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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (82680)	8/13/2010 5:55:15 PM
From: coug	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

We are not out of REAL SILVER "bullets" either :).. That along with it's golden relative will be the only salvation of our portable wealth in the long run imo.. Also we just watched the interview with Mary Tillman, mother of Pat Tillman on Hardball.. It just made my blood boil because of how the Army and the previous administration tried to use his death in Afghanistan for propaganda purposes even though they knew it was by fratricide and to this day try to keep it covered up. If Obama was all about that "hopie and changey" thing he campaigned on, he would immediately order a new investigation and expose those that killed him and those that covered it up.. It's just sickening.. BIG KUDOS to Mary Tillman and her family .. They have a lot of courage..

To: stockman_scott who wrote (82680)	8/13/2010 10:52:50 PM
From: T L Comiskey	1 Recommendation Respond to of 89467

Maybe he should go hunting.. with ....The Shooter Like father, like son? Quayle stumbles in Arizona By MICHELLE PRICE, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 13, PHOENIX – Seems like old times — Jay Leno cracking Quayle jokes on late night. But now the rising target of comics is Ben Quayle, son of the gaffe-prone former vice president, who is committing doozies of his own in his campaign for Congress. Campaigning as a family-values conservative, Ben Quayle first denied then admitted that he wrote for a sex-steeped Arizona website. The racy website's founder, Nik Richie, said Quayle used the alias "Brock Landers," the name of a character from the 1997 movie "Boogie Nights" about porn stars in California, and wrote lines such as: "my moral compass is so broken I can barely find the parking lot." The website, now known as TheDirty.com, recently reposted the 2007 entries. Quayle said he couldn't recall what his posts involved or when he made them. This came out just days after Quayle sent a campaign mailer showing his wife and two young girls, with the words, "We are going to raise our family here." He and his wife have no children; the girls were his nieces. Campaign rival Vernon Parker accused Quayle of "renting a family."

To: stockman_scott who wrote (82680)	8/14/2010 11:02:00 AM
From: T L Comiskey	1 Recommendation Respond to of 89467

Re...Silver Bullets.. hold on now.. lets go to...Gold America’s Biggest Jobs Program - the US Military Saturday 14 August 2010 by: Robert Reich \| America’s biggest — and only major — jobs program is the U.S. military. Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the military with everything from weapons to utensils. (I’m not even including all the foreign contractors employing non-US citizens.) If we didn’t have this giant military jobs program, the U.S. unemployment rate would be over 11.5 percent today instead of 9.5 percent. And without our military jobs program personal incomes would be dropping faster. The Commerce Department reported Monday the only major metro areas where both net earnings and personal incomes rose last year were San Antonio, Texas, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. — because all three have high concentrations of military and federal jobs. This isn’t an argument for more military spending. Just the opposite. Having a giant undercover military jobs program is an insane way to keep Americans employed. It creates jobs we don’t need but we keep anyway because there’s no honest alternative. We don’t have an overt jobs program based on what’s really needed. For example, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Monday his plan to cut spending on military contractors by more than a quarter over three years, congressional leaders balked. Military contractors are major sources of jobs back in members’ states and districts. California’s Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, demanded that the move “not weaken the nation’s defense.” That’s congress-speak for “over my dead body.” Gates simultaneously announced closing the Joint Force Command in Norfolk, Virginia, that employs 6,324 people and relies on 3,300 private contractors. This prompted Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to warn that the closure “would be a step backward.” Translated: “No chance in hell.” Gates can’t even end useless weapons programs. That’s because they’re covert jobs programs that employ thousands. He wants to stop production of the C-17 cargo jet he says is no longer needed. But it keeps 4,000 people working at Boeing’s Long Beach assembly plant and 30,000 others at Boeing suppliers strategically located in 40 states. So despite Gates’s protests the Senate has approved ten new orders. That’s still not enough to keep all those C-17 workers employed, so the Pentagon and Boeing have been hunting for foreign purchasers. The Indian Air Force is now negotiating to buy ten, and talks are underway with several other nations, including Oman and Saudi Arabia. Ever wonder why military equipment is one of America’s biggest exports? It’s our giant military jobs program in action. Gates has also been trying to stop production of a duplicate engine for the F-25 joint Strike Fighter jet. He says it isn’t needed and doesn’t justify the $2.9 billion slated merely to develop it. But the unnecessary duplicate engine would bring thousands of jobs to Indiana and Ohio. Cunningly, its potential manufacturers Rolls-Royce and General Electric created a media blitz (mostly aimed at Washington, D.C. where lawmakers wold see it) featuring an engine worker wearing a “Support Our Troops” T-shirt and arguing the duplicate engine will create 4,000 American jobs. Presto. Despite a veto threat from the White House, a House panel has just approved funding the duplicate. By the way, Gates isn’t trying to cut the overall Pentagon budget. He just wants to trim certain programs to make room for more military spending with a higher priority. The Pentagon’s budget — and its giant undercover jobs program — keeps expanding. The President has asked Congress to hike total defense spending next year 2.2 percent, to $708 billion. That’s 6.1 percent higher than peak defense spending during the Bush administration. This sum doesn’t even include Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, nuclear weapons management, and intelligence. Add these, and next year’s national security budget totals about $950 billion. That’s a major chunk of the entire federal budget. But most deficit hawks don’t dare cut it. National security is sacrosanct. Yet what’s really sacrosanct is the giant jobs program that’s justified by national security. National security is a cover for job security. This is nuts. Wouldn’t it be better to have a jobs program that created things we really need — like light-rail trains, better school facilities, public parks, water and sewer systems, and non-carbon energy sources — than things we don’t, like obsolete weapons systems? Historically some of America’s biggest jobs programs that were critical to the nation’s future have been justified by national defense, although they’ve borne almost no relation to it. The National Defense Education Act of the late 1950s trained a generation of math and science teachers. The National Defense Highway Act created millions of construction jobs turning the nation’s two-lane highways into four- and six-lane Interstates. Maybe this is the way to convince Republicans and blue-dog Democrats to spend more federal dollars putting Americans back, and working on things we genuinely need: Call it the National Defense Full Employment Act.

To: stockman_scott who wrote (82680)	8/15/2010 6:25:04 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 89467

Climatic Extremes..Continue Mon, Aug. 09, 2010 Central Europe faces massive flood cleanup By VANESSA GERA Associated Press Writer Swollen rivers surged north Monday in central Europe after carving a swath of destruction across Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. Hundreds of people had to be evacuated and one monastery suffered the worst flood damage in almost 800 years. Days of flooding have killed at least 11 people in central Europe and damaged hundreds of homes and businesses. The southwestern Polish town of Bogatynia, on the border with the Czech Republic, was one of the worst-hit areas. Video from the TVN24 news station showed roads that were torn up, rubble strewn all over and heavy damage to many homes. One house was left tilting badly. A bridge in the town was also badly damaged, and soldiers had to set up a temporary crossing to bring in food and other supplies. TVN24 reported that some vendors were taking advantage of food shortages and charging 20 zlotys ($6.60) for a loaf of bread, far above the usual price. In Germany, the situation was most critical in the state of Saxony, along the Neisse River, which forms the border with Poland. Hundreds of residents had to be evacuated. "We will have massive damage to the infrastructure, but of course also to private property," Saxony governor Stanislaw Tillich said. He asked Polish authorities to explain how a retaining dam on their side broke down, making the situation worse, the German news agency DAPD reported. A 775-year-old Cistercian monastery near the Neisse, St. Marienthal, was also flooded and the diocese said the damage will likely reach several million euros (dollars). "Inside the church, the water was about two meters (6 feet) high," a statement said, calling it the worst flooding since the monastery's founding in 1234. The Neisse was expected to top 23 feet (7 meters)- nearly 15 feet (4.5 meters) above its normal level. Some 1,400 people in the region were evacuated over the weekend, and more than 500 have not yet been able to return to their houses, the German news agency DDP reported. In Bad Muskau, an eastern German spa town on the border with Poland, the grounds of the Fuerst Pueckler Park - a UNESCO world heritage site - flooded, but damage to the castle and the town itself appeared limited, officials said. South of Bad Muskau, a dike broke and flooded houses in two villages, but no one was hurt because 100 residents had been evacuated. As the floods traveled further north, officials worried about waters reaching the Spree River, which runs through Berlin. There were no flood warnings yet for the German capital, however. In the Czech Republic, waters receded Monday and cleanup efforts were under way, helped by more than 300 soldiers. Almost 1,000 Czech households were still without electricity and about 4,000 were without natural gas. Hundreds of houses and dozens of bridges have been destroyed or badly damaged. Damage in the Czech Republic is estimated to reach almost 4 billion koruna ($215 million). In northeastern Europe, Lithuania was hit over the weekend by a heavy storm that killed four people as it toppled trees, wrecked cars and smashed roofs. Associated Press Writers Juergen Baetz in Berlin and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report. © 2010 TheState.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. thestate.com

To: stockman_scott who wrote (82680)	8/16/2010 10:17:35 AM
From: T L Comiskey	1 Recommendation Respond to of 89467

Thomas Friedman Trashes Sen. Inhofe as Sellout, Says 'I'm a Dick Cheney Guy' By Tim Graham 02/27/2010 - New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was chewing the scenery in a Wednesday discussion of global warming on CNN’s Amanpour show. He trashed Sen. James Inhofe for demanding an investigation into U.N. climate science, suggesting Inhofe needs to be investigated: "I'd love to see all the e-mails between his office and various coal and oil companies over the last 20 years....we'll let citizens and voters decide where the real science is." Friedman also invoked Dick Cheney, oddly comparing Iraqi WMD to climate change: "I mean, I'm a Dick Cheney guy on this. I'm with Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney said, if there's a 1 percent chance that Iraq has a nuclear weapon, we need to take that on. Well, if there's a 1 percent chance on climate change, just like Cheney said -- I'm with Cheney -- we need to prepare for it." Read more: newsbusters.org