 4, 1968: "God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place." King then predicted this response from the Almighty: "And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power." If today's technology had existed back then, I would imagine the media playing quotations of that sort over and over. Right-wing commentators would use the material to argue that King was anti-American and to discredit his call for racial and class justice. King certainly angered a lot of people at the time. I cite King not to justify Wright's damnation of America or his lunatic and pernicious theories, but to suggest that Obama's pastor and his church are not so far outside the African-American mainstream as many would now suggest. I would also ask my conservative friends who praise King so lavishly to search their consciences and wonder if they would have stood up for him back in 1968. These are realities that Obama has forced us to confront, and they are painful. Wright was operating within a long tradition of African-American outrage, which is one reason why Obama could not walk away from his old pastor in the name of political survival. Obama's personal closeness to Wright would have made such a move craven in any event. I'm a liberal and I loathe the anti-American things Wright said precisely because I believe that the genius of our country is its capacity for self-correction. Progressivism and, yes, hope itself depend upon a belief that personal conversion and social change are possible, that flawed human beings are capable of transcending their pasts and their failings. Obama understands the anger of whites as well as blacks, but he's placed a bet on the other side of King's legacy that converted rage into the search for a beloved community. This does not prove that Obama deserves to be president. It does mean that he deserves to be judged on his own terms and not by the ravings of an angry preacher.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (24223)	3/28/2008 10:06:47 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 224744

Oh but Kenny you had yur panties all wet and spun in a bunch whenever a Republican got caught out there. Why be so sensitive?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (24223)	3/28/2008 11:01:58 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224744

Eureka! it's goldrush time >High prices spark fresh gold rush in California By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles March 28 2008 20:38 \| It has been almost 160 years since the first California gold rush but, with prices hitting record highs, prospectors are once again flocking to the state’s rivers and deserts in search of the precious metal. Gold’s ascent – prices crossed the $1,000 an ounce barrier this month and remain well above $900 – has sent sales of mining equipment soaring. “There’s been a dramatic change?.?.?.?our sales have risen four-fold in the last three months,” said Harrigan McGregor, owner of GoldFeverProspecting.com, an equipment retailer in northern California. “This is the second big California gold rush. We’ve had a lot of phone calls from people who are quitting their jobs and prospecting full-time.” The growth of prospecting by individuals has been accompanied by a sharp increase in commercial mining activity. Commercial claims, most of which involve gold mining, rocketed to 2,274 in the first quarter of this year, up from 132 in the same period of 2005, the Bureau of Land Management says. Roger Haskins, senior specialist for mining law at the BLM, said the high price of gold was “obviously driving [mining] activity up tremendously”. “We have a market imbalance at the moment and there’s more demand than supply,” he added. “Gold sits in a little niche because it’s speculative?.?.?.?People buy it as a hedge for the future.” Membership in the Gold Prospectors Association of America “has tripled in a very short space of time”, said Corey Rudolph, an official of the southern California-based group, which organises events for recreational miners. The hotspot is a 320km strip known as the Gold Belt, or “Motherlode”, which runs near Highway 49 (named for prospecting “49ers” of the 19th century) and the Sierra Nevada mountains. Mr Rudolph said 5-10 per cent of available gold had been mined. “There’s still a lot of gold out there for the smart guys.” The market in second-hand gold is also booming, with southern California pawnshops reporting increased trade as people sell unwanted gold items. Depending on the quality, these items can be refined and resold. However, Mr McGregor said raw gold can fetch even higher prices. “If you find a nugget larger than your pinkie finger, it could sell for up to 30 per cent more than the spot price.”