Barack Obama News You Can Use

Valerie Jarrett Transition Update

2008-11-14T21:05:00.000-06:00

November 7, 2008 President-Elect Obama's First Press Conference

2008-11-14T21:02:00.000-06:00

A Thank You from ObamaDonna

2008-11-06T17:49:00.000-06:00

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A "Pinch Me" Moment!

2008-11-05T11:50:00.002-06:00

November 5, 2008
Nothing can express my feelings as beautifully as those by Alice Croll, one of the awesome My Barack Obama workers whose name has shown up in my email inbox for these past 21 months hundreds of times. I have never met her, but I feel like she is my good friend, my sister, and a part of the inspiration that helped to keep me going day after day. Thank you, Alice, and all of the rest of the people in the 100 groups I joined for this most incredible journey! It is my fervent wish that we can all somehow continue on in the work of President-Elect Barack Obama for our country.
Forever ObamaDonna in Lake Geneva, WI

The surreality of this foggy East Coast morning, watching dancing on the streets of Philadelphia,the swaying towards the sea in San Francisco, New York New York's Times Square with traffic of frantic folks, waves of women and men at the gates of the White House, remains a pinch myself moment.
Did we do it? We did.
Is he the one? He is.
Can we get there? We have.
Fired up? And here we go.
For almost two years of giving parts of our lives over to the belief in ourselves that had become a ghost of Americans past, many of us sit at our keyboards with Obama buttons stuck on our shirts, lists of e-mail addresses of people we may never meet strewn on our home office floors, laundry undone, friends who may have not seen us, or seen us sane for awhile, papers stuffed under the bed, here we are...dazed by what we have wrought.
Morning has already come to America, but the dawn will be as it never has broken the horizon. I wonder what will happen to our Obama groups, our daily dose of to-do lists, our blogging and slogging through the endless talking and turning points.
Like the national family, this superb support group, the We, the US that Barack Obama cited as the victors by his side, we will change too.
Maybe we won't have a website to keep us tight. Maybe we won't have the Breaking News to wake and snooze on. Maybe we won't even remember those who lifted us up or brought us down during our ongoing debates. What will become of the temporary asylum that was this grassrooting? It will be up to us.
Something extraordinary was born of this campaign, this cause, and yes this candidate. Something unknown and uncertain is what we all will become to each other as our mission
changes.
I owe so much of my ability to hang on here to those with whom I connect right now. We owe each other an embrace of the history we all made out of improbablity.
I think the best way to note this time is with an ending that is a beginning too.
To all the traveling companions of this jewel of a journey,

Aloha.
Alice Croll aka, Alice in NJ

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA'S SPEECH ON ELECTION NIGHT

2008-11-05T03:26:00.000-06:00

Obama Will Be One of The Greatest (and Most Loved) American Presidents

2008-11-02T11:40:00.000-06:00

community service,

Frank Schaeffer
Posted October 8, 2008 | 02:45 PM (EST)

Great presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine.
Obama is one of the most intelligent presidential aspirants to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times.
I say this as a white, former life-long Republican. I say this as the proud father of a Marine. I say this as just another American watching his pension evaporate along with the stock market! I speak as someone who knows it's time to forget party loyalty, ideology and pride and put the country first. I say this as someone happy to be called a fool for going out on a limb and declaring that, 1) Obama will win, and 2) he is going to be amongst the greatest of American presidents.
Obama is our last best chance. He's worth laying it all on the line for.
This is a man who in the age of greed took the high road of community service. This is the good father and husband. This is the humble servant. This is the patient teacher. This is the scholar statesman. This is the man of deep Christian faith.
Good stories about Obama abound; from his personal relationship with his Secret Service agents (he invites them into his home to watch sports, and shoots hoops with them) to the story about how, more than twenty years ago, while standing in the check-in line at an airport, Obama paid a $100 baggage surcharge for a stranger who was broke and stuck. (Obama was virtually penniless himself in those days.) Years later after he became a senator, that stranger recognized Obama's picture and wrote to him to thank him. She received a kindly note back from the senator. (The story only surfaced because the person, who lives in Norway, told a local newspaper after Obama ran for the presidency. The paper published a photograph of this lady proudly displaying Senator Obama's letter.)
Where many leaders are two-faced; publicly kindly but privately feared and/or hated by people closest to them, Obama is consistent in the way he treats people, consistently kind and personally humble. He lives by the code that those who lead must serve. He believes that. He lives it. He lived it long before he was in the public eye.
Obama puts service ahead of ideology. He also knows that to win politically you need to be tough. He can be. He has been. This is a man who does what works, rather than scoring ideological points. In other words he is the quintessential non-ideological pragmatic American. He will (thank God!) disappoint ideologues and purists of the left and the right.
Obama has a reservoir of personal physical courage that is unmatched in presidential history. Why unmatched? Because as the first black contender for the presidency who will win, Obama, and all the rest of us, know that he is in great physical danger from the seemingly unlimited reserve of unhinged racial hatred, and just plain unhinged ignorant hatred, that swirls in the bowels of our wounded and sinful country. By stepping forward to lead, Obama has literally put his life on the line for all of us in a way no white candidate ever has had to do. (And we all know how dangerous the presidency has been even for white presidents.)
Nice stories or even unparalleled courage isn't the only point. The greater point about Obama is that the midst of our worldwide financial meltdown, an expanding (and losing) war in Afghanistan, trying to extricate our country from a wrong and stupidly mistaken ruinously expensive war in Iraq, our mounting and crushing national debt, awaiting the next (and inevitable) al Qaeda attack on our homeland, watching our schools decline to Third World levels of incompetence, facing a general loss of confidence in the government that has been exacerbated by the Republicans doing all they can to undermine our government's capabilities and programs... President Obama will take on the leadership of our country at a make or break time of historic proportions. He faces not one but dozens of crisis, each big enough to define any presidency in better times.
As luck, fate or divine grace would have it (depending on one's personal theology) Obama is blessedly, dare I say uniquely, well-suited to our dire circumstances. Obama is a person with hands-on community service experience, deep connections to top economic advisers from the renowned University of Chicago where he taught law, and a middle-class background that gives him an abiding knowledgeable empathy with the rest of us. As the son of a single mother, who has worked his way up with merit and brains, recipient of top-notch academic scholarships, the peer-selected editor of the Harvard Law Review and, in three giant political steps to state office, national office and now the presidency, Obama clearly has the wit and drive to lead.
Obama is the sober voice of reason at a time of unreason. He is the fellow keeping his head while all around him are panicking. He is the healing presence at a time of national division and strife. He is also new enough to the political process so that he doesn't suffer from the terminally jaded cynicism, the seen-it-all-before syndrome afflicting most politicians in Washington. In that regard we Americans lucked out. It's as if having despaired of our political process we picked a name from the phone book to lead us and that person turned out to be a very man we needed.
Obama brings a healing and uplifting spiritual quality to our politics at the very time when our worst enemy is fear. For eight years we've been ruled by a stunted fear-filled mediocrity of a little liar who has expanded his power on the basis of creating fear in others. Fearless Obama is the cure. He speaks a litany of hope rather than a litany of terror.
As we have watched Obama respond in a quiet reasoned manner to crisis after crisis, in both the way he has responded after being attacked and lied about in the 2008 campaign season, to his reasoned response to our multiplying national crises, what we see is the spirit of a trusted family doctor with a great bedside manner. Obama is perfectly suited to hold our hand and lead us through some very tough times. The word panic is not in the Obama dictionary.
America is fighting its "Armageddon" in one fearful heart at a time. A brilliant leader with the mild manner of an old-time matter-of-fact country doctor soothing a frightened child is just what we need. The fact that our "doctor" is a black man leading a hitherto white-ruled nation out of the mess of its own making is all the sweeter and raises the Obama story to that of moral allegory.
Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they've gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness.
Speaking as a believing Christian I see the hand of a merciful God in Obama's candidacy. The biblical metaphors abound. The stone the builder rejected is become the cornerstone... the last shall be first... he that would gain his life must first lose it... the meek shall inherit the earth...
For my secular friends I'll allow that we may have just been extraordinarily lucky! Either way America wins.
Only a brilliant man, with the spirit of a preacher and the humble heart of a kindly family doctor can lead us now. We are afraid, out of ideas, and worst of all out of hope. Obama is the cure. And we Americans have it in us to rise to the occasion. We will. We're about to enter one of the most frightening periods of American history. Our country has rarely faced more uncertainty. This is the time for greatness. We have a great leader. We must be a great people backing him, fighting for him, sacrificing for a cause greater than ourselves.
A hundred years from now Obama's portrait will be placed next to that of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Long before that we'll be telling our children and grandchildren that we stepped out in faith and voted for a young black man who stood up and led our country back from the brink of an abyss. We'll tell them about the power of love, faith and hope. We'll tell them about the power of creativity combined with humility and intellectual brilliance. We'll tell them that President Obama gave us the gift of regaining our faith in our country. We'll tell them that we all stood up and pitched in and won the day. We'll tell them that President Obama restored our standing in the world. We'll tell them that by the time he left office our schools were on the mend, our economy booming, that we'd become a nation filled with green energy alternatives and were leading the world away from dependence on carbon-based destruction. We'll tell them that because of President Obama's example and leadership the integrity of the family was restored, divorce rates went down, more fathers took responsibility for their children, and abortion rates fell dramatically as women, families and children were cared for through compassionate social programs that worked. We'll tell them about how the gap closed between the middle class and the super rich, how we won health care for all, how crime rates fell, how bad wars were brought to an honorable conclusion. We'll tell them that when we were attacked again by al Qaeda, how reason prevailed and the response was smart, tough, measured and effective, and our civil rights were protected even in times of crisis...
We'll tell them that we were part of the inexplicably blessed miracle that happened to our country those many years ago in 2008 when a young black man was sent by God, fate or luck to save our country. We'll tell them that it's good to live in America where anything is possible. Yes we will.

Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back. Now in paperback.
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"But that spirit can't just be restricted to moments of great catastrophe. Because as I stand here today and look out at the thousands of folks who have gathered here today, I know that there's some folks that are going through their own quiet storms."
-- Senator Barack Obama, on the campaign trail in Milwaukee, September 1, 2008

Health Care – Right or Responsibility?

2008-10-29T07:46:00.001-05:00

Astrid Helena Germain 1951 - 2007
My best friend died in November. She died, in this 21st century, from an infection! She died at age 56 because she could not afford health insurance due to an unrelated pre-existing condition, so she waited to go to the hospital until it was too late. My friend’s inability to afford health insurance might be your story, and if it's not, then it might be the story of someone you know and care about. An election looms ahead that has become almost a comedy of ridiculous name-calling, while important issues like health care exist that affect our lives every day.
The September 2008 Kaiser Family Foundation election tracking poll puts health care as the number three priority of all voters, and it remains the second most commonly reported economic hardship (after paying for gas). Almost fifty million people are without health insurance, and at least that many are under-insured, while revenues going into the industry continue to increase at double digit rates year after year. According to the World Health Organization, although the United States now spends $2.3 trillion a year on health care (twice as much per capita on health care as any other country,) it ranks 37th in terms of health system performance and 72nd in overall population health. The U.S. is the only industrial nation without health care for all.
The private payers of health care have an overhead of between 20% and 30% as compared to Medicare’s 3%. The difference between the two is in the presence of or lack of bureaucracy within the drug companies, insurance companies, and other powerful and well-funded special interests which make billions of dollars off of human illness. Simply stated, we need to move toward a national health care program that guarantees health care to all as a right, not a privilege. When we do that, and end the greed and profiteering in the current system, we can provide quality care for all Americans without spending a nickel more than we currently spend.
The Republican nominee has proposed to tax the health benefits that 156 million people get through the workplace as income. In exchange, McCain would give tax credits to help pay for insurance — $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families, paid directly to the insurer they choose. What McCain fails to state is that our country under its current system already spends $12,500 per individual on health care. His plan could lead employers to drop their current plans that could not be replaced for $5,000. McCain's plan would also increase the deficit by $1.3 trillion over 10 years. He also intends to make cuts in Medicare, which is not good news for our seniors.
The Democratic nominee will make coverage more affordable to most Americans, including the self-employed and small businesses, paying for the subsidies largely by canceling the Bush administration's tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year. He would outlaw "insurance company discrimination” against people with pre-existing conditions, and he would save money in the health care system, by holding drug and insurance companies accountable for the prices they charge and the harm they cause. Medicare would be allowed to negotiate with drug makers for cheaper prices, and his administration would place greater emphasis on preventing illnesses.
Barack Obama has a plan to stop the marginalization of that 15% of our population who are currently not considered valuable enough to be helped when they are hurting. He has a plan that will save money. I am an Obama supporter. I hope you will be, too, but if you're not, the fact that 22,000 people died last year because of a lack of health care, including my friend, should at least encourage you to compare the plans available.

.

You'll Never Walk Alone with Barack!

2008-10-26T17:00:00.000-05:00

Chicago Tribune Endorses Barack Obama for President

2008-10-17T17:45:00.000-05:00

Friday, October 17, 2008
This speaks volumes. This is the first Democrat the paper has ever endorsed. Founded 1847.
However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America's slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln's extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.

In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven't experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It's a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn't forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.

On Nov. 4 we're going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.
On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.

Many Americans say they're uneasy about Obama. He's pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.

The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.

This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

The Tribune in its earliest days took up the abolition of slavery and linked itself to a powerful force for that cause--the Republican Party. The Tribune's first great leader, Joseph Medill, was a founder of the GOP. The editorial page has been a proponent of conservative principles. It believes that government has to serve people honestly and efficiently.

With that in mind, in 1872 we endorsed Horace Greeley, who ran as an independent against the corrupt administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. (Greeley was later endorsed by the Democrats.) In 1912 we endorsed Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive Party candidate against Republican President William Howard Taft.

The Tribune's decisions then were driven by outrage at inept and corrupt business and political leaders.

We see parallels today.

The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office -- and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.

We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party's course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.

It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush's tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages.

McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate--but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin's exposure to the public. But it's clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment's notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.
Obama chose a more experienced and more thoughtful running mate--he put governing before politicking. Sen. Joe Biden doesn't bring many votes to Obama, but he would help him from day one to lead the country.

McCain calls Obama a typical liberal politician. Granted, it's disappointing that Obama's mix of tax cuts for most people and increases for the wealthy would create an estimated $2.9 trillion in federal debt. He has made more promises on spending than McCain has. We wish one of these candidates had given good, hard specific information on how he would bring the federal budget into line. Neither one has.

We do, though, think Obama would govern as much more of a pragmatic centrist than many people expect.
We know first-hand that Obama seeks out and listens carefully and respectfully to people who disagree with him. He builds consensus. He was most effective in the Illinois legislature when he worked with Republicans on welfare, ethics and criminal justice reform.

He worked to expand the number of charter schools in Illinois--not popular with some Democratic constituencies.

He took up ethics reform in the U.S. Senate--not popular with Washington politicians.

His economic policy team is peppered with advisers who support free trade. He has been called a "University of Chicago Democrat"--a reference to the famed free-market Chicago school of economics, which puts faith in markets.

Obama is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations. He has had the character and the will to achieve great things despite the obstacles that he faced as an unprivileged black man in the U.S.

He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions.

When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren't a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.

It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation's most powerful office, he will prove it wasn't so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama's name to Lincoln's in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.

Rachel Maddow Blasts Former Bush Speechwriter David Frum!

2008-10-14T14:00:00.000-05:00

David Frum on Rachel Maddow: Releasing His Inner Scumbag
Ian Gurvitz | Bio from 23/6

One of the rituals of politically-oriented talk shows is the occasional appearance of someone from the other side, either to explore another dimension of an important issue, or to present the illusion of impartiality. One such appearance tonight was that of former Bush speechwriter David Frum on Rachel Maddow's show, ostensibly to talk about Republican reaction to the current state of the McCain campaign.

Yet, right out of the gate, Frum took off on the subject of the hate speech wafting off the campaign to attack Maddow for being part of the problem, alleging that there has been an "intensification of some of the ugliness that has been a feature of American politics in the last 8 years, and this show, itself, is unfortunately an example of that problem with its levity and sarcasm and seeming disregard for a lot of the substantive issues that really are important."

While taken aback at the unexpected attack on her personally and on her show, Maddow handled herself with class, trying to get at the substance of Frum's attack, asking if he somehow equated sarcasm and the occasional smile with the vitriol coming from recent GOP rallies. However, and this is one difference between the parties that even goes to way this election is shaping up, she didn't tell him to "shut up." She didn't scream for a producer to "cut off his mike." Both in style, and in substance, she negated his argument by her civil, substantive reaction. She did not name-call. She calmly stated her strong disagreement with his assertion while asking for clarification.

Going on to ask him about the Ayers attacks and the resulting fury from the crowd, Frum retorted: "If John McCain were making threats of violence that would be really bad" -- a statement that is either idiotic in its naivete or naïve in its idiocy. McCain and Palin have set the table for these outbursts with their attacks and then committed the sin of omission by not truly quelling them. Sort of like standing outside the Reichstag holding a gas can, and calmly suggesting that someone might want to call the fire department. And Maddow made this point, though without the Reichstag reference. She did it without lowering herself to name-calling, nor did she comment on his pissy, snide, and patronizing attitude.

Eventually, the discussion veered back to the election, with Frum admitting, not necessarily in these terms, that his party was about to get reamed, steamed, and dry cleaned. The problem, for Frum, was that because of the ineptitude of the McCain campaign, not only the party, but the country will pay the price with a Democratic president and Congress, which will lead to some "very destructive changes." As opposed to what's actually happened over the last 8 years? So he's not really upset with the sorry state of the world. He's upset that his party is losing and that the Democrats could gain control and really f... things up because they don't seem to understand the threats we face.

It was a contradiction apparently lost on Frum that taking a snide tone while calling out someone for not engaging in a more adult debate is a bit of a contradiction. As well, someone who worked as a Bush speechwriter has a small credibility problem when it comes to calling for more honesty and integrity in public debate. And, fyi to Frum: one of the reasons Maddow's show has been such a success is that she doe s talk substance. She's intelligent. She's fair. And she's gracious. And, as for the sarcasm, the reason it lands is that is an expression of the righteous indignation felt by most Americans because of the outrageous mendacity that has been SOP for the GOP over the last 8 years. At some point, it's your only weapon. It's either laugh or cry. And as for your fear that if Maddow's type of lethal sarcasm were to proliferate the Republicans would have to take a reactive approach and return it in kind? Holy s..., man. Have you never seen Fox News? All they're missing are armbands.

Military Wives for Obama!

2008-10-13T10:26:00.001-05:00

McCain's Pro-Veteran Rhetoric Exposed!

2008-10-05T14:24:00.000-05:00

What is the reason for Barack Obama’s 80 percent overall rating from the Disabled Veterans of America in comparison to John McCain’s 20 percent? And what is the reason for Obama having received nearly six times as much contribution money from troops deployed overseas than has John McCain? And what is the reason that McCain received a “D” grade from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America? The reason is that troops and veterans agree that a McCain presidency will be wrong for this country, and they base it on his voting record.

McCain voted 27 times against veterans' health care needs!
McCain did not vote on the GI Bill that will provide better educational opportunities to veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, paying full tuition at in-state schools and living expenses for those who have served at least three years since the 9/11 attacks. McCain said he opposes the bill because he thinks the generous benefits would “encourage more people to leave the military.
Although McCain told voters at a campaign rally that improving veterans’ health care was his top domestic priority, he voted against increasing funding for veterans’ health care in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
McCain voted against providing automatic annual cost-of living adjustments for certain veterans’ benefits.
Although his campaign website devotes a large section to veterans issues, including expanding benefits for reservists and members of the National Guard, McCain voted against increasing spending on the TRICARE program by $20.3 billion over 10 years to give members of the National Guard and Reserves and their families greater access to the health care program. The increase would be offset by a reduction in tax cuts for the wealthy.
McCain opposed an amendment that would have prevented the Department of Veterans Affairs from outsourcing jobs, many held by blue-collar veterans, without first giving the workers a chance to compete. And McCain opposed an amendment to prevent the outsourcing of 350 federal employee jobs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center—outsourcing that contributed to the scandalous treatment of veterans at Walter Reed that McCain called a “disgrace.”
McCain voted against an appropriations bill that included $122.7 billion in fiscal 2004 for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and other related agencies.
McCain was one of five senators to vote against the bill and seven to vote against the conference report that provided $51.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as funding for the federal housing, environmental and emergency management agencies and NASA.
McCain was one of eight senators to vote against a bill that provided $47 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
McCain was one of five senators to vote against a bill providing $44.3 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, plus funding for other federal agencies
McCain voted against an amendment to increase spending on veterans programs by $13 billion.
McCain voted for an appropriations bill that underfunded the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development by $8.9 billion.
John McCain said “I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I'll take care of them, and I have been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans, and I love them, and I'll take care of them, and they know that I'll take care of them.” John McCain has misrepresented his own voting record with pro-veteran rhetoric!

Senator Obama believes America has a sacred obligation to our veterans. He is committed to creating a 21st Century Department of Veterans Affairs that provides the care and benefits our nation’s veterans deserve and has a record of supporting initiatives to improve veterans care and benefits.

Why is the NY Times ignoring McCain's own 'radical' Liddy?

2008-10-05T10:31:00.000-05:00

For the 18th time this year NYT has run an article on Barack Obama's 'association' with Bill Ayers, former radical (Obama was 8 when Ayers was active). How about McCain's closeness to G. Gordon Liddy, convicted in Watergate?

On October 4, The New York Times published a 2,140-word front-page article about Sen. Barack Obama's association with former Weather Underground member William Ayers -- at least the 18th Times article this year mentioning that association. But the Times has yet to mention, let alone devote an entire article to, Sen. John McCain's relationship with radio host and convicted Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy. Indeed, in its October 4 article, the Times quoted Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman denouncing Obama's association with Ayers but did not note that Chapman has described Liddy as McCain's "own Bill Ayers" and has written that "[i]f Obama needs to answer questions about Ayers, McCain has the same obligation regarding Liddy." The Times, moreover, quoted McCain criticizing Obama for his association with Ayers without noting that Chapman has faulted McCain for what Chapman described as McCain's "howling hypocrisy on the subject."

As Media Matters for America has noted, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain's campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy's radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07" includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

Additionally, in 1998, Liddy reportedly held a fundraiser at his home for McCain. Liddy was reportedly scheduled to speak at another fundraiser for McCain in 2000. The Charlotte Observer reported on January 23, 2000, that McCain's campaign vouched for Liddy's "character":

His [McCain's] campaign officials said Liddy's character will appeal to many voters because he was following orders from President Nixon and kept silent afterward.

"His (Liddy's) judgment might be in question, but I don't think his character is," said Ed Walker, the York County chairman of McCain's campaign. "He was following orders just like any good soldier, and he didn't tell on anybody. He felt like he was on a mission and kept his silence."

Liddy's 2000 speech was reportedly canceled due to bad weather.

Media Matters has documented that as of September 19, the Times had published 15 news articles and four opinion pieces referencing Obama's ties to Ayers. Since then, in addition to the October 4 article, the Times has published two more articles mentioning the association.

But despite having apparently judged Chapman's opinions on the candidates' controversial associations as being newsworthy, the Times has ignored entirely McCain's relationship with Liddy, according to a search of the Nexis database from January 1 through October 4*.

In his May 4 Tribune column, Chapman wrote:

What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers -- in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him.

How close are McCain and Liddy? At least as close as Obama and Ayers appear to be. In 1998, Liddy's home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns -- including $1,000 this year.

Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

Which principles would those be? The ones that told Liddy it was fine to break into the office of the Democratic National Committee to plant bugs and photograph documents? The ones that made him propose to kidnap anti-war activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention? The ones that inspired him to plan the murder (never carried out) of an unfriendly newspaper columnist?

Liddy was in the thick of the biggest political scandal in American history -- and one of the greatest threats to the rule of law. He has said he has no regrets about what he did, insisting that he went to jail as "a prisoner of war."

All this may sound like ancient history. But it's from the same era as the bombings Ayers helped carry out as a member of the Weather Underground. And Liddy's penchant for extreme solutions has not abated.

[...]

Given Liddy's record, it's hard to see why McCain would touch him with a 10-foot pole. On the contrary, he should be returning his donations and shunning his show. Yet the senator shows no qualms about associating with Liddy -- or celebrating his service to their common cause.

How does McCain explain his howling hypocrisy on the subject? He doesn't. I made repeated inquiries to his campaign aides, which they refused to acknowledge, much less answer. On this topic, the pilot of the Straight Talk Express would rather stay parked in the garage.

That's an odd policy for someone who is so forthright about his rival's responsibility. McCain thinks Obama should apologize for associating with a criminal extremist. To which Obama might reply: After you.

And in an August 22 blog post about an anti-Obama ad highlighting Obama's association with Ayers, Chapman wrote:

But conservatives may not want to draw attention to the issue of ties to violent radicals -- since John McCain is longtime pals with convicted Watergate burglar Gordon Liddy, who once plotted a journalist's murder (which was never carried out) and has advocated the shooting of federal law enforcement agents.

If Obama needs to answer questions about Ayers, McCain has the same obligation regarding Liddy. How about they both get started?

From The New York Times' October 4 article "Obama and '60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths":

Their relationship has become a touchstone for opponents of Mr. Obama, the Democratic senator, in his bid for the presidency. Video clips on YouTube, including a new advertisement that was broadcast on Friday, juxtapose Mr. Obama's face with the young Mr. Ayers or grainy shots of the bombings.

In a televised interview last spring, Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama's Republican rival, asked, "How can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings that could have or did kill innocent people?"

[...]

Since earning a doctorate in education at Columbia in 1987, Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the author or editor of 15 books, and an advocate of school reform.

"He's done a lot of good in this city and nationally," Mayor Richard M. Daley said in an interview this week, explaining that he has long consulted Mr. Ayers on school issues. Mr. Daley, whose father was Chicago's mayor during the street violence accompanying the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the so-called Days of Rage the following year, said he saw the bombings of that time in the context of a polarized and turbulent era.

"This is 2008," Mr. Daley said. "People make mistakes. You judge a person by his whole life."

That attitude is widely shared in Chicago, but it is not universal. Steve Chapman, a columnist for The Chicago Tribune, defended Mr. Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his longtime pastor, whose black liberation theology and "God damn America" sermon became notorious last spring. But he denounced Mr. Obama for associating with Mr. Ayers, whom he said the University of Illinois should never have hired.

"I don't think there's a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings," Mr. Chapman said in an interview, speaking not of the law but of political and moral implications.

"If you're in public life, you ought to say, 'I don't want to be associated with this guy,' " Mr. Chapman said. "If John McCain had a long association with a guy who'd bombed abortion clinics, I don't think people would say, 'That's ancient history.' "
http://www.mediamatters.org

A must see video from AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka

2008-10-03T13:15:00.000-05:00

Transcript

You see brothers and sisters, there's not a single good reason for any worker -- especially any union member -- to vote against Barack Obama.

There's only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he's not white.

And I want to talk about that because I saw that for myself during the Pennsylvania primary.

I went back home to vote in Nemacolin and I ran into a woman I'd known for years. She was active in Democratic politics when I was still in grade school.

We got to talking and I asked if she'd made up her mind who she was supporting and she said: 'Oh absolutely, I'm voting for Hillary, there's no way I'd ever vote for Obama.'

Well, why's that? 'Because he's a Muslim.'

I told her, 'That's not true -- he's as much a Christian as you and me, so what if he's muslim.'

Then she shook her head and said, 'He won't wear an American flag pin.'

I don't have one on and neither do you.

But, 'C'mon, he wears one plenty of times. He just says it takes more than wearing a flag pin to be patriotic.'

'Well, I just don't trust him.'

Why is that?

Her voice dropped just a bit: 'Because he's black.'

I said, 'Look around. Nemacolin's a dying town. There're no jobs here. Kids are moving away because there's no future here. And here's a man, Barack Obama, who's going to fight for people like us and you won't vote for him because of the color of his skin.'

Brothers and sisters, we can't tap dance around the fact that there are a lot of folks out there just like that woman.

A lot of them are good union people; they just can't get past this idea that there's something wrong with voting for a black man. Well, those of us who know better can't afford to look the other way.

I'm not one for quoting dead philosophers, but back in the 1700s, Edmund Burke said: 'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.' Well, there's no evil that's inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism -- and it's something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.

It's our special responsibility because we know, better than anyone else, how racism is used to divide working people.

We've seen how companies set worker against worker -- how they throw whites a few extra crumbs off the table ndsh and how we all end up losing.

But we've seen something else, too. We've seen that when we cross that color line and stand together no one can keep us down.

That's why the CIO was created. That's why industrial unions were the first to stand up against lynching and segregation. People need to know that it was the Steel Workers Organizing Committee -- this union -- that was founded on the principal of organizing all workers without regard to race. That's why the labor movement -- imperfect as we are -- is the most integrated institution in American life.

I don't think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples' faces and calling them racist; instead we need to educate them that if they care about holding on to their jobs, their health care, their pensions, and their homes -- if they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers -- there's only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who's on their side... only one candidate who's going to stand up for their families... only one candidate who's earned their votes... and his name is Barack Obama!

And come November we are going to elect him president.

And after he's elected we are going to hit the ground running so that, years from now, we're going to be able to tell our grandchildren that 2008 was the year this country finally turned its back on men like George Bush and Dick Cheney and John McCain

We're going to be able to say that 2008 was the year we started ending the war in Iraq so we could use that money to create new jobs building wind generators, solar collectors, clean coal technology and retrofitting millions of buildings all across this country

We're going to be able to look back and say that 2008 was the year the tide began to turn against the Rush Limbaughs, the Bill O'Reillys, the Ann Coulters and the right wing hate machine.

Credit Where It's Due!

2008-09-30T13:08:00.000-05:00

Kerry Hayes
Memphis TN
Obama Rapid Response

Let us please make sure that we pause and moment and give John McCain the credit he so richly deserves for his action the other evening on the emergency financial bailout package. While the U.S. economy appears heading for irretrievable ruin, McCain again threw the brakes on his drifting campaign and declared that this was an "all hands on deck" moment for the legislature. And who better to lead us in our hour of need that he, "a former Navy pilot," (a non-sequitur bit of bio which he never misses an opportunity to insert, no matter how or inappropriate or irrational.)

The only problem is, for McCain, this wasn't all hands on deck--it was no hands on deck and all eyes on McCain. He lied to Barack Obama in pledging that they would work together in crafting a bi-partisan response to the crisis on Wednesday, he lied to the public and the media in declaring that he was "suspending" his campaign, and during his much-watched return to Washington yesterday, he (according to Politico.com) "walked to his office with pal Joe Lieberman, said little at a contentious White House meeting, did a few TV interviews, [and] sped off to his home."

In other words, he did nothing. He offered no solutions, no insights, brokered no deals, and exhibited none of the vaunted bi-partisan, maverick-style leadership which he so desperately craves in this campaign's late hour.

Everyone now agrees that McCain's debate-postponement tactic was a politically motivate stunt, nothing more, but it was really only the tip of the problem. As time goes on, his actions (or lack of same) point to something much more serious.

It's one thing for McCain to play games with the Debate Commission--it's another thing entirely to play Russian roulette with the United States economy. Were it not for McCain, we would have our bailout package approved right now. However, because of his "intervention," we are approaching gridlock, and our nation's economy rushes ever closer to a precipice.

All of this reveals, again, that there is no trick too crazy, no strategy too absurd, no hail-mary pass too desperate for he and Steve Schmidt to try. They are desperate to divert the attention of the American people from the mess that they and their GOP cronies have created. Throughout this campaign, John McCain has shown his clear, abiding contempt for the intelligence of the electorate. Time is running out for John McCain, and unless we speak out strongly at this moment, it's running out for the future of our economy as well.

Maliki Suggests Bush Pushed To Extend U.S. Presence In Iraq To Help McCain»

2008-09-24T09:51:00.000-05:00

By Ben on Think Progress 9/23
Last July, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said U.S. troops should be out of Iraq “as soon as possible” and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) withdrawal plan. Obama “talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,” Maliki told Der Spiegel magazine.

Days later, as Obama wrapped up meetings with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh reiterated his government’s stance, saying “the end of 2010 is the appropriate time for the withdrawal.”

Negotiating the post-UN mandate security agreement with Iraq, Bush argued for more time and both sides ultimately agreed that all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, not 2010, even though Bush has said previously that “if they were to say, leave, we would leave.”

Why did Bush go back on his word? A source tells ThinkProgress that White House communications staff were concerned that Maliki’s endorsement of the 2010 time line would damage Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign. Indeed, during an interview with Iraqi television last week (according to an Open Source Center translation), Maliki suggested that the U.S. presidential elections played a role:

Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the [U.S] domestic situation so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date.

In fact, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said that as part of the security agreement, Bush wanted U.S. troops to stay in Iraq even longer. “It was a U.S. proposal for the date which is 2015, and an Iraqi one which is 2010, then we agreed to make it 2011,” Talabani said.

But by endorsing Obama’s time line, Maliki indirectly slighted McCain, who has consistently and strenuously argued against setting a withdrawal date and has even said he wouldn’t mind having U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 years. But Maliki’s new position has left McCain scrambling, first saying its “a pretty good timetable,” but then denying he used “the word timetable” and later settling on “anything is good.”

Despite Bush’s constant refrain that commanders, not politics, will decide the course in Iraq, it seems that trying to help his party retain the White House is more important.

Ghost-Writers for McCain

2008-09-24T09:29:00.000-05:00

"I spent a morning in John McCain's Virginia campaign headquarters ghost-writing letters to the editor for McCain supporters to sign. I even pretended to have a son in Iraq."
Check out another one of the lie tactics we are up against.
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/I_ghost_wrote_letters_to_the_editor_for_the_McCain_campaign?OTC-em-sh2

The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket?

2008-09-14T10:06:00.000-05:00

Op-Ed Columnist New York Times
By FRANK RICH
Published: September 13, 2008
WITH all due deference to lipstick, let’s advance the story. A week ago the question was: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be?
It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election.
No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for “victory,” whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.
The ambitious Palin and the ruthless forces she represents know it, too. You can almost see them smacking their lips in anticipation, whether they’re wearing lipstick or not.
This was made clear in the most chilling passage of Palin’s acceptance speech. Aligning herself with “a young farmer and a haberdasher from Missouri” who “followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency,” she read a quote from an unidentified writer who, she claimed, had praised Truman: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity.” Then Palin added a snide observation of her own: Such small-town Americans, she said, “run our factories” and “fight our wars” and are “always proud” of their country. As opposed to those lazy, shiftless, unproud Americans — she didn’t have to name names — who are none of the above.
There were several creepy subtexts at work here. The first was the choice of Truman. Most 20th-century vice presidents and presidents in both parties hailed from small towns, but she just happened to alight on a Democrat who ascended to the presidency when an ailing president died in office. Just as striking was the unnamed writer she quoted. He was identified by Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal as the now largely forgotten but once powerful right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler.
Palin, who lies with ease about her own record, misrepresented Pegler’s too. He decreed America was “done for” after Truman won a full term in 1948. For his part, Truman regarded the columnist as a “guttersnipe,” and with good reason. Pegler was a rabid Joe McCarthyite who loathed F.D.R. and Ike and tirelessly advanced the theory that American Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (“geese,” he called them) were all likely Communists.
Surely Palin knows no more about Pegler than she does about the Bush doctrine. But the people around her do, and they will be shaping a Palin presidency. That they would inject not just Pegler’s words but spirit into their candidate’s speech shows where they’re coming from. Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, said that the Palin-sparked convention created “a whole new Republican Party,” but what it actually did was exhume an old one from its crypt.
The specifics have changed in our new century, but the vitriolic animus of right-wing populism preached by Pegler and McCarthy and revived by the 1990s culture wars remains the same. The game is always to pit the good, patriotic real Americans against those subversive, probably gay “cosmopolitan” urbanites (as the sometime cross-dresser Rudy Giuliani has it) who threaten to take away everything that small-town folk hold dear.
The racial component to this brand of politics was undisguised in St. Paul. Americans saw a virtually all-white audience yuk it up when Giuliani ridiculed Barack Obama’s “only in America” success as an affirmative-action fairy tale — and when he and Palin mocked Obama’s history as a community organizer in Chicago. Neither party has had so few black delegates (1.5 percent) in the 40 years since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies started keeping a record.
But race is just one manifestation of the emotion that defined the Palin rollout. That dominant emotion is fear — an abject fear of change. Fear of a demographical revolution that will put whites in the American minority by 2042. Fear of the technological revolution and globalization that have gutted those small towns and factories Palin apotheosized.
And, last but hardly least, fear of illegal immigrants who do the low-paying jobs that Americans don’t want to do and of legal immigrants who do the high-paying jobs that poorly educated Americans are not qualified to do. No less revealing than Palin’s convention invocation of Pegler was the pointed omission of any mention of immigration, once the hottest Republican issue, by either her or McCain. Saying the word would have cued an eruption of immigrant-bashing ugliness, Pegler-style, before a national television audience. That wouldn’t play in the swing states of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, where Obama already has a more than 2-to-1 lead among Hispanic voters. (Bush captured roughly 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004.)
Since St. Paul, Democrats have been feasting on the hypocrisy of the Palin partisans, understandably enough. The same Republicans who attack Democrats for being too P.C. about race now howl about sexism with such abandon you half-expect Phyllis Schlafly and Carly Fiorina to stage a bra-burning. The same gang that once fueled Internet rumors and media feeding frenzies over the Clintons’ private lives now express pious outrage when the same fate befalls the Palins.
But the ultimate hypocrisy is that these woebegone, frightened opponents of change, sworn enemies of race-based college-admission initiatives, are now demanding their own affirmative action program for white folks applying to the electoral college. They want the bar for admission to the White House to be placed so low that legitimate scrutiny and criticism of Palin’s qualifications, record and family values can all be placed off limits. Byron York of National Review, a rare conservative who acknowledges the double standard, captured it best: “If the Obamas had a 17-year-old daughter who was unmarried and pregnant by a tough-talking black kid, my guess is if they all appeared onstage at a Democratic convention and the delegates were cheering wildly, a number of conservatives might be discussing the issue of dysfunctional black families.”
The cunning of the Palin choice as a political strategy is that a candidate who embodies fear of change can be sold as a “maverick” simply because she looks the part. Her marketers have a lot to work with. Palin is not only the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket, but she is young, vibrant and a Washington outsider with no explicit connection to Bush or the war in Iraq. That package looks like change even if what’s inside is anything but.
How do you run against that flashy flimflam? You don’t. Karl Rove for once gave the Democrats a real tip rather than a bum steer when he wrote last week that if Obama wants to win, “he needs to remember he’s running against John McCain for president,” not Palin for vice president. Obama should keep stepping up the blitz on McCain’s flip-flops, confusion, ignorance and blurriness on major issues (from education to an exit date from Iraq), rather than her gaffes and résumé. If he focuses voters on the 2008 McCain, the Palin question will take care of itself.Obama’s one break last week was the McCain camp’s indication that it’s likely to minimize its candidate’s solo appearances by joining him at the hip with Palin. There’s a political price to be paid for this blatant admission that he needs her to draw crowds. McCain’s conspicuous subservience to his younger running mate’s hard-right ideology and his dependence on her electioneering energy raise the question of who has the power in this relationship and who is in charge. A strong and independent woman or the older ward who would be bobbing in a golf cart without her? The more voters see that McCain will be the figurehead for a Palin presidency, the more they are likely to demand stepped-up vetting of the rigidly scripted heir apparent.
But Obama’s most important tactic is still the one he has the most trouble executing. He must convey a roll-up-your-sleeves Bobby Kennedy passion for the economic crises that are at the heart of the fears that Palin is trying to exploit. The Republican ticket offers no answers to those anxieties. Drilling isn’t going to lower gas prices or speed energy independence. An increase in corporate tax breaks isn’t going to end income inequality, provide health care or save American jobs in a Palin presidency any more than they did in a Bush presidency.
This election is still about the fierce urgency of change before it’s too late. But in framing this debate, it isn’t enough for Obama to keep presenting McCain as simply a third Bush term. Any invocation of the despised president — like Iraq — invites voters to stop listening. Meanwhile, before our eyes, McCain is turning over the keys to his administration to ideologues and a running mate to Bush’s right.
As Republicans know best, fear does work. If Obama is to convey just what’s at stake, he must slice through the campaign’s lipstick jungle and show Americans the real perils that lie around the bend.

Make a Difference with Letters To The Editor!

2008-09-11T11:06:00.001-05:00

I wrote this letter to the Editors of 24 major newspapers in the Midwest by using the tool on mybarackobama.com, and I urge all of you to do the same. The tool guides you through the process, and even sends the email out to the newspapers for you. I will write and send one every week on the issues until the election. It is a wonderful way to reach voters outside the realm of our own Blogosphere.

When I hear one of the candidates for President say, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," I have to speak out. It is so important in this campaign for Americans, whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent, to think long and hard about the state our country is in. Regardless of party, we should study the issues, and when we go into the booth to vote on November 4th, make our decision based on a good knowledge of the real facts and not campaign rhetoric. Too often, voters stubbornly vote along party lines instead of what is the best for America. This year has to be different. We must be informed and vote our conscience. We must check out facts presented for the truth. There are non-partisan websites like Snopes.com or Truthorfiction.com, that will tell you what is the truth and what is a rumor, lie, or misinformation. I researched the following information and it can be verified at the sites noted:
The unemployment rate is up to 6.1%, a five-year high, this quarter and more than 10 percent of Americans are unemployed or underemployed, a nearly 25-percent increase from one year earlier (Wall Street Journal). More than a half million Americans (530,000) have been subject to mass layoffs in the last year. Real estate foreclosures in the U.S. were up 75 percent in 2007. The overall rate in the U.S. was 10.3 per 1,000 households. Eight states ended the year with foreclosure rates of more than 15 per 1,000 households (CBS News), yet Exxon-Mobil smashed the record for highest profits ever made by a public U.S. company by posting a net profit of $40.6 billion in 2007. To put these figures in perspective, Exxon made $77,245 per minute in 2007—that’s more money generated per minute than 70 percent of Americans earned all year according to the Census Bureau (Center for American Progress).Over the past nine months, global food prices have soared 40 percent, while food reserves are at 30-year lows (CNN Money). Energy prices were up 6.6% in the month, led by a 10.1% jump in gas prices. That left gasoline prices up nearly a third from a year earlier.
Many people, tired of politics as usual, think nothing will be done any differently when one of our candidates becomes President in 2008.
I urge all of you to think carefully about how the past eight years have affected 95% of the American population, and that John McCain has the same economic policies that President Bush has had.

Barack on the "Pig"

2008-09-10T13:36:00.001-05:00

Obama: 'Enough is enough'
Sept. 10: Barack Obama says "phony outrage and swiftboat politics," are to blame for the uproar over his "lipstick on a pig," remarks and asks the McCain campaign to instead focus on issues important to Americans.

BONE-CHILLING MCCAIN PRO-WAR VIDEO!

2008-09-10T12:44:00.000-05:00

Please view this you tube video and pass it on..... a word of caution it has the truths about war, which includes graphic images, so no children should see, what McCain would like to continue if he became out next President.

MUST READ ARTICLES - HOW DO WE GET THESE STRATEGIES TO THE OBAMA PEOPLE?

2008-09-09T17:56:00.000-05:00

I have always thought that even though we have the best candidate in Barack Obama who cares for ALL of the people in our country and has the best policies that should appeal to the majority of U.S. Citizens, the polls have remained close due to ONE- a deep-seated racist element within our society. Then when one progressive TV station (in a sea of leaning right ones) caved in to a Republican Threat or complaint and took the two best Liberal anchors off the election result coverage, I for the first time, realized that there is another reason the polls are so close; and that is TWO - the Media. I am devastated that NBC joined the "in the tank" stations, and I will not watch the election night coverage on their two stations. I will continue to watch the Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, and Rachel Maddow shows, although I truly believe Rachel was forced to put Pat Buchanan on her premier show last night so that he could get the last word in after the smacking he took from Matthews at the RNC. His smirk at the end of the interview was a tell-all. And I now believe there is another reason the polls are close. McCain got a 10 point bump from a convention that was full of uncivil speeches, attacks, no discussion of issues, LIES left unanswered, and the introduction of a person for VP that is such a joke its a disgrace! And people bought it!!!! Barack says the American People are too smart to believe all the crap (well, that last word is mine), and he even said,"What do they think we are, STUPID?" Well, I don't think Barack Obama supporters are stupid, either, but I think THREE - there are a big number of swing voters, Independents, and Republicans that are, because they pick their sides totally believing the lies, disregarding stances on the issues, cheering for a nominated VP because she is a soccer mom and sold her plane on Ebay (not true) or worst of all because she wears cool glasses (which are only cosmetic), AND not even considering the state of our economy, the way we got into the War in Iraq, and what party put us there! Below are two great articles from the Huffington Post. Please read them, even though they are somewhat long. And then please tell me how we get the Obama campaign to take their advice!

WE'RE GONNA FRICKIN' LOSE THIS THING!
Adam McCay Sept.9, 2008
The Huffington Post

"Stop saying that!" my wife says to me. But this is not a high school football game and I'm not a cheerleader with a bad attitude. This is an election and as things stand now, we're gonna frickin' lose this thing. Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.
Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate. We're coming off the worst eight years in our country's history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R's have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we're going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That's not odd as a difference of opinion, that's logically and mathematically queer.
It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game). You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins. I know what you're going to say " But I won twelve hundred dollars last year in Atlantic City!" Of course there are victories. The odds aren't tilted crazy, but there is a 51%-49% advantage. And in the long run, the house has to win. The house will win.
So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It's the press. There is no more fourth estate. Wait, hold on...I'm not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox...I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country. And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that's the 51% advantage.
Think this is some opinion being wryly posited to titillate other bloggers and inspire dialogue with Tucker Carlson or Gore Vidal? Fuck that. Four corporations own all the TV channels. All of them. If they don't get ratings they get canceled or fired. All news is about sex, blame and anger, and fear. Exposing lies about amounts of money taken from lobbyists and votes cast for the agenda of the last eight years does not rate. The end.
So one side can lie and get away with it. Now let's throw in one more advantage. Voter caging and other corruption on the local level with voting. Check out the article here on HuffPost about Ohio messing with 600K voters. If only five thousand of those voters don't or can't vote that's a huge advantage in a contest that could be decided by literally dozens of votes. That takes us to about a 52 to 48% advantage.
I'm not even getting into the fact that the religious right teaches closed mindedness so it's almost impossible to gain new voters from their pool because people who disagree with them are agents of the devil. I just want to look at two inarguable realities: A) we have no more press and B) the Repubs are screwing with the voters on the local level.
I'm telling you, we're going to lose this thing. And afterwords we'll blame ourselves the same way we did with Gore and Kerry (two candidates a thousand times more qualified to lead than W Bush.) Just watch.. McCain wins by a point or two and we all walk around saying things like "Obama was too well spoken." "Biden wasn't lovable enough." "I shouldn't have split those eights." "Why did I hit on 16? Why?!"
So what do we do?
1) We give definitive clear speeches like Biden and Obama gave the other day about how no one talked about any issues at the Republican Convention and how they outright lied. But we do them over and over again. 2) We use the one place where it's still a 50-50 game -- the internet -- as much as we can. 3) But most importantly we should bring up re-regulating the media and who owns it and what that conflict of interest is a lot more. By pretending there's no conflict of interest we're failing to alert the public that they're being lied to or given a looking at a coin at the bottom of a pool slanted truth. Every time a pundit or elected official is on any TV news program it should be a polite formality to mention that GE has made such and such billions off the war in Iraq by selling arms or that Murdoch is a right-wing activist with a clear stake in who wins and who taxes his profits the least. Disney, GE, Viacom, and Murdoch -- all want profits and the candidate and agenda that will get in their way the least.
Obama and Biden should also create a "master sound bite sentence" and repeat it hundreds of times. It should be so true that even the corporations can't screw with it when it makes the airwaves. Here's my attempt: "Katrina, four dollar gas, a trillion dollar war, rising unemployment, deregulated housing market, global warming...no more."
This race should be about whether the Republican Party is going to be dismantled or not after the borderline treason of the past eight years. But instead it is about making the word "community organizer" a dirty word and a beauty queen who shoots foxes from a plane. Someone is not in any way doing their job and it's the press. Or more specifically, that job no longer exists.
Probably the worst offenders are the pundits who take the position that it's all just a game and say phrases like "getting a post-convention bump" or "playing to the soccer Moms." This isn't a game of Monopoly or Survivor. There are real truths that exist outside of the spin they are given and have an effect on lives. 250,000 Iraqi civilians are dead because we let our reality be distorted by the most effective propaganda machine in fifty years, the corporate American press. Money and jobs are flying out of this country as our currency becomes worthless and we're talking about the fact that McCain is a veteran. If someone busted into your house and robbed you would you then forgive them if you found out they were a veteran? Of course not. So why are we forgiving McCain for selling out his country by supporting the Bush agenda?
This is it folks. If McCain takes power we fade and become Australia in the seventies: a backwoods country with occasional flashes of relevance. Except we've got a way bigger military and we're angrier. People will get hurt and we'll pay the bill for the bullets. I'm telling you, unless we wake up, we're gonna lose this frickin' thing.

WHAT OBAMA NEEDS TO DO IN THE LAST SIXTY DAYS
Drew Westen Sept.9, 2008
The Hufington Post

Democrats around the country have been growing increasingly anxious over the last week, and for good reason. If there was a clear message from Denver, it was reflected in the remarks of virtually every commentator on television after Obama's magnificent speech: "Wow, Obama can throw a punch." He needed to indict the Bush administration and the Republican Party for what they have done to the country, and he needed to show that he can be powerful, not just eloquent and inspiring. If there was another message, it was the power of narrative. Over and over we heard comments like, "Wow, what a great story"--referring both to the stories Michele and Barack Obama told about themselves and the stories Bo and Joe Biden told about Obama's vice presidential nominee, which drew a visible tear from the eyes of Michele--which itself addressed the story Republicans were trying to tell about her, that she is a cold, hard, angry black woman (the same story they told about Hillary Clinton when she was first lady, with the racial twist to make it more incendiary).
It was not just the "liberal media elite" who responded to a week in which Democrats finally told a sustained, coherent, narrative about how the Bush administration and the Republican Party had pillaged our economy and left the country increasingly alone and unsafe in the world (although they left out some crucial details Americans should have heard about, like the extraordinary rendition of innocent people to torture chambers in the Middle East), about how McCain represents the same failed ideology of the Bush years, and about who Barack Obama really is and how he intends to lead. By the end of the convention, Obama had opened up an 8-point lead in the Gallup Polls, a stark contrast to the two-point deficit with which he began the convention after three months of failing to offer any narrative at all and doggedly refusing to go after McCain while McCain was using him as a punching bag, hitting him with one narrative after another (Obama is a celebrity, an elitist, an uppity guy who is too big for his breeches, a tax and spend liberal, someone who doesn't put country first, someone who doesn't share "our" values, not one of "us").
But the political panorama can change rapidly, and this one did the moment the convention ended and the Obama campaign decided to resume shooting scenes from its sequel to the Kerry campaign, "President Palin's Revenge" (which itself was a bad remake of "Dukakis, Tanks but No Tanks"). They already had all the footage they needed from the summer: no real narrative about their candidate, no narrative about their opponent, refusal to answer attacks, weak performances in televised interviews, poor use of surrogates on television (if they were even present), changing positions in ways that undercut the candidate's narrative of authenticity, and an disquietingly poor performance on Rick Warren's pseudo-debate with McCain. This was stock Democratic footage.
So after a week of Republicans mocking the Democrats, deriding everyone who isn't one of them (especially the dark-skinned, exotic Obama) as un-American, anti-life, elitist, hostile to "small town values," and narcissistic or subversive (putting himself, something, or some group--perhaps black people?--other than "Country First"), McCain has now opened a 4-point lead in the Gallup Polls among registered voters. That's not even factoring in McCain's advantage among "likely voters," which is higher; or the percent of voters who accurately guess the race of the person on the other end of the phone when the pollster calls and adjust their response if she sounds black, or the additional percent who would vote for a black man in public (as they did in Democratic caucuses) but whose unconscious (and increasingly conscious) prejudices emerge when they vote in private, often taking forms such as, "I just don't know Obama," "Something about him makes me uneasy," "I'm not sure I can trust him," "I think he's really a Muslim," or "He must have stuck with that Reverend Wright all those years for a reason."
Fortunately these numbers are volatile, and the Obama campaign seems to have decided that it's time to run an offense again at least part of the time (with a new ad debuting yesterday in swing states attacking McCain's "maverick" status). With all the factors going for Democrats this year (their generic lead over Republicans after 8 years of mismanagement and malfeasance remains in the double digits) and the more charismatic candidate, the polls should shift back again, at least to parity.
But McCain shouldn't have gotten a 10-point bump from his uncivil convention, and this election shouldn't be close. What happened in one short week was both completely predictable and completely avoidable. Just hours after a Democratic Convention that reignited Democratic enthusiasm and started to swing those swing voters who just weren't sure about Obama, the Obama campaign had forgotten everything it should have learned from its success of Denver--most importantly that you never drop your gloves, and that you never let the other side control the narratives--and had returned to the same failed strategies that gave us Presidents Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry, strategies Democratic consultants have passed from generation to generation like a family heirloom laced with hemlock.
The only statement the Obama campaign issued after McCain announced his choice--and the only real statement it has made until yesterday's "No Maverick" ad--was a laudatory statement of congratulations. When George Stephanopoulos posed a question to Obama about her qualifications this weekend and Keith Olbermann did the same on Monday, Obama evaded it both times, as if it were Obama, not McCain, who should be on the defensive about having chosen an unqualified person who is under the cloud of an ethics investigation and who has proven herself, like McCain, unable to get along with even members of her own party in Alaska, and, like Bush, to have an uneasy relationship with the truth.
The Obama campaign even released an ad the day before her speech that implicitly conceded that she was a great choice and a giant leap forward for women, beginning, "...although he [McCain] may have made history" (which was factually inaccurate, unless the Obama campaign was conceding the election, since her nomination would only be historic if McCain were elected; Geraldine Ferraro broke the glass ceiling of a vice presidential nomination nearly 25 years ago), and went on to say nothing about McCain's choice, instead attacking McCain on being like Bush (without noting that McCain had just proven it again by choosing a religious zealot with non-mainstream values and a penchant for governmental intrusion on social issues that most swing voters find repugnant), with the words, "So this may be his running mate, but..." implying, "OK, we'll concede that she's terrific, but McCain's the one running for President." (Given that Palin was the one on everyone's mind, the ad seemed oddly out of sync, placing a punctuation mark on the Obama campaign's conflict about what to do about her. This is not the first time their "rapid response" has been over 10 days as they watched a large lead turn into a deficit in the polls.)
McCain had not, in fact, made history. He had made a crass political calculation that was both reckless and ill-considered, just like Bush, and he had put something other than Country First, namely his personal ambition to be President. If Obama can't tell the truth about what's wrong with his opponent, he isn't speaking honestly to the American people, regardless of his motivation. If his pollsters and consultants have been advising him to avoid attacking his opponent for abandoning every value he ever stood for (he was against torture, now he's for it; he was against overturning Roe v. Wade, now he's for it; he was for comprehensive immigration reform, now he's against it; he was against tax cuts for the wealthy in wartime, now he's for it), he needs to redeploy those pollsters and consultants to someplace useful, like Afghanistan, where we need some extra boots on the ground.
A week ago, I warned of exactly what could turn the election around for the GOP after the stunning success of the Democratic Convention and Obama's magnificent acceptance speech:
Obama is now poised to break 50 percent in the polls. Whether he does so, and whether he wins or loses in November, will likely depend on whether he, his campaign team, and the Democrats learn the lessons of this convention, or whether they backslide in debates and public statements into the politics of meandering, dispassionate prose; failure to demonstrate toughness, resolve, and, yes, aggression where appropriate; and failure to understand that the best time to shape the public discourse is before the other side has had a chance to "sell" its version of truth to the American people. Decades of research in social psychology have demonstrated that two of most important principles of persuasion when people have a choice between options are to get there first--to tell your side of the story--and to inoculate against what the other side is likely to say. Democratic consultants need to read that research--tonight--and stop relying on the same intuitions that have proven wrong in election after election. We are supposed to be the party of science, yet we constantly practice political creationism... A case in point is the way the Obama campaign appears poised to respond (or, more accurately, not to respond) to McCain's choice of a running mate, which they need to do immediately, before the start of the GOP Convention.
The piece went on to describe the story McCain would try to tell at the Republican Convention--"that this was a bold move of a maverick reformer, an effort to break the glass ceiling for women, an effort to bring executive experience to his team, and the elevation to prominence of a young, socially conservative reformer with a moving story of her commitment to the crusade against all abortions"--and warned that Palin would showcase her decision not to abort a Down Syndrome baby at the GOP Convention (replete with repeated camera shots of the cuddly new baby) and use that decision as part of a story that would make her a folk hero, a mixture of Mother Theresa, Wonderwoman, and Supermom.
I argued that before the opening gavel, the Obama campaign needed to brand McCain as reckless and impulsive, having selected a running mate who wouldn't have been on anyone's shortlist of, say, 1000, to be a heartbeat away from the leadership of the free world on the ticket with a 72-year-old man with recurrent melanoma; that it needed to brand McCain as a hypocrite who was running as a maverick but had just selected a woman who makes George W. Bush look like a feminist to pander to right-wing religious extremists, and who had been hammering Obama relentlessly for months for his lack of foreign policy experience and then picked a person whose only foreign policy experience consisted in knowing where Russia was on the map and applying for a passport; and that it needed to brand Palin herself as an extremist who reserves for herself and her family the right to make painful, difficult, highly personal decisions but believes the government should make those decisions for every other family struggling with the question of whether to carry a troubled or unwanted pregnancy to term. She would even force teenage rape victims to bear their rapists' babies--something 85 percent of Americans find morally abhorrent, including the majority of evangelical Christians, and something every American should hear about her over and over. There is, in fact, a country where people with the hubris to believe that they know what's in the mind of God use the instruments of state to enforce their interpretations of scripture on other people's lives, and perhaps when Palin and her husband succeed in convincing their fellow Alaskans to secede from the United States, they can suggest joining that country: Iran. I'm sure the Iranians would be happy to annex Alaska for the oil.
But the Obama campaign chose, once again, to run its plays from the Kerry playbook, in this case waiting for Palin to define herself in whatever way she wanted in front of an enormous television audience, just as they had allowed McCain to run unopposed in his self-definition as a "straight talker" and a "maverick." And the results were just as predicted: Palin emerged a folk hero, and McCain's decision, instead of being branded as reckless, reinforced his reputation as a maverick.
The Obama campaign has 60 days to turn momentum around one more time. They couldn't have more favorable circumstances, with unemployment now breaking 6 percent, the economy in disarray, an unpopular president, an unpopular war, and our military strength and our moral standing in the world at their lowest ebb in over a century. Perhaps they'll get lucky. Perhaps some crucial emails will emerge showing Palin's illegitimate interference in Alaska's "Troopergate," forcing her to drop out of the race and leaving the McCain campaign in tatters. Perhaps Santa Claus, with whom Palin has foreign policy experience because of Alaska's proximity to the North Pole, will bring a sack of coherent messages to Chicago. Or perhaps the campaign's newfound willingness to mix it up with McCain in the days leading up to the Democratic Convention and its apparent return from hibernation in the last two or three days suggests that they have decided that it isn't enough to have a brilliant ground game and a brilliant Internet team but that you also have to have a coherent message and some spine.
So as someone who has been informally advising the campaign for nearly a year, but who has grown as frustrated and concerned as the dozens of fellow Democrats who have written me in increasing tones of desperation over the last week, let me suggest 10 more ways the Obama campaign can avoid yet another B-movie with an unhappy ending.
1. Don't practice political creationism.
The Obama campaign was well aware of the argument a year and a half ago that the most destructive thing they could do was to leave the emerging Muslim smear on the Internet unchallenged. They were aware of the relevant scientific data on how the same kind of smear that worked against Harold Ford, Jr. in Tennessee. They chose to ignore the science and to rely instead on Democratic conventional wisdom, that bringing a smear into the light of day and attacking it there before it captures the popular imagination only draws attention to it, and that it's better not to "dignify" it. We've heard that story before, and it doesn't end happily ever after.
They were similarly aware of the argument--it was published right here a little over a week ago--that allowing Palin to define herself would make it difficult to change public opinion if she delivered a strong, emotionally compelling acceptance speech, because once people have formed a positive impression, they will fend off data inconsistent with it. Precisely how and why this happens in the brain is not a secret. Once again they chose to ignore the relevant science.
This is how Republicans govern. They ignore science and rely on faith and intuition. Unfortunately, it's how Democrats campaign. No one should be involved in messaging or strategy in a Democratic campaign who isn't intimately familiar with the 60 years of research in social psychology on persuasion--on what works and what doesn't. This isn't optional reading. No one aware of that research would have made the strategic error the Obama campaign just made on the Palin nomination.
2. Stop playing checkers when the other side is playing chess.
Republican strategists play chess. They think six moves ahead. Democrats play checkers. They think one move ahead.
Why has the Obama campaign been so terrified of saying anything about Palin? As best I can tell (I have no inside information on this, but they seem to be slowly rolling out female surrogates to fire the first shots over Palin's bow), it's because they are afraid of offending women or being branded as sexist (something the Republicans accused them of anyway, even when they hadn't said a word). That kind of concrete thinking is just like the concrete, one-dimensional thinking Republicans demonstrate when they govern. If a basic book on social psychology should be mandatory reading for Democratic campaigns, The Daily Show should be mandatory viewing. Take a look at Samantha Bee's "commentary" on Palin (it's on the Show's website), where she describes how "as a Vagina-American" she had to support Palin even though they differ on every value that matters to her. Every time Jon Stewart tried to appeal to her rationally (the Democratic way)--that Palin is against women's rights to make the most personal decisions about their own lives, that she opposes equal pay for equal work--Bee just shook her head and answered with responses like, "Boobies," or "Love pouch."
The piece was hilarious, but it was also right to the point. African-Americans didn't flock to Alan Keyes. And neither women nor men would have so readily bought what Sarah Palin was selling if the Democrats had spent the days before her speech describing McCain's recklessness, poor judgment, and lack of principle in selecting her, and if they had simply told a good story about her that she would have had to spend her speech defensively responding to rather than turning herself into a folk hero. Those shots of her newborn baby and her pregnant daughter with her newfound fiancée whose Facebook entry says he doesn't want children wouldn't have been so powerful if the viewers watching them knew beforehand that if Palin and McCain are elected, Americans families won't be allowed to make their own decisions if faced with similar choices, that their children will never hear the word "condom" in sex education classes even though over 85% of the electorate--including evangelical Christians--wants their children educated about birth control, and that we will consequently see an increase in the number of unwanted pregnancies until McCain makes his first Supreme Court appointment, after which Roe will be overturned--something the vast majority of Americans oppose. Undoing a narrative is far more difficult than inoculating against it.3. Don't confuse positive and negative messages with ethical and unethical ones.
John Kerry never talked about Abu Ghraib, even as the horrific images were coming out in the middle of the general election. His advisors were worried that if he did, the Republicans would respond that he didn't "support the troops." That's playing checkers. In his convention address, Barack Obama never mentioned Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition (using examples of real people whose only crime was to be mistaken for someone else, who went through exactly what John McCain went through at the Hanoi Hilton), water-boarding, the conversion of the Justice Department to the police arm of the Republican Party, George Bush's knowledge of the impending 9/11 attacks, or the fact that any of our children can be picked up while traveling abroad and taken away and tortured without a trace by any nation that deems them a security risk (an "enemy combatant") because those are the rules of the road the United States has established under Republican leadership.
There is no relation between whether a message is ethical or unethical and whether it is positive or negative. Sarah Palin told some wonderfully positive stories as tens of millions of Americans watched her and enjoyed her "spunk" and sense of humor. She told that great story about how she sold the governor's private jet on e-bay. It happened not to be true. Voters vote with their emotions, and if you misinform their emotions by refusing to speak negative truths about your opponent, you are misleading the electorate and endangering your candidacy.
Positive and negative emotions are largely independent in the brain, with different causes, functions, and circuitry. Try answering the following questions. First, do you love your spouse or partner? Second, in the last month, who has made you angrier than anyone else in the world? For most of us, the answer to both questions is the same. What does that say about positive and negative emotions?
In politics, if you leave voters' negative feelings about either you or your opponent to chance by refusing to define your opponent or hit back hard and swiftly when he tries to define you (the conventional Democratic wisdom--"voters don't like negativity"), you are ceding half the brain to the other side. You don't win elections with half a brain.4. Attack the character of the attacker if his attack is suggests bad character.
If your opponent's attacks on you reflect a character problem, attack his character. Make the attack about him, not you. John McCain's "positive" ads about himself and his theme at the Republican Convention ("Country First") show bad character. His first "positive" ad of the general election (called "The American President") ended with the words, "John McCain: The American President Americans have been waiting for." The implication our brains immediately process is that Barack Obama would be some other kind of President: Un-American? Anti-American? African-American? McCain's "Country First" suggests that Obama would put something or someone ahead of his country: Muslims? Blacks? Black Muslims (the conservative media finally made that link explicit this week in Human Events)? Himself? Funny how these themes just happen to fit with the themes of conservative talk radio, Fox News, and the Internet smears. McCain and his party have done everything possible to brand Obama as un-American and unpatriotic, and these ads and campaign themes are not accidental. They are part of an organized campaign to define Obama as "not one of us." They are hateful, and the best way to deal with hate is to call it by its proper name.5. Make it about "us" if they make it about "them."
McCain's entire convention--up until his speech, which wisely took the high road after he'd allowed all his minions to soften the American people up along the low road--was all about dividing the country into us and them: us who are "really" American, us with traditional values, us with evangelical Christian faith, us with small town values, us who are pro-life (with the implication that the rest of America is pro-death), us with family values (with the implication that the rest of us hate our families), us with our white skin (oops--that one just showed up in the wide-angle shots--thank heaven for Bobby Jindal). Dividing American against American is unpatriotic, and Obama needs to call McCain and the Republicans on it.
Barack Obama began his campaign with a powerful theme of unity. He needs to contrast it starkly with the message of divide and conquer that the Republicans have used successfully since Nixon's "Southern strategy" of peeling white voters away from the Democratic Party through coded messages. I can't imagine a much more effective ad than one that took the "greatest hits" of the politics of division from the RNC Convention and ended with the simple words, "Dividing American against American for political gain isn't just politics, it's un-American. Patriotism is about standing as one people, under God, indivisible. That's the Pledge of Allegiance we all learn as children. Renew that Pledge on November 4. Put an end to the politics of hate and division." 6. Tell three stories about your opponent.
George W. Bush told three messages against John Kerry: that he was an elitist, that he was a flipflopper, and that he was a fake war hero who couldn't be trusted with American's security. All three stuck. It's difficult to make many more than three messages stick or they become noise, but it's a bad idea to rely on only one. The Obama campaign should have started branding McCain the day he became the presumptive nominee in March. Unfortunately, they waited until mid August. The Republicans did not return the favor: they began branding Obama as soon as it became clear that he was the likely nominee and have told multiple effective stories about him: That he is elitist and outside the mainstream, that he is unpatriotic, that he's a tax and spend liberal, that he lacks the experience to be commander-in-chief, and that he is an uppity, empty celebrity who doesn't know his place.
The Obama campaign is now telling a strong story about McCain, that he is four more years of Bush. They need to tell the same story about Palin. Aside from her right-wing policies, her refusal to answer a state congressional ethics inquiry and her operatives' apparent decision to do the same is yet another way that she's just like Bush.
There is another story the Obama campaign should tell that goes straight to the heart of McCain's central narrative, one that they just began telling today in a handful of states but need to tell everywhere: that he's not a straight talking maverick at all. You can't be both a maverick and a Bush Republican who bragged that he voted with the President over 90 percent of the time and picked a far-right running mate to the delight of his socially extreme base. McCain made a deal with the devil to win the Republican nomination, having gone so far as to describe Bush as one of our greatest presidents. He can't have it both ways. He can either appeal to his base or appeal to swing voters, but whichever way he swings, the Obama campaign needs to make it a lose-lose situation. They can't depend on the media to do it for them. That's what a campaign is for.
The third narrative that is essential to tell about McCain, particularly in light of the current economic situation, is the same one Bill Clinton told about George H.W. Bush in 1992: that he is out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans. With his seven houses, his heiress wife who thinks everyone in Arizona has a private jet, his chief economic advisor describing people who lose their jobs as whiners, and his own initial knee-jerk response to the mortgage crisis that he wasn't going to bail out the first-time homeowners who failed to show "personal responsibility" (not the unscrupulous lenders who have cost most of us 20 percent of the equity in our homes, and are now requiring middle class taxpayers to pick up the tab), Obama has all the ammunition he needs.7. Flesh out the message of change with two or three signature issues.
Obama made a great start at putting the meat on the bones of "change" in Denver. I've been a strong advocate of running values-based, emotionally evocative campaigns that bracket "issues" within emotionally powerful messages rather than hiding our values in the fine print of policy prescriptions. The data are clear that candidates who think campaigns are a "debate on the issues" lose (the Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry approach). Obama tried the issues-based approach for months and then reversed course and starting making use again of his extraordinary capacity to inspire at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa, which set him on the path to nomination. He and his team made just the right move in fleshing out the substance of his agenda in Denver without boring voters silly with 12-point plans.
What he has not done, however, which every successful candidate has done since Ronald Reagan, is to offer two or three "signature issues" that tell the American public where his heart, loyalties, and values are and illustrate the ways he would lead. Bill Clinton used "ending welfare as we know it" and a strong economic argument (one signature issue co-opting the narrative of the right, the other addressing people's concerns about the first Bush recession) as his signature issues. In his first term, Bush used No Child Left Behind (stealing the traditional advantage of Democrats on education--a true irony for a semi-literate president to champion education reform) and faith-based initiatives (a move that endeared him to many right-wing and even moderate Christians, particularly evangelicals).
As yet, Obama hasn't taken any issue and "owned" it. This should have been part of the master narrative of his campaign from the start. He could readily have woven his own history of fatherlessness with a message co-opting the traditionally conservative (but quintessentially human) theme of family values with a plan to put inner-city men back in homes, colleges, and jobs and keep them out of a life of crime. That signature issue would have also inoculated him against racial stealth attacks.
With the economy, health care, energy, and national security all clear and present dangers, he could take any two or three of those issues and make them "his." Had he done this with energy, Democrats would have maintained the 30-point edge they had six months ago on energy that has now gone to a draw or deficit with McCain's disingenuous appeals to "drill here, drill now."
As someone who worked as a young man to help workers whose plants had shuttered their doors in the south side of Chicago, Obama could easily put together either a trade message with the theme, "I want to see the words 'Made in America' again," or a message about moving into a global economy with both a short-term strategy of helping displaced workers through difficult times and a long-term strategy of leading the world into a green economy and helping workers retool by creating public-private partnerships in which businesses work with local colleges and technical schools to retrain workers for better jobs for the future.
He could offer a signature issue about investing in our children's and our nation's future by making every dollar Americans put away for their kids' college tax deductible (instead of requiring middle class parents to put away post-tax income in a 529 account and offering them a $4000 tax credit that sounds trifling to middle class parents who know what tuition, housing, and meals actually costs) and by making every dollar they spend on childcare tax deductible (instead of the paltry amounts currently allowable as a tax deduction). Those plans would give tens of millions of voters tens of thousands worth of reasons to vote for good public policy.
If he wanted to break with his party, win moderate Republicans and independents, and try something new that might improve all of our schools, he could allow federal but not state or local tax deductions for middle class parents to send their children to the schools of their choice, including parochial schools. Doing so might well improve the quality of public education by increasing the ratio of dollars to students in public schools because it would reduce the number of students in public schools without cutting any state, local, or federal funding for education. It would also increase competition among schools and give parents more freedom of choice.
8. Remember that you have the most moving orator since Bill Clinton, and get competent debate coaches.Obama is a magnificent orator who has underperformed in virtually every debate, with the possible exception of his last debate against Hillary Clinton. His performance against McCain at Rick Warren's church (even discounting for McCain's disappearance from the cone of silence) should have been a wake-up call that his campaign does not have the right people in the room coaching him. This is another standard Democratic error. Instead of recognizing that one consultant may be brilliant at organizing people and getting out the vote (which his chief strategist David Axelrod clearly is), the same advisor may not have the right expertise in coaching debate or television performances. In fact, it would be highly surprising if one person could do everything well in a campaign.
It is dumbfounding that the campaign has not brought in Paul Begala to lead the debate prep for Obama, and that they haven't asked Bill Clinton to play McCain in mock debates, since no one could do it better, and it would bring the former President into the campaign in a way that would both solidify their relationship and make optimal use of the former President's talents. Begala and James Carville are the only practicing Democratic consultants who have ever elected a Democrat to the presidency--twice--and although Obama might not feel as comfortable with Carville, whose bare-knuckles style would probably not be his cup of tea (green or black), he and Begala would be a natural combination. To my knowledge, Begala, Carville, and Clinton remain uninvolved in what will likely be the deciding moments of the 2008 campaign.
9. Fly into the eye of the storm, not away from it.
Underlying many of the problems that have plagued the Obama campaign in the last half of the primaries against Hillary Clinton and throughout the entire general election thus far is the standard Democratic predilection for running away from conflict instead of running toward it. Obama wrote a magnificent book about race in which he used his own story to talk about issues of race and class, and he delivered the greatest speech on race since "I Have a Dream." Yet he has run from race every time it has been mentioned since.
He and his team need to recognize and deal with the fact that when white people see his face, they see a black man. He knows that, because he wrote about it in his book. It is no accident that older Democratic voters had trouble with him in the primaries: Their deepest attitudes, particularly their unconscious one, were shaped in an era in which the only black people they encountered were below them, not above them. It will take conscious effort, insight, and careful research to identify the best ways to address their feelings head-on, and the Obama team has no time to waste. The same applies to middle-aged working class men, who have seen people of color promoted above them, and who harbor deep and real resentments for paying the price for the sins of their fathers (or, more accurately, the sins of the fathers of rich white boys, since punching a time card and working on an assembly line or in a mill is not what most of us would consider "privilege").
Our conscious values on race are our better angels on race. The fact that the Democratic Party has nominated, and the nation just might elect, a black man to be President of the United States, speaks to how profoundly most Americans' conscious values have changed since Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech 45 years ago. Most Americans consciously believe that discrimination based on the color of a person's skin has no place in America. But just beneath those values are latent, unconscious negative associations to black people, particularly young black men, which can be mobilized in stealth racial attacks and can be deadly to a campaign. The best way to address those latent feelings and associations is precisely the way Obama addressed them in his speech in Philadelphia: by bringing them into the open and talking about the elephant in the room. The more comfortable Obama shows he is with race, the more comfortable white voters will be with him. But won't the Republicans say he's playing the race card, you might ask? That's playing checkers. Think six moves ahead.
The same is true of gender. The Obama campaign appears to have decided that two male candidates at the top of the Democratic ticket can't touch a hair on Sarah Palin's head while she emasculates them with regularity because "women" won't like it or Republicans will cry sexism. Let the Republicans cry sexism, and propose legislation that eliminates it. That will shut them up in a heartbeat. Or call attention to their support for anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives that make it more difficult for women (who also happen to be men's wives and daughters) to break glass ceilings. Think chess.10. Apply the same nuance to your own political decision-making as you do to policy.
Finally, the Obama team, and the candidate himself, need to look inward. For years Democrats have run from controversy, run from conflict, and run from aggression. Their consultants and pollsters have told them not to talk about this issue or that issue because it's "radioactive" (meaning that they haven't figured out how to speak clearly about the values that led them to take the stand they have taken). In this election year, for example, the Democrats should be running on abortion, not from it. They finally have opponents who are embracing the most unpopular version of the conservative stance, which makes no exceptions for rape and incest (which is the only logically consistent version of it, because if life begins at conception, that applies to life borne of rape). That position is at 15 percent in the polls. If Democratic consultants think that's radioactive, they need to recalibrate their political Geiger counters.
From a psychological standpoint, few actions are determined by a single motive. We may have one-man-one-vote in this country, but we rarely have one-man-one-motive. Are Obama and McCain motivated by ambition? Of course they are. Are they motivated by the desire to do what they believe is right for their country? Of course they are. One motive doesn't negate the other, although at times one can override the other.
Democrats have offered many lofty reasons for their failure to respond to thugs and bullies from the right with a bludgeon, some of which have merit, such as Obama's obvious desire to change the way politics is done, but all of these reasons are intermingled with fear and avoidance, and all of them project cowardice. Republicans have not just held an edge on national security for years because of the policy positions they assume. They have held an edge because they speak forcefully about their principles, not just on national security but on virtually every issue. Democrats, in contrast, equivocate and perambulate, and when confronted with cynical political ploys masquerading as legislation (such as the Iraq War resolution, or the FISA act), they tend to knuckle under for fear of being accused of being weak on whatever bogeyman the Republicans are deploying. Once again, that's playing checkers. The irony is that when Democrats knuckle under, they only reinforce the stereotype that they are weak and spineless.
You can take almost any position you want on vital issues of the day as long as it isn't the fetal position. Voters will forgive mistakes, but they won't forgive cowardice.
An instructive case was Obama's response to media stories on Palin's pregnant teenage daughter. When Obama spoke out in no uncertain terms against anyone using Palin's daughter's pregnancy as a political issue against her, he showed genuine anger and resolve in his voice, and he showed the public a side of him they too rarely see. Regardless of the merits of his position (Palin in fact conspicuously flew her sudden son-in-law-to-be to the Republican Convention to sit next to his bride-to-be to demonstrate their "family values" and turn a liability into yet another sign of her ideological purity to score political points), he projected strength and conviction, something Americans want and expect from their leaders.
There are two words Obama needs to keep in his mind over the next 60 days as he answers any question: strength and principle. If he emanates both, and keeps his answers strong, tight, and principled, he will likely be our next President.
Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation," recently released in paperback with a new postscript on the 2008 election.

Letter From a Blogger

2008-09-05T12:32:00.002-05:00

I received this very important email from a blogger on http://www.barackobama.com/ and I want to share it and my response with you.

From: Traugott, Kenneth Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 12:12 PMTo: Diversity4ObamaSubject: [DiversityforObama] FW: TAKE ACTION!

I appreciate all the info that everyone is distributing in response to the RNC and about the campaign in general. I just wanted to make one point. It has been touched on before, but is worth repeating:
The bottom line is that every one of us needs to make a pledge right now to do at least one of the following things every day from now until the election:
Donate to the campaign
Make a phone call on behalf of the campaign
Canvass / knock on a neighbor’s door to talk about Barack
Write a letter to the media
Display your Obama banners, buttons, apparel, bumper stickers, etc.
Organize a meeting or rally - it doesn’t need to be huge, just get people together and get them talking
Of course, communicating through the listservs is essential so that we are exchanging necessary information and helping to educate each other, but that can’t be your only action. We need to make sure that we’re getting outside of the Obama bubble and reaching out to the undecided voters. They are the ones we need to educate and turn on to Obama’s message because they are the ones who will decide this election!

Who’s with me?!

Ken
http://theenlightenedpatriot.blogspot.com/

I agree, Ken. For a while now, I’ve been worried that we are “preaching to the choir” too much. Did you know that the people Carl Rove put in charge of the internet site and blogs for McCain, have a strategy for exactly that? They expected the Obama bloggers to stay busy blogging within their own groups. They put Trolls into our groups to start blogs that would have no effect on voters, cause chaos and waste our valuable time as we react and email them back. Check out http://www.johnmccain.com/ActionCenter/BlogInteract/BlogInteract.aspx and you will see that this one site lists Daily Kos (a liberal site) to troll on, and there are many more. It is time to pull ourselves off of the internet after an hour or two of gathering information we can use, and get busy campaigning to people face to face, by phone, or by letter, contact our local campaign offices to see what we can do, sign up people to vote, etc.! I know this is harder work, but we must do it to win. Time is short!!!
I pledge to do one of your list each and every day. In fact, I’m going to post the list on my fridge as a reminder!

Readers, Make a list like the one above and hang it on your Bulletin Boards or refrigerators and make a pledge to do some of the activities every day until the election! Or, email me and I will send you the list to print. donnamike@wi.rr.com

Increases in the National Debt Dems vs. Repubs

2008-09-05T11:36:00.002-05:00

See this & other info at:http://www.lafn.org/politics/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT Great Daily Poll Results Site!

2008-09-04T11:46:00.000-05:00

The following Poll Graphics can be found at a great poll site I've just found. Check it out at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

NOONAN & MURPHY ON OPEN MIKE! COMMENTS ON PALIN!!!

2008-09-04T10:26:00.002-05:00

When Chuck Todd thought he'd gone to commercial, his guests, Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy let loose on the Palin choice on an open mike!

New York Times on Palin Pick

2008-09-03T09:22:00.000-05:00

Published: September 2, 2008
More often than not, the role of a vice president is a minor one, unless some tragedy occurs. But a presidential nominee’s choice of a running mate is vitally important. It is his first executive decision and offers an important insight into how that nominee would lead the nation.

If John McCain wants voters to conclude, as he argues, that he has more independence and experience and better judgment than Barack Obama, he made a bad start by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
Mr. McCain’s supporters are valiantly trying to argue that the selection was a bold stroke that shows their candidate is a risk-taking maverick who — we can believe — will change Washington. (Mr. Obama’s call for change — now “the change we need” — has become all the rage in St. Paul.)
To us, it says the opposite. Mr. McCain’s snap choice of Ms. Palin reflects his impulsive streak: a wild play that he made after conservative activists warned him that he would face an all-out revolt in the party if he chose who he really wanted — Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
Why Mr. McCain would want to pander to right-wing activists — who helped George W. Bush kill off his candidacy in the 2000 primaries in a particularly ugly way — is baffling. Frankly, they have no place to go. Mr. McCain would have a lot more success demonstrating his independence, and his courage, if he stood up to them the way he did in 2000.
As far as we can tell, Mr. McCain and his aides did almost no due diligence before choosing Ms. Palin, raising serious questions about his management skills. The fact that Ms. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant is irrelevant to her candidacy. There are, however, very serious questions about her political past and her ideology.
If Mr. McCain wanted to break with his party’s past and choose the Republicans’ first female vice presidential candidate, there are a number of politicians out there with far greater experience and stature than Ms. Palin, who has been in Alaska’s Statehouse for less than two years.
Before she was elected governor, she was mayor of a tiny Anchorage suburb, where her greatest accomplishment was raising the sales tax to build a hockey rink. According to Time magazine, she also sought to have books banned from the local library and threatened to fire the librarian.
For Mr. McCain to go on claiming that Mr. Obama has too little experience to be president after almost three years in the United States Senate is laughable now that he has announced that someone with no national or foreign policy experience is qualified to replace him, if necessary.
Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who has been one of Mr. McCain’s most loyal friends, said Tuesday that he was certain that Ms. Palin would take the right positions on issues like Iraq, Russia’s invasion of Georgia and Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. That seemed based largely on his repeated assertion that Ms. Palin would be tended by Mr. McCain’s foreign policy advisers. That was not much of an endorsement.
Some of the things Ms. Palin has had to say in the recent past about foreign policy are especially worrisome. In a speech last June to her former church in Wasilla, Ms. Palin said the war in Iraq was “a task that is from God.” Mr. Bush made similar claims as he rejected all sound mortal advice on how to conduct the war.
Mr. McCain, Mr. Graham and others also claim that Ms. Palin is a fearless reformer who is committed to fighting waste, fraud and earmarks. Ms. Palin did show courage taking on some of the Alaska Republican Party’s most sleazy politicians. But she also was an eager recipient of earmarked money as a mayor and governor.
Mayor Palin gathered up $27 million in subsidies from Washington, $15 million of it for a railroad from her town to the ski resort hometown of Senator Ted Stevens, now under indictment for failing to report gifts.
The Republicans are presenting Ms. Palin as a crusader against Mr. Stevens’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” The record says otherwise; she initially supported Mr. Stevens’s boondoggle, diverting the money to other projects when the bridge became a political disaster. In her speech to the Wasilla Assembly of God in June, Ms. Palin said it was “God’s will” that the federal government contribute to a $30 billion gas pipeline she wants built in Alaska.
Mr. McCain will make his acceptance speech on Thursday, and Ms. Palin will speak on Wednesday. Those two appearances will go a long way to forming voters’ views of this Republican ticket.
As Senator Graham noted, Mr. McCain has to reach out beyond the party’s loyal base. “We’re going to have to win this thing,” he said. “This is not our race to lose.”
Mr. McCain’s hurdles are substantial. To start, he has to overcome Mr. Bush’s record of failures. (The president addressed the convention Tuesday night and now, McCain strategists fervently hope, will retire quietly to the Rose Garden.) That record includes the disastrous war in Iraq, a ballooning deficit, the mortgage crisis — and the list goes on.
To address those many problems, this country needs a leader with sound judgment and strong leadership skills. Choosing Ms. Palin raises serious questions about Mr. McCain’s qualifications.

Fellow POW Says McCain Not Fit For President!

2008-09-03T09:04:00.000-05:00

'To see McCain resort to playing the POW card when answering legitimate questions, in my mind, cheapens that experience. And by cheapening his own experience in war, he degrades all of our experiences in war. He turns the horrific incidents we've all seen, touched, smelled, and felt into a lame excuse to earn political points. And it dishonors us all.'
-- Brandon Friedman, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan

John McCain has been exploiting his prisoner of war experience every chance he gets. He has used this story to justify everything from not knowing how many homes he has to his healthcare plan to his marital infidelities to his taste in music. The McCain campaign is even using his POW story in paid ads. But now a veteran who was a prisoner with McCain in Vietnam is explaining loud and clear that being a POW does not qualify McCain to lead our country.
Dr. Phillip Butler knew McCain as a fellow POW. Watch and listen!

We are sure this video will draw an onslaught of right-wing attacks, but we bring it to you because it is our job to continue to convey the truth together and give these issues national attention. As Dr. Butler has said, McCain does not have the temperament to have his finger near the red button. Get this video to everyone you know: friends, family members, coworkers, and especially those who don't share your political views. The video is designed to reach them. Get it on your social networking sites like Digg. And get it to every blog, newspaper, and TV station that has ever overplayed McCain's POW story. It is time to fight back with truth!

The mainstream press has already begun to call out McCain for overusing his POW story. And it's cut across all political persuasions.

'Whether he's deflecting criticism over his health-care plan or mocking a tribute to the Woodstock music festival, Senator John McCain has a trump card: the Hanoi Hilton. - Edwin Chen, Bloomberg
'Noun, Verb, POW' - Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic Monthly
'The McCain campaign's constant invocation of the candidate's POW past is weird bordering on irrational...' - Ana Marie Cox, TIME
'I think they are going to it way too many times.' - Howard Fineman, Newsweek
Remember how Joe Biden got the press to refer to Rudy Giuliani as 'A noun, a verb, and 9/11'? Well, let's actually take Andrew Sullivan's lead here and get the media to boil McCain down to a similar phrase: 'A noun, a verb, and POW.' Considering how often the McCain campaign invokes his POW story, isn't that what they're already doing?
Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New team

"We Rise and Fall as One Nation" Speech

2008-09-03T08:31:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Barack Obama at the Marcus Amphitheater in Milwaukee on Labor Day! With over 14,000 others, my husband, friends, and I shouted our, “Yes We Cans” and whooped and clapped for our candidate for President of the United States. We had fun waiting for the program to start, talking to the people sitting around us, marveling at the fabulous Obama T-shirt designs walking around, and thankfully sitting in a shaded section. We were treated to short speeches by the Mayor of Milwaukee, Herb Kohl, Russ Feingold, Congresswoman Gwenn Moore, and others, and then Barack walked out to a standing, shouting, cheering crowd, and gave a short, but inspiring speech about Americans coming together for the hurricane victims in Louisiana and all of each others' personal "quiet storms." It was one of his best. Here is what a reporter said today about the speech:

As a journalist who has covered Obama for 19 months now, I have heard him deliver more speeches than I can count. I know when he's tired he goes long - like 90 minutes long - rambling through oft-repeated points and stories. I've seen him address crowds of 80,000 and rooms of less than 100. And after a while you become immune to his prose and tune in only to new wrinkles.

Obama spent today giving curtailed speeches in respect to Hurricane Gustav. But tonight, in front of a Milwaukee audience of 14,000, invoking both the Bible and Thoreau, he was as good as I've ever

Heard him. He spoke for just over 14 minutes but he left the audience roaring.Here are excerpts of the last five minutes:

That spirit of looking out for one another, that core value that says I am my brothers' keeper, I am my sister's keeper, that spirit is most evident during times of great tragedy, it's most evident during times of great hardship, it's most evident when natural disasters strike because we understand that only God has control and so it takes it out of the realm of politics. We all understand that we have to come together.
But that spirit can't just be restricted to moments of great catastrophe. Because as I stand here today and look out at the thousands of folks who have gathered here today, I know that there's some folks that are going through their own quiet storms.
There're people out there who've seen their jobs shipped overseas. There're people out there who don't have healthcare, maybe they've been trying to pay it on a credit card but mostly they've just been putting off trying to see a doctor. There're seniors out there that don't know how they're going to pay their home heating bill this winter. There are folks out there that don't know how they're going to fill up the gas tank. There are young people in this audience right now that have graduated from high school, have the grades and want to go to college, but don't have the money. There are young people being born in the inner cities, right here in Milwaukee, that don't see any prospects for the future that think the only path av ailable to them is a casket or a jail cell.
All across America there are quiet storms taking place. There are lives of quiet desperation. People who need just a little bit of help. Now, Americans are a self-reliant people, we're an independent people. We don't like asking somebody else to do what we can do ourselves but you know what we understand is that every once in a while somebody's going to get knocked down. Every once in a while somebody's going to go through some hard times. When we least expect it tragedy may strike. And what has always made this country great is the understanding that we rise and fall as one nation, that values and family, community and neighborhood, they have to express themselves in our government. Those are national values. Those are values that we all subscribe to. And so that the spirit that we extend today and in the days to come as we monitor what happens on the Gulf that's the spirit that we've got to carry with us each and every day. That's the spirit that we need in our own homes and it's the spirit that we need in the White House. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States of America.
Because if there's a poor child out there, that's my child. If there's a senior that's having trouble, that's my grandparent. If there's a guy who's lost his job, that's my brother. If there's a woman out there without healthcare, that's my sister. Those are the values that built this country. Those are the values we are fighting for.

Yes We Can!!!!! Yes We Can Make a Difference!!!

2008-08-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

We can make a difference! A week or so ago, I received a blogger's list of major Television Network Email addreses. I had already been emailing Morning Joe, Race to the Whitehouse, and other shows on MSNBC, but this list gave access to producers, show directors, and show hosts from many stations. I realized how unhappy many of the bloggers were with Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, and of course, Fox Noise! So I included the list of addresses in a blog to about 60,000+ members of the 20 groups I belong to on mybarackobama.com. I was amazed at the result! The past few days I have received hundreds of emails from people who decided to email the MSNBC station and other stations as well. Well done, Bloggers!! Yes We Can!!!
There is another tactic we must take to make a difference. When we blog, we are mostly blogging within our own Democratic sites to fellow Democrats who are already voting for Obama. It is a great place to share ideas and tactics, get important info, communicate successes, etc. Many of us spend hours each day blogging, which gets me to my point. I'm sure you've noticed the trolls, who respond to messages with Republican talking points and harsh criticism. I had heard on Air America that the Carl Rove Team had set up a strategy to do that very thing, and a fellow blogger sent me one of the web sites that details the strategy. Check it out at

http://www.johnmccain.com/ActionCenter/BlogInteract/BlogInteract.aspx

Their goal was to create chaos within the Dems' sites figuring we would waste much time responding to these idiotic messages. Just as Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough do on MSNBC, these trolls rile us up and we spend valuable energy on them. We need to inflitrate the Republican Blogsites and start responding to their messages with our own talking points, refute the lies and smears they are spreading, and create a little chaos ourselves. We have to throw back their tactic right at them!
I decided to join some Republican blog groups, and will start working on this over the weekend when John McCain announces his VP pick, and throughout the Republican Convention and up to the election. Will you join me? We Can Make a Difference! If anyone knows where we can get the Democrat's Daily talking points, please let me know.
And, I do believe that a great response to the Republican Trollers is No Response at all or a one word response such as RIDICULOUS! Lets not waste our time on them!

Democratic Convention Cheers, Tears, & Jeers!

2008-08-26T07:54:00.000-05:00

The Democratic National Convention opens with a bang! It was such a treat to see Teddy Kennedy on stage and listen to his powerful Kennedy voice once more! He was inspiring, and there was a tangible and visible emotion throughout the convention audience.
But, how about that Michelle Obama?! An authentic and beautiful woman, she did exactly what she needed to do and more! She painted a picture of her husband as a working-class advocate for the American dream who "will finally bring the change that we need." She stressed her and the senator's middle-class backgrounds saying the couple “were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.”
In the first major address at the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama described herself as a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother, no different from many women. She told a boisterous and emotional crowd waving signs reading "Michelle" that she and her husband feel an obligation to "fight for the world as it should be" to ensure the promise of a better life for their daughters and all children Michelle connected with mothers all across the nation when she spoke of her daughters. Michelle Obama talked about tucking in her daughters Malia and Sasha at night, and the appearance of the two girls at the end talking through the microphones to their Dad on the LCD screen was priceless!
But it was when Michelle Obama declared "I love this country" that the crowd cheered the loudest! Putting to rest any critics who keep bringing up her possible lack of patriotism, I like what MSNBC's Tim Olberman said, "The issue is now finished, over with, done, period!"
If you missed the speech, listen here.

Overall, the opening was great, even with some Clinton protestors trying to disrupt the night. The recent attack ad by John McCain with a Clinton-backer saying that now she will vote for McCain makes me wonder how those who supposedly shared Clinton's values and agreed with her stances on the issues, which are almost identical to Obama's, could choose revenge over their country. Maybe Hillary will squash that sentiment tonight as she is scheduled as the keynote speaker.

Dave Stewart American Prayer Video - Inspiring!!!!

2008-08-25T09:49:00.000-05:00

Send this to everyone you know. It is a wonderful video!

Woo Hooooo!!!!! Its Obama-Biden!!!

2008-08-24T11:09:00.000-05:00

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) (L), his wife Michelle and Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) (R) with his wife Jill greet people gathered on the lawn of the Old State Capital August 23, 2008 in Springfield, Illinois. The Obama campaign confirmed this morning Biden had been selected as Obama's running mate.
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images North America)

Great choice! I love the pick! Here is a well-thought commentary on Joe Biden

From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro of MSNBC:

DENVER -- We confirmed the news after midnight, and then after trying to get a little sleep, this text message at about 3:00 am ET woke us up: “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on http://www.barackobama.com/. Spread the word!” A 3:00 am wake-up call, you just can’t make this stuff up. And there were two collective sounds you could hear over the beeping cellphones and the buzzing blackberries. On the Democratic side, it was a collective "phew." As the days got nearer for the pick, it was hard to find a Democrat -- even savvy Clintonites -- who weren't hoping it would be Biden. Only the most strident Hillary supporters appear to be upset this morning. On the GOP side, the sound you heard was disappointed silence. Of everyone on the short list, the candidate many Republicans least wanted to see Obama pick was Biden. Sure, they've already trotted out their talking points. And the McCain camp even produced a rapid-response TV ad highlighting some unkind words Biden said about Obama during the primaries. (We assume this now means McCain won’t be picking Romney, right? And doesn't the McCain ad actually send the message to swing voters that Obama's willing to surround himself with critics?) But there are too many intellectual conservatives (see David Brooks) who believe Biden's the most qualified guy Obama could have realistically picked.
*** Joe’s strengths…: As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has plenty of foreign policy experience -- something viewed as a weakness for Obama. Also, Biden’s most recent presidential bid raised his national profile, making him a politico whom most Americans know, which could help reassure some voters who have doubts about Obama. In addition, whether it has been in recent speeches or on Meet the Press, Biden has showed that he’s up to this veep responsibility: whacking the opposition. What’s more, during his presidential bid in ’07-’08, Biden demonstrated that he’s a very good debater, a quality the Democrats might want to showcase during the vice presidential debate scheduled for October 2. And electorally, Biden could help lock down Pennsylvania, as well as connect better than Obama has in blue-collar Michigan and the "U" of Ohio (Toledo to Youngstown). A few more thoughts… Biden is someone that will play well with older white voters, a demographic group Obama's struggled with, and he’s very popular with labor and trial lawyers, which while helpful financially for Obama and in the Rust Belt, could fire up the business community even more for McCain.
*** … And his weaknesses: Obama has railed against Washington and Washington insiders during his campaign, but few people are more inside Washington than Biden, who has served in the Senate for 36 years (by comparison, McCain has been in the Senate for 22 years). Furthermore, Biden often has been a gaffe machine -- whether it was calling Obama "clean" and "articulate" (news that marred his presidential announcement in 2007) or stating in 2006, "You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” And there was that plagiarism scandal that knocked him out of the 1988 presidential race. Perhaps the biggest question: Just how well will Obama and Biden mesh? Has Biden been anybody's No. 2, ever? He's run for president TWICE for a reason (the first time Biden ran, Obama was just starting law school, by the way). Biden has an actual "boss" for the first time in his political career. Is he ready to ride shotgun? And is it a problem that Obama-Biden is a mirror image of Bush-Cheney from 2000? A charismatic, inexperienced nominee taps a more experienced, dare we say, arrogant No.2? In fact, there are a lot of Republicans who believe they can sell Obama-Biden as "the Audacity of Arrogance times two."
*** Back to Springfield: When Obama and Biden appear together this afternoon at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, IL, it will come just more than 18 months after Obama officially launched his presidential bid from that historical venue. (It’s where Lincoln gave his famous 1858 “House Divided” speech, in which he railed against slavery and how it had torn the nation into two. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”) While today’s event will be a bit warmer than it was on that February 2007 day -- it was close to 10 degrees! -- that announcement back then was the first sign that there was something to Obama’s candidacy. Despite the frigid weather, close to 20,000 showed up on that day, and the crowds at his rallies only grew. Now, with the polls tightening, Obama needs to draw on some of that Springfield magic. Can he deliver?
*** The big bounce? Now for some non-VP news… Yesterday, the McCain campaign released a memo saying that Obama should receive a 15-point (!!!) bounce from his convention. But here’s a big caveat: We haven’t had a back-to-back convention schedule in a very long time, so it may make historical comparisons moot. But let's crunch some numbers from the Gallup chart McCain's campaign sent around. The average Dem convention bounce since '64 is 6.2 points. The average GOP convention bounce since '64 is 5.3 points. The average FIRST convention bounce: 6.3 points. The average SECOND convention bounce is: 5.2 points. With just three instances since '64 of open-seat presidential elections, it's useless to attempt an average if you did this average based on Olympic score (tossing the high and the low), the average convention bounce would be 5.6 points, which feels about the right bar for expectations. The Clinton example the McCain folks are using -- 16 points after the '92 Dem convention! -- is really a reach considering that Ross Perot (who was the front-runner the week before the Dem convo) dropped out the week of the Dem convo. So toss the Clinton bounce out any analysis window.
*** Saying goodbye to those red states? In addition to that memo, the McCain campaign yesterday furiously pounced on a report that Team Obama was pulling its advertising in red states -- like Alaska, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, and North Dakota -- suggesting that the Obama camp was abandoning its (almost) 50-state strategy. But as Lee Corso might say, “Not so fast, my friend.” A senior Obama campaign source told First Read that the campaign wasn’t planning to be on TV next week during their convention, but the McCain is up with negative spots in 11 states, and they wanted to match them in those 11 (which doesn't include any of those ruby-red states). Moreover, the source assures us that the campaign will resume its larger TV buy once the convention ends.
*** On the trail: McCain is down in Sedona, AZ. Obama holds his rally in Springfield at the Old State Capitol. Countdown to Dem convention: 2 daysCountdown to GOP convention: 9 daysCountdown to Election Day 2008: 73 days Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 150 days

John McCain's 10 Houses - Elitist & Out of Touch!

2008-08-18T12:38:00.007-05:00

I received this email from Robert Greenwld and The Brave New Team. It is definitely worth passing along!
"Most working families today do not have homes that have anywhere near ten rooms. John McCain has ten houses. Many working people in America have to work two and three jobs to provide for their families and pay their car loans. John McCain hops on a private jet. Is it any wonder why McCain champions a George Bush agenda of cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, helping oil companies turn record profits, and leaving working families to fend for themselves? McCain's velvet world leaves him utterly unprepared to make the tough choices we need to restore the middle class and ensure that everyone in America has quality, affordable health insurance."
- Andy Stern, President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

Dear Donna,
John McCain is soaring to new heights of hypocrisy on his wife's personal jet. He flies around the country bent on duping the public into believing he's "one of them," a regular guy who can empathize with Americans facing an overwhelming economic crush. What's more, he disparages those who oppose his ridiculous policy proposals as "elitist." But who's the real elitist?

The REAL McCain is a multimillionaire who owns ten luxurious homes. The REAL McCain backs President Bush's tax cuts for big corporations. The REAL McCain empathizes only with the interests of our nation's wealthy minority, not its money-strapped majority. But far too many are buying into McCain's deceit because the corporate press won't present the whole picture, so we created this video to educate the public about the REAL McCain.

Watch the video and send it to everyone you know.

Together, you have been a force in making sure The REAL McCain videos have been seen by nearly 6.5 million people. But as Frank Rich noted in his NY Times column yesterday, 40% of Americans hear too little about McCain from the mainstream media, meaning "the public doesn't know who on earth John McCain is." That's why it's crucial you ensure this video is seen by as many as possible, and that we use each and every tool at our disposal to get the word out. Send this on to five friends and family members, and tell them to send it to five people they know. Get it to your local news outlets and blogs and networking sites like Digg. Raise hell about McCain's economic duplicity!

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney summed it up best when he said McCain "simply doesn't understand the challenges America's working families are facing because he isn't remotely affected by them." It's up to us to tell people who McCain really is, a jet-setting elitist more concerned with corporate lobbyists than hard-working Americans.

Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New team

McCain's cross in the sand story...PLAGIARIZED?

2008-08-17T17:24:00.008-05:00

Last night at the Saddleback Forum, McCain emotionally reitterated his story about the cross in the sand drawn by a guard while he was captured in Vietnam.
The camera panned to a sympathetic Cindy McCain as the Evangelists cheered. But today all across the blogosphere and even in the Huffington Post, his story is decried as plagiarism from an Andrew Solzhenitsyn account of a too similar experience while he was detained in a Soviet camp. It just so happens that McCain is a great fan of Solzhenitsyn (maybe he thought his base wouldn't be intellectual enough to have read any Solzhenitsyn). Politics as usual - a little more serious that the Hillary sniper fire story - a lot more serious than the Cindy McCain recipe plagiarism. :>) But McCain sould be called on it.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/17/122230/161/239/569299 Long story short. In 1973, a russian author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, wrote about his time in in the book "The Gulag Archipelago" and relayed exactly the same story.

From the book:

"As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible."

There is a nice long excerpt from John McCain's book "Hard Call: The Art of Great Decisions " released in 2005, reprinted in the NY Sun, about what a big fan he is of Alexander Solzhenitsyn writings...

We all keep repeating how we respect and appreciate John McCain's service to our country as a captive (although you really should check out the information about the other part of his naval career - a good place to start is at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-klein/mccains-secret-questionab_b_107409.html, but we expect the truth from a man who now is running for our President.

McCain's False Tax Attack

2008-08-16T15:51:00.000-05:00

The Real McCain

2008-08-15T21:41:00.001-05:00

Lies, Falsehoods, Dishonesty!!!

How We Can Get Barack Obama Elected!

2008-08-15T14:11:00.000-05:00

Georgia Conflict Orchestrated by USA Politics?

2008-08-15T10:36:00.004-05:00

After an initial feeling of shock and anger at Russia's "invasion" of Georgia, I started looking up information. Like most Americans struggling with the day to day problems of making ends meet and family and work and so forth, I really didn't know too much about the little Democratic Georgia across the world. I learned that the United States government, in its pursuit of Democracy for all, had armed Georgia with weapons, money, and an attitude that they could face down big ole' Russia because the U.S. would be backing them. Then last night I watched an angry Mikail Gorbachav on Larry King Live expressing his feelings that the Bush administration had in effect orchestrated this whole thing for political reasons. Now, wasn't Carl Rove (vacationing?) in Europe (to avoid the supeona by Congress to tesify) just a week before this all happened? He was actually at the Yalta Conference with Mikhail Saakashvili, Bob Shrum, and Richard Haass. And shortly after the conference, Saakashvili made a reckless decision that prompted the Russian invasion of his country. Susequently, Saakashvili seemed to think that the United States was bound by some promise to defend Georgia, and issued public pronouncements to that effect. I woder where he got that idea? Hmmm: Rice, Rove and McCain all met with Mikheil Saakashvili since July 9. http://www.yes-ukraine.org/ You can view the full list of participants here:http://www.yes-ukraine.org/en/List_of_participants8.html Some real disturbing thoughts started to enter my mind, although I have to admit, it is hard for me to believe that anyone would instigate a war that has killed thousands of people, destroyed homes, schools, and hospitals, for political gain. History shows, though, that men can and have done these things (Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria . . .). Oh, and hasn't John McCain been a proponent against Russia for the past 8 years or so? Isn't this a convenient little war for him right now? I finally found Air America on my car radio yesterday, and lo and behold, people were calling in to the Rachel Maddow show with the very same thoughts as mine. What will it take for someone to get to the bottom of this, because if the American conscience becomes aware that this is true, John McCain will be finished! Please read the following articles published in the past few days - one from Mike Malloy, another from Pravda in Russia, and one from a blogger:

The Shoe Lady Speaks...by Mike Malloy
Which brings us to the current Russian crisis. The hot war now raging between Russia and the Republic of Georgia is yet another indicator of both Rice's uselessness and the ongoing global chaos perpetrated by the Cheney Cabal. His acid fingerprints are all over this destructive confrontation. This is a crisis years in the making, with a bloody explosion so inevitable it could have been predicted by even the most inexperienced U.S. foreign service employee.The damage done, Rice is now hustled onstage to declare her usual rhetorical nonsense when an utter catastrophe such as this one explodes with no evident foreknowledge or contingent planning on the part of the U.S. (Except, of course, our clandestine actions as the behind-the-scenes instigator. That, after all - national convulsions, civil disruptions, war - is what has given Dick Cheney such a hideous and deserved reputation and yet another example of what qualifies him as a future defendant before an international war crimes tribunal.)The Reuters News Agency reports: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday urged Russia and Georgia to end hostilities, saying progress apparently had been made toward a cease fire but it was important that all parties stop fighting. "I believe that they believe that they have made some progress and we welcome that and we certainly welcome the EU mediation," Rice told reporters at the White House after briefing President George W. Bush on French-led European Union efforts to mediate with Russia."It is very important now that all parties cease fire," Rice said. "The Georgians have agreed to a cease fire. The Russians need to stop their military operations as they have apparently said that they will. But those military operations really do now need to stop. "Rice said the United States supported Georgia's elected government. "I want to make very clear that the United States stands for the territorial integrity of Georgia, for the sovereignty of Georgia, that we support its democratically elected government and its people," she said.This is declaratory nonsense. Gibberish. Utter bullshit spoken by a shill for the most warlike and corrupt regime in U.S. history.As a result of her inability to provide effective leadership - any leadership for that matter - Rice should resign immediately. And the duties of the Secretary of State? They have been Dick Cheney's since the beginning of this horrific period of U.S. political history - the Administration of George W. Bush. Let's stop pretending its otherwise.

War between Russia and Georgia orchestrated from USA Pravda

The US administration urged for an immediate cease-fire in the conflict between Russia and Georgia over the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia.In the meantime, Russian officials believe that it was the USA that orchestrated the current conflict. The chairman of the State Duma Committee for Security, Vladimir Vasilyev, believes that the current conflict is South Ossetia is very reminiscent to the wars in Iraq and Kosovo.“The things that were happening in Kosovo, the things that were happening in Iraq – we are now following the same path. The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America. South Ossetian defense officials used to make statements about imminent aggression from Georgia, but the latter denied everything, whereas the US Department of State reloaded not comments on the matter. In essence, they have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals. They are responsible for this. The world community will learn about it,” the official said.In the meantime, it became known that the Georgian troops conducted volley-fire cleansings of several South Ossetian settlements, where people’s houses were simply leveled.“The number of victims with women, children and elderly people among them, can be counted in hundreds and even thousands,” a source from South Ossetian government in the capital of Tskhinvali said.The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters that Georgia’s actions in South Ossetia question its consistency as a state and as aresponsible member of the international community, Interfax reports."Civilians, including women, children and elderly people are dying in South Ossetia. In addition to that, Georgia conducts ethnic scouring in South Ossetian villages. The situation in South Ossetia continues to worsen every hour. Georgia uses military hardware and heavy arms against people. They shell residential quarters of Tskhinvali [the capital] and other settlements. They bomb the humanitarian convoys. The number of refugees continues to rise – the people try to save their lives, the lives of their children and relatives. A humanitarian disaster is gathering pace,” Russia’s Foreign Minister said.The minister added that the Georgian administration ignored the appeal from the UN General Assembly to observe the Olympic truce during the Beijing Olympics.

Georgia war is a neocon election ploy
August 13, 2008
Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.
Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. Iraq invasion.
There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which clearly was expected to produce a Russian counter-reaction. It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain’s presidential campaign.
In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia’s membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin.Scheunemann is at the center of the neoconservative cabal that has come to dominate the Republican candidate’s foreign policy stance in a replay of the run-up to the war against Iraq.

Stop Fox's Smears of Obama

2008-08-15T07:49:00.002-05:00

The FOX smears are continuing and we need to stop them from spreading to the rest of the media. Watch FOX's laughably inaccurate distortions, as they smear Barack Obama on everything from the economy to race to patriotism to flag pins.

In the coming weeks, FOX will escalate its gross misrepresentations of Obama, and we know from painful past experience that some in the corporate media will spread FOX's canards by presenting them as fact. We must stop the spread.

Watch the video and sign the petition.

Now that you've had the chance to watch we need you to make sure everyone else sees the distortions as we work to stop them. Sign our petition http://foxattacks.com and demand FOX stop serving up blatant lies for the rest of the media to swallow. It's critical that you send it to everyone you know, get it to your local newspapers and TV stations, and post it on blogs and networking sites. Digg it and Reddit!
This is a game show because satires sometimes can be a powerful weapon. Let's use it to make sure the media know that when it comes to Obama, The FOX Is Wrong!
Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Team

Could Georgia Conflict Have Been Prevented?

2008-08-13T10:32:00.004-05:00

Pictures: Reuters(L) & AP(R)

I've been listening to CNN all morning (MSNBC's political coverage not on due to Oympic coverage). Maybe its too soon to start being critical of the United States' foreign policy in regard to Georgia & Russia, but President Mikhail Saakashvili is quite angry and disappointed in the United States' lack of support. Since the violence began, I've read articles from 6 of the major papers nationwide, and the general feeling is that the U.S. has led the Georgian government to believe they would not be alone in defending their democracy against Russia. Now maybe that means diplomatic measures or pressure through sanctions or whatever, but I don't think that's what the Georgian president expected. The truth of the matter is that the U.S. has let this situation simmer the past few years, concentrating only on Iraq, and took its eye off of Russia who has been escalating its military strength and its power as a nation that could affect all of Europe eventually. Russia's attack (they call it punishment as if Georgia is a naughty child) on Georgia is a message to all, and especially the U.S., that Russia is back. They are flexing their military power and showing the world that they will not tolerate Democratic influence in their part of the world.

And then we have John McCain calling President Saakashvili and speaking for all Americans (his words) saying, "We are all Georgians today!. Yesterday the Georgian president even happily mentioned McCains' message in a rally. Today he disappointedly said that what McCain said was only words and that it should be backed up with action. WHAT IS MCCAIN THINKING? After accusing Obama for acting presidential before he is even elected, McCain is doing the very same thing! And he has used this horrendous situation for his own political gain. If McCain had the power, I think he would be planning to send troops to Georgia (maybe he could roundup some boyscouts or retired military since even our National Guard is already in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Well, President Bush will be speaking within the hour about this very situation. I'm sure he will be offering help for the rebuilding of Georgia, humanitarian aid for its people, and tough words for the Russians. Once more, our country is reactive to something that possibly could have been prevented (9/11).

Does anyone else share my feelings?

Below is a report from the associated press:

Key numbers from the Georgia-Russia conflict

By The Associated Press – 18 hours ago

LENGTH OF WAR: Six days of fighting in Georgia and two separatist regions, South Ossetia and Abhkazia, from Aug. 7 through Aug. 12 before a cease-fire was declared by Russia.

MILITARY: Russia has 1.1 million soldiers, Georgia has 37,000. The Russian armed forces have about 6,000 tanks and some 1,700 combat aircraft. Georgia has 230 tanks and 12 combat aircraft.

_ Russia sent 20,000 troops and 500 tanks into Georgia, according to the Georgian president. In Abhkazia alone, Russia estimated it had at least 9,000 troops and 350 armored vehicles.

_ The U.S. helped Georgia bring about 2,000 Georgian troops from Iraq during the fighting.

DEATH TOLL: About 2,000 people, most of them with Russian passports, were killed in South Ossetia as of Aug. 12, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Georgia's Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili said more than 100 Georgians died, including civilians and soldiers.

DISPLACED: The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates almost 100,000 people were displaced, according to figures provided by both governments. Georgian officials say a few thousand fled south into Georgia proper from South Ossetia, and up to 12,000 were estimated to be displaced within South Ossetia. Russian officials in North Ossetia suggest 30,000 people from South Ossetia remain in Russia.

OIL: Two pipelines were shut down. British energy group BP said Aug. 12 that it closed a pipeline in Georgia carrying "a limited amount" of gas and oil because of the conflict. Another pipeline operated by the London-based oil company in Georgia was out of action after a fire last week in Turkey.

MILITARY BASES: Russia seized a Georgian military base in the town of Senaki. At least four other Georgian air bases were bombed, including a base on the outskirts of Gori, the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of Tbilisi, the Marneuli air base, and another base in Bolnisi.

TOWNS HIT: Tskhinvali, Zugdidi, Senaki.

AMERICANS EVACUATED: More than 170 American citizens evacuated from Georgia to Armenia by the U.S. State Department.

JOURNALISTS KILLED: Three. Dutch TV correspondent Stan Storimans, and photojournalists Alexander Klimchuk and Grigol Chikhladze of Caucasus Images, according to The Committee to Protect Journalists. The group reported at least eight journalists were injured and two were missing.

WAR PRISONERS: The International Committee of the Red Cross said they visited two wounded Russian pilots detained by Georgian authorities.

___

Sources: AP reporting and UNHCR - http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/48a15c0d2.html

Compiled by AP's News Research Center.

Ike's Granddaughter Calls Obama 'Future of America'

2008-08-11T18:42:00.003-05:00

Along with Susan Eisenhower, Ike’s grandson David Eisenhower (Susan’s brother) and his wife Julie NIXON Eisenhower (Yes, that’s right: Richard Nixon’s daughter.) both not only also openly endorse Barack Obama, but have also contributed to his campaign.

Affairs to Remember!

2008-08-11T18:10:00.005-05:00

Senator John McCain is fighting accusations tonight from the New York Times that he had an affair with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. The Senator released a statement to the Times calling the story a "smear campaign."

Cenk Uyger Huffington post
How is John McCain's Affair Different From John Edwards?

Now, we get to the most relevant question - if John Edwards' political career is done, why isn't John McCain's? John McCain had a well-documented affair on his first wife, with his current wife. He has admitted in the books he has written about his life that he ran around with several different women while still married to his first wife. And don't forget that he left her for a younger, richer woman - multi-millionaire Cindy Hensley who is now Cindy McCain - after she had been severely hurt in a car accident.
So, why are McCain's actions any more excusable than Edwards'? Because it was thirty years ago? Does that wash it away? Will we be fine with Edwards running for office again in a couple of years because then it will all be in the past? What is the statute of limitations on an affair?
Remember Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan and Ross Perot were so upset with how John McCain dealt with his first wife that they didn't forgive him for a very, very long time. Perot still hasn't forgiven him. In fact, he said recently about McCain dumping his first wife for Cindy, "McCain is the classic opportunist. He's always reaching for attention and glory."
So, I want every pundit who condemns John Edwards today to tell me what the difference between him and McCain is and why John McCain shouldn't also be run out of politics for his adulterous affairs and what he did to his first wife.

Digby is the proprietor of Hullabaloo
Media Salivate Over Edwards' Affair; Shrug Shoulders Over McCain's Alleged Infidelity

I realize that everybody gets excited about sex scandals. It's human nature. But it's important to keep in mind that John Edwards didn't even come close to winning the nomination and this is just another sleazy tabloid story with absolutely no serious significance other than the sickening spectacle of the prurient slavering of the mainstream media now that they have finally found their hook: it's because he lied to the press about his sex life. How could he???
(Lying to the press about the anthrax killers and WMD in Iraq, well, not a problem.)
Let's assume that the rules now say that denying an affair to the press is a cardinal offense that merits endless bloviating about dishonesty from a bunch of hypocritical celebrities who protect their "sources" when they lie about torture and war. Fine. But this guy actually may very well be president and they took his word for it:
I'm very disappointed in the New York Times piece. It's not true. And I'll be glad to respond to any questions you might have.
QUESTION: Senator, did you ever have any meeting with any of your staffers in which they would have intervened to ask you not to see Vicki Iseman or to be concerned about appearances of being too close to a lobbyist?
MCCAIN: No.
QUESTION: No meeting ever occurred?
MCCAIN: No.
QUESTION: No staffer was ever concerned about a possible romantic relationship?
MCCAIN: If they were, they didn't communicate that to me.
QUESTION: Did you ever have such relationship?
MCCAIN: No.
QUESTION: Senator, can you describe your relationship with Vicki Iseman?
MCCAIN: Friends. Seen her on occasions, particularly at receptions and fund-raisers and appearances before the committee. I have many friends in Washington who represent various interests and those who don't, and I consider her a friend.
QUESTION: But do you feel like, in terms of your relationship with lobbyists in general, you were closer to her than with others?
MCCAIN: No, no.
I have many friends who represent various interests, ranging from the firemen to the police to senior citizens to various interests, particularly before my committee. And I had meetings with hundreds of them and various interests. And that was my job to do, to get their input.
And, obviously, people who represent interests are fine. That's their constitutional right. The question is is whether do they have access or unwarranted influence. And certainly, no one ever has in my conduct of my public life and the conduct of my legislative agenda.
QUESTION: Senator?
MCCAIN: Yes, sir?
QUESTION: Did John Weaver, who is one of your former top aides -- is quoted on the record saying that he had a conversation with her saying -- basically telling her to butt out.
Do you not know of that conversation? Do you know why John Weaver would go on the record describing such a conversation?
MCCAIN: I did not and I don't know anything about it.
Many people, especially in the press, jumped to defend McCain against the evil New York Times on that one and there has been no follow up. But considering how everyone is excusing the flogging of this Edwards story on the basis of the fact that he lied to the press, I'm not sure it's in the country's best interest not to ask McCain about this again and talk to the women herself. What if it comes out that it was true after he's president? Why surely the press will be as honor bound to obsess over it as they were about Clinton and now Edwards, right? It's not about the sex -- it's about the lying, remember? (They've been saying on a loop that John Edwards was a breath away from the presidency, after all and he got about four delegates.)
I personally don't care who any of these people are sleeping with (especially McCain). Marriage is a very complicated institution and I don't pass judgment on how others conduct theirs. I think this is all bullshit. But if the media has decided that even a failed politician who has no chance at the presidency can be subject to this kind of scrutiny, then they need to be a little bit more vigilant about pursuing someone who is the nominee of his party and has been very publicly linked to a specific woman by the paper of record, not the National Enquirer. If these are the rules, then this guy is a far more likely subject of scrutiny than Edwards.

Action Wire Asks to Spread This Along!

2008-08-11T16:37:00.003-05:00

The Obama Action Wire is a grassroots rapid response group for supporters to fight smears, spread the truth, push back on misleading media, and take positive action.

http://my.barackobama.com/actionwiremedia

This is what they sent to me:
This week John McCain's campaign hit new lows with their attacks and distortions.

And all too often, the so-called "referees" in the news media are spending a lot of time repeating his false attacks and very little time holding him accountable.

Watch the video of Barack taking these attacks head on at an event in Indiana and help spread the truth about John McCain.

Here's the latest from McCain and the media:

Just last week, McCain and his party attacked Barack Obama and ridiculed the idea that keeping your car tires inflated is an effective way to improve fuel efficiency and keep down the cost of gasoline. The thing is, everyone from AAA to NASCAR agreed with Barack. McCain finally had to face reality this week and reverse his position. But the media had a good laugh about McCain's petty, misguided stunt and ignored his effort to distort the truth to win a few cheap political points.Earlier this week, the McCain campaign put out an ad saying that Washington is broken. It's gotten a lot of press so far, but it didn't mention that John McCain spent the last 26 years in Washington -- failing to fix this broken system. He portrays himself as a so-called "maverick" but doesn't want people to know that he has voted 95% of the time in support of George Bush's policies.

Another ad uses scare tactics to claim Barack's tax policy will hurt middle class Americans. Press coverage of the ad repeated McCain's smears, but omitted the fact that Barack's economic plan will cut taxes for 95% of American families. Not to mention that McCain's upper class tax cut plan leaves out more than 100 million middle class families.
The media may not be informing the public very well, but you don't have to sit back and wait for them to start telling the truth about John McCain.

Remember?

2008-08-08T17:03:00.001-05:00

The McCainoPot Calling the Kettle Black

2008-08-07T18:12:00.002-05:00

Nine Houses & $520 Shoes?

2008-08-06T07:13:00.008-05:00

Carol McCain & Children Praying for John in Vietnam

Everyone agrees that this election is Barack Obama's to win after 8 years of the Bush catastophe, the poor economy, the energy crisis, and the War in Iraq. So why are the polls so close? Why can't Barack break that magic 50%? Political pundits and the McCain campaign say its because we just don't know enough about Barack Obama. That he is exotic, not like one of us. That he hasn't been around long enough for us to know well.
Well, WHAT DO THEY WANT? Obama has written two biographical books, has repeated his life story over and over on the air and on a biographical tour across the country. I can repeat intimate details about he and his grandfather watching the astronauts land in the ocean, and his grandmother feeding him jello with grape halves. I've seen pictures of him as a small boy, of his mother and father and grandparents, of Barack at Harvard, of Barack as an organizer on the streets of Chicago, and on and on and on. And, "exotic"? I say "experienced" in life.
Why aren't we talking about McCain in this way? Why aren't we talking about his NINE houses, his $520 shoes, and the fact that his judgement wasn't so hot when he cheated on and then left his first wife and three children for a model and beer heiress named Cindy who was almost 20 years younger than he?(Scroll down to read my July 18th blog on THAT event in John McCain's life.)
Barack Obama said he would never smear Cindy McCain the way that the McCain campaign did to Michelle. Maybe its up to the rest of us to fight fire with the truth.
Rachel Maddow argues these points in the following video on Race for the Whitehouse yesterday.

McCain Town Hall Participants Vetted?

2008-08-05T09:42:00.005-05:00

McCain is now orchestrating his town hall meetings & rallies to his specifications; they are now by invite only and confrontation free! Watch the video below to see how one reporter, Steven Price, senior writer for the Tallahassee Democrat, was booted from McCain's rally in Florida last Friday even though he had the proper media credentials and believes it was possibly because of the color of his skin.

One More Time on the McCain Racist Celebrity Ad!

2008-08-05T08:49:00.004-05:00

Whether the symbols were what Bob Herbert mistakenly called the Washington Monument, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or the Victory Column in Berlin, it doesn't matter. The symbols were there! He brilliantly articuated and backed up his claim that the McCain celebrity ad is racist. Keth Olberman on the August 4th Countdown show agrees:

What about when it backfires? Because it seems like the celebrity ad continues to echo. And Bob Herbert of the New York Times was on this network pointing out something I don't know that anybody noticed before this morning. That not only in that McCain ad where there two underdressed blondes mixed with the black guy in the ad, but there were also images of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Washington Monument, and the Victory Column in Berlin -- as Bob Herbert put it, "phallic symbols." Three phallic symbols, two blondes and Barack Obama. So this is not just a sexist ad anymore. This is what they used to called "miscegenation," isn't it? This is what they used against Harold Ford.

FINALLY! Someone Says it Right!!!!

2008-08-04T08:45:00.005-05:00

Well, someone finally has the nerve to say it like it is!!! Bob Herbert, Op-ed columnist for the New York Times, wrote an article lambasting the Republican Campaign's attack ads, and for once accurately pointing out exactly what the ad's symbols were meant to portray. On Morning Joe this morning he correctly explained to a white-faced, speechless Joe Scarborough why Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, Barack Obama, and two phallic symbols were shown within seconds of each other in the latest smear ad by John McCain & his staff. Joe quickly turned the camera on Pat Buchanan who joked and laughed about it along with staffers who were doubled over laughing as they took in the resulting e-mails. I am so sick of the crappola on Morning Joe and the daytime shows on MSNBC. This weekend I watched CNN where I actually found a new refreshing idea; they are making a committment to show videos of the candidates talking about the actual ISSUES!!! Can you believe it? Its called "In Their Own Words" or something like that. MSNBC better take note! Morning Republican Joe and the Bubblehead Daytime hosts are off of my schedule!

Op-Ed Columnist
By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 2, 2008
Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.
Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”
There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.
Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown. On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran an extraordinary front-page article that began:
“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”
Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.
Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.
The Republican National Committee targeted Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, “Harold, call me.”
Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.
The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place.
Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black.
So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.
Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”
The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.
But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.
Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.
Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.
He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

2008-08-02T09:28:00.000-05:00

Rachel MADDOW: Barack Obama Presumptuous?!

2008-08-02T09:23:00.003-05:00

Saturday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

2008-08-02T09:13:00.004-05:00

By Brilliant at Breakfast

Saturday, August 02, 2008
Today's honoree: Bob Herbert of the New York Times, who in "Running While Black" gives the McCain campaign the smackdown it so richly deserves, and which the television news has lacked the cojones to do. Yesterday MSNBC was All Race Card, All the Time, which of course means I won the bet about whether the suicide of Bruce Ivins would be announced and then buried as quickly as he, and the anthrax case, is about to be.

Money quote from Mr. Herbert:
Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for. By the time McCain spoke up feebly against the Swift boat campaign, the damage had been done -- to him as well as to Kerry. He had undergone a public transformation into a willing instrument of lesser men who trampled on his character and his honor, even his patriotism, just as his campaign is now seeking to do to Obama. "They know no depths," he had complained wearily to reporters on his "Straight Talk" bus during the 2000 primaries. Now he has once more sold himself to those same forces, hoping that they will at last usher him into the White House. In his concession speech after the South Carolina primary, he said, "I want the presidency in the best way, not the worst way." That is what has changed.

Taken from http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/

Free Obama Buttons at MoveOn.org!

2008-07-31T11:20:00.001-05:00

Want a free Obama button? MoveOn's giving them away totally free--no strings attached. I just got mine, and wanted to share the opportunity with you.

Click this link to get a free Obama button:
http://pol.moveon.org/obamabuttons/?id=-9725866-.a4aRkx

Thanks!

McCain's Attack Ad Strategy - Will it Work?

2008-07-31T10:18:00.005-05:00

Harold Ford Jr.

If any of you remember Harold Ford Jr.'s run for the Senate in Tennessee, you will recall the horrendous attack ad run against him by the Republican ad man, Scott Howell. The Huffington Post's Blogger, Taylor Marsh, wrote the following during the campaign, which Ford eventually lost:

The ad Howell produced spews lies on every account about Harold Ford, Jr., but it doesn't stop there. Howell reaches into the deep, dark, dirty message of the south we are all trying to leave to history, resurrecting the racial prejudice one more time to get his client elected. The ad is complete with a naked blonde winking into the camera as she asks Harold to "call me." The ad is pure race baiting, bringing to mind the image of an old stereotype of a black man dating a blonde woman. But you already know that by now. The ad has made it from coast to coast, cheapening everything about Ford and causing a riot of criticism, until the ad had to be pulled. However, it didn't happen voluntarily. They were shamed into it. Unfortunately, it had done it's dirty work and tied the race. Scott Howell took a Super Bowl party thrown by Playboy magazine, which was attended by over 4,000 people (some estimates even higher), including conservatives, and turned it into the insinuation of some private, smutty affair that no decent Tennessean supposedly would ever attend.

Harold Ford never even attended the Super Bowl Party!

Now the McCain campaign, behind in the polls, is using the same attack strategy against Barack Obama, releasing an ad describing Obama as a celebrity with no substance, including pictures of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. In Taegan Goddard's article today on Political Wire, he describes how John Weaver, a long time confidant and friend of Sen. John McCain, blasts McCain for this ridiculus ad:

"McCain's current campaign strategy "diminishes John McCain" and the recent ad linking Sen. Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears was "childish."Said Weaver: "For McCain to win in such troubled times, he needs to begin telling the American people how he intends to lead us. That McCain exists. He can inspire the country to greatness. There is legitimate mockery of a political campaign now, and it isn't at Obama's. For McCain's sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop."

Let's hope that the American voting public will be smart enough not to let this kind of campaigning affect their vote! Swiftboating hurt John Kerry for not fighting back, and the Obama campaign needs to keep Kerry and Ford's experiences in mind. According to Sam Stein of The Huffington Post yesterday:

Responding to a harsh personal attack from John McCain, Barack Obama released a television ad late Wednesday evening accusing the the Arizona Republican's campaign of dirty, superficial politics.
The spot, titled "The Low Road," witnesses the Illinois Democrat playing his trump card: tying McCain to George W. Bush, both in politics and in policy."He's practicing the politics of the past: John McCain," reads the ad. "His attacks on Barack Obama: not true, false, baloney, the low road, baseless. John McCain same old politics same failed policies."
A picture of the presumptive Republican nominee shaking hands with the soon-to-be-departed president fills the screen.
"Barack Obama supports a $1,000 middle class tax cut, an energy plan that takes on oil companies, develops alternative fuels and breaks the grip of foreign oil."
The advertisement comes hours after the McCain camp caused a stir of its own when it put out a spot comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, both in terms of international celebrity and (more subtly) lack of substance. The Obama campaign and the Senator himself denounced the ad, but their rebuttal advertisement is a stronger repudiation. This spot, at once, positions the Senator as above the fray while tying McCain to the widely-unpopular tactics of the Bush years.

Obama Ahead in Today's Electoral, Swing State, & CNN Polls

2008-07-31T08:56:00.006-05:00

The graph above from http://www.electoral-vote.com/ shows the average of US polls showing the current percentage of voters voting for each candidate. The gray vertical lines show the boundaries between the months.

From www.electoral-vote.com

The graph above shows the current number of electoral votes collected for each candidate if the election were held today.

Strong Dem (197) - Bright Blue, Weak Dem (49) - Light Blue, Barely Dem (46) - Blue Outline Exactly tied (51) - White
Barely GOP (21) - Red Outline , Weak GOP (77) - Light Red, Strong GOP (97) - Bright Red

270 Electoral votes needed to win

Obama 292 McCain 195 Ties 51 Senate Dem 57 GOP 43 House Dem 240 GOP 195

Dem pickups (vs. 2004): CO IN IA MT NV NM GOP pickups (vs. 2004):(None)

The latest Quinnipiac Swing State Polls are out:
Florida: Obama leads McCain, 46% to 44%
Ohio: Obama leads McCain, 46% to 44%
Pennsylvania: Obama leads McCain, 49% to 42%

A new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows the presidential race has remained virtually unchanged since Sen. Barack Obama took his foreign trip, with Obama holding a 51% to 44% edge over Sen. John McCain."The new survey also suggests the trip -- carefully designed to burnish Obama's foreign policy credentials -- did little to alter voters' perceptions of how the Illinois senator would handle national security issues.""But in what is good news for Obama, the poll suggests few of the McCain campaign's criticisms of the trip have stuck -- especially charges Obama was presumptuously acting as if he had already won the election, and claims he nixed a visit with injured troops because members of the media could not accompany him."

Obama MeetsTroops MSNBC Video

2008-07-22T09:54:00.001-05:00

Barack's Trip Overseas Pictures

2008-07-22T08:52:00.003-05:00

More pictures on barackobama.com in the post Jama's Corner

2008-07-22T08:42:00.003-05:00

On the Lighter Side

Experience - Not All It's Cracked Up to Be!

2008-07-22T08:09:00.005-05:00

I have been thinking about the "Experience" factor in this year's Presidential campaign. McCain's campaign is touting his experience, and say that with this experience comes the "wisdom" to be Commander in Chief. But, why then, has Barack Obama been so right about so many of the issues concerning the war in Iraq? And, why doesn't John McCain know that Pakistan and Iraq do not have a common border, that Czechloslovakia hasn't been a country for 15 years, and the difference between the extremists and al-Qaeda, and on and on and on.
I spent 25 years in the education system, and as a beginning teacher looked up to those with years of experience as "wise." But it was much later (when I became one of the elders) that I realized my best teaching was done the first half of my career before the institution had formed the way I taught. It was always the younger staff that stayed in the building for hours after school ended, while the more experienced left 30 minutes after the students. Sometimes the connection with the changing world and the vitality, enthusiasm, dedication and creativity you have in earlier years is more important than years of service. Obama is vibrant, energized, connected, extremely intelligent, honest, and globally in tune. McCain is experienced . . . . in the "old ways" of how politics works.

Bushisms

2008-07-22T07:31:00.006-05:00

The article below this one, published a few days ago in the German Magazine, Der Spiegel, had al-Maliki agreeing with Obama's 16 month withdrawal plan. Shortly after, it was reported that this was inaccurate as the translation must have been wrong (The White House had made a few calls). Then Al-Maliki once again stated that the Iraqis goal is to have the U.S. troops out by 2010, which incidentally coincides with Barack Obama's plan.
I don't know how you all feel about this, but reading between the three events, I congratulate whoever re-translated the interview and found it to be accurate! For too long, Bush & his people have been able to twist the truth with no accountability. How about their new phrase, "Time Horizon?" What a joke! They have been able to invent words and phrases, repeat them over and over until they become part of the American conversation. Another example, "The Surge"! Wasn't that a Bushism for escalation?
Maybe because he is on a short stick, the Decider is finally being vetted!

Iraq's Maliki Backs Obama's Exit Plan

2008-07-19T16:14:00.002-05:00

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. AP photo: Khalid Mohammed

Maliki said as much in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. Here is part of an article and the interview taken from "The Swamp," written by Frank James from the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau:

SPIEGEL: Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?
Maliki: As soon as possible, as far as we're concerned. US presidential candidate Barack Obama is right when he talks about 16 months. Assuming that positive developments continue, this is about the same time period that corresponds to our wishes.
SPIEGEL: Is this an endorsement for the US presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?
Maliki: Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.

Maliki is clearly doing what he feels he must for his domestic audience which has a love-hate relationship with the U.S. military. On one hand, they welcome the U.S. military's ability to beat back Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists.
But the U.S.'s presence in Iraq is also an affront to Iraqi nationalism and viewed as an occupation by many Iraqis, a necessary evil whose end is devoutly wished for by many Iraqis, according to many reports.

Gramm Ouits McCain Campaign

2008-07-19T15:42:00.005-05:00

This 2008 file photo shows Sen. John McCain with former Sen. Phil Gramm in March . (Photo credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

This Phil Gramm development plus the one of John McCain's fellow POW's in Vietnam, Colonel Bud Day, defending the war in Iraq, saying, "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us,'' shows just how good McCain's judgement is in the company he keeps! In a phone call with reporters arranged by Republican Party of Florida, Colonel Bud Day added: "I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel.''

I suppose McCain will have to issue another statement saying that Colonel Bud Day doesn't speak for him, either. If you remember, Day, who lives in Pensacola, was part of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that smeared former Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record in 2004.

The following is an article from "The Fix" blog in the Washington Post by Chris Cillizza.

Add former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm's name to an ignominious list -- Samantha Power, Billy Shaheen, Geraldine Ferraro to name just a few -- of campaign surrogates forced to step aside after making an impolitic comment.
John McCain's campaign just released the following statement from Gramm:
"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country. That kind of distraction hurts not only Senator McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems, it hurts the country. To end this distraction and get on with the real debate, I hereby step down as Co-Chair of the McCain Campaign and join the growing number of rank-and-file McCain supporters."
Gramm's resignation as co-chair comes nine days after Gramm told the Washington Times that the country was in a "mental recession" and went on to describe the United States as a "nation of whiners."
Democrats immediately seized on the comments as evidence that McCain and his campaign were out of touch with the average voter and weren't likely to let the issue go any time soon.
A few quick thoughts:
* Gramm's resignation is the inevitable byproduct of the modern political game best described by John Harris and Mark Halperin in "The Way to Win" as the "freak show." Once Gramm's comments made the cable television rounds for a few days, it was something close to inevitable that he would resign.
* It's a near-certainty that Democrats won't give up on the issue. The reality is that Gramm was one of McCain's closest confidantes when it came to the economy and simply because the former Texas Senator is no longer affiliated with the campaign does not mean Democrats won't remind voters of his comments in the fall.
* The position of Treasury Secretary in a McCain Administration is now WIDE open.
By Chris Cillizza July 18, 2008; 8:07 PM ET Category: Eye on 2008

Mr. Frank Watson Obamican

2008-07-19T14:33:00.001-05:00

Frank Watson, a 92 year old Republican from Colorado, explains his support for Barack Obama. He says it so well.

Barack in Afghanistan

2008-07-19T14:30:00.006-05:00

The following is an article published today by the New York Times on Obama's stop in Afghanistan.

U.S. Military, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Senator Barack Obama at Bagram air base in Afghanistan with, from left: William B. Wood, the American ambassador to Afghanistan; Senator Chuck Hagel; Sgt. Maj. Vincent Camacho; Senator Jack Reed; and Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Senator Barack Obama arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday, opening a high-stakes foreign trip in a country that is increasingly the focus of his clash with Senator John McCain in the presidential campaign over whether the war in Iraq has been a distraction in hunting down terrorists.
As Mr. Obama met with American troops, military leaders and regional officials in eastern Afghanistan, he made no public statements in his first hours on the ground here, the first stop on a weeklong trip that will take him to Iraq, Israel and Western Europe.
But Mr. McCain quickly sought to raise questions about Mr. Obama’s judgment on foreign policy, saying in a radio address on Saturday that his Democratic opponent had been wrong about the increase in troops in Iraq, a strategy Mr. McCain said should be the basis for addressing deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan as well.
Mr. Obama flew to eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan, to get a first-hand look at the region where American troops are feeling the brunt of increased attacks from militants infiltrating the border from Pakistan. In selecting Afghanistan as the opening stop of his first overseas trip as the presumptive Democratic nominee, he was seeking to highlight what he says is its importance as the key front in the fight against terrorism.
The trip is intended to build impressions, and counter criticism, about his ability to serve on the world stage in a time of war. It carries political risk, particularly if Mr. Obama makes a mistake — the three broadcast network news anchors will be along for the latter parts of the trip — or is seen as the preferred candidate of Europe and other parts of the world. But his advisers believe it offers a significant opportunity for him to be seen as a leader who can improve America’s image.
“I’m more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking,” Mr. Obama told reporters before leaving Washington for a trip cloaked in secrecy because of security concerns. “And I think it is very important to recognize that I’m going over there as a U.S. senator. We have one president at a time.”
Even as the fragile economy has emerged as the chief issue on the minds of voters in the United States, the presidential race on Saturday unfolded with a foreign policy debate taking place across borders and time zones, a reminder that the nation is at war and that the candidates offer very different backgrounds and approaches when it comes to national security.
Mr. Obama touched down in Kabul just before noon on Saturday, his aides said, after stopping to visit — and play basketball with — American troops in Kuwait on his trip from Washington. In Afghanistan, he received a briefing from military commanders at Bagram Air Field and was scheduled to meet with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday.
While the Iraq war has been one of the dominant issues in the presidential campaign, Afghanistan has moved to the forefront of the foreign policy plans of both candidates. President Bush’s agreement to a “general time horizon” for withdrawing American troops in Iraq has opened the door to new consideration of strengthening the American and NATO presence in Afghanistan, which Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain both agree on in principle.
For months, Mr. McCain has criticized his rival for failing to visit Afghanistan and taking only one trip to Iraq. Even on Saturday, in a radio address, Mr. McCain renewed his criticism and sought to minimize Mr. Obama’s trip. “In a time of war,” Mr. McCain said, “the commander-in-chief’s job doesn’t get a learning curve.”
Mr. McCain, whose campaign spokeswoman suggested that Mr. Obama was embarking an on a “campaign rally overseas,” said his rival was not going to Afghanistan and Iraq with an open mind. In his radio address, he said, “Apparently, he’s confident enough that he won’t find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy — remarkable.”
But Republicans were carefully watching Mr. Obama’s trip, which is rare in its profile and scope for a presidential candidate. The White House also made clear on Saturday that it was monitoring Mr. Obama’s travels, accidentally sending an internal e-mail message to a broad distribution list of reporters of a news report that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq supported Mr. Obama’s proposed 16-month timeline for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq.
In addition to his visit to Iraq, Mr. Obama is set to meet with a series of presidents, prime ministers and opposition leaders as he travels to Iraq, Jordan, Israel and three European capitals, including Berlin, where he is to give a major speech on Thursday. On the Afghanistan and Iraq leg of the trip, he has been joined by Senators Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, both of whom have been mentioned as possible running mates for Mr. Obama.
The three senators, all of whom have been critical of the administration’s policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, flew on Saturday to Jalalabad, one of 13 provincial bases that are commanded by American forces in the Regional Command East of the NATO force in Afghanistan. Many of those provinces, including Kunar, Nuristan, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika, line the border with Pakistan’s turbulent tribal areas, where militant groups allied with the Taliban and Al Qaeda have gained in strength and have increased attacks by some 40 percent in recent months.
The American delegation received a briefing from Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, commanding general of the Combined Joint Task Force-101 at Bagram Air Field.
The governor of Nangarhar Province, Gul Agha Shirzai, a former mujahedeen commander who has a brutal past but is favored by the United States as someone who can get things done, was the only Afghan official to meet the senators, along with the United States ambassador and generals. Mr. Shirzai, who is thought to have his own aspirations in Afghan presidential elections next year, has been praised for his tough action against poppy cultivation and official corruption in his province.

“Barack Obama thanked the officials of Nangarhar and the people of Nangarhar for eliminating poppy cultivation, fighting corruption, and he promised that the United States would give more help to Afghanistan and especially to Nangarhar,” he said by telephone after the one hour meeting.
The senators flew back to Bagram air base, north of Kabul, at 5 p.m., the governor said. At 6 p.m. two military Chinook helicopters landed at the United States embassy, as two more attack helicopters circled above.
Afghans in Kabul said they knew nothing of the visit of the presidential candidate, and some interviewed on the streets near the American Embassy did not even know who Mr. Obama was. But some who had heard of him said they liked his message, in particular that he would pursue Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
“So far what he is talking about is what Afghans want to hear: reduce troops in Iraq, focus on Afghanistan and focus on Pakistan,” said Ashmat Ghani, an influential tribal leader whose home province of Logar, just south of the capital, is suffering from growing instability by insurgent groups.
Mr. Ghani, who is a critic of Mr. Karzai’s leadership and opposes his running for another presidential term next year, also welcomed Mr. Obama’s recent criticism that the Afghan president has not come out of his bunker to lead efforts in reconstruction and building security institutions.
“We would welcome such a direct voice that would close up this problem,” he said.
Yet other Afghans interviewed were skeptical that a new American president would make much difference for them.
“What have we seen from the current president that we should expect anything from a future president?” said Abdul Wakil, 28, who runs a juice stall in the street near the heavily guarded United States embassy in central Kabul.
Mr. Obama’s trip is drawing considerable attention in the United States and abroad. It is being choreographed by his strategists to coincide with a new television advertisement intended to highlight his ideas on foreign policy and portray him as ready to serve as commander in chief, an issue on which, polls suggest, he trails Mr. McCain.

Carol McCain Erased?

2008-07-18T08:17:00.010-05:00

Pictures: Top Left, Carol welcomes John home. Top Right, Carol and children pray for John while he is captured. Bottom, John & Carol Wedding Picture

No one seems to bring up John McCain's first marriage to Carol McCain. In fact, most images of the first Mrs. McCain have been erased from the internet (I wonder who did that?). Well, I found a few on Democratic Underground with some interesting info, which I checked on Snopes for truthfulness and accuracy. I know that Barack does not want to smear Cindy McCain in any way, but when I saw a new Republican ad today on television using Michelle Obama"s "This is the first time I've been proud of my country" misinterpretation (I thought that was over with), I think this article is fair play. Its not so much Cindy that I have a problem with, but John McCain's judgement has to be questioned.
John McCain married a model, Carol Shepp, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1965 and he adopted her two sons, Dough and Andy. They had one more child together. While John was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, she had a horrible accident which changed her appearance. Despite her injures, she refused to allow her POW husband to be notified about her condition, fearing that such news would not be good for him while he was being held prisoner. When McCain returned to the United States in 1973 after more than five years as a prisoner of war, he found his wife was a different person. The accident "left her 4 inches shorter and on crutches, and she had gained a good deal of weight."

Cindy Lou Hensley and John McCain began dating in 1979 while he was still married to Carol. She was 24, he was 42. His infidelities put a strain on his and Carol's marriage and they were divorced after 15 years in 1980.

Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. ‘I have no bitterness,’she says. ‘My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce.
‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’
Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

John and Cindy were married a month after his divorce from Carol. Cindy, an heiress to a beer distributor's fortune, did make McCain sign a pre-nup before their marriage. They have a commuter marriage; he stays in Washington and she in Phoenix, and they vacation together twice a year.

In 1989, after two back surgeries, Cindy McCain becamd addicted to two painkillers, Vicodin and Percoset. In order to keep up with her 10-15 pills a day habit, she used other people's names for prescriptions and stole pills from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a mobile surgical unit she had started in 1988. She avoided prosecution for those crimes through an agreement with the Justice Department.
Cindy McCain has done some wonderful things for childrens' causes, and has been active in the cause to clear land mines, provide water and food to ravaged places around the world. And as I said before, I am not writing this to attack Cindy, but rather to point out a huge flaw in the Republican nominee's character.

Rachel Maddow Next in Line at MSNBC!

2008-07-18T07:24:00.007-05:00

I can't wait for Rachel Maddow to have her own show on MSNBC!

The scuttlebutt says she is next in line for a Prime Time show alongside the likes of Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman. One of the best in speaking for the left, or at least left of the right, she will be a refreshing addition to the network that is supposedly of a Liberal focus. She has proven her worthiness by guest-hosting for Keith Olberman and guesting on Race for the Whitehouse. Her intelligent discussion of the issues, especially regarding the 2008 Presidential campaign, are right up there with the "good ole boys", and she even slams them when called for. Other women on the MSNBC lineup, especially during the day, parrot the guys, never seeming to have an original thought. So, Rachel, you go girl!!!!!

From AirAmerica.com:

Rachel Maddow is the host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Air America Radio. It airs Monday-Friday 6-9 PM Eastern on Air America affiliates coast-to-coast, online at airamerica.com, and on XM Satellite Radio.
TRMS is a funny, fast-paced, news-based show often described as “the headlines, and the politics behind the headlines.”
In addition to hosting "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Air America, Rachel is a political analyst for MSNBC.
She's been with Air America since its inception in Spring 2004 -- before AAR she worked for WRNX in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and WRSI in Northampton, Massachusetts. There was also a stint with a jungle-themed company called Expresso [sic] Bongo, but she doesn't want to talk about it.
Rachel has a doctorate in political science (she was a Rhodes Scholar) and a background in HIV/AIDS activism, prison reform, and other lefty rabblerousing. She shakes a mean cocktail, drives a bright red pickup, hates Coldplay, loves arguing with conservatives, spends a lot of money on AMTRAK, and dresses like a first-grader.
Rachel is 35 years old and lives in New York City and rural Western Massachusetts with her partner, artist Susan Mikula.

Check This Out!

2008-07-17T13:21:00.000-05:00

Former Chicago Tribune photographer Pete Souza began to chronicle the life of Barack Obama during the senator's first days in political office, when the Secret Service wasn't around yet.

He then joined Obama on trips to seven countries where he captured poignant moments of his life and career. He was there when Obama visited Nelson Mandela's prison cell in South Africa and when throngs of people welcomed Obama to the birthplace of his father, Kenya.

Souza has now gathered the photographs, taken with unprecedented access, into a new book, The Rise of Barack Obama. The book goes on sale this week.

"The book is basically a visual documentation of the rise of his national career," Souza said.

Vice President Al Gore on Meet the Press this Sunday!

2008-07-17T12:54:00.002-05:00

Don't miss this! Exclusive! Former Vice President and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore goes one-on-one with Tom Brokaw. It will be Gore's first appearance on "Meet the Press" since his 2000 presidential campaign. “Meet the Press” airs Sundays from 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM on WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee, from 9-10 a.m. ET on the NBC-TV network; 10:30-11:30 a.m. ET in New York and Washington. The program also re-airs at 6 p.m. ET Sundays and 2 a.m. ET Mondays on MSNBC on cable.

McCain Gaffes, Bloopers, Blunders, Botches, Bungles, Flubs, Eff-ups, etc!

2008-07-17T12:43:00.003-05:00

Barack's Trip Overseas - Will it Improve his Standing in the Foreign Policy Polls?

2008-07-17T11:40:00.005-05:00

I'm feeling very positive about Barack's trip overseas to Europe and the Middle East. It should give him tons of television coverage in countries that overwhelmingly support Obama for President in 2008. The campaign is expecting huge crowds in Europe where he will stop in Paris, London & Berlin, where his speech might be given at the site of the Brandenburg Gate, which stands where the Berlin wall once stood (plans not finalized, yet) and where former US President Ronald Reagan gave a famous speech in 1987 asking then-Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall.

The International Herald Tribune in Europe reports:
Barack Obama's popularity extends far beyond Iowa and into the heart of Central Europe. Germany has swiftly developed a serious case of Obama-mania. Obama's high standing goes beyond his opposition to the Iraq War, which has always been unpopular here. The sudden crush is intimately bound up with the near constant comparisons here between the young senator from Illinois and President John F. Kennedy - still admired in Germany and particularly in Berlin - which have stuck fast as his identity in the German press.
The Berliner Morgenpost over the weekend ran with the headline, "The New Kennedy." The tabloid Bild went with, "This Black American Has Become the New Kennedy!"

John McCain is berating Obama for coming up with a strategy before he visits Iraq and Afghanistan (even though McCain's strategy for Afghanistan all of a sudden sounds suspiciously exactly like Barack's.) Here's a memo from newly titled "Senior Strategist for Communications and Message" Robert Gibbs, painting McCain in the deep purple of confusion:

The self-professed candidate of “straight talk” and “experience” who changed his position on gay adoption, adopted Senator Obama’s position that we need more troops in Afghanistan after having resisted taking that position, flip-flopped on whether he’d send U.S. or NATO troops (he actually offered three different explanations on where those additional troops would come from), and referred to a country, Czechoslovakia, that hasn’t existed since 1992 for the second time in two days!

Obama will also be visiting Israel and Jordan.

I have confidence that our candidate will come out of this experience showing that he has a handle on Foreign Policy issues. Our changing world needs Barack Obama!

Obama Ahead in the Polls

2008-07-17T11:33:00.002-05:00

We have to remember that in the electoral vote count Obama is far ahead of McCain. As Chris Matthews and his guests reported, an 8 point lead in the Polls would be a landslide! With 3 months left, we have a lot of work to do to keep going in the right direction.

Be a Walking Billboard!

2008-07-16T15:50:00.010-05:00

You can also be a walking billboard!

I designed these t-shirts & hats at VistaPrint and gave them to my family and friends. They are so reasonable, and they are easy & fun to do using their templates.

Make Your Own Billboard - Your Car!

2008-07-16T15:17:00.010-05:00

Your car is a billboard; use it!

If you have a bumper sticker, put it on your car!
If you have a rally sign, tape it up in your back window!
If you need a bumper sticker,car magnet,window sign, etc. go to the store at BarackObama.com or make your own at VistaPrint.com. I made those above and pass them out to all my friends.

Please use your car, it really is a billboard!

Plus, we can honk at each other in support!

Here We Go Again! Republican Billboard Smears Obama!

2008-07-16T15:02:00.003-05:00

A Florida man has stirred up controversy in the Orlando area by buying ad space on billboards that show an image of the falling World Trade Center’s Twin Towers alongside the words, “Please don’t vote for a Democrat.”
The ad also points readers to a Web site, www.TheRepublicanSong.com, which posts a country-rock music video written and performed by billboard creator and businessman Mike Meehan. Critics say the billboard ads should come down, but Meehan says he believes those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks are being lost in the shuffle of the presidential campaign. “I’m just basically exercising my freedom of speech, the First Amendment. And though some people find this offensive … I find it very offensive that we have not remembered these people that have died in this tragedy,” Meehan told FOX News. “We’re not reminded of the terrorism that caused all this.”
Democrats call the billboards an insult to the memories of those who died in the terror attacks. “It’s an affront to the people who perished on September 11th,” said Bill Robinson, chairman of the Orange County Democrats, according to MyFoxOrlando.com. “It’s offensive. It’s using the tragedy for political and personal gain.”

Obama's Summit on Confronting 21st Century Threats

2008-07-16T14:28:00.003-05:00

Earlier today, Senator Obama joined a experts on nuclear non-proliferation, bio security and cyber security, as well as Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana to discuss security issues in a changing world. Following his opening remarks, the panel spent over an hour discussing the dangers of what the 9/11 Commission called our “failure of imagination,” and the need to stay one step ahead of the threats of the 21st century.

As Barack explained ...

It’s time to update our national security strategy to stay one step ahead of the terrorists – to see clearly the emerging threats of our young century, and to take action to make the American people more safe and secure. It’s time to look ahead — at the dangers of today and tomorrow rather than those of yesterday. America cannot afford another president who doesn’t understand the threats that confront us now and in the future.

Today, we will focus on nuclear, biological, and cyber threats – three 21st century threats that have been neglected for the last eight years. It’s time to break out of Washington’s conventional thinking that has failed to keep pace with unconventional threats. In doing so, we’ll better ensure the safety of the American people, while building our capacity to deal with other challenges – from public health to privacy.

Pictures From the Summit

Barack on Larry King Tonight

2008-07-16T14:25:00.000-05:00

Watch Barack on Larry King Live Tonight at 9:00 PM EST
by HQ UpdatesTuesday, July 15, 2008 at 07:31 PM

Barack Obama at NAACP Annual Conference

2008-07-16T11:40:00.000-05:00

JibJab's Latest on the Campaigns. YeeHa!

2008-07-16T10:59:00.001-05:00

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

Gasoline Prices July 14, 2008/McCain Bus

2008-07-14T15:10:00.001-05:00

U.S. Gasoline Prices Rise Slightly to $4.11/Gallon This Week.

Obama Freezes Out Fox News (Fox Noise)!

2008-07-14T12:23:00.004-05:00

These are chilly days on the campaign trail for Fox News journalists --

at least when they're anywhere near Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), according to "The Sleuth" Mary Ann Akers of the Washington Post:
Will Fox have to watch Obama on MSNBC like the rest of us? Sources say that the Obama camp has "frozen out" Fox News reporters and producers in the wake of the network's major screw-up in running with the erroneous Obama-the-jihadist story reported by Insight magazine.
"I'm still in the freezer," one Fox journalist said, noting that the people at Fox "suffering the most did nothing wrong." (It was "Fox and Friends" host Steve Doocy who aired the Insight magazine piece, which reported that operatives connected to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) found out that Obama, as a child, was educated at a Muslim madrassah in Indonesia.)
Another Fox journalist called the network's airing of the story "unfortunate" for the network's journalists who have to cover Obama and who are being adversely affected despite not being involved in the incident.
Since the madrassah incident, Obama has given interviews to ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC -- pretty much every other network except Fox. Sources close to Obama acknowledged that they're not thrilled to play ball with Fox journalists, but they stopped short of saying they are freezing the network out.

Repeat: That F'd Up New Yorker Magazine Cover

2008-07-14T11:34:00.007-05:00

I so totally agree with this blogger's view on the New Yorker magazine cover, that I am copying it here on News You Can Use. Sure the cover is satirical, but not for some who will not "get it" and some who will exploit it to confirm all of the rumors they believe!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Morning Brew....That 'Effed Up New Yorker Magazine Cover
::Well, I was shocked and angered viewing this cover yesterday. Can you say, "every 'effin right wing, republican tainted, gop stankin' smear offered up on one cover?"The New Yorker states this is satire.Ok, I understand that viewpoint, but this satire is for the sophisticate, not the regular joe who happens to pass by their teevee, while getting coffee and happen to view this cover being talked about.Michelle a gun toutin', terrorist fist bumpin' woman? Barack dressed in muslim garb while the flag is being burned in the rear and good ol' Osama's picture hanging on the wall in the background?I get the 'supposedly' satire, but the point is most people won't get it. And even if most people got it, I would still be offended.This cover makes "way over the top", speechless. In fact, the Obama Campaign concurs with many people who have viewed this shite, as offensive, even the McCain Campaign is in agreement (for whatever that is worth).
"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement, reported by Politico. "But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.""We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it's tasteless and offensive," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.Of course, since we are offended this just makes the magazine more viable and everyone want to look at it or read the story. And of course, everyone and their momma are busy hitting the "send button" to their friends, family members to reinforce their view on the Obamas, one way or another. Through all of this it is still a "wait and see" moment. We don't know how this cover will play. It just may play for the Obamas, sympathetic to many independent voters who are not moved by racist or sextist viewpoints. Sure the New Yorker was trying to show all these internet rumors (because that is the point here) on one cover and make a statement, but again most people won't get it. Visuals are powerful. Will this cover influence voters? To be honest, I don't think so. Most bigots are not going to change their mind, it will over enhance one not to vote Obama, so he would not get those votes anyway. But the independent voter, with an independent mind, that vote is still out.

Satire or Offensive?

2008-07-14T10:58:00.003-05:00

New Yorker mag's 'satire' cover draws Team Obama's ire
BY STEPHANIE GASKELL DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Updated Monday, July 14th 2008, 10:33 AM

Cover of July 21 issue of The New Yorker depicts Barack and Michelle Obama in extremist roles.
Barack Obama's campaign lashed out Sunday at the editors of The New Yorker magazine for a cartoon cover that depicts the Democratic candidate and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists.
The magazine's editor described the cartoon, called "The Politics of Fear," as satire. The Obama campaign called it "tasteless and offensive."
The Illinois senator is depicted in traditional Muslim garb in the Barry Blitt illustration set in the Oval Office.
His wife, Michelle, is in fatigues, sporting an Angela Davis-style sky-high Afro, an AK-47 slung over her shoulder.
A portrait of terror kingpin Osama Bin Laden hangs above the fireplace, in which an American flag is set ablaze.
"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.
New Yorker editor David Remnick seemed shocked by the backlash.
"Our cover ... combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are," he said in a statement.
"The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall - all of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover," Remnick said.
The magazine does not explain the cover. Inside are lengthy stories that look at how Chicago politics shaped the candidate and at allegations that he flip-flops on major issues.
Obama brushed off the brouhaha. "I have no response to that," he told reporters when asked about the cover, but his supporters are infuriated.
The McCain campaign joined in piling on The New Yorker. "We completely agree with the Obama campaign that it's tasteless and offensive," said campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds.
sgaskell@nydailynews.com

McCain Supports Our Troops? NOT

2008-07-10T11:24:00.005-05:00

1. Voted Against Increased Funding forVeterans’ Health Care.
McCain voted against increasing funding for veterans’ health care in 2004,
2005, 2006 and 2007. (Senate Vote 40, 3/10/04; Senate Vote 55, 3/16/05; Senate Vote
41,3/14/06; Senate Vote 126,3/29/07)
2 Supported Outsourcing at Walter Reed.
3. McCain opposed an amendment to the FY 2007Department of Defense AppropriationsBill that would have prevented the outsourcing of 350 federal employees’ jobs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center—outsourcing that contributed to scandalous treatment of veterans
4. Opposed an Assured Funding Stream for Veterans’ Health Care. McCain opposed an
amendment to provide an assured funding stream for veterans’ health care, taking into account annual changes in veterans’ population and inflation.(Senate Vote 63, 3/16/06)
5. Supported Outsourcing VA Jobs.
McCain opposed an amendment that would haveprevented the Department of Veterans Affairs from outsourcing jobs, many held by blue-collar veterans, without first giving the workers a chance to compete. (Senate Vote 315, 9/6/07)

WE RESPECT JOHN McCAIN’S SERVICE, When Will He Respect OURS?
Underfunding and understaffinghave created a crisisin veterans’ healthcare. More than 400,000
veterans are awaiting decisions on disability claims. Tens of thousands of veterans are waiting
months to see a doctor. We respect John McCain’s service to our country, but when given the opportunity to address this crisis, he has failed America’s veterans—past, present and
future. (FederalTimes.com,)
Paid for by the AFL-CIO PA

Welcome

2008-07-09T15:32:00.001-05:00

Hi Everyone!
Click o the link below to visit my new blog site with tons of info on the Obama campaign.
Thanks, Donna

Move to the Left, Move to the Right, Stand up, Sit down, Fight, Fight, Fight!

2008-07-09T14:32:00.004-05:00

Those who feel Barack has moved too far away from the left have to understand the idea that Barack has to get elected before he can accomplish anything. We will not always agree with everyone of his positions as the campaign goes on, but I, for one, trust this man to make the right decisions to get elected, and then make the right decisions for our country once he is in office. His basic values and principles remain the same as when we first joined the campaign, and they will remain throughout his terms as President of the United States. If he needs to refine a policy, that only shows good leadership, because nothing ever remains constant. Don't listen to those who use words such as "flip-flop" and "backtrack" because they come from Republicans trying to cause dissent among us. Stay true! Trust! Believe!

McCainocrats?

2008-07-09T11:45:00.003-05:00

I am so tired of those comments from some Hillary supporters who say they will vote for McCain and wait four years for Hillary! Either these are Republican trolls trying to instigate something, or these people are one sandwich short of a picnic! Vote for McCain? They would do that to our country? There are so many crucial issues in this election, we cannot vote Republican just because the candidate we wanted did not become the nominee for our party. I know if it were reversed, if Hillary had won, I would have graciously turned my support to her. Obama and Clinton are so closely aligned on the issues, and that's what should matter. So many Barack supporters, and I am one of them, are donating money to help Hillary pay her debt . . . and I know more would do so if there were less of these comments.

FISA Flack

2008-07-09T09:29:00.001-05:00

Some Democrats have the ridiculous attitude of not funding Barack Obama because of Obama’s stance on the FISA Bill. How many of you vote for a candidate based on just one issue? As Barack Obama related, none of us will agree on absolutely everything all of the time. He agrees that the bill is far from perfect, but the oversight it gains far outweighs the imperfections. Have you actually read the bill to understand why he might think that way? Barack Obama is our nominee, and because of his choice on funding, will not get an 84M check from public financing after the convention and he is depending on us. We now have this moment in time to move full force to the White House.