Hello Carmel, First let me commend you for your passion and thank you for taking your time. I cannot possibly respond to all of this (I have a business and a 5 and 2 year old). And you know I ask your forgivenss for saying you are an unhappy person, because that was out of line. But there are things here where you are absolutely wrong. I will absolutely agree that the bailout of these banks, car companies is completely irresponsible and potentially criticially damaging to our nation. But I would also add that there are lots of Democrats—including Obama—that support this. In fact, Obama was asking Bush to help the car companies. So how can all of this be blamed on Bush? Second, I’ll comment on this paragraph: America experienced the most severe economic decline since the Great Depression, the greatest stock market percentage decline in US history, the most catastrophic stock market fraud in the history of the world: over $4 trillion was lost by investors and over $1 trillion was lost in pension funds and university endowments. Leading to the most personal bankruptcies, and the most real estate foreclosures ever filed. My husband is a licensed financial advisor and I work with him—so we obviously follow this pretty closely. First of all—a basic understanding of investing is that some of this money is not lost. With the history of the markets—even in this tough environment—-this money will be back. Now there will be some that will lose because of bankruptcies, etc.—but that is why you diversify and not just in small and large cap. And these problems were not caused solely by the admin. Bush’s admin can be blamed for lack of oversight, Clinton’s for pushing mortgages to low income folks who couldn’t afford it, Barney Frank for ignoring Fannie & Freddie’s problems (remember Obama’s got some good dough for his campaign from the them), the execs for risky behaviour, the big banks for buying and selling securities they did not understand, the local mortgage company for pushing interest-only, balloon and variable interest loans to people who would never be able to keep them, AND the people who knew they would not be able to afford these homes is “life happened.” There is no way you can blame Bush for everything. There are many things that are debateable with facts and opinion in your post—but like I said—not enough time. And I don’t think you are interested in my view or opinion anyway. But I’m not “ill-informed” and not perfect—so I might find that I’m wrong sometimes. And I’m guessing you are too. Happy holidays and I’ll close with that. Many blessings to you and yours.

yo—-babe—-‘sock-it-to-em’—-they need it—-they are not simply stupid—-global IQs continue to rise, and year’s ago it was shown any human has their own ‘area-of-genius’—-what goes wrong? usually early ‘programming’ by an extremely biased edu-system, family, society—-look at Werner Von Braun, space-faring’s Great genius—-his goal was always expanding humanity beyond Earth—-not killing—-but via his Nazi society he used ‘prison’ labor to make ‘killer-rockets’—-then got us to the moon—-was he wrong? the key is learning to both think for yourself, and ‘watch what they do, not what they say’. no easy thing—-and not taught here—- why do i ‘haunt’ this forum? unlike ‘physics’, ‘life-science’ and others—-it’s wide-open, no ‘personal agendas’, as in under or graduate school—-and i’ve seen what was once termed ‘telepathy’ as quite real—-and now termed ‘morphic-resonance’—-ahh! a ‘scientific-people’ term—-that helps—-and as i’ve lived, i’ve seen women as far more adept at same vs. men—-as i feel i bear important ‘dispatches’ of Life—where to go? you did that. me thinks you found the proper place—-that 3:48pm post is a piece of prose ‘to-die-for’—-i’m a pro-writer—-to see the political truth ‘laid-out’ in a post? as a good poem—-a novel on a page—-i see another—-and may your reader’s minds ‘get-it’—-then thoughts are proven to have wings—-sort of ‘mental-multiple-marketing.’ :)

Carmel, I watched his announcement on Fox News and yes, it was articulate. But so was Bill Clinton when lying about Monica Lewinsky. No one has said he is not articulate—but you are putting a lot into a mere 15 minutes. He has a long way to go. He barred Fox News from his press conferences—I’d like that confirmed, because I find that unlikely. He sat in an interview with Bill O’Reilly. If he had a idealogical position against Fox News, then he is being disingenous.

Merrell, All of our opinions are valid. I’m very open to learn, that’s why I’m out here. But understand that though most of us want the same things—we just go about it in different ways. Things would be better in Washington if the debate were more civil. Can you verify that Bush is opening NP for drilling? I follow politics very closely and have never heard that. And what do you want Obama to reverse and how is he lining his buddies pockets? I appreciate your words, but it’s important that we talk in facts and not in rhetoric. Do you think Obama is not trying to give back to his union buddies by endorsing the union card check law they are trying to pass? This is not one-sided. Politics is politics sometimes. Blessings to you.

Phyllis, “Susan’s statement about do we really care what the rest of the world thinks of us put me in somewhat of a frenzy.” lol. Me, too. Although I have ‘Faux News” family members who come up with lines like that. Politeness keeps me from smothering them with a pillow. Ha.

Phyllis, I understand that we need the world’s cooperation in many different ways. I’m not naive. My general statement was meant to say—if it were the right decision and we had to make it for the safety and prosperity of our country—without the rest of the world—would we do it? For instance, would you sacrifice all of New York City and all the people in it to go along with what another country wanted? I’m sure you wouldn’t. So be careful about granting the rest of the world jurisdiction over our best interests. And as a general point of interest, Bush just agreed to go along with the international review of our banks, etc. and to establish international oversight. Doesn’t sound like anything folks have been discussing on here, does it?