piper17

oh, I think we can take it all the way back to the Clinto administration...or even the peanut farmer, Jimmie Carter. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Funny...everything was going pretty well until the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006. Then everything went downhill fast. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

"We had to wait all day for our Court appearance before the soon-to-be-infamous Judge Pitts. We were last on the Court Docket,..." I got a chuckle out of this, especially the part of waiting all day. Prior to the days of jump permits, four of us from CT were apprehended on top of El Cap. It was a Thursday afternoon; we were planning to spend the night and jump first thing in the morning. We were arrested and flown off the mountain via helicopter and taken to jail. We spent the next four days in "the slammer" and didn't see the judge until Monday afternoon!! When the charges were read and we were asked how we would plead, we requested and received a change of venue. This was on advice from Carl Boenish and his attorney. We were released but the rangers kept our gear. We had to fly back to California from the east coast a few weeks later for our court appearance in federal court. I think that was in Fresno. Two trips to California from CT with the various expenses, 4-5 days in jail, attorney's fees, a fine, and I never did get to make the jump. We did get our gear back eventually. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Succinct, Hoop. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Howard, Pioneer used to award some device (caterpillar pin) for aircraft emergency use of their equipment as well. Not sure if that is still done or not. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Wouldn't you consider shooting cruise missiles into Iraq an act of war? That was Clinton's solution. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

and all other Western intelligence agencies were told to do the same thing...even during the Clinton administration? Get real. The intelligence sucked in this country and the rest of world....unless you think it was a world-wide conspiracy. The real question is has anything changed in the intelligence communities? Do we really know what Iran and North Korea are up to nuclear-wise? Are they any better at discovering the next 9/11 than they were in 2001? If you consider London, Madrid, Bali, etc., I have concerns. Of course, there hasn't been anything major in the western world recently so ??? "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Agreed but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional, IIRC. Line Item Veto Act of 1996 Presidents have repeatedly asked Congress to give them a line item veto power. According to Louis Fisher in The Politics of Shared Power, Ronald Reagan said to Congress in his 1986 State of the Union address, "Tonight I ask you to give me what forty-three governors have: Give me a line-item veto this year. Give me the authority to veto waste, and I'll take the responsibility, I'll make the cuts, I'll take the heat." Bill Clinton echoed the request in his State of the Union address in 1995. The President was briefly granted this power by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, passed by Congress in order to control "pork barrel spending" that favors a particular region rather than the nation as a whole. The line-item veto was used 11 times to strike 82 items from the federal budget by President Bill Clinton. [3][4] However, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled on February 12, 1998, that unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes violated the U.S. Constitution. This ruling was subsequently affirmed on June 25, 1998, by a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case Clinton v. City of New York. The case was brought by the then New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. A constitutional amendment to give the President line item veto power has been considered periodically since the Court ruled the 1996 act unconstitutional. Some scholars, including Louis Fisher, believe the line item veto would give presidents too much power over government spending compared with the power of Congress.[5] "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Huffington Post? Fortune magazine....hardly "fair and balanced" sources. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

I don't believe all the mistakes were made more than eight years ago. There are plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle that were feeding at the Fannie Mae trough. BUT when some Republicans, including McCain, tried to introduce legislation to rein in Fannie Mae, they were voted down by others - Republicans and Democrats alike. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

False information??? Do you mean the "intelligence" reports of WMDs by Clinton holdover George Tennant, head of the CIA, who claimed it was a "slam-dunk"??? Do you mean when John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, etc all claimed there were WMDs when Bill was president??? The intelligence sucked...all western intelligence agencies were claiming the same crap. Because a president believes what the head of his key intelligence agency is telling him does not mean he lied. George Tennant should have been fired (although execution might have been deserved as well) immediately after 9/11 for that intelligence failure and NOT given a damn medal! "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

I'm asking him to refute what I posted regarding the quotations of Barney Frank et al who were responsible for the lack of financial standards in the Fannie Mae debacle. All he does is try to change the subject. Why is it okay for some here to constantly lay the blame for everything that goes wrong in this country on Republicans but refuse to acknowledge the sins of Democrats? "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Well, if you want to include him, fine, although I'm not sure how Enron is relevant in the current financial mess. Now, about the bunch of Dems I named..... "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Such as? Sight factual examples. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Wow. This is rich. You claim the WSJ is partisan and then you quote Bloomberg. ROFLMAO "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

More BS from you but no facts to dispute the point. These Dems denied time and again that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in trouble when GOP politicians were trying to pass legislation to impose controls on these agencies. All you can do is claim the WSJ is partisan. Weak! "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Not if he was the only person running! "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Last week, U.S. News & World Report suggested the $25 billion loan-guarantee bailout for the Big 3 automakers may be passed by Congress and signed by President Bush as early as this weekend. Certainly, it will be done without any fanfare, especially if the financial services bailout is finalized and ready for the president's signature at about the same time. Reuters confirmed the auto deal cleared a major hurdle last Wed., Sept. 24, when the House passed the $25 billion loan guarantee measure as part of a "larger, must-pass spending bill." Reuters also reported the Senate is expected to follow through swiftly and pass the legislative package so President Bush can sign it into law by Oct. 1, this Wednesday. Congress and the President are spending more and more of your tax dollars. Happy? "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Eight Bailout Questions How many times over the last few days have we heard politicians, talking heads and other self-proclaimed "experts" tell us the reason the $700 billion bailout is so wildly unpopular is that we just don't understand it. The economy is complicated. Just trust Congress, President Bush and his royal highness, Hank Paulson. They'll fix it. Don't worry about that $700 billion number. It only sounds high. Well. If that's the case - if we're really too dumb to understand what's happening - perhaps Congress can show us how much they know. To start, here are some questions I'd like answered. 1) Since the White House introduced the bailout last week, a number of alternative ideas have been proposed. For one, Michigan Republican Thaddeus McCotter wrote a 10-point plan that carries no cost to taxpayers. Others, like George Soros', are significantly less expensive and, in his estimation, likelier to be effective. Can you explain why this bill is the best option, despite being the most expensive? 2) We're told the bailout could actually turn a profit for taxpayers. Assuming that's true, how can we be sure the money actually ends up back in taxpayers' hands? For years the Social Security system took in more money than it paid out, yet instead of putting the surplus revenue toward future benefits, Congress snatched that extra cash for general expenditures. Likewise, Fannie and Freddie's "profits," were used for congressional pet projects. With this track record, how can we trust that this program will be any different? 3) The McCain campaign yesterday pointed out that the most recent housing bill gave the government nearly $1 trillion to purchase mortgages. If this is true, why exactly does Congress need to pass this monstrous legislation? 4) Does the latest version of this bill still "allow the government to purchase troubled assets from pension plans, local governments, and small banks that serve low- and middle-income families"? Americans are having a hard enough time swallowing the idea of a bailout for irresponsible home, car, and student lending. The notion that we'll be on the hook for insolvent pension plans administered by awful, union-controlled lawmakers in cities like Detroit and New York is simply insane. 5) Does the bill's preamble still proclaim that the law "provides authority to the treasury secretary to ... ensure the economic well-being of Americans?" Does anyone know if there are limitations to this seemingly unbridled authority? Otherwise, what prevents the Treasury secretary from becoming a de-facto dictator? This strikes me as especially worth discussion. 6) Are there still no meaningful curtailments of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Does the bill contain anything even hinting at accountability? 7) What concrete assurances do taxpayers have that the turmoil's provenance - Carter and Clinton-era social-engineering dictums that upended safe-lending practices in favor of higher minority home ownership - will forever be outlawed? How do we know taxpayers won't be asked to finance another $700 billion bailout in 10 years? What has Congress learned from its past mistakes? 8) After Enron's collapse, former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, then-CEO Ken Lay, and then-CFO Andrew Fastow, were called to testify before Congress. According to the Business and Media Institute, Fannie's and Freddie's overstated earnings were 19 times larger than Enron's fake numbers. So when can we expect Congress to call Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and the rest of Fannie's and Freddie's enablers to testify before Congress? At the end of the day, we're not being asked to bailout Wall St. so much as we are the Democratic Party. For $700 billion, answers to the questions above are the least Congress can do in return. These questions come courtesy of Laura Ingraham. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Well, if you read the WSJ page A19, you would know the answer to that question. Please post facts on the role those people played in this fiasco; I'd love to see it...or are you playing partisan? "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Check out page A19 in today's (10/2/08) Wall Street Journal. The top half of the page is devoted entirely to what politicians said about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...starting in 2003. Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Chuckie Schumer, Chris Dodd (one of my senators, ugh) and others said how these two institutions were doing just fine and not to tighten up restrictions on them. Pass these people some salt while they eat their words. I hope each of them suffers the next time they are up for re-election. My guess is, unfortunately, their constituents are too stupid to vote them out of office. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

...which is the point of my post of this newspaper piece. She claims she wants reform but goes ahead and engages in the very practice about which she complains. Leaders are supposed to lead by example...something Pelosi doesn't, apparently, understand. Her actions make it appear that she thinks that it is okay for her to do this but not for others. Hypocrisy. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

You are trying to obscure the facts with B.S. Biden's quotes are readily available on YouTube and other sites on the internet. The point of the matter under discussion here has nothing to do with anything a "McCain spokeman" said; it has to do with what Biden said...and it is a matter of record! Are you denying Biden did not speak the truth or that he puffed up his "being under fire"? "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

Unlike Clinton, Biden Gets Pass for Saying He Was 'Shot At' in Iraq When Hillary Clinton told a tall tale about "landing under sniper fire" in Bosnia, she was accused of "inflating her war experience" by Barack Obama's campaign -- but the campaign has been silent about Joe Biden telling his own questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq. By Bill Sammon When Hillary Clinton told a tall tale about "landing under sniper fire" in Bosnia, she was accused of "inflating her war experience" by rival Democrat Barack Obama's campaign. But the campaign has been silent about Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, telling his own questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq. "Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube last year. "Number one, you take all the troops out - you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die." But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed." The senior senator from Delaware went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said. "No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head." The rest of the press ignored the flap at the time because Biden was viewed as having little chance of ending up on the Democratic presidential ticket. But even after Biden was selected to be Obama's running mate last month, his claim to have been "shot at" drew no scrutiny from the same reporters who had savaged Clinton for making a similar claim that turned out to be false. FOX News has been asking the Obama campaign for details of the alleged shooting in Iraq ever since Biden was tapped to be vice president. Biden campaign spokesman David Wade promised an answer last week, but failed to provide one. Meanwhile, the gaffe-prone Biden has again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones - this time in Afghanistan. Biden said he will grill Republican rival Sarah Palin in Thursday's vice presidential debate about "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down." "If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where Bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are." But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Senators Chuck Hagel and John Kerry. "We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine." Biden never explicitly claimed his chopper had been forced down by terrorists. Nonetheless, John McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said Obama-Biden officials have been less than forthcoming about Biden's dramatic war stories. "They never explained Biden's helicopter story from last week - which is very similar to the story about getting 'shot at' in Baghdad," Rogers said. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

EXCLUSIVE: Pelosi paid husband with PAC funds $99,000 for rent, utilities, accounting fees House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed nearly $100,000 from her political action committee to her husband's real estate and investment firm over the past decade, a practice of paying a spouse with political donations that she supported banning last year. Financial Leasing Services Inc. (FLS), owned by Paul F. Pelosi, has received $99,000 in rent, utilities and accounting fees from the speaker's "PAC to the Future" over the PAC's nine-year history. The payments have quadrupled since Mr. Pelosi took over as treasurer of his wife's committee in 2007, Federal Election Commission records show. FLS is on track to take in $48,000 in payments this year alone - eight times as much as it received annually from 2000 to 2005, when the committee was run by another treasurer. Lawmakers' frequent use of campaign donations to pay relatives emerged as an issue in the 2006 election campaigns, when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal gave Democrats fodder to criticize Republicans such as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and Rep. John T. Doolittle of California for putting their wives on their campaign and PAC payrolls for fundraising work. Last year, Mrs. Pelosi supported a bill that would have banned members of Congress from putting spouses on their campaign staffs. The bill - which passed the House in a voice vote but did not get out of a Senate committee - banned not only direct payments by congressional campaign committees and PACs to spouses for services including consulting and fundraising, but also "indirect compensation," such as payments to companies that employ spouses. "Democrats are committed to reforming the way Washington does business," Mrs. Pelosi said in a press release at the time. "Congressman [Adam] Schiff's bill will help us accomplish that goal by increasing transparency in election campaigns and preventing the misuse of funds." Last week, Mrs. Pelosi's office said the payments to her husband's firm were perfectly legal, insisting she is compensating her husband at fair market value for the work his firm has performed for the PAC. But ethical watchdogs said the arrangement sends the wrong message. "It's problematic," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit ethics and watchdog group. "From what I understand, Mr. Pelosi doesn't need the money, but this isn't the issue. ... As speaker of the House, it sends the wrong message. She shouldn't be putting family members on the payroll." A senior adviser to Mrs. Pelosi described the payments to FLS as "business expenses." "She's followed all the appropriate rules and regulations in terms of records and paperwork," said Brendan Daly, Mrs. Pelosi's spokesman. "When [former treasurer] Leo McCarthy became ill, she thought that it was best that that firm did the accounting and she's paid fair market value in San Francisco." Between 1999 and 2006, FLS collected $500 per month to cover rent, utilities and equipment for the leadership PAC, according to the FEC records. The PAC's address is listed as a personal mailbox in San Francisco, across the street from FLS's Montgomery Street office building, but the rent payments went to an office space. In early 2007, the PAC's treasurer, Leo T. McCarthy, former Democratic speaker of the state assembly and lieutenant governor in California, died. Mr. Pelosi took over as treasurer and his company's PAC payouts rose. At that point, FLS started charging the PAC $24,000 per year for accounting work. In January 2008, the PAC's rent - paid to FLS - also quadrupled from $500 to $2,000 per month. Katie Falkenberg/The Washington Times PARTNERSHIP: Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul F. Pelosi, was by her side at a Democratic event in 2006. Mr. McCarthy, the previous treasurer, had done the work as a volunteer, according to FEC documents and Jennifer Crider, a senior adviser to Mrs. Pelosi and spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She said FLS' accounting fees are in line with costs for other PACs. The jump in rent was an adjustment to reflect San Francisco's pricey real estate market, Miss Crider said. The rent was adjusted to $1,250 per month, with $750 in back rent to reflect that the rent should have been increased in mid-2007. This was the first increase since the PAC was established in mid-1999, records show. Over the first six months of 2008, FLS was the largest vendor for Mrs. Pelosi's PAC. Brian Wolff, a political consultant, is the second-largest vendor, bringing in $22,500 this year. FLS' payments represent 11 percent of the $213,900 the PAC raised over the first half of this year, according to the FEC documents. PACs, which are designed to help politicians contribute to other candidates and build influence with colleagues, operate under lighter restrictions than traditional campaign committees. Meredith McGehee, policy director at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said putting family members on a PAC payroll is bound to raise questions and, in some cases, allow for abuse. "The reality is that under the current system, PACs are rife with self-dealing transactions," she said. "The laws and regulations could and should be strengthened. "There is a point now that you're starting to talk about real money," she said of Mrs. Pelosi's PAC. "This is not just a mom-and-pop operation and any self-dealing transaction by a member of Congress is going to get scrutiny, particularly with large amounts of money and prominent members." It is illegal for members of Congress to hire family members to work on their official staff, but hiring relatives to work on a campaign or PAC is legal. To be sure, many political action committees employ or work with family businesses. Last year, CREW found that 19 members of Congress used campaign committees or PACs to purchase services from a family member between 2002 and 2006. Mrs. Pelosi's PACs have been in trouble before. In 2004, one of her political action committees, Team Majority, was fined $21,000 by the FEC for accepting donations over federal limits. It was one of two PACs she operated at the same time. The Team Majority PAC was closed shortly after the fine was levied. "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling