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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 (28734)	5/21/2008 3:01:14 PM
From: JeffA	Respond to of 224755

LMAO AT YOU AS junior. What a dolt. How convenient

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (28734)	5/21/2008 3:16:51 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 224755

209.85.215.104

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (28734)	5/21/2008 3:20:32 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 224755

Compare approval ratings By LOREN M. BIER, Alexander I always only hear about the president’s approval rating and never about the rating of our new Democratic Congress that vowed to change things in Washington. Both should be mentioned in the same sentence. In order to even things up I have provided current information. According to Gallup in April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic Congress only have a 20 percent approval rating. Of course, that is up from the 18 percent she had in August 2007. Way to go, Nancy. President Bush’s rating is 28 percent.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (28734)	5/21/2008 3:23:11 PM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224755

Political War Games May 16, 2008; Page A12 Congress's approval rating is at record lows, but who cares? The Democrats who run the joint have made a calculation that voters will blame everything they loathe about Washington on the Republican President. Which is precisely the kind of political immunity that lets Democrats think they can get away with the tax, spend and evade spectacle of this week's war-funding bill. Really, this one is a classic. President Bush requested some $178 billion to fund the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until summer of 2009 – long enough to give the next President breathing room. Democrats know they can't get away with not funding the troops, but to make the vote go down better with their antiwar left they larded it up with war conditions and domestic spending. Then yesterday they pulled the stunt of approving the domestic spending but voting down the war money, on a 149-141 vote. Most Republicans withheld their votes to protest the way the bill was handled; it was written out of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, bypassing Republicans on the Appropriations Committee. Before the vote, Ms. Pelosi declared that "The legislation provides for a new direction in Iraq that will end this sad chapter in America's history and bring home our brave men and women in uniform" – thus appeasing her antiwar wing. But after the vote, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer quickly said he expects the Senate to restore the war funds. Yesterday's House votes were even divided into three tranches – war funding, domestic funding and policy provisions. This let Democrats vote against war funding while knowing Republicans will ensure the money will still get to the troops. On spending, Democrats added $15.6 billion for 13 more weeks of unemployment benefits, though the jobless rate is still only 5%. They also added $120 million as a downpayment on a new GI Bill for veterans, which would create a permanent benefit that would be around long after the Iraq war is over. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it would cost $51.8 billion over 10 years – a vast new entitlement. What Speaker Pelosi didn't expect was that all of this spending would cause a mutiny in her own caucus. She had to postpone a vote last week after a revolt by "Blue Dog" Democrats who promised to oppose a bill that piled domestic projects on war spending. Their complaint is that the extras violate "paygo," the 2006 Democratic campaign promise to pay for new initiatives dollar-for-dollar with new taxes or budget cuts. Never mind that paygo has been a farce from the get-go, tossed aside when convenient this year and last. So what to do? These are House Democrats, so the grand Blue Dog-liberal "compromise" was . . . raise taxes. Democrats have now added a 0.5% income tax surcharge on incomes over $500,000 for individuals, $1 million for couples. "They're not going to miss it," Arkansas Democrat Mike Ross told AP, in a sign of his respect for hard-earned private income. The surcharge won't vanish if the war does. And it would hit millions of small subchapter S businesses that pay individual income rates – and which hire the very people that Democrats claim need more jobless benefits because the economy is so terrible. Democrats know Mr. Bush will veto this tax hike. But they are trying to sell voters on the illusion that Democrats can deliver vast new benefits – and the only folks who'll have to pay for them are those who won't "miss it." Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned earlier this month that if the emergency funds aren't approved by Memorial Day, the Pentagon would have to put military salaries on hold by June 15. Meanwhile, Barack Obama has tried to skewer John McCain for his opposition to the expanded GI Bill. We'd like to hear how Mr. Obama's support for the troops includes leaving military families at risk of a delayed paycheck while their parents and spouses fight overseas. Taking the opportunity to pander to the antiwar left while stopping short of actually cutting off funds for the war is a cynical maneuver even by Beltway standards. If Democrats lack the courage of their antiwar convictions, their responsibility is to give the troops the funds they need without using them for political games. WSJ

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (28734)	5/21/2008 3:24:06 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 224755

Nancy Pelosi's Widening Power Grab INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 4/29/2008 Congress: On the heels of a rules change that iced the Colombia free trade treaty, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is scrapping the appropriations process in a new war funding bill. Something new and anti-democratic is afoot. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read More: General Politics -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whatever is driving her, Pelosi seems to be moving Congress toward a one-woman dictatorship, showing little or no concern for holding actual votes or building consensus on key issues as she manipulates Congress. She's altering and contorting long-standing congressional rules to get her agenda through instead of trusting the voting process. This gives clout to special interests and makes her powerful as a political boss, but it undermines Congress as an institution, making voters the losers. Pelosi's latest move is to link a $108 billion supplemental bill for U.S. troops in Iraq to an extra $70 billion in pork spending in a tacked-on economic stimulus package. It's a bad idea, one that wouldn't make it through a congressional vote. So she's getting around that by changing the rules. Instead of submitting the package to a subcommittee vote, moving it to a full committee, and allowing debate until consensus is reached, Pelosi's skipping the appropriations process altogether. This has been done only a few times in the last 20 years — mostly in times of national emergency, like 9/11 and Katrina. Now, it's just business as usual with Pelosi in power. Pelosi seems to have been emboldened by her success in halting Colombia's free-trade agreement this month — again, not through votes, but by changing house rules to end the 90-day requirement to schedule a vote. This damages our alliance with Colombia. For what price? Like the Iraq bill, she's tying passage of Colombia free trade to the new pork spending she seeks. Winner: Big Labor. Loser: the private sector, which must pay $1 billion in tariffs. This follows Pelosi's moves to halt development of new energy resources through drilling oil in Alaska and the outer continental shelf. She's engineered this through 13 obscuring maneuvers since 2005, which keep America's energy resources in the ground, while handing out subsidies to favored "alternative energy" programs, which she has cleverly packaged as resolving the energy shortage. Winners: environmental and alternative-energy lobbies. Losers: all of us, who must now pay more for energy and food. Just as one thinks it couldn't get worse, it does. Pelosi has left America unprotected from terrorists by not permitting a vote on enhanced FISA rules that let federal officials listen in on terrorist phone calls. Winners: The trial lawyers, who benefit from lawsuits against communications companies. Losers: again, all of us, who are now more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Nothing new here — this has become Pelosi's style. Indeed, last year, she attempted to rewrite the House's 185-year-old rules to permit tax hikes without a vote. A pattern emerges of a person who no longer seems intent on observing the niceties of democracy. But Americans should question a style of governing that eschews real democracy for endless pandering to special interests and power blocs. Democrats won Congress in 2006 promising to rid Congress of special interests in politics. But under Pelosi's string of rules changes, it's more beholden than ever. Voters express a shocking cynicism about Congress, reflected in the 18% approval rating it gets in recent polls. There's little doubt Pelosi's move to keep Congress from voting on key issues so her special interest friends can rake in the cash is a part of the problem. Voters may wonder: Just when will Pelosi start trusting the voters, Congress and the democratic process, and stop abusing her power? Click here for copyright permissions! Copyright 2000-2008 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (28734)	5/21/2008 3:30:14 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224755

Looks like oil has gone up 15 a barrel since the dems said they would go after OPEC countries. I guess that was OPEC's way of saying fukk you 'leaky' Leahy and Pelosi

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (28734)	5/21/2008 3:41:18 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224755

Oil Execs teach pandering Democrats, Leahy & Durbin, the facts about government restrictions and oil prices: May 21 2008 By JEFF BROWN, Associated Press Writer Oil Execs Tell Congress: Don’t Blame Us WASHINGTON (AP) - Top executives of the five largest oil companies shifted anger over high prices to a debate over supplies Wednesday, leading a senator to accuse them of acting like "hapless victims" while racking up record profits. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told the executives there's "a disconnect" between normal supply and demand and the skyrocketing price of oil—surpassing $130 a barrel. The executives, appearing under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said they know high prices are hurting people, but they said the cause is not company profits but global supply and demand and governmental restrictions on drilling and new refineries. The executives sought to use their appearance before Congress to argue against new taxes on their industry. Senate Democrats recently announced an energy package that would tax "windfall" profits of the five companies. That might have public appeal, they told the senators, but oil companies should not be viewed as "a scapegoat" for high prices. That was not what many senators wanted to hear. You have "just a litany of complaints that you're all just hapless victims of a system," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the executives. "Yet you rack up record profits ... quarter after quarter after quarter." "I'm sorry to sound like a victim. I don't feel like a victim at all," replied Robertson of Chevron, saying that he was proud of his company's investments in future supply.