In God We Trust

Jan W. Says:

16 February 2008 at 1:09 pm.

Hi Carrie. I’ve checked in a couple of times but nothing seems to be going on. I’m kind of down today. Maybe everyone else is too.

Matt Says:

16 February 2008 at 1:28 pm.

This is a terrible article for McCain. I think it is easy to see what is going on here. They protected him against Romney and made Romney look like a idiot for attacking King McCain. Now they are doing it because the establishment wanted him for two reasons. First, just in case something happens and McCain wins in Nov. then that is okay. But really they want a democrat in there and they know how easy McCain will be to discredit.

McCain’s sharp tongue: An Achilles heel?

WASHINGTON - Temper, temper. Republican John McCain is known for his. He’s been dubbed “Senator Hothead” by more than one publication, but he’s also had some success extracting his hatchet from several foreheads.
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Even his Republican Senate colleagues are not spared his sharp tongue.

“F— you,” he shouted at Texas Sen. John Cornyn last year.

“Only an a—— would put together a budget like this,” he told the former Budget Committee chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, in 1999.

“I’m calling you a f—— jerk!” he once retorted to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

With Cornyn, he smoothed things over quickly. The two argued during a meeting on immigration legislation; Cornyn complained that McCain seemed to parachute in during the final stages of negotiations. “F— you. I know more about this than anyone else in the room,” McCain reportedly shouted.

Cornyn chuckled at the memory of what he called McCain’s “aggressive expressions of differences.” The Texan has endorsed McCain.

“He almost immediately apologized to me,” Cornyn said last week. “I accepted his apology, and as far as I’m concerned, we’ve moved on down the road.”

The political landscape in Arizona, McCain’s home state, is littered with those who have incurred his wrath. Former Gov. Jane Hull pretended to hold a telephone receiver away from her ear to demonstrate a typical outburst from McCain in a 1999 interview with The New York Times.

McCain has even blown up at volunteers and, on occasion, the average Joe.

He often pokes fun at his reputation: “Thanks for the question, you little jerk,” he said last year to a New Hampshire high school student wondering if McCain, at 71, was too old to be president.

Other times, his ire is all too real. This has prompted questions about whether his temperament is suited to the office of commander-in-chief or whether it might handicap him in a presidential campaign against either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are not known for such outbursts.

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger,” Domenici told Newsweek in 2000.

His irascibility fits with McCain’s proud image as a straight talker willing to say what people don’t want to hear.

Yet McCain’s temper hinders his efforts to make peace with his critics and rally Republicans behind his candidacy for president. That could be a big problem, because his most persistent foes — conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson — talk to tens of millions of people each day.

McCain and his advisers insist the acrimony is about matters of policy: “We have disagreements on specific issues from time to time,” McCain recently said of his critics.

In fact, the disputes often are as much about style as they are about substance.

McCain’s tone was certainly on Dobson’s mind when he issued a stinging anti-endorsement on Super Tuesday. He mentioned various issues, but Dobson also said the senator “has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.”

Privately, some conservatives grouse that McCain can seem more convivial toward his liberal colleagues. Just last week, McCain had an animated conversation and shared a belly laugh with liberal Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, his partner on controversial immigration reforms, on the Senate floor.

And then there is his choice of words — not just the expletives, but also the use of dismissive phrases such as “agents of intolerance” to describe televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell during the 2000 presidential campaign.

Yet McCain reconciled with Falwell before his death in 2007 and has done so with many others.

McCain has also smoothed things over with Sen. Thad Cochran, who had said very recently that the idea of McCain as GOP nominee sent a chill down his spine. McCain has battled for years with the Mississippi Republican, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, over pet projects or “earmarks” inserted by committee members into spending bills.

On the Senate floor last Tuesday, Cochran greeted McCain warmly, with a broad smile and a hug.

Grassley described his relations with McCain as “friendly, but not close.”

“John’s a person that I have a lot of disagreements with, but you’ve got to have a lot of respect for him,” Grassley told reporters recently. “For what he’s done to defend freedom, as a Navy pilot and as a POW, you’ve got to have a lot of respect for him for sticking to his guns, being way out ahead of the president that the policy needed to change in Iraq.”

“I’m not speaking as if I’m a born-again supporter of John McCain, I’m just trying to express it the way that I see him, and maybe some aspects of him being a good president,” Grassley said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080216/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_temper_2;_ylt=AkxC5hlNezf89lEQiefpPhME1vAI

Matt Says:

16 February 2008 at 1:36 pm.

Funny how when you buy a silver car you start to see silver cars everywhere. Now I am seeing tensions between us and Russia getting worse.

Russia says U.S. may use satellite blast as test

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday a U.S. plan to shoot down an ailing spy satellite could be used as a cover to test a new space weapon.

The ministry said there was insufficient proof that Washington’s decision to fire a missile at the disabled satellite was to prevent a potentially deadly leak of toxic gas as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.

“In our opinion, the decision to destroy the U.S. satellite is not as harmless as it is being presented. Especially as the United States has been avoiding talks on restricting a space arms race for quite a long time,” the ministry’s information department said in a statement.

“Under cover of discussions about the danger posed by the satellite, preparation is going ahead for tests of an anti-satellite weapon. Such tests mean in essence the creation of a new strategic weapon.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1645129720080216?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Joy Bischoff Says:

16 February 2008 at 1:58 pm.

SGS, I have always enjoyed your comments on other sites and I am happy to have someone with your wisdom and Constitutional background join us. My son served a mission in the New England states and spent a year in Maine in Augusta and Portland.

We try to tip-toe that fine line of keeping our eyes open without falling into full-fledged conspiracy discussion here so hopefully you can help us do that. Welcome.

Stumpy Says:

16 February 2008 at 2:02 pm.

Climb on board our boat and welcome but dont ya dare tip it SGS. Hope y’all dont got nothing against donkeys.

Hey Mathew - dont ya know almost everybody does have silver cars dummy?

Joy Bischoff Says:

16 February 2008 at 2:04 pm.

STUMPY, not with the new people!

Sorry, SGS. You’ll get used to Stumpy. He’s our mascot around here.

Cavetrollhead Says:

16 February 2008 at 2:06 pm.

Hey Stumpy are you a closet democrat? All these donkey references. . . And “milking the donkey” Is that a reference to entitlement programs?

SGS Says:

16 February 2008 at 2:21 pm.

Stumpy, no worries there, as I am an avid canoe and raft man. I’ll be able to climb over with no problem, if you don’t mind getting wet! And glad to meet my version of “sampo” (fame of a blog that will remain unnamed.)

Cavetrollhead - yes, I was being sacrastic. We really do not study the US Constitution beyond its basics. We pretty much learned about branches, checks and balances and that’s it. I think we learned about it only because we were celebrating the birthday of US Consitution - 200th year, during my senior year. I did take a government class, but really, I do not remember us studying about Consitution in depth. Maybe we were taught, but I, being a class clown, was not paying attention

Joy, I have seen much worst than Stumpy. No worries. Yeah, I grew up in the region of Portland. I attended schools in Falmouth. Thank you for welcoming me

And Terri, thank you, too. Cool, you used to interpret! How did you learn the language?

Roy Bischoff Says:

16 February 2008 at 2:58 pm.

Welcome SGS. My son lived in Falmouth for a while. I also can trace my family history back to the New England area in the early 1600’s. Maybe we’re distantly related.

Joy Bischoff Says:

16 February 2008 at 4:07 pm.

I think we saw something about this earlier but a friend of mine, Peter Anderson, sent this to me requestion people contact their senators about voting against this. We have talked here about taking action and this cuts a swath right through the Constitution if it passes. It seems like a great time to take action.

AIM Says Media Cover-Up Obama’s Socialist-Oriented Global Tax Bill

WASHINGTON, February 13, 2008 — Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid disclosed today that a hugely expensive bill called the “Global Poverty Act,” sponsored by Democratic Senator Barack Obama, was quickly passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday and could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. Kincaid said that the major media’s cover-up of the bill, which makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations, demonstrates the media’s desire to see Senator Obama elected to the presidency.

In a column posted on the AIM web site, Kincaid noted that Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was trying to rush Obama’s “Global Poverty Act” (S. 2433) through his committee without hearings. The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends. It was scheduled for a Thursday vote but was moved up a day, to Wednesday, and rushed through by voice vote. Kincaid learned, however, that conservative Senators have now put a “hold” on the legislation, in order to prevent it from being rushed to the floor for a full Senate vote.

The House version (H.R. 1302) was suddenly brought up on the House floor last September 25 and was passed by voice vote. House Republicans were caught off-guard, unaware that the pro-U.N. measure committed the U.S. to spending hundreds of billions of dollars. Kincaid’s column notes that the official in charge of making nations comply with the U.N. Millennium Goals, which are prominently highlighted in the Obama bill, says a global tax will be necessary to force American taxpayers to provide the money.

http://www.aim.org/press-release/aim-says-media-cover-up-obamas-socialist-oriented-global-tax-bill/

Terrie Soberg Says:

16 February 2008 at 10:16 pm.

SGS, I pretty much taught myself with “The Joy of Signing” and lots of practice. Our congregation was for deaf members in the area, so I was able to do quite a bit years ago. I also worked with a deaf girl and did a lot of informal interpreting for her. I used to go roller skating with her and her friends. It was so cool to watch them skate to the music!

Later, I took a class at the U of Minnesota for an easy A. I qualified for the St. Paul TVI Interpreters Training Program but immediately found out I was pregnant with my first son and had to pass up the opportunity. Unfortunately, there was not nearly the deaf population in Tennessee. Now I’m back in Minnesota, so we’ll see what happens!