Texas Rep. Joe Barton Backpedals On BP Apology: Oil Giant 'Should Be Held Responsible'

That must have been one heck of a come to Jesus meeting amongst the GOP.
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New York Dems Standing Strong For Wall Street

I am a hardcore Democrat and even I must ask, "Surely you jest?" What politicians would not do for money is a far better question. Meanwhile, the rest of the snookered public mmm, I mean the rest of the other 49 states and territories have to risk funding the same robber barons again without the weak conditions set in the now infamous financial reform bill.



When will we face it that we are marginally better off than in the 1920's with corporations more powerful and valuable than people? Yet, like then it is the people who time and again right the ship when it flounders. A little gratitude would be if they, the politicians, would think for once about us before their re-elections and pocketbooks.



I can dream can't I?
About The Financial Fix
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Jarretta Hamilton, Teacher Fired For Having Premarital Sex, Sues Southland Christian School (VIDEO)

Sometimes folks claiming to be Christians shame me. Their is not the God I serve.



What happened to forgiveness and love?
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Obama Warns Of 'Massive Layoffs Of Teachers, Police, And Firefighters'

The 50 billion needed was hacked off of the first stimulus bill by blue dogs and Maine Republican Senators. The depression took more than one stimulus to beat back massive unemployment. Obviously we need to fund programs like the WPA and the 1970's retraining program CETA in order to get people working, grow the economy AND pay taxes that will go toward reducing the deficit. I wonder where these political geniuses think the money to lower the debt will come from...rich people? Working people pay taxes and taxes go to the treasury to pay our bills like giving China their money back with interest.



Putting people back to work is infinitely more cost efficient than just funding unemployment insurance programs. Crazy as it seems spending more money on employing people rebuild our sagging infrastructure (like funding R&D for solving far offshore drilling disasters so we CAN do the job and bill the heck out of the oil companies for cleaning up behind them), keep essential government employees on the job, and retrain Americans laid off from jobs in industries that no longer exist for jobs that are in need of filling and those just created.



Workers helped reduce the deficit in the 1990's and can again with the right help. Spend the money on Americans to get back to work!
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Obama and the Oil Spill: Can We Tolerate a President Who Refuses to Make Us Feel Better?

And you think that the President has not sought out alternatives? The problem is is that presently there are no alternatives. The industry developed drilling technology to drill further and deeper but did not develop techniques to repair damages from drilling accidents that are further and deeper.



What can the President do? He is a lawyer not a mechanical engineer.
About Gulf Oil Spill
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Fareed Zakaria Criticizes Media Attention On Obama Oil Spill Emotion (VIDEO)

I ask again, what would you have the President do? The technology to repair the gaping hole gushing oil does not exist. BP and others are trying to develop it now. Are they too late? Yes, the technology to repair accidents should have been fund along with the technology to drill further out and down. Should BP pay through the nose? Ya durn skippy they should! More importantly, is to like the financial crisis, develop new regulations to guard against this type of massive environmental damage and to actually enforce them.



I have a direct stake in seeing the gaping hole gushing oil be closed and the clean-up of the barrier islands and estuaries off the coast of Louisiana occur. New Orleans is where I was born and raised and it is also where the bulk of my immediate family resides. I grieve the despoiling of the ares where the country's best seafood grew. Yet, Louisiana is a petrochemical state and surely as the raising of the sun it will quickly get back to drilling and siphoning oil from the Gulf.

What would have the President do?
About Gulf Oil Spill
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Fareed Zakaria Criticizes Media Attention On Obama Oil Spill Emotion (VIDEO)

Well, now I don't feel so lonely. As we say in church...Amen!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

My mother's grandfather (b 1848) and her grandmother (b 1852) were slaves. Obviously, they were children but, they were born as property. Slavery is not distant to me. The onerousness of it still reeks. This country cannot afford to forget nor can it gussy-up such an awful sin. America began with hostages and it will have to bear forever its choice to be slaveholders. There is no amount of time that can lessen the fact that America held for centuries black people in bondage and subjugation.



No part of history is past.

Its importance is to know it in order to refrain from repeating it.
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Actually Jason, Obama Is Short on Drama

From reading the above and other of your responses there is nothing the President can do in this or any other matter that would satisfy you. I voted for him. I was born and raised in Louisiana and lived there until Katrina happened. My family still lives there. We have people in our family who make a living off of the rigs in the Gulf. We have friends who made a living off of seafood in the Gulf. There is nothing a President, governor or mayor can do but press the same industry that made the mess to fix it. Unfortunately, that fix will take time. Petrochemical accidents are a sad but factual part of life in an area and state that depends so heavily upon that industry for jobs and revenue. Louisiana took the risk. Louisiana pays the price.



We all are responsible for the greedy oil companies being so successful and greedy. We depend upon fossil fuels that are harder and harder to find anew. Until we conserve and wean ourselves off oil more incidents like BP's mess will occur.



Finally, the President has accepted REPEATEDLY the responsibility for the BP mess even the it was the MMS of the Bush agency that had run amok. Truth is you voted for the other guy and he would have been a lot worse than Bush.
About Gulf Oil Spill
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Actually Jason, Obama Is Short on Drama

This is simply not true. This President unlike Bush responded to the disaster immediately. Unlike Bush who didn't send the Army in with water, food, and medicine quickly to New Orleans for Katrina and Rita can not be equated to plugging a gaping hole in an oil pipeline. The fact that the INDUSTRY failed to develop recovery systems to meet their rapidly developing technology that allows deeper and further oil well drilling is key. No amount of yelling, hand wringing or stomping of feet can make the plugging go any faster. Keeping BP's feet to the fire is the best the government can do and making sure that the environmental clean-up workers are safe. The government does not have the technology that the oil companies have. So what should he do?



Your criticism is incorrect. There are things, important things that the government is not doing now that I think have a more significant impact on the people and the environment and that is JOBS! If you criticize him about that I would handily join you. Him not weeping and gnashing his teeth about the biggest oil spill in American history is appropriate.The government should be watching BP, building criminal and civil cases against the companies involved in the spill, monitoring the safety and health of the clean-up workers, finding out how much oil was spilled, and making sure those businesses and industries that have lost their ability to make a living get their financial compensation.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

We Need to Stop Leaning into Scalia's Punches

And Scalia doesn't push his own ideas? Surely you jest.
About Supreme Court
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Alabama's Defeated Gun-Toting, Obama-Dissing YouTube All-Stars, Remembered (VIDEO)

God is merciful.
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Israel's Kent State: After Flotilla Massacre, Netanyahu Cannot Come

I support the existence of the state of Israel. As a lawful nation it cannot usurp the international laws and remain in good standing. An attack on a flotilla of humanitarian aid to a blockaded Gaza in international waters has no defense. This aggression is beneath Israel. It serves only to reinforce the claims of their enemies and place their friends in a position of defending the indefensible that weakens us all.



Once we had an administration that brought us to woe and shame throughout the world. We changed that. Israel needs to change theirs too.
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TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

There is a bridge in Orleans Parish I have to sell you. So far, God has spared us Jindal.
About Meet the Press
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TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

Nice surprise. The fat cat and I are jockeying for fan supremacy while we enjoy the teevee silence. Good to know that we have absolutely no reason to turn it on.



Our family motto: "Better you than me." Welcome to the family Jason!
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Glenn Beck Attacks President's Daughter -- Days After Insisting That Families Of Public Figures Should Not Be Attacked (AUDIO) [UPDATE]

What a despicable excuse of a man...to pick on a child.
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Roy Sekoff On 'Ed Show': Oil Spill 'Gush Cam' Clashes With Obama's Cool Confidence (VIDEO)

What would Roy have the President do? Some of this over the top histrionics by a bevvy of armchair quarterbacks aggravates my soul. If you are so darn het up over the spill Roy then go down to Louisiana and wash brown pelicans.



This is a man made disaster that has no quick fixes as much as anyone with a heartbeat would desire. What is desperately needed is for the engineers and inventors to pull off a miracle and save Louisiana.



Now ask Jindal and others in Louisiana if they will give up oil and gas drilling since the clean-up and repair technology is so far behind the drilling and exploration techniques.



Again, what do you want the President to do?
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FCC Re-Designation of Broadband Will Bring Unwanted Market Uncertainty

What a chucklehead! This corporatist kind of thinking is exactly why the DLC is a useless bunch of tools. At what point and under what circumstance would the DLC brainiacs support main streeters?
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Venus Williams' French Open Outfit: Risque & Revealing (PHOTOS)

Hmmp! If I had Venus' body I would not bother to clothe it. Why hide all that? That's why I am forced to inhabit this body.
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Why This is Obama's Katrina Moment -- Literally

Who died and made Harry Shearer an expert on New Orleans and/or Louisiana?



I am sick of this guy spouting off as if he knows everything about the city and the state. I was born and raised there. I was there for Katrina. My family has been in Louisiana since 1790.



There is a marked difference between Katrina a natural disaster made much, much worse by the historic arrogance of the US Corps of Engineers. The hurricane was natural the flooding was man made.



BP's oil flood is that of their making. The law says *they* have to clean it up. The technology for cleaning up oil spills in deep water by an industry allowed to run amok for 8 years with hardly any regulatory oversight is obviously insufficient. They are making it up as they go along. What in the heck can the President do? Go skim oil himself? What a crock! For Katrina, the failure to aid the poor and marginalized was that ALONE of government at all levels. For Katrina, the multiple levee breeches were the responsibility of the government, the federal government alone.



THERE IS NO comparison between the two events.



The histrionics of James Carville aside, the President does not need to go down to Louisiana to try to save Louisiana from BP.



I do believe somebodies ought to go to jail for this mess.



I am sick of the 20% lording it over the rest of the city. Yeah, Harry
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Chuck DeVore, California Senate Candidate, Pretends Jack Bauer Really Exists In Strange Campaign Ad (VIDEO)

"Crazy is as crazy does." a paraphrase of his "Stupid is as stupid does." quote which might also work. -by Forrest Gump
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New GOP Initiative Stumbles Early, Poster Calls For Repealing Civil Rights Act

I'll repeat what I said elsewhere here since it is appropriate: I miss some Republicans with ideas.
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TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

There simply is not enough money or mind altering drugs to enable me to do your Sunday Liveblog job. Hats off to you. I simply couldn't do it.



I dislike intensely MTP so I avoid NBC until after the local news is off and then I watch reruns of mindless old movies that I find more informative.



Everybody, Happy Memorial Day! To the men and women who serve in any capacity of protecting the citizens of this country from harm I say that you have the heartfelt thanks of me, a very grateful citizen to you.
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Bill Maher Describes Rand Paul: It's As If Sarah Palin Made It Through Med School (VIDEO)

Add to what you've said that Libertarianism is designed for healthy, white, straight, males and you have the complete picture. Oh, and they like using the government services they just don't want to pay for them.



I think that humanity has progressed enough to realize that this planet is small and that compassion and community are our greatest strengths.



Read Martin Luther King's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.



We are better than selfish greed.
About Rand Paul
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Support Jack Shepard, The Arsonist, For Congress

After a long hard day to receive this gem, priceless. How hilarious is this?
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Stewart Hammers Conservatives For Hypocritical Obama-Bush Comparisons (VIDEO)

Jon Stewart is the absolute best at getting square to the point while making a sad thing funny enough to take your mind off just how serious the mess-up is.



Thanks for that!
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Anderson Cooper Slams 'Birther' Army Officer For Hiding Behind His Lawyer During Interview (VIDEO)

At this point why bother arguing with crazies? You can never convince them that they are wrong. They are so filled up with anger and hatred that reason is ignored.



You cannot make them believe the truth.
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Bloomberg 'Terror Gap' Argument Shot Down By Pro-Gun GOP Senators

This is an obvious case of pandering. Giving the people who want to kill us protected access to the tools with which to do it is simply nuts. Then again the desire to restrict the Constitutional rights of people who violate the law so that they would be brought before a kangaroo court screams of disingenuousness. You would think that we would be united when we are attacked instead of indulging in this partisan bickering.



9/11 Bush was President Bush and even though I am a partisan Democrat I was behind him because he was like I am an American. Come what may we will survive together or fail separately.
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LeBron James Wins MVP In LANDSLIDE

Good for you Mr. James! I like to watch you work. Here's hoping you get that ring too.
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Obama Michigan Graduation Speech: President's Advice To Class Of 2010

We have a good President. While I have differences with him on the environment (drilling), DADT, the too small stimulus bill, and no WPA/CETA jobs program geared toward the upgrade of our utilities and crumbling infrastructure; I have no fear the he will get us into p*ss*ng contest with some crazed country spoiling for a fight. I sleep a heck of lot better at night since he was elected.



He ain't perfect but he surely will do just fine.
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Nevada Senate: 2010 Election BREAKING News

Harry Reid is a tough guy. He has impressed me with his persistence, tenacity, and heart. Howard Dean said that Reid at one time was a boxer. I believe him.



Good Luck Senator Reid!
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Louisiana Oil Spill Gets Worse: New Leak Increases Estimated Spill By Five Times

I am sad to agree with you. My family and friends live in New Orleans. I also worry about the effects the spill will have on human's too.



Some of the best oysters in the country come from off the shore of Louisiana. I grieve their loss.



A rare thing now will be an oyster po' boy.
About Gulf Oil Spill
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Louisiana Oil Spill Gets Worse: New Leak Increases Estimated Spill By Five Times

I was saying I fervently hope that the disaster that this spill is can be halted and kept from killing some of the very best things about living in Louisiana.
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Sanctimonious Deficit Hawks Target Social Safety Net

I am truly sickened by these men. They feed off the public trough and refuse the same for those in need to receive enough to keep them from being broke.



Why are not these people like Peterson jailed or at least sued into abject poverty for destroying people's lives?
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Erickson Shotgun-Census Remark: Commerce Dept. Pushes Back

Please let them not fill out and/or mail the census. It will serve them right!
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Jon Stewart Shows C-SPAN How To Handle Racist Callers (VIDEO)

I think Jon should have been more polite...click works for me. My motto? "Annoyed by what you hear over the phone? Click 'em off!"



The C-Span guy just looked scared.
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Foster Parents In Their 80s Have Raised Over 80 Children

No, 80's TEENAGERS! I concur God bless them because this is exactly what I was taught to do in church...care for others. It is wonderful to see such a fine living example of that.
About Brian Williams
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Senate Dems Pass Health Care Reconciliation Package

You are very right. The following generations will not have to decide between paying an insurance premium, paying their mortgage or eating. They also can get sick, get well and still get insurance.



We will get something better than a public option...single payer I believe in the future and no longer be bound to greedy health insurance providers.



I want to live long enough to see that.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

JPMorgan Chase Report Says Enhanced Unemployment Benefits Increase Unemployment

I've only one question: Is counterintuitive a euphemism for wishful thinking or lying?
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Extra Security For Members Of Congress After Activist, Tea Party Threats

My questions are these: At what point do we call the teabaggers terrorists? Do we wait until they kill someone before we call them terrorists? Or is it because they are citizens and white do we continue to call them activists while they threaten duly elected government officials' lives?



What is wrong with some of our people that they would make threats against the lives of elected officials over political differences when they have the power to vote them out? How angry must you be to do that?



Do they feel no shame? Why?
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'Daily Show' Takes On Financial Regulatory Reform, Explains Dodgy Wall Street Practices (VIDEO)

I remember just after President Obama was inaugurated he had an interview on 60 Minutes with Steve Kroft who asked questions about the financial crisis. At a point the President laughed. Kroft was surprised by that and uttered, "You laugh?" And the President replied..."Gallows humor." Because what the financial guys did was legal and no one would be punished.



Well, I laughed at Jon Stewart's clip and then fully realized exactly what the President meant. I was laughing because unless a better law is developed than what was presented we will get taken again by the same guys in practically the same way. It really is a shame.
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Senator Kaufman: Fraud Still at the Heart of Wall Street

It is disgraceful that clear, honest speech, and thinking are expressed by those who know the Senate's sins ( a former staffer) are office placeholders like Senator Kaufman. Is it too much to ask that these knowledgeable men and women not be wasted on temporary placements but are encouraged to run for office even if they would endure a single term?



This country needs better than we have with this broken Senate. More men and women like Senator Kaufman need to be THE senator rather than holding a place for the next charlatan with good hair and a tan to arrive and continue the obstruction and/or selling out the people of the United States.



Kudos to Senator Kaufman, now run for that office because America needs you.
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TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

Ma's teevee was loud so even though I tried not to be exposed to MTP I was relieved that:



1. David Gregory was not on

2. Karl Rove sounded dim

3. David Brooks is still one columnist to be skipped

4. The NYT has a lot to answer for



And the winner? #1 No David Gregory! When will NBC get the hint and fire that guy? I bet the ratings are high today too.



Back to my Sunday nap.
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Rahm Emanuel: Obama's Chief Of Sabotage

Like all Presidents, Mr. Obama will get rid of those people he believes are ineffective or inappropriate for the direction he wants to go. My sincere hope is that he remove all of the vestiges of the not really Democratic Leadership Council. They were the problem. They still are the problem.



The DLC are the reason we have useless Senators like Nelson of Nebraska and Lieberman of Connecticut among others obstructing the will of the majority of the American people. Their tin ears for for compromising at the wrong times, with the wrong issues and for the wrong reasons are precisely why we are in the predicament now concerning heath care, a decidedly right wing activist Supreme Court, crumbling infrastructure and little environmental progress. The DLC folks are corporatists who fear the loss of access to corporate dollars that keep them in office. Like the heartless Republicans they have no love for the people and it shows.



Shame on them.
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GOP Sen. Kyl: Unemployment Benefits Make People Not Want To Get A Job

Rich old geezers with tax payer funded salaries and benefits would refuse assistance to out of work folks because the very corporations (Banks and insurance companies) crashed the system and put them out of work. The citizens who are unemployed are paying for the mess that the Republicans made by trying to SURVIVE on unemployment benefits and yet Bunning and Kyl say that they are being lazy...how more heartless can Republicans be?



Finally, folks need to remember what these mean old men said and did to help them.



They have no shame but they really should.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Clyburn Denounces King For Making Excuses For IRS Attack (VIDEO)

Kudos to Rep. Clyburn.



King like his crazy Libertarian folks who seem to think that any organization and even a country can operate on wishes and good thoughts rather than money. He needs to use his socialist health care for multiple visits with a mental health care provider.



When it benefits them it's OK. When it benefits someone else it's un-American. Be ashamed Iowa for inflicting that bag of wind on the rest of us.
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John Mayer Apologizes: I Was 'Arrogant' To Use N-Word

What a jerk and sexist pig! He knew what he was saying. He just thought that he was hip/cool enough to say it. It amazes me that white folks seem to loathe being denied free use of the N-word yet they keep on trying it.
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John Mayer Apologizes: I Was 'Arrogant' To Use N-Word

What a jerk! Sexist pig. General knucklehead. It is obvious he felt safe in saying what he did. His apology is too little and way too late.



It amazes me that white folks feel short changed by being denied free use of the N-word. Yet, they do keep trying.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Harold Ford Backs Pointless Deficit Commission

The guy is a DLC tool. He needs to get a real job and leave us alone. Worthless. Simply worthless.
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Pat Robertson: Haiti 'Cursed' By 'Pact To The Devil' (VIDEO)

I am a Christian. I am ashamed of this guy who claims the same God as I do. My God said that we would be judged by how we treat "the least of thee'" My course self just thinks that Robertson is just a tool. Haiti had an earthquake and stands in need of everyone's help. I remember how it feels to be disoriented and how it was the caring of friends, family and strangers that made Katrina less of a disaster for me and my family.



Shame on you Pat Robertson you make Christianity seem soulless and heartless.
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Harry Reid 'Negro' Comment: Reid Apologizes For 'No Negro Dialect' Comment

So much noise for such trivial issue. Mark Halperin's name alone should raise one's instant suspicions that this is not important. In the scheme of things we are battling in our community Sen. Reid's opinion about the President don't matter as much as decent heath care and jobs providing living wages.
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A Message For the New Decade

Baloney.
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Fed Chairman Blames Banks For Continued High Unemployment

What is needed are WPA and CCC programs that put people to work rebuilding our ifrastructure and parks. Yhe programs should be federal and hot state gimmies.



Credit unions are strong and lending. Put your money there.
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Civil War In Corporate America: Banks Battling The Chamber On Accounting Rules

Each day I loathe banking and insurance firms more. It seems that each day they offer up more reasons for me to feel this way.



Crazy as those weirdly self-name Teabaggers are I feel them about the banks. This accord is so scary for me a left wing Progressive to ponder.
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Fed Chair Balks At Speed-Up Of Credit-Card Rules

I still believe in the President but even he has to be able to read the tea leaves... new non-Goldman Sachs leaders at the Fed and at the Treasury the majority of Americans have been taken far enough on this merry ride to monetary hell. Fire them Mr. President! Give us some hope that the direction has changed and fire those guys and put some folks who are sensitive ones to us and our financial plight.
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Alexander McQueen's 10-Inch Stilettos Shock Paris: To Die For Or Will Kill You? (PHOTOS, POLL)

Its official, women are back as fashion sheep. There should have been a stampede out of the show with a peek of the very ugly torture devices that was being palmed off as fashion shoes.



Where's the progress in this?
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Obama Speech Twitter Reaction: Read Multiple Feeds From Newsmakers

Whomever called the President of the United States in the joint session of Congress a liar needs to be identified and pointed to as crass and despicable. I am so angry about that I could just spit.
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The Life of Service of a Flawed Good Man

I am a Christian. I believe in God's forgiveness. I believe in the power of redemption. The greatest charge that Jesus left us with is the care for the "least of thee." For that reason alone Senator Kennedy's life speaks well of him.

Most times the person asking God for forgiveness is the last person who forgives himself. I am not surprised that the Senator grieved his actions that caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. I am not surprised that he bore that burden his entire life. To his detractors I say that the Senator got away with nothing. Every article written about him after Ms. Kopechne's death always included a reference to it. I cannot imagine living with condemnation for decades. I do think that it was for him a harsh punishment in and of itself.

God loves him in spite of the wrong things he did. I love him because of all of the right things he did unselfishly for America. He was a good man with flaws but a good man to the end. I miss him already.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost