Roman

Welcome back, Greg.

I also blame Obama for some of this. 1. He should have had the anger he had on Thursday night the whole time. And 2. Stop trying to reason and cowtow to these damn Republicans. They spent 8 years spending us all into the [!@#$%^&*] poorhouse, and now they have found fiscal religion, blasting anything that is in that bill just for shits and grins.

Where was all of this fiscal responsibility when Bush was in office? }

BTW, hi Brian.

This is a list of the projects and programs that either were slashed or cut out altogether:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/07/sti...cuts/index.html

Now, read this and tell me........

Did we just get screwed with no vasaline on some of this?

And, it might be easier to count the crooks who were NOT in the Bush Admin.

But, I guess we just have to get used to 4 years of bitching from people who defended the worst admin. (Bush) in American history.

Isn't that special?

Well, with all the [!@#$%^&*] crooks we just got rid of from the last God-awful, [!@#$%^&*] sucking administration (Like GWB can even spell that) 2 or 3 crooks seems like a VAST improvement.

Thanks for your once-every-six-month visit, Kwing.

So apparently the interview process in the Obama Admin. goes like this:

"We need a Sec. Of Interior. Question. Have you paid your taxes?"

"Not for the last twenty years."

"You're hired!"

Let's get it together people. Damn.

He froze staff salaries?

Damn, I like that [!@#$%^&*].

FYI I did not get into a snit about anything. You can think I did all you want but I didn't.

I got mad because I wanted to discuss somethign that was on my mind. You turned it into a political debate about who did what. That is the reason i hardly ever come in here.

I have been working ever since I came back here to avoid any thread you are in and now that I know you are in the political therads I won't come in here anymore. For that matter from here on out I have you on ignore. I hate to do that to anyone but everything you ever respond to me with is something negative and because of that I will stay away from you and ignore you.

You get mad about everything when someone doesn't want to listen to you complain about about everything.

You have said 3 timnes you were NOT going to post in the tread, then you come back long enough to bitch at me because I called you out on something you posted.

Whatever Steve.

During the January 18 edition of MSNBC Live, host Tamron Hall stated that "the inauguration festivities" for President-elect Barack Obama are "estimated to reach as high as $150 million," adding that "n 2004, to note, the inauguration of George W. Bush cost roughly $40 million." However, the $40 million figure that Hall cited for Bush's second inauguration reportedly does not include certain costs incurred by the federal government and the District of Columbia such as security and transportation costs; these costs are included in the $150 million estimate that the media are reporting for the Obama inauguration. When the costs incurred by the federal government and the District of Columbia are factored in, the total cost of Bush's 2005 inauguration was reportedly around $157 million, as Media Matters for America senior fellow Eric Boehlert noted.

Fundraising

Preparations at the capitolUnlike in political campaigns, there are no legal restrictions on the amount that one can contribute to an inaugural celebration. The 2005 inauguration saw numerous corporations contribute $250,000 to George W. Bush's second inauguration, which cost an estimated $42.3 million,[12] while Obama's inauguration is expected to cost $40 million from Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee[13] and "near $50 million" from the city.[14] As the costs have soared to over $150 million for the District and neighboring states[12] (another estimate[15] suggests $170 million or more in total), such as Maryland where the costs are over $11 million,[16] Barack Obama's inauguration committee (Penny Pritzker, John W. Rogers, Jr., Pat Ryan, William Daley and Julianna Smoot) set a $50,000 contribution limit to underscore their "commitment to change business as usual in Washington."[17] As of January 6, 2009, the committee had raised over $27 million and at least 378 people gave the maximum $50,000, including George Soros, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Ron Howard, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis and Jim Henson's daughter Lisa Henson.[18] Although the committee is not accepting donations from PACs, federally registered lobbyists, or corporations,[19] they are accepting donations from individuals with active lobbying interest such as Google and Microsoft executives Eric Schmidt and Steve Ballmer, respectively.[18]

When is Obama sworn in tomorrow?

Is it at noon Eastern?

Aye, pimpin', do what ya gotta do.

I don't care one way or the other.

But, for someone who comes off so negatively about everything.....how do you expect anyone to actually expect anyone to listen to you? You posted an article that talked about the cost of OBAMA'S inaguration, and now you get into a snit because I responded to an article you posted THAT HAD THE MAN'S NAME IN THE DAMN THING?!

Whatever.

See I don't see it that way and I don't understand why we are supposed to ignore such things with Obama when things like that were not ignored with Bush, Clinton, or any of them.

I judge all the presidents and the politicians by the same thing - the total picture.

And Obama doesnt' get a by on any of that.

And you see just by the post above by Roman it is not. You mention something that is proven by articles and they will always throw it back up with what so and so did. Just another reason I have been staying out of the any thing politics. You can't even mention anything without someone saying well look at what George W. Bush did or look at what Clinton did or look at what Reagan did - as if it makes it any better because so and so did this too. Well it doesn't.

So what if GWB's alledgedly cost $140 million it doesn't take away from the anger and disappointment I feel in all politicians taht they are spending all this money right now. To me the cost of GWB's or Reagean's or whoever's is very irreleavnt right now and doesn't matter one iota right now.

George W. Bush was judged by every little thing he did whether he had anything to do with it or not. And Obama will too.

I know that Obama doesn't have anything to do with everything here but it is still about him and his administration. But the fact is that the cost is there and a large part of it falls on the taxpayers who are having a difficult time right now.

I could have more HOPE and thoughts of a positive nature if they had scaled things back. Instead they are making it more lavish. It just doesn't seem right when the country is talking about bail outs, rising unemployment and all. It is just not a good sign and does not offer a sign of hope at all.

Then stick with that.

I will chose to hold him accountable for what he does WHEN he gets into office. I can't remember the last time a PE got so much scrutiny who hadn't taken office yet.

And as for that story about the cost, read the post before your latest one. That may shed some light on this whole BS fiasco.

And now the truth:

From MMFA:

The media myth about the cost of Obama's inauguration

by Eric Boehlert

Did you hear that "some are saying" Barack Obama's inauguration will cost "$160 million," which is $100 million more than George W. Bush's last swearing-in? That's the tale the crew at Fox & Friends was telling on January 15. "Why does the thing have to cost so much?" demanded co-host Gretchen Carlson. "I don't get it. George Bush spent $42.3 million and that was just four years ago." She wondered why Obama needed "another $100 million" for his celebration.

The Fox News crew wasn't alone. The Internet and cable news were filled with chatter about the jaw-dropping (and unsubstantiated) number suddenly attached to Obama's swearing-in. But the sloppy reporting and online gossip about the price tag illustrated what happens when journalists don't do their job and online partisans take advantage of that kind of work.

It also highlighted the type of news you can generate when making blatantly false comparisons. In this case, it was the cost of the Obama and Bush inaugurations. The connection was unfair because the Obama figure of $160 million that got repeated in the press included security costs associated with the massive event. But the Bush tab of $42 million left out those enormous costs. Talk about stacking the deck.

The misinformation first arrived in the form of an underreported newspaper article in America, and then one in London. Between them, and thanks to furious transatlantic online linking, the reports gave birth to the story that Obama's inauguration was going to cost nearly four times what the country spent on Bush's bash in 2005 -- that the Obama inauguration would cost almost $120 million more.

With its declarative headline, "Obama's inauguration is most expensive ever at $160 million," the New York Daily News reported:

It will take Barack Obama less than a minute to recite the oath of office -- and when he's done dancing at the inaugural balls Jan. 20, the price tag for his swearing-in festivities could approach $160 million.

Obama's inaugural committee is in the midst of raising roughly $45 million in private funds, exceeding the $42.3 million President Bush spent in 2005. In 1993, Clinton spent $33 million when Democrats returned to the White House for the first time in 12 years.

Talk about red flags: "could approach"? See the extraordinary freedom that kind of loose language allows? Of course, technically speaking, it's true the inauguration spending "could approach" $160 million. It also "could approach" $400 million or $900 million. There's literally no limit to the number that could be inserted into the phrasing, especially when the Daily News provided so little basis for the jumbo figure.

The closest the Daily News came to explaining the $160 million was its noting that the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland had submitted a $75 million request to the federal government to cover inauguration costs, including security and transportation. Bottom line: The Daily News provided no facts -- no evidence -- to support its what-if $160 million price tag for the inauguration, a price tag the newspaper declared as fact in its attention-grabbing headline.

The next day, a January 14 article in the London tabloid, the Daily Mail, also used an inflated figure, but offered zero reporting to back it up. (The Daily Mail piece created a big stir when the Drudge Report linked to it.)

The Daily Mail lead: "Barack Obama's inauguration is set to cost more than £100m [$155 million] making it the most expensive swearing-in ceremony in US history."

The story continued:

The President-elect will take less than a minute to recite the oath of office in front of an estimated two million people in the US capital next week.

But by the time the final dance has been held at one of the many inaugural balls the costs for the day will be a staggering £110m [roughly $162 million].

The cost was revealed as Mr Obama scrambled to answer questions about the nomination of Treasury Secretary pick Timothy Geithner.

"Was revealed"? Who revealed the $162 million figure? The Daily Mail never said. And much like the Daily News, the figures mentioned in the Daily Mail simply did not add up to the final cost the newspaper hyped.

Unfortunately, that didn't matter. At least not to conservative partisans who grabbed onto the Daily Mail story (via Drudge) and announced a blatant hypocrisy existed within the press because, they claimed, four years earlier, reporters and liberal pundits raised questions about the cost of Bush's inauguration, but suddenly were mum about Obama's, even though at $160 million, it was going to cost nearly four times as much as Bush's bash. (Actually, it wasn't just liberals or the press raising questions about the Bush inauguration; a strong majority of Americans wished Bush, during a time of war, had scaled back the glitz for his second swearing-in.)

Online, the inauguration condemnations were swift and fierce. The cost of "Obama's upcoming celebration" was "dwarfing" any previous swearing-in expenses and was climbing into "the $100 millions," claimed right-wing weblog The Jawa Report, which relied on the Daily Mail for its misinformation.

The unsubstantiated $160 million figure was also picked up and repeated on MSNBC, where news anchors spent all of January 14 announcing Obama's inauguration was going to cost "$160 million." The eye-popping dollar figure was accepted as fact, even though nobody in the press could actually explain where that number had come from. Plus, MSNBC suggested the $160 million tab just covered parties and activities, not the larger security costs.

Embed this video:

Here's why using the $160 million number and comparing it with Bush's 2005 costs represented a classic apples-and-oranges assessment: For years, the press routinely referred to the cost of presidential inaugurations by calculating how much money was spent on the swearing-in and the social activities surrounding that. The cost of the inauguration's security was virtually never factored into the final tab, as reported by the press. For instance, here's The Washington Post from January 20, 2005, addressing the Bush bash:

The $40 million does not include the cost of a web of security, including everything from 7,000 troops to volunteer police officers from far away, to some of the most sophisticated detection and protection equipment.

For decades, that represented the norm in terms of calculating inauguration costs: Federal dollars spent on security were not part of the commonly referred-to cost. (The cost of Obama's inauguration, minus the security costs? Approximately $45 million.) What's happening this year: The cost of the Obama inauguration and the cost of the security are being combined by some in order to come up with the much larger tab. Then, that number is being compared with the cost of the Bush inauguration in 2005, minus the money spent on security.

In other words, it's the unsubstantiated Obama cost of $160 million (inauguration + security) compared with the Bush cost of 42 million (inauguration, excluding security). Those are two completely different calculations being compared side-by-side, by Fox & Friends, among others, to support the phony claim that Obama's inauguration is $100 million more expensive than Bush's.

That's why the right-wing site Newsmax.com confidently reported that Obama's swearing-in would cost "nearly four times what George Bush's inauguration cost four years ago." So did Flopping Aces, a shining light of the right-wing blogosphere:

President Barack Obama's inauguration next week is set to be the most expensive ever, predicted to reach over $150m. This dwarfs the $42.3m spent on George Bush's inauguration in 2005 and the $33m spent on Bill Clinton's in 1993.

If portions of the press and the blogosphere want to now suggest that the cost of security should also be factored into the final tab for presidential inaugurations, they need to go back and recalculate the cost for Bush's 2005 swearing-in in order to have an honest comparison. Because with security included, the 2005 inauguration cost a lot more than $42 million -- just as with security factored in, Obama's will also cost a lot more than $45 million. (The final tab, though, likely won't be known for months.)

The question for the press then becomes: How much did the government spend on security for Bush's 2005 inauguration? How much did it cost for the wartime administration's unprecedented move to turn the nation's capital into something akin to an armed fortress, with snipers on rooftops, planes flying overhead, Humvee-mounted anti-aircraft missiles dotting the city, and manholes cemented shut?

Back in January 2005, that figure was impossible to come by. "U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said last week that he was unable to estimate security costs for the inauguration," The Washington Times reported. The cross-town Washington Post also had no luck in 2005 finding out the cost of security: "[Government] spokesmen said they could not provide an estimate of what the inauguration will cost the federal government."

However, buried in a recent New York Times article published one week before the controversy erupted over the cost of Obama's inauguration, the newspaper reported that in 2005, "the federal government and the District of Columbia spent a combined $115.5 million, most of it for security, the swearing-in ceremony, cleanup and for a holiday for federal workers" [emphasis added].

You read that correctly. The federal government spent $115 million dollars for the 2005 inauguration. Keep in mind, that $115 million price tag was separate from the money Bush backers bundled to put on the inauguration festivities. For that, they raised $42 million. So the bottom line for Bush's 2005 inauguration, including the cost of security? That's right, $157 million.

Unless the Obama inauguration tab (including security) ends up costing $630 million, we can safely say it certainly won't cost four times what the Bush bash did in 2005. And unless the Obama inauguration tab (including security) runs to $257 million, we can safely say the event won't cost $100 million more than Bush's, as Fox & Friends claimed.

So, for now, can the press and partisans please stop peddling this malignant myth?

And GWB's inaguration cost?

$140 million.

Now, I don't seem to see any articles talking about that, now do I?

Ahh, hell.. I was going to post a nasty response to you, but changed my mind.

Let's be friends, Roman.

We'll see.

You have said this in the past and then came back with a nasty comment when someone posted something you didn't like.

So, like I said, we'll see.

And it was just said on MSNBC that the reason why he did this was because Obama called the President of the Ill. Senate to push through new ethics reform bills that go into effect on Jan. 1st. He tried to get this [!@#$%^&*] doen before these new laws took effect.

Dear God. Breaking........a child's remains were found near Caylee Anthony's home.

Roman, both Republicans and Democrats are corrupt. It's the nature of politics and individual failing of a person and has nothing to do with affiliation to a political party, in my opinion.

But please don't knee-jerk react to my post by shifting the focus to a corrupt Republican. We can play that game all day long going back and forth mentioning every corrupt jackass on both sides of the aisle.

Besides, Obama has had no contact with Governor B. His people say so... Not so much as a brief memo even SUGGESTING they should discuss the vacant Senate seat... right? I mean, personally, I find it hard to believe that it has never come up in conversation... not even when the two met and were photographed meeting on December 2...

But, friends, I will take Obama at his word -- just as the press did for much of his campaign -- and will avoid asking any questions that could result in any answers at all.

But I'll leave the speculation to the pundits, such as John Fund at the Wall Street Journal, who writes:

What remains to be seen is whether this episode will put an end to what Chicago Tribune political columnist John Kass calls the national media's "almost willful" fantasy that Mr. Obama and Chicago's political culture have little to do with each other. Mr. Kass notes that the media devoted a lot more time and energy to investigating the inner workings of Sarah Palin's Wasilla, Alaska, than it has looking at Mr. Obama's Chicago connections.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1228953565...ss_opinion_main

1. You are the last person to tell me how to react to a post.

2. I have said on many occasions, that corruption exist in both parties. It is not mutual exclusive. Maybe you were not listening to me. Wouldn't be the first time.

3. I want to see how Obama handles this situation. I feel he had no contact with this fool about his former seat, but someone in his transition team has. I will be waiting to see how he handles it, and hope it doesn't take the few days he just said it would. The longer this takes, the more it drags out and the more it gets him off message. It helps that the [!@#$%^&*] called him a mother !@#$%^&*] when he did not play ball, But we'll see.

It is unbelievable how stupid he is. I know Chicago pols have done this type thing for years at one level -- but selling a senate seat??? Did it not occur to him that that if he did sell the seat, those who lost would get wind of it?

I think the FBI did the right thing. They stepped in before he did any real damage by selling the seat. I'm just wondering if he ever approached anybody on the deal. It sounds like he did with the Jackson folks.

I bet you $5.00 that his favorite movie is The Godfather.

The FBI has said Obama had nothing to do with it

The tapes quote the corrupt governor as blasting the Obama folks for saying that the corrupt governor will get nothing from Obama but appreciation

Obama has said that he had no contact with the corrupt governor

Axelrod has said that he was wrong when he said Obama had spoken with the corrupt governor

All of the would-be Senate candidates have said Obama had nothing to do with the corrupt governor.

It has been reported in the media that Obama and the corrupt governor did not get along and had not gotten along in two years.

Dick Durbin, the other Democratic senator from Illinois, has said that the corrupt governor did not return his phone calls nor did the corrpt governor talk with Obama.

You know, unless some one can prove otherwise, then I think it is safe to say Obama had nothing to do with the corrupt governor.

Now my question, did the corrupt governor ever act on his comments or did he just talk? And, if he never acted, is there still a crime?

From what I understand, it became a crime when he sought any type of compensation for favors rendered.

When they got his beyond stupid ass on tape saying this [!@#$%^&*], he broke the law.

This man is a douchbag and should get every one of the 30 years that are being thrown at him for the years of corruption he acted on in that state.

But to act like Democrats are the only ones who do this shitis quite......silly.

Wow, makes you wonder how deep the corruption runs in Illinois government. Any other high-profile Illinois Democrats have dirty secrets hidden away?

I don't know.

I'll ask former Republican Senate contender Jack Ryan that question........once he gets out of the sex clubs he took his ex-wife to.

I guess we'll now play everyone's favorite gameshow "Only the Democrats Are Corrupt".

Pink Floyd - The Wall.