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Could America have been better over the past 7yrs?
Can America be better?
Read response below before you honestly respond
Martin S. Indyk, born July 1, 1951 to a Jewish family
in London, England, President Clinton’s ambassador to
Israel and now director of Brookings’s Saban Center
for Middle East Policy, foreign policy adviser………..
He served two stints as United States Ambassador to
Israel, from April 1995 to September 1997 and from
January 2000 to July 2001 [4] and was the first and so
far, the only, foreign-born US Ambassador to Israel.
In 1982, Indyk began working as a research director
for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington

————————
Major critiques of Jewish lobbying were published by controversial billionaire George Soros, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof, the respected British newsmagazine The Economist and the popular Web site Salon.

The replies were furious. The New York Sun accused Kristof and Soros of spreading a “new blood libel.” The American Jewish Committee’s executive director, David Harris, wrote in a Jerusalem Post opinion article that Kristof had a “blind spot” and had “sanctimoniously lectured” Israel.

The editor of The New Republic, Martin Peretz, renewed an attack on Soros that he began a month ago when he called the Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor a “cog in the Hitlerite wheel.”

———————————-
News reports are more even-handed, in part because reporters strive to be objective, but also because it is difficult to cover without acknowledging he Jewish actions. To discourage unfavourable reporting, the Lobby organises letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts of news outlets whose content it considers anti-Israel ( Rev. Wright ). One CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets 6000 email messages in a single day complaining about a story.

In May 2003, the pro-Israel Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organised demonstrations outside National Public Radio stations in 33 cities; it also tried to persuade contributors to withhold support from NPR until its Middle East coverage becomes more sympathetic to Israel. Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reportedly lost more than $1 million in contributions as a result of these efforts. Further pressure on NPR has come from Israel’s friends in Congress, who have asked for an internal audit of its Middle East coverage as well as more oversight.

THE LIBERAL MEDIA | posted March 6, 2008 (March 24, 2008 issue)
(Some) Jews Against Obama
ERIC ALTERMAN

During the past few months a small group of neoconservative Jews, many of whom hold key positions in the world of official Jewish institutions, have been working to undermine the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama with a series of carefully planted character assassinations and deliberately misleading innuendo. I noticed this trend when Debra Feuer, a counsel for the American Jewish Committee, sent a confidential memo to her counterparts at other organizations criticizing Obama’s views on the Middle East, Iran and Syria and attacking him for having once appeared at a fundraiser headlined by the late Edward Said. The memo, reported by the Forward, was immediately disowned, but not denied, by AJC executive director David Harris.
Also throwing his hatchet into the ring was Morton Klein, who heads up the Likud-loving Zionist Organization of America, complaining that "Barack Obama doesn’t understand the continuing Arab war against Israel" and terming the notion of an Obama presidency "frightening." He was joined by Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella group that professes to speak for all American Jews. Hoenlein told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz that Obama’s talk of "change" could prove "an opening for all kinds of mischief" and gave voice to what he termed "a legitimate concern over the zeitgeist around the campaign." The Tennessee Republican Party issued a news release noting what it claimed was "a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States."

March 18, 2008
Apparently Without Irony, Washington Post Says Jewish Advocates Demand that Obama Show ‘Fealty to Israel’
The story continues: supporters of Israel are rising against Obama, there is a major push this week to destroy his candidacy. Today’s Washington Post reports on a debate yesterday arranged by United Jewish Committees in D.C. among Jewish advocates for Hillary, Obama, and McCain. The debate became a rout, the Post columnist averred, in which the advocates for Hillary and McCain "used their time to raise doubts about Obama’s fealty to Israel."
Fealty to Israel? They portrayed Obama as a dangerous leftwinger, and when the Illinois senator’s surrogate defended Obama’s statement that the U.S. does not have to cleave to Likud policies, Ann Lewis, Hillary’s advocate, responded:
"The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties."
Yup, sounds like fealty to me! What is there to say about such a statement? Horrifying. Likud has been against the peace process, against a Palestinian state, for the colonization of the West Bank. Do we have a foreign policy? Do we take sides on such matters? Do we take sides on minority rights in foreign countries? Are we the strongest country in the world, or do we get dragged around by racist biblical colonialists half a world away? What did we just do in Serbia and Kosovo–exercise our power to establish a Muslim state. But in this part of the world we have had no independent power to say what is right and wrong, for 60 years…
The columnist who wrote the piece is Dana Milbank, who in 2006 suggested that Walt and Mearsheimer are Nazis for talking about something called "the Israel lobby." When Milbank cites "fealty to Israel" and describes security guards with Israeli accents, it’s hard to tell how ironic he is being. I think he is impish; and is trying himself to marginalize Obama without coming out and saying so.
22 hours ago
Choose as Best Answer

I think USA could be better in future, but right now there are a lot of countries and people all over the world who hate America coz of their politics. There are a lot of people in America that disagree with their leaders and I hope they will understand what they are doing to other countries.
KOSOVO IS HART OF SERBIA AND WE WILL NEVER RECEDE FROM OUR KOSOVO!!!
KOSOVO IS SERB’S HOLY LAND!!!

I noted he is distresssed by comment made by Iranian president about Israel more than his vote for useless Iraq war that has killed patriotic American servicemen for no clear reason.
Who is behind all these failing American middle east policie?

Martin S. Indyk, born July 1, 1951 to a Jewish family
in London, England, President Clinton’s ambassador to
Israel and now director of Brookings’s Saban Center
for Middle East Policy, foreign policy adviser………..
He served two stints as United States Ambassador to
Israel, from April 1995 to September 1997 and from
January 2000 to July 2001 [4] and was the first and so
far, the only, foreign-born US Ambassador to Israel.
In 1982, Indyk began working as a research director
for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington

————————
Major critiques of Jewish lobbying were published by controversial billionaire George Soros, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof, the respected British newsmagazine The Economist and the popular Web site Salon.

The replies were furious. The New York Sun accused Kristof and Soros of spreading a “new blood libel.” The American Jewish Committee’s executive director, David Harris, wrote in a Jerusalem Post opinion article that Kristof had a “blind spot” and had “sanctimoniously lectured” Israel.

The editor of The New Republic, Martin Peretz, renewed an attack on Soros that he began a month ago when he called the Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor a “cog in the Hitlerite wheel.”

———————————-
News reports are more even-handed, in part because reporters strive to be objective, but also because it is difficult to cover without acknowledging he Jewish actions. To discourage unfavourable reporting, the Lobby organises letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts of news outlets whose content it considers anti-Israel ( Rev. Wright ). One CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets 6000 email messages in a single day complaining about a story.

In May 2003, the pro-Israel Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organised demonstrations outside National Public Radio stations in 33 cities; it also tried to persuade contributors to withhold support from NPR until its Middle East coverage becomes more sympathetic to Israel. Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reportedly lost more than $1 million in contributions as a result of these efforts. Further pressure on NPR has come from Israel’s friends in Congress, who have asked for an internal audit of its Middle East coverage as well as more oversight.

THE LIBERAL MEDIA | posted March 6, 2008 (March 24, 2008 issue)
(Some) Jews Against Obama
ERIC ALTERMAN

During the past few months a small group of neoconservative Jews, many of whom hold key positions in the world of official Jewish institutions, have been working to undermine the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama with a series of carefully planted character assassinations and deliberately misleading innuendo. I noticed this trend when Debra Feuer, a counsel for the American Jewish Committee, sent a confidential memo to her counterparts at other organizations criticizing Obama’s views on the Middle East, Iran and Syria and attacking him for having once appeared at a fundraiser headlined by the late Edward Said. The memo, reported by the Forward, was immediately disowned, but not denied, by AJC executive director David Harris.
Also throwing his hatchet into the ring was Morton Klein, who heads up the Likud-loving Zionist Organization of America, complaining that "Barack Obama doesn’t understand the continuing Arab war against Israel" and terming the notion of an Obama presidency "frightening." He was joined by Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella group that professes to speak for all American Jews. Hoenlein told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz that Obama’s talk of "change" could prove "an opening for all kinds of mischief" and gave voice to what he termed "a legitimate concern over the zeitgeist around the campaign." The Tennessee Republican Party issued a news release noting what it claimed was "a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States."

March 18, 2008
Apparently Without Irony, Washington Post Says Jewish Advocates Demand that Obama Show ‘Fealty to Israel’
The story continues: supporters of Israel are rising against Obama, there is a major push this week to destroy his candidacy. Today’s Washington Post reports on a debate yesterday arranged by United Jewish Committees in D.C. among Jewish advocates for Hillary, Obama, and McCain. The debate became a rout, the Post columnist averred, in which the advocates for Hillary and McCain "used their time to raise doubts about Obama’s fealty to Israel."
Fealty to Israel? They portrayed Obama as a dangerous leftwinger, and when the Illinois senator’s surrogate defended Obama’s statement that the U.S. does not have to cleave to Likud policies, Ann Lewis, Hillary’s advocate, responded:
"The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties."
Yup, sounds like fealty to me! What is there to say about such a statement? Horrifying. Likud has been against the peace process, against a Palestinian state, for the colonization of the West Bank. Do we have a foreign policy? Do we take sides on such matters? Do we take sides on minority rights in foreign countries? Are we the strongest country in the world, or do we get dragged around by racist biblical colonialists half a world away? What did we just do in Serbia and Kosovo–exercise our power to establish a Muslim state. But in this part of the world we have had no independent power to say what is right and wrong, for 60 years…
The columnist who wrote the piece is Dana Milbank, who in 2006 suggested that Walt and Mearsheimer are Nazis for talking about something called "the Israel lobby." When Milbank cites "fealty to Israel" and describes security guards with Israeli accents, it’s hard to tell how ironic he is being. I think he is impish; and is trying himself to marginalize Obama without coming out and saying so.
22 hours ago
Choose as Best Answer

Nope, the USA.

I don’t get it.
I understand Israel as allied of America but not the owner of America.
McCain seems to be distressed about Iranian president comment about Israel to the extent that he is making it a main campaign issue.
On a question – who is drowning America, i got a response below

Martin S. Indyk, born July 1, 1951 to a Jewish family
in London, England, President Clinton’s ambassador to
Israel and now director of Brookings’s Saban Center
for Middle East Policy, foreign policy adviser………..
He served two stints as United States Ambassador to
Israel, from April 1995 to September 1997 and from
January 2000 to July 2001 [4] and was the first and so
far, the only, foreign-born US Ambassador to Israel.
In 1982, Indyk began working as a research director
for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington

————————
Major critiques of Jewish lobbying were published by controversial billionaire George Soros, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof, the respected British newsmagazine The Economist and the popular Web site Salon.

The replies were furious. The New York Sun accused Kristof and Soros of spreading a “new blood libel.” The American Jewish Committee’s executive director, David Harris, wrote in a Jerusalem Post opinion article that Kristof had a “blind spot” and had “sanctimoniously lectured” Israel.

The editor of The New Republic, Martin Peretz, renewed an attack on Soros that he began a month ago when he called the Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor a “cog in the Hitlerite wheel.”

———————————-
News reports are more even-handed, in part because reporters strive to be objective, but also because it is difficult to cover without acknowledging he Jewish actions. To discourage unfavourable reporting, the Lobby organises letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts of news outlets whose content it considers anti-Israel ( Rev. Wright ). One CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets 6000 email messages in a single day complaining about a story.

In May 2003, the pro-Israel Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organised demonstrations outside National Public Radio stations in 33 cities; it also tried to persuade contributors to withhold support from NPR until its Middle East coverage becomes more sympathetic to Israel. Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reportedly lost more than $1 million in contributions as a result of these efforts. Further pressure on NPR has come from Israel’s friends in Congress, who have asked for an internal audit of its Middle East coverage as well as more oversight.

THE LIBERAL MEDIA | posted March 6, 2008 (March 24, 2008 issue)
(Some) Jews Against Obama
ERIC ALTERMAN

During the past few months a small group of neoconservative Jews, many of whom hold key positions in the world of official Jewish institutions, have been working to undermine the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama with a series of carefully planted character assassinations and deliberately misleading innuendo. I noticed this trend when Debra Feuer, a counsel for the American Jewish Committee, sent a confidential memo to her counterparts at other organizations criticizing Obama’s views on the Middle East, Iran and Syria and attacking him for having once appeared at a fundraiser headlined by the late Edward Said. The memo, reported by the Forward, was immediately disowned, but not denied, by AJC executive director David Harris.
Also throwing his hatchet into the ring was Morton Klein, who heads up the Likud-loving Zionist Organization of America, complaining that "Barack Obama doesn’t understand the continuing Arab war against Israel" and terming the notion of an Obama presidency "frightening." He was joined by Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella group that professes to speak for all American Jews. Hoenlein told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz that Obama’s talk of "change" could prove "an opening for all kinds of mischief" and gave voice to what he termed "a legitimate concern over the zeitgeist around the campaign." The Tennessee Republican Party issued a news release noting what it claimed was "a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States."

March 18, 2008
Apparently Without Irony, Washington Post Says Jewish Advocates Demand that Obama Show ‘Fealty to Israel’
The story continues: supporters of Israel are rising against Obama, there is a major push this week to destroy his candidacy. Today’s Washington Post reports on a debate yesterday arranged by United Jewish Committees in D.C. among Jewish advocates for Hillary, Obama, and McCain. The debate became a rout, the Post columnist averred, in which the advocates for Hillary and McCain "used their time to raise doubts about Obama’s fealty to Israel."
Fealty to Israel? They portrayed Obama as a dangerous leftwinger, and when the Illinois senator’s surrogate defended Obama’s statement that the U.S. does not have to cleave to Likud policies, Ann Lewis, Hillary’s advocate, responded:
"The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties."
Yup, sounds like fealty to me! What is there to say about such a statement? Horrifying. Likud has been against the peace process, against a Palestinian state, for the colonization of the West Bank. Do we have a foreign policy? Do we take sides on such matters? Do we take sides on minority rights in foreign countries? Are we the strongest country in the world, or do we get dragged around by racist biblical colonialists half a world away? What did we just do in Serbia and Kosovo–exercise our power to establish a Muslim state. But in this part of the world we have had no independent power to say what is right and wrong, for 60 years…
The columnist who wrote the piece is Dana Milbank, who in 2006 suggested that Walt and Mearsheimer are Nazis for talking about something called "the Israel lobby." When Milbank cites "fealty to Israel" and describes security guards with Israeli accents, it’s hard to tell how ironic he is being. I think he is impish; and is trying himself to marginalize Obama without coming out and saying so.
22 hours ago
Choose as Best Answer

He works closely with those that lobby with Israel. Those people would be Feingold, Kristol, Wolfowitz, Kerry, Bush, Cheney, and the rest in the PNAC.

White House aide says Barack Obama team ‘controlled’ the media.

Quote Anita Dunn – "Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control."

Although the Obama campaign received very favourable coverage from the American press, there are signs of discontent over what many reporters view as excessive attempts at controlling the news and a reflexive refusal to be open.

Are Americans wising up?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6377910/White-House-aide-says-Barack-Obama-team-controlled-the-media.html

Regarding the link, the Telegraph is a broadsheet and not a tabloid.

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally.

In January 2009, the Telegraph was the highest selling British ‘quality’ paper, with a certified average daily circulation of 842,912. This compared with a circulation of 617,483 for The Times, 358,844 for The Guardian, and 215,504 for The Independent.

Yes diversion, division, and secrecy are the way they operate.

A senior Iranian cleric has urged an inquiry into a report that the US dropped a small nuclear bomb on an area near the Iraq-Iran border.

Speaking at the Friday prayers sermon, former Iranian president and currently Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said, "The bomb blast killed many people and spread cancer and other diseases in the area but no news items have been published about it."

Rafsanjani noted that the footage of the attack, which allegedly took place in a region between Iraq’s Basra and Iran’s border in 1991, was broadcast by an Italian television channel earlier this month.

He said that even though the report has not been officially confirmed, it was expected to receive widespread media coverage but it was censored in the media.

"If it the report turns out to be true, then the US should be asked why it has resorted to such a crime to punish the then-bankrupt Iraqi government," Fars news agency quoted Rafsanjani as saying.

The coalition forces from 34 countries led by the US launched the Persian Gulf War (2 Aug 1990-28 Feb 1991) to return Kuwait to the control of the Emir of Kuwait.

The claim by US war veteran Jim Brown who said that the US dropped a five-kilotonne nuclear bomb on 27 February 1991, the last day of the first Iraq-US War was made during an interview included in a 30-minute current affairs report broadcast by Italian state news channel RaiNews24 on October 9.

RaiNews24 says it has conducted an independent inquiry and discovered that "a seismic event took place on that day equal to a five-kilotonne blast", citing as its source the online archives of the International Seismological Center, a non-profit UK-based organisation, as confirmation of its research according to Adnkronos International (AKI).

The documentary included an interview with an Iraqi doctor, Jawad al-Ali, who told RaiNews24 that before the beginning of the first Gulf War in 1989 there were 32 cases of tumours, while in 2002 the number had risen to 600 in the Basra area as reported by AKI on 8 October.

Al-Ali also told RaiNews24 that tumours that used to affect older citizens had started to impact younger children. He then showed alleged photos of the tumours in the documentary.

it seems that the bushes have some nuke problem!

what is ur point of view and how do you wsee the facts?
Source:
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=73177&sectionid=351020101

There are a number of independent monitoring agencies that would have detected the use of a nuclear weapon. Those agencies exist to keep an eye on the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

There’s a number of countries who would have immediately abused the USA for using a nuclear weapon if one had been actually used.

The fact that none of those groups/countries said anything about this says to me that Jim Brown and the Iranians are making it up as they go along. The fact that no radiation has been detected in that area even though a coalition force occupies Iraq and would need to know of any potential hazards and ‘no-go’ areas (such as an area contaminated by radioactivity) has to make you ask, "Where’s the proof?"

I would say mister Brown is either in need of some mental health care or is simply a trouble maker.

McCain Camp Battles National Enquirer Over Alleged Palin Affair

The allegation would normally be dismissed by political observers as the random musings of a supermarket tabloid — indeed, the McCain campaign said as much in its statements on Wednesday — except that the paper has built up a reservoir of legitimacy following its earlier reporting on the John Edwards affair.

In a statement to the Huffington Post, a spokesman for the paper, who promised a larger report next week, tapped into that pool of quasi-respect.

"The National Enquirer’s coverage of a vicious war within Sarah Palin’s extended family includes several newsworthy revelations, including the resulting incredible charge of an affair plus details of family strife when the Governor’s daughter revealed her pregnancy. Following our John Edwards’ exclusives, our political reporting has obviously proven to be more detail-oriented than the McCain campaign’s vetting process. Despite the McCain camp’s attempts to control press coverage they find unfavorable, The Enquirer will continue to pursue news on both sides of the political spectrum."

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/09/03/politics/fromtheroad/entry4413030.shtml

ST. PAUL, MINN.) – John McCain’s campaign threatened legal action against the National Enquirer today for running a story about McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, allegedly having an affair with her husband’s business partner.

“The smearing of the Palin family must end. The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Gov. Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false. It is a vicious lie,” said McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt.

“The efforts of the media and tabloids to destroy this fine and accomplished public servant are a disgrace. The American people will reject it.”

The Enquirer also alleges that Palin unjustly fired a public safety official while she was governor of Alaska, but the story is based entirely on unnamed sources. The Enquirer has also paid sources in the past to speak with them, something mainstream media outlets do not do.

“Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin look forward to discussing the issues that Americans care about, fixing broken government, creating jobs, making our country energy independent and securing the peace for the next generation by bringing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a victorious end,” said Schmidt.

“Legal action will be considered with regard to this disgraceful smear.”

Wow it just keeps coming doesn’t it. I can’t remember any politician coming clean until they were just so cornered and no way out. I mean who accepts this offer knowing their own life? I think if she would bow it it would have been before tonight.

Health Care Bill Makes Sen. Roland Burris Relevant

AP
Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., is interviewed by the Associated Press in his Capitol Hill office in Washington

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman, Associated Press Writer – Mon Oct 19, 6:19 am ET

WASHINGTON – For Democrats determined to get a health care bill, Sen. Roland Burris is like the house guest who couldn’t be refused, won’t soon be leaving and poses a plausible threat of ruining holiday dinner.

Suddenly, he can no longer be ignored.

The Illinois Democrat, appointed by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says he’ll only vote for a bill to provide health care to millions more Americans as long as it allows the government to sell insurance in competition with private insurers.

And he says he won’t compromise.

"I would not support a bill that does not have a public option," Burris, 72, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "That position will not change."

Those words caught the attention of the very Democratic leaders who tried to keep Burris out of the Senate, suggested he resign and have shunned him in unprecedented fashion. Burris is not the only Democrat to insist on creation of a government-run health plan. But he is the one who has the least to lose by defying President Barack Obama and the Democrats who once turned him out in the cold rain.

It was early January and Blagojevich had appointed Burris, a former Illinois attorney general, to Obama’s former Senate seat — defying Democrats in Washington who had wanted someone without a tainted patron and with a better chance of winning election in 2010.

What happened next was a procession of ugly images, from Burris’ rain-swept news conference after Democrats turned him away from a swearing-in to Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush daring Democrats to block an accomplished lawyer who would be the chamber’s only black.

Bitterly, the Democrats seated Burris. But when it came out that Burris had admitted what he had denied under oath — that he’d unsuccessfully tried to raise money for Blagojevich — Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., suggested that Burris resign. He refused.

A Senate ethics committee probe is pending into Burris’ statements. Democratic leaders, meanwhile, refused to support any effort by Burris to run for a full term, and he will leave the Senate in 2011.

Meanwhile, his relationship with the rest of his caucus has settled into one of mutual, if chilly, benefit.

It works this way: Burris stays mum about any bitterness he may feel about his reception, and he gets Obama’s Senate seat for two years. Democrats seat him, don’t speak of him, and get his loyal vote at a time when all 58 Democrats and two independents must vote together to prevent Republican filibusters.

They’ve never needed 60 votes like they do on the yet-to-be-finalized health care bill. A disciplined grin shows that Burris knows it. No, he says, he will not vote for any version of a government-run plan circulating in the Senate, other than the full-blown one from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

He won’t vote, for example, for Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe’s idea to use the threat of a public option to force insurers to lower premiums by certain deadlines. He hasn’t seen the details of another idea, proposed by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., that would allow each state to decide whether to offer public coverage to compete with private insurers. The health committee’s proposal, he says, must be in the final bill to earn his vote.

"Yeah, that’s the one," Burris said.

By definition, all 100 senators are relevant because any one can block Senate business unless there are 60 votes to override the objection. But Burris’ stated position on the public option means that Democrats can no longer take his vote for granted.

And yet, Democratic leaders aren’t talking about Burris.

Instead, they’re talking confidently about having the votes for the biggest policy overhaul in a generation, a signature issue for Obama and the Democratic Party.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Burris’ demand alone makes him no different than other senators seeking this or that in the bill.

"I will do what I can to address the thises and thats," Baucus said. "But my strong feeling is in the end, the need for health care reform is to get 60 votes (and) is going to trump the concerns that some might have."

For his part, Burris says he’s just representing the wishes of his state. And he’s relentlessly loyal to the arrangement. His only acknowledgment of being treated differently than others is a reference to the "distractions" that marked his first weeks in office.

Ask him whether he feels badly treated by the leaders, and he’ll answer with a question:

"By whose standard?"

Go a couple more rounds, and he’ll elaborate, generally.

"I feel that I’ve had great opportunities here," Burris said. "I feel l

He is a weasel only looking for power…did you know he has built himself a monument for when he dies?http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1208/Roland_Burriss_Monument_to_Me.html#

I respect all people’s choice of opinions and political choices. One thing I notice in the media is stories like "GOP is mocking president for Nobel Prize" and opinionated talk shows like "Limbaugh, Beck" and wild assertions like "We are headed to communism, Obama is the anti-Christ, Death Panels" etc.

I know there are moderate and mature republicans and democrats out there because I talk to them off and on. They don’t go on a wild rampage that makes them look like extremists.

Do you think media is focusing too much on the wild extremists republicans rather than the moderate mature ones?

I’m an independent moderate that loves to dialogue about politics with everyone. But I rarely ever meet a person with such a extreme far far right or far far left mentality. Is media just sensationalizing this stuff?

Please provide your insight to this. Please be mature in your replies.

I went to a tea party with a minimum of 3500 people attending. (I think there were more like 5000)

Most were just normal people like myself objecting to things like voting for a $787,000,000,000 bill without reading it. Out of over 1000 signs, I saw only 2 that were extreme (asking for the birth certificate).
But what does the camera crew for the news focus on? A guy with paint on his face screaming at the camera!

There were no racist signs at the rally I went to. I suspect many rallies had no racist signs. But the national news put every racist sign up front and center on their news!

So – Yes. The media focuses on the nuts.

Back when I was Pro-life, I noticed this. The pro-lifers wearing the shrouds and lighting candles for the dead babies got the camera time, but if you beleived what you saw on the camera, you would have thought there were no nutty pro-choice people.

(I am now moderate on the abortion issue. I don’t fit into either camp)

did you find this interesting?

Newsmax
Rasmussen Poll: Obama’s Popularity Plunging

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 7:27 PM
By: Jim Meyers

The latest Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows that President Barack Obama for the first time has a negative approval index — more Americans disapprove of his job performance than approve.
In an exclusive Newsmax interview, pollster Scott Rasmussen also disclosed that, if the economy does not improve over the next year, Obama’s numbers will deteriorate even further — and Democrats will suffer in 2010.
Rasmussen is founder and CEO of Rasmussen Reports and co-founder of the sports network ESPN. He has been an independent public opinion pollster for over a decade, and most major news organizations cite his reports.
Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella asked Rasmussen for an overview of the latest tracking poll.
"The raw numbers are pretty straightforward — 31 percent of Americans strongly approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job, 33 percent strongly disapprove," Rasmussen said.
"Before the last week we never had a circumstance where the number who disapprove outweigh the number who approve. So we’re in new territory. Right now the approval index, at minus two, is as low as it’s been.
"What we’ve seen in the last month is a growing number of people who strongly disapprove, and we’re seeing it at a time when the president’s honeymoon is coming to an end and people are beginning to look at the policies that he’s promoting."
The closeness of the approve/disapprove numbers are "yet another indicator of how evenly divided our nation is," he added.
On specific issues, Rasmussen disclosed:
"When we talk about healthcare reform and the proposal the president is talking about, the country is fairly evenly divided. But those who have strong opinions tend to oppose the plan more than support it.
"On the cap-and-trade legislation [to reduce carbon emissions], 42 percent believe it’s going to hurt the economy. Only 19 percent believe it’s going to help.
"The takeover of General Motors is strongly opposed.
"Right now those things are weighing the president down. What’s going to tell over the next year is how the economy performs. If a year from today, GM is doing great and throwing off profits and getting the taxpayers their money back, people will say we were wrong, the president was right, and it’s great for him. But if GM is back asking for more bailouts, the president’s numbers will be substantially weaker than they are today . . .
"If the economy responds negatively over the next year, it is going to hurt the Democrats in 2010.
"What the passage of legislation will actually do is bring ownership of the economy and economic performance more and more into Barack Obama’s camp.
"Just over a month ago, 62 percent of Americans said that no matter what’s happened in the last six months, George Bush is still more to blame for the economic mess than Barack Obama. That number fell to 54 percent, and the more of Obama’s policies that are put in place, the more the blame or perhaps the credit will shift to the current president."
Rasmussen also found:
The country is evenly split between those who approve of the way Obama has responded to the disputed elections in Iran and the repression of demonstrations that followed, and those who disapprove and believe he has not been aggressive enough.
More Americans strongly oppose Obama’s healthcare plan than strongly support it.
About 30 percent of Americans favor a single-payer healthcare system, but a majority will oppose it.
"Americans like the idea of healthcare reform in theory, in the abstract," Rasmussen said.
"Only 35 percent think this system is in good or excellent shape. But people like the coverage they get by themselves. Among the insured, 70 percent say their own coverage is good or excellent. Among all Americans, only 8 percent say their coverage is poor."

No. What I find surprising is those who still like the O do not really care for his policies when asked about them. For example, most Americans did not want the stimulus package that O signed. Most Americans do not want Universal health Care. Most Americans do not want Cap and Trade. O’s response? I won. Deal with it.

did you find this interesting?

Newsmax
Rasmussen Poll: Obama’s Popularity Plunging

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 7:27 PM
By: Jim Meyers

The latest Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows that President Barack Obama for the first time has a negative approval index — more Americans disapprove of his job performance than approve.
In an exclusive Newsmax interview, pollster Scott Rasmussen also disclosed that, if the economy does not improve over the next year, Obama’s numbers will deteriorate even further — and Democrats will suffer in 2010.
Rasmussen is founder and CEO of Rasmussen Reports and co-founder of the sports network ESPN. He has been an independent public opinion pollster for over a decade, and most major news organizations cite his reports.
Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella asked Rasmussen for an overview of the latest tracking poll.
"The raw numbers are pretty straightforward — 31 percent of Americans strongly approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job, 33 percent strongly disapprove," Rasmussen said.
"Before the last week we never had a circumstance where the number who disapprove outweigh the number who approve. So we’re in new territory. Right now the approval index, at minus two, is as low as it’s been.
"What we’ve seen in the last month is a growing number of people who strongly disapprove, and we’re seeing it at a time when the president’s honeymoon is coming to an end and people are beginning to look at the policies that he’s promoting."
The closeness of the approve/disapprove numbers are "yet another indicator of how evenly divided our nation is," he added.
On specific issues, Rasmussen disclosed:
"When we talk about healthcare reform and the proposal the president is talking about, the country is fairly evenly divided. But those who have strong opinions tend to oppose the plan more than support it.
"On the cap-and-trade legislation [to reduce carbon emissions], 42 percent believe it’s going to hurt the economy. Only 19 percent believe it’s going to help.
"The takeover of General Motors is strongly opposed.
"Right now those things are weighing the president down. What’s going to tell over the next year is how the economy performs. If a year from today, GM is doing great and throwing off profits and getting the taxpayers their money back, people will say we were wrong, the president was right, and it’s great for him. But if GM is back asking for more bailouts, the president’s numbers will be substantially weaker than they are today . . .
"If the economy responds negatively over the next year, it is going to hurt the Democrats in 2010.
"What the passage of legislation will actually do is bring ownership of the economy and economic performance more and more into Barack Obama’s camp.
"Just over a month ago, 62 percent of Americans said that no matter what’s happened in the last six months, George Bush is still more to blame for the economic mess than Barack Obama. That number fell to 54 percent, and the more of Obama’s policies that are put in place, the more the blame or perhaps the credit will shift to the current president."
Rasmussen also found:
The country is evenly split between those who approve of the way Obama has responded to the disputed elections in Iran and the repression of demonstrations that followed, and those who disapprove and believe he has not been aggressive enough.
More Americans strongly oppose Obama’s healthcare plan than strongly support it.
About 30 percent of Americans favor a single-payer healthcare system, but a majority will oppose it.
"Americans like the idea of healthcare reform in theory, in the abstract," Rasmussen said.
"Only 35 percent think this system is in good or excellent shape. But people like the coverage they get by themselves. Among the insured, 70 percent say their own coverage is good or excellent. Among all Americans, only 8 percent say their coverage is poor."

No. What I find surprising is those who still like the O do not really care for his policies when asked about them. For example, most Americans did not want the stimulus package that O signed. Most Americans do not want Universal health Care. Most Americans do not want Cap and Trade. O’s response? I won. Deal with it.