In what may very well be the death knell for Norm Coleman's time in the U.S. Senate, the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously dismissed one of his last legal objections to the recount process.

In a five-to-zero decision, the court rejected a Coleman campaign lawsuit that sought to block the course of the recount due to concerns that some ballots had been counted twice. It was the Minnesota Republican's last legal angle for making up the 47-vote deficit he currently faces against Al Franken.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/24/supreme-court-rules-on-mi_n_153383.html

Greece-Style Riots Coming To U.S.

Troops and mercenaries will be used to detain Americans in prison camps, warns deadly accurate trends forecaster

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, December 15, 2008

Frighteningly accurate trends forecaster Gerald Celente says that America will see riots similar to those currently ongoing in Greece and that the cause will be a hyper-inflationary depression, leading to the inevitable use of troops and mercenaries to deal with the crisis as Americans are incarcerated in internment camps.

As we have highlighted before, Celente’s accuracy is stunning - he predicted the 1987 crash, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the “panic of 2008,” and is routinely cited even by mainstream news networks as highly credible.

The cause of the riots would be a hyper-inflationary depression, Celente told interviewer Lew Rockwell, causing Americans to revolt in similar circumstances that we have witnessed recently in Iceland and Greece. The trouble would be sparked off by Obama declaring a “bank holiday” whereby people won’t be able to withdraw their money.

“What’s going on in Greece with these riots has nothing to do with a 15-year-old boy being killed, that was only the spark that ignited the pent up, really hatred and disdain, people have for the scandals and corrupt government and the same thing is going on in this country as well,” said Celente.

Celente reiterated his prediction of a revolution and riots in America, and said that the first signs of it could even emerge before the end of the year.

Celente said that the troops now being brought back to America for “domestic security” would be used to suppress the riots.

“There’s talk of opening all these detention centers and hiring the goon squads, the Blackwaters to run them, so these are realities going on as we speak,” said Celente, adding that the Halliburton subsidiary KBR had been awarded a half a billion dollar contract to build “national emergency” internment camps in the name of detaining illegal immigrants but that they would be used to hold rioting Americans.

“We’re really in a period of ‘off with their heads’ and its going to be the people against the politicians,” said Celente.

Celente said that a breakup of the United States was possible and that the secessionist movement was strong.

“The government owns and runs the largest mortgage company, owns the largest insurance company, they’re going to be owning a piece of the oil industry, so it’s a fight against a totalitarian government…so there’s going to be rebellions and things will change for the better if we break up these criminal governments that are in place now,” said Celente.

The forecaster added that the government was killing people for a false reason in Iraq and robbing people blind with the bailouts at home.

Listen to the interview here

http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-12-14_084_gerald_celente_2000_gold_and_the_break_up_of__the_us.mp3

Naw...not in the critique. But..maybe in the posts.

I didn't like what Bush said about not people using all 5 fingers. And he said it to people in another country with a culture different from ours.

Bush sure ducked fast.

His security people didn't move fast though. That's not good.

Afghanistan now supplies over 90 percent of the world’s heroin, generating nearly $200 billion in revenue. Since the U.S. invasion on Oct. 7, 2001, opium output has increased 33-fold (to over 8,250 metric tons a year).

The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for over seven years, has spent $177 billion in that country alone, and has the most powerful and technologically advanced military on Earth. GPS tracking devices can locate any spot imaginable by simply pushing a few buttons.

Still, bumper crops keep flourishing year after year, even though heroin production is a laborious, intricate process. The poppies must be planted, grown and harvested; then after the morphine is extracted it has to be cooked, refined, packaged into bricks and transported from rural locales across national borders. To make heroin from morphine requires another 12-14 hours of laborious chemical reactions. Thousands of people are involved, yet—despite the massive resources at our disposal—heroin keeps flowing at record levels.

http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/afghanistan-producing-more-heroin-than-ever/

haha wow...this is pretty incredible...

Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security secretary, is the TOP immigration official in the country.

Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official.

The company's owner says the workers sailed through the checks — although some of them turned out to be illegal immigrants.

Now, owner James Reid ... was fined $22,880 after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators said he failed to check identification and work documents and fill out required I-9 verification forms for employees, five of whom he said were part of crews sent to Chertoff's home and whom ICE told him to fire because they were undocumented.

"Our people need to know," said the Montgomery County businessman. "Our Homeland Security can't police their own home. How can they police our borders?"

Reid said he was referred to the Chertoffs in 2005 and worked mainly with the secretary's wife, Meryl Chertoff, an adjunct professor and director of the Sandra Day O'Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary at Georgetown Law School. Reid's calendar shows that the Chertoffs paid $185 per visit for his company to clean their suburban Maryland home.

By Joel S. Hirschhorn

November 30, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" -- Electing Barack Obama president was the first step in redeeming American democracy. The second step must be indicting ex-president George W. Bush, giving him a fair trial, finding him guilty of many criminal acts and putting him in prison. Forget revenge. Think rule of law and justice.

I want President Obama soon after taking office to go on television and announce the formation of a special group of outstanding jurists and attorneys to make a recommendation whether or not the US Justice Department should bring criminal charges against George W. Bush. Based on earlier analyses, including work by the American Bar Association, I have no doubt they will recommend indictment.

If moral honesty and courage have any meaning, then the nation must take seriously the concept that no president can ever be allowed to be above the law. How can President Obama not strongly support this? Surely no president must be allowed to disrespect and dishonor the US Constitution. George W. Bush broke his oath of office. His behavior was treasonous. Instead of defending the Constitution he disgraced it. Instead of protecting constitutional rights, including privacy, he sullied them. He asserted his right to ignore or not enforce laws so he could break them. Respect for the office of the presidency must never be allowed to trump truth and justice.

Millions and millions of Americans and people worldwide know that George W. Bush made 9/11 the trigger for initiating an illegal war in Iraq that has killed and maimed so many thousands of people. What Vincent Bugliosi, author of “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" called “the most serious crime ever committed in American history.” I say convict Bush of myriad counts of criminally negligent homicide related to both Iraq and the Katrina disaster and put him in prison. A former president in prison would not disgrace the presidency. It would restore honor to the office and the Constitution.

Surely millions more people now understand that George W. Bush bears responsibility for creating the conditions that encouraged greed-driven capitalism to rape and murder the middle class and push us into the current global economic meltdown. By removing government oversight and regulation he committed the greatest acts of fraud in the history of mankind. After he made American democracy delusional he made prosperity delusional.

We the people are paying the price for George W. Bush’s criminal acts and so must he. When George W. Bush is sent to prison everyone will see that American democracy has earned the respect of the world. Everyone will better understand that evil comes in many forms and that even an elected president of the United States of America can and must be recognized as a perpetrator of horrendous criminal acts.

Please President-elect Obama, make it so. Be the principled person we want you to be. Make the USA the nation it is supposed to be. Have the courage to do what Congress refused to do when it did not impeach George W. Bush. Change history by showing the world that American justice applies as equally to the president as it does to anyone else. Do not let George W. Bush escape the justice and prison sentence he deserves. Do not let respect for the presidency trump respect for justice. If we do not bring George W. Bush to justice that probably only you can make happen, then surely we do not restore respect for the office that you worked so hard to achieve.

To ensure that no future president behaves like George W. Bush we must punish him. Not merely through the words of historians, but through the physical punishment that he has inflicted on so many millions of people. In previous eras citizens would have demanded “off with his head.” Now we must demand “lock him up.” How poetic for a pro-torture ex-president. As summed up at www.imprisonbush.com : “Bush must be made accountable to the law, to serve as a lesson to all those who would attempt to destroy the American system of laws and liberty for the sake of their own power.” This is a test for both President Obama and American democracy.

If there is any kind of God in the universe, then George W. Bush must go to prison. When he does, then and only then should God bless America.

Formerly a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of nonfiction books, including Prosperity Without Pollution, Sprawl Kills and Delusional Democracy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20077.htm

These cuts hurt St. Louis deeply. People outside of our city are not aware of how much Anheuser-Busch is intertwined with our city and it's history. Over 1,000 people will be laid off in St. Louis.


By Jeremiah McWilliams, Tim Bryant and Tim Logan
Anheuser Busch is now called A-B InBev.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
12/09/2008

It didn't take long. Three weeks to the day after InBev, of Belgium, took over Anheuser-Busch, of St. Louis, the combined company announced sweeping cuts in its work force.

A-B InBev is slashing 1,400 salaried jobs in the U.S., with an additional 415 contractor positions eliminated as well, the company said Monday. More than 250 open positions in the U.S. will remain unfilled.

The cuts to eliminate overlapping staff were expected but were dramatic nevertheless. They were aimed squarely at Anheuser-Busch's St. Louis headquarters at One Busch Place.

More than 1,000 of the lost jobs are in St. Louis. The local cuts amount to more than 3 percent of A-B's full-time, global work force before the merger, or about 1 percent of the staff of the combined company. The primary groups affected are engineering, information technology and other corporate positions. The cuts will come at the Pestalozzi Street facility and at A-B's Sunset Hills campus, which houses IT and other functions.

The cuts by Anheuser-Busch InBev are part of an effort to eventually achieve $1.5 billion in annual "synergies." The company is under pressure to pay down $45 billion in debt that it needed to ink the takeover.

"These actions are pretty consistent with what InBev has done in other acquisitions," said bond analyst Craig Hutson. "It shouldn't be a surprise to too many people."

Big questions remain, including which areas could be cut next.

Monday's announcement might be the largest single blow, analysts said. Further cost savings could come from tightening benefits or perks. A-B InBev did not make executives available on Monday to discuss the actions.

"Anheuser has not been run as the most efficient of companies," said Hutson. It "has an opportunity to change that."

Cutting costs is entwined in InBev's corporate DNA, hearkening back to its roots in Brazilian investment banking. With billions of dollars in debt payments coming due, the company needs to cut rapidly to make good on its massive $52 billion investment in Anheuser-Busch.

"They're going to look at everything," including A-B's sweeping advertising budget, said Morningstar analyst Ann Gilpin. "I don't think anything is particularly safe."

CUTS AMID BEER BOOM

Outside A-B's corporate office complex on Lynch Street, it seemed like a typical Monday. Barley scented the air. Tour buses rumbled through. Employees came and went.

Most didn't want to talk about the cuts. They didn't know anything yet, they said, or they were worried for their jobs. A few shot dirty looks at the TV news crews that have become an all too common sight in recent months, as the merger with InBev progressed.

The mood inside was "somber," one woman said as she walked to the bank. No one knows just who will lose their jobs yet, she said, or whether there are more cuts to come.

"There's just a lot of uncertainty."

One fear is that InBev will be so aggressive with its cost cutting that it will end up hurting itself, Gilpin said. In the U.S. market, you have to spend money to make money, and losing top marketers or people with good relationships with crucial beer distributors could backfire, she said. Morale is already bad after InBev swooped in with what was, for all intents and purposes, a hostile bid.

One thing is clear. The cuts did not come because of business struggles at Anheuser-Busch. Shortly before the takeover, A-B posted the best quarterly results in recent memory. The company said it is "pleased" with its U.S. beer sales and will "continue to invest in growing our brands."

But in the meantime, there will be lots of empty chairs. Monday's announced cuts are in addition to the retirement of roughly 1,000 A-B employees this year under a $1 billion cost-cutting plan announced this summer. Busch Entertainment and the company's packaging division were left untouched in this round of layoffs. Members of the Teamsters union were also protected from the cuts.

"These decisions are a result of a careful review of each department," according to an e-mail to employees sent by A-B President Dave Peacock and Luiz Fernando Edmond, president of A-B InBev's North American zone. "These were not easy decisions, but were necessary for the organization."

The executives said the process would be "very difficult" because "many good workers who are trusted and valued in the organization will not remain."

A-B InBev said it will provide severance pay and pension benefits to affected employees based on age and years of service. Depending on those factors, laid-off employees will be eligible for as little as two weeks and as much as one year of severance pay at the rate of their full-time salary. They also will be offered outplacement services and other benefits during the transition.

The Missouri Division of Workforce Development said the state has offered to activate its "Rapid Response" team to meet with company officials and workers to help workers train for new careers.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., decried the timing and severity of the cuts.

"It's a real tough time to be let go," said Blair Forlaw, executive director of Greater St. Louis Works, a civic group that tries to keep technology talent in the area.

That said, St. Louis information technology jobs are open now in manufacturing, financial services and health care, which is undergoing the conversion to digital medical records, Forlaw said.

"It may be just a matter of getting your résumé updated and practicing your interviewing skills," she said.

Russ Signorino, a labor market analyst with the United Way of Greater St. Louis, said the cutbacks' effect on the region's economy will depend on the scope of the former employees' severance packages and how long they need to find new jobs. Even if the short-term consequence is slight, layoffs are painful when they involve "one of our great corporate citizens," Signorino said.

With roughly 6,000 local employees, Anheuser-Busch is the 11th-largest employer in the St. Louis area, according to Post-Dispatch calculations. The company has a Missouri payroll of $560 million and pays about $32 million annually in state and local taxes and fees.

InBev has promised to keep all 12 of A-B's U.S. breweries open, including the flagship in St. Louis. But analysts have predicted for months that deep cost cuts would be needed to justify the high price InBev paid to buy A-B. In addition, InBev chief executive Carlos Brito and his lieutenants have nurtured a reputation for relentlessly focusing on costs.

"To keep the business strong and competitive, this is a necessary but difficult move for the company," Peacock said in a statement Monday. "We will assist in the transition for these employees as much as possible."

These cuts hurt St. Louis deeply. People outside of our city are not aware of how much Anheuser-Busch is intertwined with our city and it's history. Over 1,000 people will be laid off in St. Louis.


By Jeremiah McWilliams, Tim Bryant and Tim Logan
Anheuser Busch is now called A-B InBev.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
12/09/2008

It didn't take long. Three weeks to the day after InBev, of Belgium, took over Anheuser-Busch, of St. Louis, the combined company announced sweeping cuts in its work force.

A-B InBev is slashing 1,400 salaried jobs in the U.S., with an additional 415 contractor positions eliminated as well, the company said Monday. More than 250 open positions in the U.S. will remain unfilled.

The cuts to eliminate overlapping staff were expected but were dramatic nevertheless. They were aimed squarely at Anheuser-Busch's St. Louis headquarters at One Busch Place.

More than 1,000 of the lost jobs are in St. Louis. The local cuts amount to more than 3 percent of A-B's full-time, global work force before the merger, or about 1 percent of the staff of the combined company. The primary groups affected are engineering, information technology and other corporate positions. The cuts will come at the Pestalozzi Street facility and at A-B's Sunset Hills campus, which houses IT and other functions.

The cuts by Anheuser-Busch InBev are part of an effort to eventually achieve $1.5 billion in annual "synergies." The company is under pressure to pay down $45 billion in debt that it needed to ink the takeover.

"These actions are pretty consistent with what InBev has done in other acquisitions," said bond analyst Craig Hutson. "It shouldn't be a surprise to too many people."

Big questions remain, including which areas could be cut next.

Monday's announcement might be the largest single blow, analysts said. Further cost savings could come from tightening benefits or perks. A-B InBev did not make executives available on Monday to discuss the actions.

"Anheuser has not been run as the most efficient of companies," said Hutson. It "has an opportunity to change that."

Cutting costs is entwined in InBev's corporate DNA, hearkening back to its roots in Brazilian investment banking. With billions of dollars in debt payments coming due, the company needs to cut rapidly to make good on its massive $52 billion investment in Anheuser-Busch.

"They're going to look at everything," including A-B's sweeping advertising budget, said Morningstar analyst Ann Gilpin. "I don't think anything is particularly safe."

CUTS AMID BEER BOOM

Outside A-B's corporate office complex on Lynch Street, it seemed like a typical Monday. Barley scented the air. Tour buses rumbled through. Employees came and went.

Most didn't want to talk about the cuts. They didn't know anything yet, they said, or they were worried for their jobs. A few shot dirty looks at the TV news crews that have become an all too common sight in recent months, as the merger with InBev progressed.

The mood inside was "somber," one woman said as she walked to the bank. No one knows just who will lose their jobs yet, she said, or whether there are more cuts to come.

"There's just a lot of uncertainty."

One fear is that InBev will be so aggressive with its cost cutting that it will end up hurting itself, Gilpin said. In the U.S. market, you have to spend money to make money, and losing top marketers or people with good relationships with crucial beer distributors could backfire, she said. Morale is already bad after InBev swooped in with what was, for all intents and purposes, a hostile bid.

One thing is clear. The cuts did not come because of business struggles at Anheuser-Busch. Shortly before the takeover, A-B posted the best quarterly results in recent memory. The company said it is "pleased" with its U.S. beer sales and will "continue to invest in growing our brands."

But in the meantime, there will be lots of empty chairs. Monday's announced cuts are in addition to the retirement of roughly 1,000 A-B employees this year under a $1 billion cost-cutting plan announced this summer. Busch Entertainment and the company's packaging division were left untouched in this round of layoffs. Members of the Teamsters union were also protected from the cuts.

"These decisions are a result of a careful review of each department," according to an e-mail to employees sent by A-B President Dave Peacock and Luiz Fernando Edmond, president of A-B InBev's North American zone. "These were not easy decisions, but were necessary for the organization."

The executives said the process would be "very difficult" because "many good workers who are trusted and valued in the organization will not remain."

A-B InBev said it will provide severance pay and pension benefits to affected employees based on age and years of service. Depending on those factors, laid-off employees will be eligible for as little as two weeks and as much as one year of severance pay at the rate of their full-time salary. They also will be offered outplacement services and other benefits during the transition.

The Missouri Division of Workforce Development said the state has offered to activate its "Rapid Response" team to meet with company officials and workers to help workers train for new careers.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., decried the timing and severity of the cuts.

"It's a real tough time to be let go," said Blair Forlaw, executive director of Greater St. Louis Works, a civic group that tries to keep technology talent in the area.

That said, St. Louis information technology jobs are open now in manufacturing, financial services and health care, which is undergoing the conversion to digital medical records, Forlaw said.

"It may be just a matter of getting your résumé updated and practicing your interviewing skills," she said.

Russ Signorino, a labor market analyst with the United Way of Greater St. Louis, said the cutbacks' effect on the region's economy will depend on the scope of the former employees' severance packages and how long they need to find new jobs. Even if the short-term consequence is slight, layoffs are painful when they involve "one of our great corporate citizens," Signorino said.

With roughly 6,000 local employees, Anheuser-Busch is the 11th-largest employer in the St. Louis area, according to Post-Dispatch calculations. The company has a Missouri payroll of $560 million and pays about $32 million annually in state and local taxes and fees.

InBev has promised to keep all 12 of A-B's U.S. breweries open, including the flagship in St. Louis. But analysts have predicted for months that deep cost cuts would be needed to justify the high price InBev paid to buy A-B. In addition, InBev chief executive Carlos Brito and his lieutenants have nurtured a reputation for relentlessly focusing on costs.

"To keep the business strong and competitive, this is a necessary but difficult move for the company," Peacock said in a statement Monday. "We will assist in the transition for these employees as much as possible."

Conservatives Lost More Than an Election


By Chuck Baldwin

That Barack Obama trounced John McCain last Tuesday should have surprised no one. In fact, in this column, weeks ago, I stated emphatically that John McCain could no more beat Barack Obama than Bob Dole could beat Bill Clinton. He didn’t. (Hence a vote for John McCain was a “wasted” vote, was it not?) I also predicted that Obama would win with an electoral landslide. He did. The real story, however, is not how Barack Obama defeated John McCain. The real story is how John McCain defeated America’s conservatives.

For all intents and purposes, conservatism–as a national movement–is completely and thoroughly dead. Barack Obama did not destroy it, however. It was George W. Bush and John McCain who destroyed conservatism in America.

Soon after G.W. Bush was elected, it quickly became obvious he was no conservative. On the contrary, George Bush has forever established himself as a Big-Government, warmongering, internationalist neocon. Making matters worse was the way Bush presented himself as a conservative Christian. In fact, Bush’s portrayal of himself as a conservative Christian paved the way for the betrayal and ultimate destruction of conservatism (something I also predicted years ago). And the greatest tragedy of this deception is the way that Christian conservatives so thoroughly (and stupidly) swallowed the whole Bush/McCain neocon agenda.

For example, Bush and his fellow neocons like to categorize and promote themselves as being “pro-life,” but they have no hesitation or reservation about killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in reckless and unconstitutional foreign wars. By the same token, how many unborn babies were saved by six years of all three branches of the federal government being under the control of these “pro-life” neocons? Not one! Ask the more than eight million unborn babies who were killed in their mothers’ wombs during the last eight years how “pro-life” George W. Bush and John McCain are.

As a result of this insanely inconsistent and pixilated punditry, millions of Americans now laugh at the very notion of “pro-life” conservatism. Bush and McCain have made a mockery of the very term.

Consider, too, the way Bush and McCain have allowed the international bankers on Wall Street to bilk America’s taxpayers out of trillions of dollars. Yes, I know Obama also supported the Wall Street bailout, but it was the Republican Party that controlled the White House for the last eight years and the entire federal government for six out of the last eight years. In fact, the GOP has won seven out of the previous ten Presidential elections. They have controlled Supreme Court appointments for the past thirty-plus years. They have appointed the majority of Treasury secretaries and Federal Reserve chairmen. They have presided over the greatest trade imbalances, the biggest deficits, the biggest spending increases, and now the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.

Again, the American people look at these so-called “conservatives” and laugh. No wonder such a sizeable majority of voters yawned when John McCain tried to scare them by accusing Barack Obama of being a “big taxer.” How can one possibly scare people with a charge like that after the GOP has made a total mockery of fiscal conservatism? That’s like trying to scare someone coming out from a swim in the Gulf of Mexico with a squirt gun.

Then there was the pathetic attempt by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to scare gun owners regarding an Obama White House. Remember that John McCain is the same guy that the NRA rightly condemned for proposing his blatantly unconstitutional McCain/Feingold bill. McCain is also the same guy that tried to close down gun shows. He even made a personal campaign appearance for a pro-gun control liberal in the State of Oregon a few short years ago. In fact, the Gun Owners of America (GOA) gave McCain a grade of “F” for his dismal record on Second Amendment issues. Once again, Chicken Little-style paranoia over Barack Obama rang hollow when the alternative was someone as liberal as John McCain.

But the worst calamity of this election was the way conservatives–especially Christian conservatives–surrendered their principles for the sake of political partisanship. The James Dobsons of this country should hang their heads in shame! Not only did they lose an election, they lost their integrity!

In South Carolina, for example, pro-life Christians and conservatives had an opportunity to vote for a principled conservative-constitutionalist for the U.S. Senate. He is pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and pro-traditional marriage. He believes in securing our borders against illegal immigration. He is against the bailout for the Wall Street banksters. His conservative credentials are unassailable. But the vast majority of Christian conservatives (including those at Bob Jones University) voted for his liberal opponent instead.

The man that the vast majority of Christian conservatives voted for in South Carolina is a Big-Government neocon. He supported the bailout of the Wall Street banksters. He is a rabid supporter of granting amnesty and a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. In fact, this man has a conservative rating of only 29% in the current Freedom Index of the New American Magazine.

Why did Christian conservatives support the liberal neocon and not the solid pro-life conservative? Because the conservative ran as a Democrat and the neocon is a Republican. I’m talking about the race between Bob Conley and Lindsey Graham, of course.

Had South Carolina’s pastors, Christians, evangelicals, and pro-life conservatives voted for Bob Conley, he would be the new senator-elect from that state. In fact, Bob was so conservative that the Democratic leadership in South Carolina endorsed the Republican, Lindsey Graham! No matter. A majority of evangelical Christians in South Carolina stupidly rejected Bob Conley and voted for Graham.

Across the country, rather than stand on principle, hundreds of thousands of pastors, Christians, and pro-life conservatives capitulated and groveled before John McCain’s neocon agenda. In doing so, they forfeited any claim to truth, and they abandoned any and all fidelity to constitutional government. They should rip the stories of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of their Bibles. They should never again tell their children, parishioners, and radio audiences the importance of standing for truth and principle. They have made a mockery of Christian virtue. No wonder a majority of the voting electorate laughs at us Christians. No wonder the GOP crashed and burned last Tuesday.

Again, it wasn’t Barack Obama who destroyed conservatism; it was George W. Bush, John McCain, and the millions of evangelical Christians who supported them. And until conservatives find their backbone and their convictions, they deserve to remain a burnt-out, has-been political force. They have no one to blame but themselves.

And since it is unlikely that the Republican Party has enough sense to understand any of this and will, therefore, do little to reestablish genuine conservative principles, it is probably best to just go ahead and bury the scoundrels now and move on to something else. Without a sincere commitment to constitutional government, the GOP has no justifiable reason to ever govern again. Therefore, put a fork in them. They are done. Let a new entity arise from the ashes: one that will stand for something more than just “the lesser of two evils.” As we say in the South, That dog just won’t hunt anymore.

Corporations been shipping a lot of jobs overseas for a long time anyway, so what's the difference if cars are made by the Chinese or Detroit workers?

you missed it

if china buys them and we nationalize them china loses the companies

many countries have invited foreign investment but then nationalized the invested companies

thus the investors lost their investment

I agree with you but it could be a blessing in disguise...that is if we can get these lard arse DEMS to do what needs to be done instead of dwelling on things like natl. healthcare, the fairness doctrine, gay fascism & stalling on alternative energy. Two years folks.

Exactly what we did with AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac!

What's the difference if China nationalizes them or we do?

Answer: China will pay for them.

And I don't think they'd continue to make big gas-guzzling behemoths either.

Evil Concealed by Money

A MINORITY VIEW

BY
Dr. Walter E. Williams

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2008

Evil acts can be given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding socialistic expressions such as spreading the wealth, income redistribution or caring for the less fortunate. Let's think about socialism.

Imagine there's an elderly widow down the street from you. She has neither the strength to mow her lawn nor enough money to hire someone to do it. Here's my question to you that I'm almost afraid for the answer: Would you support a government mandate that forces one of your neighbors to mow the lady's lawn each week? If he failed to follow the government orders, would you approve of some kind of punishment ranging from house arrest and fines to imprisonment? I'm hoping that the average American would condemn such a government mandate because it would be a form of slavery, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

Would there be the same condemnation if instead of the government forcing your neighbor to physically mow the widow's lawn, the government forced him to give the lady $40 of his weekly earnings? That way the widow could hire someone to mow her lawn. I'd say that there is little difference between the mandates. While the mandate's mechanism differs, it is nonetheless the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

Probably most Americans would have a clearer conscience if all the neighbors were forced to put money in a government pot and a government agency would send the widow a weekly sum of $40 to hire someone to mow her lawn. This mechanism makes the particular victim invisible but it still boils down to one person being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another. Putting the money into a government pot makes palatable acts that would otherwise be deemed morally offensive.

This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means, coercion or taking the property of one person, to accomplish good ends, helping one's fellow man. Helping one's fellow man in need, by reaching into one's own pockets, is a laudable and praiseworthy goal. Doing the same through coercion and reaching into another's pockets has no redeeming features and is worthy of condemnation.

Some people might contend that we are a democracy where the majority agrees to the forcible use of one person for the good of another. But does a majority consensus confer morality to an act that would otherwise be deemed as immoral? In other words, if a majority of the widow's neighbors voted to force one neighbor to mow her law, would that make it moral?

I don't believe any moral case can be made for the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another. But that conclusion is not nearly as important as the fact that so many of my fellow Americans give wide support to using people. I would like to think it is because they haven't considered that more than $2 trillion of the over $3 trillion federal budget represents Americans using one another. Of course, they might consider it compensatory justice. For example, one American might think, "Farmers get Congress to use me to serve the needs of some farmers. I'm going to get Congress to use someone else to serve my needs by subsidizing my child's college education."

The bottom line is that we've become a nation of thieves, a value rejected by our founders. James Madison, the father of our Constitution, was horrified when Congress appropriated $15,000 to help French refugees. He said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." Tragically, today's Americans would run Madison out of town on a rail.

Except maybe what will be left in your pocket after OBAMA & the DEMS get done with you. OBAMA promised change but it looks more like a washington insider free for all. It looks more like they are helping themselves instead of John Q. Public. So much for change. So much for getting the economy going & job creation. they just want to keep a permanent underclass for more & more people. Govt. healthcare???? Looks more like socialistic communism to me. TWO YEARS!

President-elect promised change, picking insiders

Nov 20 05:20 AM US/Eastern
By KEVIN FREKING
Associated Press Writer 115 Comments


Number Of 'Clintonians' In Obama's Cabinet Raises Eyebrows


WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama promised the voters change but has started his Cabinet selection process by naming several Washington insiders to top posts.

Obama is enlisting former Senate leader Tom Daschle as his health secretary. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a well-known Washington personality, seemed more likely than ever to be his secretary of state. Clinton is deciding whether to take that post as America's top diplomat, her associates said Wednesday

Obama is ready to announce that his attorney general will be Eric Holder, the Justice Department's No. 2 when Clinton's husband was president. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, is another veteran of the Clinton White House.

Daschle's selection to head the Health and Human Services Department—confirmed Wednesday but not yet announced—isn't at the same level of Cabinet prestige as the top spots at the State and Justice departments. But the health post could be more important in an Obama administration than in some others, making Daschle a key player in helping steer the president-elect's promised health care reforms.

Daschle could push Obama for quick action on health care reform next year, if he follows his own advice.

Daschle said efforts during the Clinton administration, led by Hillary Clinton, took too long and went into too much detail, giving every interest group an opportunity to find something they didn't like about the plan.

"The next president should act immediately to capitalize on the goodwill that greets any incoming administration. If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it," Daschle wrote in a book he released this year, "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis." "This issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol."

The former South Dakota senator's return to the government will be a vindication of sorts. He was the Senate Democratic leader when he was defeated in 2004 by Republican John Thune, who convinced voters back home that Daschle was more concerned with Washington than with them.

In fact, Daschle stayed in the capital city after his defeat, becoming a public policy adviser and member of the legislative and public policy group at the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird. Daschle isn't registered as a lobbyist. He advises clients on issues including health care, financial services, taxes and trade, according to the firm's Web site.

Health care interests, including CVS Caremark, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Abbott Laboratories and HealthSouth, are among the firm's lobbying clients.

Daschle's appointment was not formally announced, but Democratic officials said the job was his barring an unforeseen problem as Obama's team reviews his background. One area of review will include the lobbying connections of his wife, Linda Hall Daschle, who has worked mostly on behalf of airline-related companies over the years. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Republicans sniped at what they saw as an unwelcome trend. Alex Conant, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said, "Barack Obama is filling his administration with longtime Washington insiders."


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