At least not on Flame. That's the purpose of this room so, as Bowser says, if it bugs you to see all the bickering, you might want to avoid pressing the link.

Since you decided to play though, I thought I'd address something you said which is that Pelosi and the Dems wrote the bill. First, who should have written it given the critical timing we're faced with? Should it have been written by committee? I don't know if you've spent any time in corporate meetings trying to compose something even as simple as a mission statement but it's a nightmare. Everyone talks at once and you split hairs over single words with sub-committees formed to decide the color of the logo you'll end up with.

For critical actions, it's often best for some single entity to start off with an initial draft and then you get together in committee to massage the thing. That seems to be exactly what Obama and the Dems did and my understanding is the Republicans horse traded for lots of things. Nothing was stopping them from building their own package and making that the starting point. Traditionally though, it's the party in power that begins things on the most important legislation.

Nobody expected the majority of Republican legislators to support a bill mostly crafted by the Democrats that didn't cater to big business and the wealthy but for not a single defection to occur smells a rat. Nearly every one of the Republican congressmen could have come back to their own faltering state and shown their constituents some component of the infrastructure projects that would have put local people to work. Eri, this was a political knife in the back after the olive branch was extended and there needs to be a bitch slap back.

I'm sorry if you want Kum Ba Ya but this is the big leagues here and peoples lives and futures are on the line. It's time to draw some lines in the sand. For an exercise read the text to FDR's inauguration speech when he put out the line about "nothing to fear but fear itself" which was about avoiding panic in the economic mess they were in. The less famous lines from that speech were basically FDR saying that he would be insisting upon extraordinary power for the executive branch because he viewed the crisis as he viewed a declared war. In comparison Obama and the Dems seem downright tame and conciliatory.

I will not sit still when guys like Tom and SteveS come on here distorting the facts about what caused this crisis, who the really bad guys are, and what solutions will work. If there was the tiniest bit of compromise in their responses I'd back off but they clearly wish to dictate all the terms and refuse to acknowledge any overreach on their side. What they reap so they shall sow.

Art