Build a Mosque, not a church, that decision is rushed.
Update:
LOWER MANHATTAN — The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, destroyed on 9/11, will rise again at the World Trade Center site, thanks to a new agreement announced Friday, Aug 12 2011.
The U. S. House was on recess when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ordered members to scurry back to Washington on August 10 2010 to do what they do best, spend taxpayer’s money by approving another bailout, this time for states that have been derelict in controlling their own spending on government worker pay, benefits and pensions.
The call-back session was to vote on a $26.1 billion bill to bail out state governments (The Senate passed the legislation on August 5th.). The bill was approved by the House on a largely party line vote.
According to Fox News, some Democrats and advocacy groups are “outraged” because “the bill also requires that $12 billion be stripped from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, to help fund the new bill.” Is taking $12 billion from the Food Stamps program in order to pass it to union jobs the new Obama plan to redistribute wealth?
Reconvening of Congress, their action quite speedy
To bail out the unions, they all are so greedy.
Harry, Nancy and Barack
Act together as a pack:
Take it from food stamps; who cares ‘bout the needy?
LEFT: Nancy Pelosi tries her best to explain her strange behavior.
RIGHT:Question: Why does an American Woman Infidel do the sign of the cross in the great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus Syria? Answer: Nancy Pelosi does the sign of the cross to pay her utmost respect to the skull of John the Baptist. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi looks at the tomb containing the head of St. John the Baptist inside the historic Umayyad Mosque, during her tour at a popular market in downtown Damascus, Syria, Tuesday April 3, 2007.
(President George W. Bush criticized the trip, saying it sends mixed signals to Syrian President Bashar Assad. )
Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the house in Jan 2007. What power does she have anyhow?
Let us take a look at the U.S. Constitution:
Section 7 – Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. Section 8 – Powers of Congress The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
How has our economy been performing since she took the reins of the purse strings? There is an interesting article by Mark Trumbull, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / February 21, 2007 : Despite the ongoing costs of US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the outlook for the federal budget has grown substantially brighter. Tax revenues are rising much faster than spending, according to Treasury Department numbers released last week. The recent trend is strong enough that, were it to continue, the budget could move into surplus in barely a year, one economist calculates. Already, the federal deficit is shrinking toward about half the size that it has averaged since 1970, when analyzed as a percentage of gross domestic product. The shift reflects a strong economy, with higher incomes and corporate profits generating a bigger flow of tax revenue. In turn, the Treasury’s progress could help the economy by buoying investor confidence in the nation’s fiscal position. Some experts say the budget could achieve balance in the short run of the next few years. In unveiling its proposed budget this month, the Bush administration forecast black ink on the federal ledger in 2012. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in its recent annual outlook, also shows a surplus for that year. So, after three and a half year of Nancy Pelosi, how are we doing? I can only say it has gone from good to bad to verse:
Ode to Nancy Pelosi, Limerick style.
Since Nancy Pelosi took over the gavel
Was our economy quick to unravel.
She is more than bad,
The worst that we had.
We finally stopped contemplating our navel.
.
Since Nancy Pelosi took over as speaker
Our job situation has gotten much weaker
All jobs that are lost
Since she got the post
And as for advise, shame to all who still seek her.
.
For Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader
The Chinese exploiters a life-line did feed her
Our debt load increased
Four trillions at least
We all must this fall go and vote to unseat her
.
For Nancy Pelosi, known Tea Party hater
Gets scared when the grandmothers start to berate her
“A Period of Consequences.” The phrase is taken from a speech in the House of Commons in late 1936 in which Winston Churchill warned: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
The British economist and businessman Josiah Charles Stamp is said to have remarked, “It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.”
The Limerick:
Obama shows signs that fer sure he can’t hack it.
Our country: The consequence starts to attack it.
But Winston was right,
We must face the fight.
On Churchill’s old bust Barry blurted: Take back it!
(1) On eight occasions, the current occupant of the White House (Obama) has referred to the Spanish model as an example to follow.
(2) After a leaked Spanish government report, a newspaper in Spain (La Gaceta) confirms that the country’s “green economy” policies — the model for the Obama administration’s “green jobs” efforts — have been a disaster: expensive, ineffective, and unworkable
(3) The official jobless rate in Spain went from 7.9% in May 2007 to 19% in Nov 2009. It now stands at 22.8% (Oct 2011)
(4) The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Spanish: Partido Socialista Obrero Español [parˈtiðo soθjaˈlista oˈβrero espaˈɲol], PSOE [peˈsoe]) is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Since the General election on 14 March 2004, the PSOE has been the governing party of Spain. The PSOE is a full member of the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist International.
(5) MADRID — Spaniards struggling with high unemployment and a credit squeeze delivered a punishing verdict on almost eight years of Socialist government at the ballot box on Nov 20 2011, turning to the conservative Popular Party in the hopes of alleviating the pain of Europe’s debt crisis. The Popular Party, led by Mariano Rajoy won 186 seats and a governing majority in the 350-seat lower house of Parliament, while the governing Socialists plummeted to 110 seats from 169. It was the Popular Party’s best showing, and the Socialists’ worst, since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.
(6) Spain took advantage of strong demand to sell nearly twice as many bonds as initially planned at its final bond auction last year on Dec 15 2011, although market participants expect the country’s borrowing conditions to remain tough next year. The strong response to the auction, which brought much-needed respite to the battered Spanish bond market, helped power the country’s bonds higher, with the yield on bonds due in two years falling to their lowest levels since late October.
(7) Jan 27 2012 Fitch Ratings has resolved the Negative Rating Watch on six Eurozone sovereigns, downgrading the IDRs for Belgium, Cyprus, Italy, Slovenia and Spain while affirming ratings for Ireland. The Negative Outlook on all six countries indicates a slightly greater than 50% chance of a downgrade over a two-year time horizon.
The Obama administration announced Nov. 10 it would delay a politically explosive decision on the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline until after the 2012 elections. Congress corrected this dithering by forcing Obama to make a decision one way or another. He chose not to build it.
This decision was bad on so many levels it is hard to count them all.Let’s try to look at the ways:
Canada has oil sands and is exploiting the resources. U.S. is dependent on importing a large share of its crude oil.
The cheapest and most efficient way to transport crude oil is through a pipe line. It is also the safest and most reliable way of getting crude oil from point A to point B. To not O.K. the pipeline increases the cost and makes us more dependent of crude oil from the Middle East and Nigeria, as well as Venezuela.
Canada really, really wanted this deal. It would help improve our relations. Now they are strained.
The unions really wanted the jobs. It would supply them with more than 20000 direct, well-paid jobs. In addition there is secondary business generated whenever a project of this magnitude is undertaken. Why not generate jobs?
The newly discovered oil fields in North Dakota and Montana could use the pipeline as well. Now they will have to go it alone or transport their oil on railroad or barge traffic instead, a more expensive and less safe option. So why did Obama delay the decision?
It was because of the environmentalists. Let us examine why this decision was equally horrible from an environmentalist’s perspective. Canada is a sovereign nation. They have the oil and will sell or use it one way or another. The most energy conserving way is to transport it through a pipeline. Transport via train, truck or barge uses more energy (read more CO2) and costs about $15 per barrel vs. $5 for a pipeline.
Canada will sell it’s oil to China if we don’t want it. China has a well deserved reputation for producing a lot of pollution. The best environmental solution is for us to import this oil.
Nebraska protested there was a danger to damage their aquifer. The Keystone XL management offered to reroute the pipeline away from this sensitive aquifer, thereby solving that objection. By not importing oil from Canada the total carbon footprint will increase. We lose, and Canada loses. (I am not concerned that the CO2 is increasing, but that a valuable natural resource is excessively depleted.) Now it turns out that Canada has left the Kyoto Protocol, thereby being free to burn as much of its carbon as they want. Was that really what the environmentalists wanted?
So why did Obama first delay the decision until after the 2012 election, and then when forced deny the permit? Here are five possibilities:
1. Obama is a true believer that ”this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”. As a true environmentalist his role can not be overestimated .
2. Obama is deliberately wrecking our economy, refuses to have an energy policy that will create jobs, but will support protest movements and foment unrest.
3. Obama is acting on orders from Global Governance people that do want U.S. to be totally dependent on international law and U.N. mandates.
4. Obama promised to be Brazil’s best customer from their deep sea oil drilling success, paid for by U.S. loan guarantees. He must be true to his promises.
5. Obama is half insane and surrounded by bad advisors.
This is the best I can do to explain the reasons for this decision.
Sarah Palin: Criminal penalty if vote traded for campaign contribution. [The Alaska Senate watered down the 2007 ethics bill] The Senate’s action was politics-as-usual. We were determined to keep the pressure on. That pressure paid off when legislators approved an omnibus ethics bill. It included my administration’s ethics proposal, as well as the House’s muscular amendment that imposed criminal penalties on lawmakers who traded votes for campaign contributions. Plus, any legislator convicted of a felony would forfeit his or her state pension. We were pleased that no one could claim pride of authorship on this. Finally the Capitol had pulled together and passed a strong bill. A Democrat lawmaker noted: “This is one of the best pieces of work I’ve seen come out of the legislature because it came out as a policy document and not a political document.” It was music to my ears: POLICY, not politics. From Going Rogue, by Sarah Palin, p.156
On September 11 a Greek Church was crushed. 
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 