Defenders of the system will claim that has been part of politics in the past which is true. However, the level of the corruption and arrogance for power has NEVER been as great as it appears today. When one group has control with almost absolute power, that power corrupts absolutely.

The first line contradicts what you wrote afterwards. There is no need to argue this cause you killed yourself with your own article. Thanx for making it easier for us Col.

Today the news documents what may be signs that America is in trouble. Cheney tells us that we need to expand Executive Power and defends the Bush actions of failing to obtain court orders to spy on Americans. Bush claims that his authority as Commander in Chief of our military gives him the power to ignore the law. The AP learned that Tom DeLay received 48 visits to Golf Clubs, 100 flights in corporate jets, 200 stays in world-class hotels and 500 meals at restaurants where dinner for two is about $200 - ALL this paid by corporations that want access and special treatment from our government.

It seems the AP is running a bit slow at catching these "gifts" to Tom DeLay. Talk about old stories. Why would this bother me, as long as it's not my tax paying money that's being used to pay for all of this I could care less. Companies will always try to wine and dine people in high positions, it's human nature to do so. It always has been and always will be about money no matter who the President is and no matter what party they belong to, money will always be above even them.

I am willing to bet even you would take advantage Col if given the chance. And if you deny it, it would be plain BS.

I would hope not but it is true I am not in such a position. What I said does not contradict anything. I admit that these things have been going on in the past by both parities but that the extent today is the issue. It does not mean a thing that the things DeLay has done is old news it is a prime example of what I have said is wrong with our government. I read that Delay is running about 38% support for his reelection. It looks like others agree with me.

The AP learned that Tom DeLay received 48 visits to Golf Clubs, 100 flights in corporate jets, 200 stays in world-class hotels and 500 meals at restaurants where dinner for two is about $200

Show me just one senator or representative that has not received ANY gratuities and I'll show you a damn liar!

What will you write about in 3 years gene? maybe you can write about Jeb Bush one day, or one of the Bush sones or daughters. Do you even know HOW to write about anaything else?

What will you write about in 3 years gene? maybe you can write about Jeb Bush one day, or one of the Bush sones or daughters. Do you even know HOW to write about anaything else?

He's hoping to catch on as Hillary's cabana boy!

Here ya go Private:

With the Iraqi elections over, and a huge turn out of voters, even the Sunni’s, that some polling places had to stay open late, add ballots, and get help for transporting so many votes. (I only wish the U.S. Voters were like that, but that’s another story), and a steady DECLINE in attacks on U.S. and Coalition forces, and a marked DECREASE in attacks on Iraqis and an INCREASE of Iraqi citizens taking the step of turning in the terrorist BEFORE they attack someone, I think we may be looking at something good going on here.

I know I am going out on a limb here, but have you noticed that since there has been a serious (30%+) decrease in all these attacks, that the main stream media is backing off a bit on the reporting of the negative, negative, negative? Did you also notice that the media has backed off a bit on the anti-Bush stuff pertaining to why we went to war since Bush admitted that he got flawed intel? And that he was responsible? Got a little quieter from the left on trying to blame him. He accepted the blame and said he was working to try and fix those Intel problems that gave him the flawed intel to begin with. Hmm. Got quite in the press.

Many of you who know me know I have close friends and former students of mine currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I e-mail and even talk on the phone with them on occasion. EVERY single one says things are getting better over there almost daily. Yes they still have IEDs and a few terrorist dumb enough to take them on once and a while. But now the terrorist have resorted to the kidnapping of peace activist!. LOL

I am on the DOD Press Corp list and get many press releases and other articles from them on a daily basis. And while looking over a weekends worth the other day something dawned on me. I have been told that the DOD is biased and all I am getting is the good news. Well I beg to differ. I get a press release every single time a U.S. Solider is killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. I don’t know of any more of an eye opener to the bad things than that. Even in some of my post I post that information But I have to say one of the best things I get is a weekly report by the military called “The Advisor”. Its designed for in country soldiers, and it’s a great read. If any of you are interested in getting a copy of it also let me know and I will make a point of sending you a copy as I get them. They are once a week. And the news is written by soldiers, for soldiers. Its good stuff and a very interesting look at what is going on in country.

I see Iraqi’s doing great things, stepping up and taking responsibility for their own country more and more Link there troops getting better and better at taking the place of U.S. and Coalition troops and being able to take over security of their own country. During the week of Dec 7th to Dec 14th, in Iraq, 334 insurgents were detained or killed and 84 weapons caches were discovered during 514 operations throughout the country. Of those operations, 52 percent included Iraqi Security Forces. Twenty-two percent were independently run by ISF.

I see that as a good sign. We are turning base after base over to the new Iraqi Army. The largest base we had in Iraq was recently turned over to the Iraqi Army.

Since the Iraqi election did you know that the new Iraqi Government that was just elected will have some say in how many troops we have in Iraq? How many of you knew that??

So to all those that say we are losing, we should leave, we are not doing any good , and more and more Iraqi’s and U.S. Soldiers are being killed and are not accomplishing anything I say “KISS MY BEHIND!” You are blinded by some form of hatred for someone, I know not who but the facts do not support you. SO to you I say, WE ARE WINNING, WE ARE DOING GOOD, and the IRAQI PEOPLE DO APPRECIATE IT. They are showing it by their participation in the elections and their beginning to work with the Iraqi Army to turn in the terrorist.

Sorry it turned out so well in Iraq. But hey, someone had to be right, I know your just sorry it was not you.

If you need links to any of the FACTS above just ask.. Happy to prove idiots worng...

If that turns out to be another Iran type government , the Bush adventure will have simply produced another problem country and not the "spreading democracy" that was to help make things better. What I said is that the tabulation so far showed that the religious element seems to have the majority of the votes.

This was an elective war that was not part of the War on Terrorism in Iraq before we invaded that country

If that turns out to be another Iran type government , the Bush adventure will have simply produced another problem country and not the "spreading democracy" that was to help make things better. What I said is that the tabulation so far showed that the religious element seems to have the majority of the votes.

If, if, if....."If the dog hadn't stopped to take a crap, he'd have caught the rabbit!

Don't you ever get tired of saying the same thing over and over?

Not any more than you!

How dare you suggest that power, arrogance, and money are destroying America.

For your foolishness, I shall destroy you using my vast resources you puny human.

Link about the Bush/Cheney power grab.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001858.html?referrer=email Clash Is Latest Chapter in Bush Effort to Widen Executive Power By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A01 The clash over the secret domestic spying program is one slice of a broader struggle over the power of the presidency that has animated the Bush administration. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney came to office convinced that the authority of the presidency had eroded and have spent the past five years trying to reclaim it. From shielding energy policy deliberations to setting up military tribunals without court involvement, Bush, with Cheney's encouragement, has taken what scholars call a more expansive view of his role than any commander in chief in decades. With few exceptions, Congress and the courts have largely stayed out of the way, deferential to the argument that a president needs free rein, especially in wartime. But the disclosure of Bush's eavesdropping program has revived the issue, and Congress appears to be growing restive about surrendering so much of its authority. Democrats and even key Republicans maintain Bush went too far -- and may have even violated the law -- by authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens' overseas telephone calls in search of terrorist plots without obtaining warrants from a secret intelligence court. The vice president entered the fray yesterday, rejecting the criticism and expounding on the philosophy that has driven so many of the administration's actions. "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it -- and to some extent that we have an obligation as the administration to pass on the offices we hold to our successors in as good of shape as we found them," Cheney said. In wartime, he said, the president "needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired." Speaking with reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force Two to Oman, Cheney said the period after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War proved to be "the nadir of the modern presidency in terms of authority and legitimacy" and harmed the chief executive's ability to lead in a complicated, dangerous era. "But I do think that to some extent now we've been able to restore the legitimate authority of the presidency." For Cheney, the post-Watergate era was the formative experience shaping his understanding of executive power. As a young White House chief of staff for President Gerald R. Ford, he saw the Oval Office at its weakest point as Congress and the courts asserted themselves. But scholars such as Andrew Rudalevige, author of "The New Imperial Presidency," say the presidency had recovered long before Cheney returned to the White House in 2001. The War Powers Act, the legislative veto, the independent counsel statute and other legacies of the 1970s had all been discarded in one form or another. "He's living in a time warp," said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and Reagan administration official. "The great irony is Bush inherited the strongest presidency of anyone since Franklin Roosevelt, and Cheney acts as if he's still under the constraints of 1973 or 1974." Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) said: "The vice president may be the only person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over the last 30 years." The tug over executive power traces back to the early years of the republic, and presidents have traditionally moved to expand their reach during times of war. John Adams, fearing a hostile France, presided over the imprisonment of Republican critics under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson jailed Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who had run against him for president, for protesting the entry into World War I. Franklin D. Roosevelt sent Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II. And Ronald Reagan circumvented a Cold War congressional ban on providing aid to contra rebels in Nicaragua. The Bush administration rejects comparisons to such events and says its assertions of authority in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have been carefully tailored to meet the needs of a 21st-century war against a nebulous foe. At his news conference Monday, Bush bristled at the notion that he sought "unchecked power" and said he had consulted with Congress extensively. Yet Bush supporters believe that other branches should take a subsidiary role to the president in safeguarding national security. "The Constitution's intent when we're under attack from outside is to place maximum power in the president," said William P. Barr, who was attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, "and the other branches, and especially the courts, don't act as a check on the president's authority against the enemy." Even before the NSA surveillance program, the Bush administration has asserted its war-making authority in detaining indefinitely U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, denying prisoners access to lawyers or courts, rejecting in some cases the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, expanding its interrogation techniques to include harsher treatment and establishing secret terrorist prisons in foreign countries. "The problem is, where do you stop rebalancing the power and go too far in the other direction?" asked David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "I think in some instances [Bush] has gone too far." Taken alone, the expansion of executive wartime power may seem an obvious outflow of confronting the new threat of global terrorism. But when coupled with the huge expansion of the federal government in general under Bush -- the budget has grown by 33 percent and his administration has broadened the federal role in education and the scope of Medicare -- a growing number of conservatives are expressing concern about the size and reach of government on his watch. Many conservatives in Congress came to office in the 1980s and 1990s with visions of shrinking government and protecting individual freedoms. The Sept. 11 attacks, however, prompted Republicans to shift their priorities and emphasize fighting terrorism. With both houses of Congress in Republican hands, lawmakers generally have been willing to yield to Bush's views on the balance of power. "Defending the country is preeminently an executive function," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). "He is the commander in chief, and you have to move with speed and dispatch." At the same time, some believe, Congress has abrogated its duty to provide a check on the White House. Rarely has the Republican Congress used its subpoena power to investigate Bush policies or programs or to force administration officials to explain them. Even when lawmakers are inclined to challenge the White House, they are restricted by secrecy rules in cases such as the NSA program, which was known to only a handful of key members briefed by the administration. "When you have unified party government, the oversight tends to be very timid," said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. "It's not just the president pushing for more power. . . . The Congress has not done its job of careful evaluation of giving the president more power post-9/11." Thurber and others think that may be changing. Led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Congress just forced Bush to accept a ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, and a handful of Republican senators have joined Democrats to block the renewal of the USA Patriot Act until more civil liberties protections are built into the law. "Congress needs to do some introspection about whether oversight is serious or basically political," Cole said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) is one of several Republicans lobbying Bush to use the debate over NSA to work with Congress on striking the right balance of power on security issues. "The question is: Should the administration and Congress sit down and talk about where presidential authority begins and ends and congressional blessing begins and ends?" he said. "I think yes." © 2005 The Washington Post Company

This was an elective war that was not part of the War on Terrorism in Iraq before we invaded that country

Gene, Gene, Gene.....

Saddam was a terrorist himself....why can you not understand that? Why can you not understand that Saddam TERRORIZED his own ppl? Why can you NOT understand that Saddam paid huge bounties to the families of suicide bombers? Why Gene?

Remember when President Bush said, that if a country harbors terrorists, then they are a target themselves? Well, Saddam was harboring a pretty nasty terrorist....HIMSELF!!!!!

He was NO DANGER to our country. We attacked him under the LIE that he was a danger which was not true. Even if he had the WMD he would NEVER have attacked the US not to mention he had no means of attacking the U S. If he had given WMD to a third party that was traced back to him he would have been destroyed the same as if he had attacked us and he knew that. This was an ELECTIVE WAR that has NOT made America Safer!

We disagree then.  I believe Saddam was a serious danger to our country.