Thanks to everyone who helped make this day a reality!
Great advice from Eugene Jarecki of the Huffington Post on how to get more involved...
I recommend everyone take a few moments and choose to make a difference in your own sphere of influence.
Regardless of your party affiliation, I am asking everyone to stop a moment and think about the things you love that make this country great. I bet after you think a while, it all boils down to being able to live your live making your own choices and live what we think of as a normal life free of fear for making those choices: whether to be religious and how, having any kind of conversation with anyone, whether or not to own a gun, what kind of job you want, where you want to live, the kind of job or career you have, etc.
Let freedom ring again thoughout our great United States! For the last several years, we have been ruled by an administration that has instilled fear in us in order to rule us, an administration that has degraded the liberties guaranteed in our Constitution. Living in fear is not a free life and is instead a weakening of our great democratic republic. I ask you to contact your representatives and add your voice to mine. Say to them we want freedom, not fear, and demand they act to protect our freedoms. I share the below with you not to inspire fear, but instead to inspire patriotism.
I have recently heard some very disturbing news. On October 1st, what is sometimes called the Bush Brigade (brigade = 3000 - 4000 soldiers) was deployed somewhere inside the United States. this brigade reports directly to the president. In any other administration, I would give this action the benefit of the doubt. But our current president has shown that he has repeatedly been willing to lie to us and take illegal actions. Below is an excerpt from Naomi Wolfe's article on Huffington Post yesterday:
"First, the founding generation set a bright line to keep military from policing our streets in 1807 because they knew from their own experience how easily military forces -- King George's -- could subdue civilian society. The First Brigade is Bush's force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief. In an Alternet posting, I interviewed Air Force Colonel (retired) David Antoon who noted that the troops must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets. If they do not obey orders, he notes, they face five years in prison.
We should not have to remind ourselves that these scenarios are unlikely to understand that this power is dangerous. Antoon himself calls the deployment 'ominous.' Troops on our streets makes us something less than a democracy: one definition of a police state is when a leader sends his own military units into civilian streets. Meanwhile the civilian policing of citizens is becoming more brutal. Hundreds of preemptive arrests took place in St Paul, dozens of journalists were arrested."
It is supposed to be illegal for these troops to enforce civil laws, but the president put a signing statement on the law that basically says he's going to ignore that portion of the law (found what I think is a conspiracy site after following a few links in the articles above, but the text quoted is directly from law documents). I'm not saying he has already used these troops, but the potential is there based on his disregard for personal liberties thus far:
"The use of U.S. troops in law enforcment duties is a complete violation of the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, which substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement unless under precise and extreme circumstances.
Section 1385 of the Posse Comitatus Act states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
Under the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, the law was changed to state, “The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”
However, these changes were repealed in their entirety by HR 4986: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, reverting back to the original state of the Insurrection Act of 1807. Despite this repeal, President Bush attached a signing statement saying that he did not feel bound by the repeal.
The original text of the Insurrection Act severely limits the power of the President to deploy troops within the United States.
For troops to be deployed, a condition has to exist that, '(1) So hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or (2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws. In any situation covered by clause (1), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.'”
Again, I share this information not to cause panic or fear. I have faith in our people and our democracy, and we can choose to make a difference. Please support our lawful government, and contact your representatives.
Contrafalsy: a false controversy created to distract people from the more important issues at hand.
With the smears being laid thicker than usual by the McCain/Palin campaign in recent days, I had to coin a new term for them. And it's something that sadly, the McCain campaign might even proud of... Their VP candidate has become an expert at contrafalsy in record time.
Saw a lovely comment on MSNBC's First Read today that I just had to share:
Tackman San Diego, CA (Sent Tuesday, October 07, 2008 9:50 AM)
Deanie Mills makes some interesting observations about the qualities of fictional and factual leaders Huggington Post today:
"The seriousness of our situation has forced the media narrative to reflect reality for the first time, maybe, in a decade or more. The language of leadership is changing in a way that expresses that.
This is a moment in our history that will tell the true tale of our national character. Will we continue to indulge our weakness for mythology, or will we step up to who we really are as a people? We are made of much sterner stuff than it has seemed in recent years. Our politics has been dominated by the silly and the surreal, but those days are over.
That is not, as Obama says, who we are.
We are still the same people who struggled to settle a brutal new land, who fought against an occupying army for our independence, who bled and died to preserve the union and end slavery, who rode to the rescue of our allies in two terrible world wars, and who led the world in space-age innovation and crackling creativity.
We don't need fake heroes anymore. We are our own heroes. We've had enough drama and theatrics, and we know it. We're ready for a real leader, and we're ready to do our part to help save ourselves.
That is who we are. Not who the myth-makers pretend we are."
My hat's off to Carrie Dan of NBC and National Journal for an article that explored an angle of politics I hadn't thought to wonder about... what are people really searching for about the candidates? Carrie Dan was emulating Russert in her let the facts tell the tale approach to this article. Thank you, Carrie Dann, for such a refreshingly professional piece of journalism!
The facts she reports present a very interesting narrative of the recent campaign season. See below for an excerpt...
"Fact versus Fiction Yet web users' sometimes perverse pursuits provide an unfair picture of the legitimate issues and even bold questions sometimes asked of search engines' sophisticated logarithms.
During the week of September 13, for example, as America's economic underpinnings were starting to become un-pinned, the term "Obama view on economy" clocked in as one of the "fastest moving" (aka increasingly popular) searches driving traffic to Obama's website.
Last week, "John McCain Spain" debuted at number 10 on the list of "John McCain" search terms after the senator offered an unexpected answer to a Spanish-language radio host who asked if he would agree to meet with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero. (McCain's unusually cool response led some to wonder if the candidate confused Zapatero with the leader of another country.)
The vast majority of searches for each candidate's name appear to be exploratory in nature, with general terms like "John McCain issues" or "Joe Biden info" acting as portals for information for users starting from scratch to learn more about the White House nominees.
Biographical information is also in high demand, particularly for Barack Obama, whose mother, father, sister, and wife are also all popular subjects for searches. Almost 20% of the top 100 search terms for Obama in the past month were ones seeking information on his age, family, and upbringing.
But interestingly, Obama is the only one of the four nominees for whom "affair" is not a popular search.
Hitwise data for the same time period showed that web users wondered feverishly about the extramarital exploits of Palin (rank No. 7 on her search term list), McCain (No. 29), and to a lesser extent Biden (No. 294). Web users also appear to be fascinated with McCain's first wife, whom he divorced after an overlapping courtship of the much younger Cindy McCain."
Just saw this posted:
Here's the site: http://www.bigeddieradio.com/
I don't know about you, but I've thought for a while that Palin didn't have near the experience even in campaigning to be vice president. As a woman, I'm insulted that McCain chose Palin when there were ever so many more experienced Republican women that could have been selected.
So, if what I've shown above is true, the McCain debate gambit seems to make much more sense... pospone the first presidential debate to the time for the vp debate, and then whoops... so sorry we can't find a date that works for the VP debate and Palin gets her get out of debate free card.
Your thoughts?
I just wrote a letter to the Obama campaign thanking them for their hard work on behalf of our candidate but asking them to be careful with their choices in advertising during the rest of the campaign.
What prompted this was an inaccurate Spanish language advertisement that I saw today. In the ad, it equated Rush Limbaugh's immigration policy with John McCain's. Now I'm not at all a John McCain fan, but I have to speak the truth here: Their policies are completely different, so different that it was why Limbaugh didn't initially support John McCain. To equate the two is a distortion of the facts, and honestly, I'm disappointed to see this tactic used by our campaign.
John McCain and his campaign have made too many blunders, lies and memory lapses for our campaign to need to use McCain's tactics of lies, distortion and taking things out of context. For once, the mainstream media has finally started calling McCain on his lies and distortions, so I asked the Obama campaign to please make sure the media don't have a reason to call us on the same carpet.
I am a passionate supporter of Barack Obama in part because of his promise to run a different kind of campaign, and I think the general public is beginning to see that Barack is focused on the issues, while McCain is focused on saying whatever he can that he thinks will get him elected.
So Obama campaign, let's continue what Barack has been doing this week on the campaign trail: staying focused on the important issues to all Americans and at the same time calling McCain on his lies or lapses. As you see, we have plenty to choose from: fundamentals of the economy are strong, Palin and her earmarks, Sunni/Shia confusion, Obama raising taxes, againat AIG bailout then for it, etc. These and the very many others are the reason John McCain doesn't have the judgment to be a good president.
We don't need to use John McCain's tactics against him... His own words will work just fine.
If you feel as I do, please contact our Obama campaign and share your views with them and ask your friends to do the same. Thanks and have a wonderful day!
I stumbled upon this post at The Seferm Post that is also calling out McCain on his lies:
"If McCain were a blogger, he would have had to retract by now. But he's running for president of the United States, so he can say anything, lie about anything and not have to answer for it. Yesterday, John McCain lied on national television about something that no one disputes in the public record.
He was challenged by the only serious journalists on television right now - the hosts of 'The View' - about the large number of pork barrel earmarks Sarah Palin sought and secured as governor of Alaska, including the "Bridge to Nowhere" that Palin and McCain lied about and are still lying about in public. Here was his clear and irrefutable statement:
It has now been a day since McCain lied this explicitly in public. And he hasn't yet retracted his lie. This AP piece is dated as of this afternoon. Why not?"
I join him in asking why not. Why has there not been a widespread demand for a retraction from McCain?
Why is McCain still not being grilled on why he has continually confused Shia and Sunni groups in Iraq?
Those are but a few of McCain's mistakes. Why is he not be held accountable for them?
Paul Krugman, thanks for calling a spade a spade in your op-ed in the NY Times today.
I sincerely hope the Obama campaign takes his words to heart and finds a way to really share this viewpoint... that is, that the way someone campaigns can give you insight into how they will govern. Below is an excerpt:
"...how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.
I’m not talking about the theory, often advanced as a defense of horse-race political reporting, that the skills needed to run a winning campaign are the same as those needed to run the country. The contrast between the Bush political team’s ruthless effectiveness and the heckuva job done by the Bush administration is living, breathing, bumbling, and, in the case of the emerging Interior Department scandal, coke-snorting and bed-hopping proof to the contrary.
I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.
And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?
What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse."
I wholeheartedly agree with Krugman's hypothesis that McCain/Palin would be much worse than what we've seen the last 7 years.
I was checking out Huffington tonight and I have to agree with most of the reactions that I saw about the selection of Palin as McCain's VP pick. Honestly, as a woman, I feel insulted that he thinks I would vote for someone just because she's a woman... Especially after the months of McCain complaining about Obama's supposed lack of experience. McCain, whose age is a relevant factor in this election, picked the most inexperienced candidate for VP that has ever been selected in my lifetime. Where's the his vaunted judgment now?
I think Nancy Hipp said it best for me. "Here's our deal, John. We vote for what we feel is best for our families, our communities, our country and our world."
And she's not the only one saying these and other things about Palin. Here's a link to a roundup of commentators opining about the Palin selection.
I have to be honest, though. If she actually remains as his VP selection, I think our Obama/Biden ticket will get a huge boost from all the independents out there who will be nervous about the lack of experience on her part.
Something else I've heard being tossed around the political blogs, especially in First Read comments is that this might be a ploy by McCain to soothe the right wing of the GOP now and sometime after the convention, she'll step aside and McCain will put someone else in the slot. I'm not sure if this is likely, considering that it would highlight a bad judgment on McCain's part. I guess time will tell.
Good night and Good Luck everyone!
I am thankful that Barack is safe. After reading about the arrest of people who were planning to hurt him, my thoughts focused on how many of us there are that are sending prayers, happy thoughts, good wishes, etc.. to the Obama family. I can't help but think that somehow, we all have made a difference.
If you're interested in sending your own good thoughts, or doing something kind in Barack's name, please take a moment and join this event. Together, we can and will make a difference.
Everyone you know should see this site...
Obama Scrapbook site
Please share this site with others, especially if you know somone who may feel they don't know Obama or they don't think he is American enough. It really clears up a lot of misconceptions with some great visual proof.
Thanks and have a great day!
I saw this post by a reader of MSNBC's First Read blog was stunned by its beautiful sentiment. Here's to you and your family Kevin B.!
"What do I tell people when they ask, 'Why do I support Barack Obama for President?' My wife is from Japan, and every year we take our two children back to visit. When our oldest was only a couple years old, we went to visit my wife's Aunt and Uncle. My wife's father had died when she was only 18, and she did not see her father's side of the family often. Her Aunt was her father's sister, and I had never met her before. Her Uncle had served in WWII, as had my father. When she first told her family she was going to live in America, many told her not to go, but her Uncle was the only one who said "Just don't marry an American." He was a very kind man, and my wife remembers him saying it half jokingly, but there was another part to the story. So when you ask me "Why do I support Barack Obama for President?" I can try to tell you why, but I'd rather show you. I'd rather you picture my wife bringing me to visit her aunt and uncle in Nagasaki. Imagine her father's sister welcoming me and our 1 year old son into their home. See us all eating around the table, my wife's family and I speaking without understanding much of the words each has spoken, yet laughing and smiling and understanding. Now see her uncle, a gentle man much like my father from Schenectady, NY. When my wife's uncle went away to serve his country he could not have known that when he returned to his home many of his friends and family, much of the home he had known, would be gone forever. Watch as he walks to his favorite chair. See through his eyes. Think what he might be thinking. Hear the room grow quiet as a one year old boy takes short, halting steps across the room. Can you see him now, this child of two people, of two nations, without resentment, fully curious and hopeful, and without any fear? And in that moment a very old man catches a very young boy in his arms, lifts him up, and smiles. His eyes meet my sons, and both the new boy and the old man are caught in a moment of joy. The room could feel it and we all could see it - the peace, the release of fears, the embrace of hope, and the embodiment of change. It was on that day that I knew there was hope for great peace, and that we as people were fully capable of reconciliation. Barack Obama sees a world of possibilities: for unity of knowledge and unity of labor; for unity of economies and unity of industry; for unity of cultures and unity of traditions; for unity of races and unity of gender; for unity of children and mothers and fathers and families of all kinds; for unity of blacks and whites and Asians and Latinos; for unity of our people in our country, and unity of our people with those from other lands and nations; for unity of Catholic and Jewish and Protestant and Muslim and unity for people of all faiths. Barack Obama knows well the years that must be traveled for some people to heal old wounds, and he feels deeply their struggles and inner conflicts. Barack Obama knows the loss of family, of place, of home. He cares deeply that this country, and he, should embody both hope and humility. He lives each moment with the knowledge that he must balance the idealism of America with the absolute humility of being American. Barack Obama's humility comes from a deep conviction that if we do not become humble we will be humiliated. He leads with the ambition to act wisely, live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God. We can learn. We can change. We can heal. Look at my son. Look at Barack Obama. Look inside yourself. We can. Yes we can. -- Kevin B I'm saying it now: President Barack H. Obama, Jr., 2009 - 2017"
Nuclear power would be much more appreciated if we could store the waste without endangering anyone. Instead of riling any of our states or territories, how about we work out a way to send our radioactive waste into space?
Speaking of safety, why don't we try to build a nuclear reactor out in space to beam us the power we need?
Or if looking for something safer yet, let's focus on capturing solar power in space and beaming it directly to Earth?
And as I've mentioned before, mining the asteroids for resources?
And on the Security argument... from a strategic point of view, owning the high ground puts you in a safer position militarily. Space is the ultimate high ground, and the Moon in particular is a very strategic bit of property. We can't let other countries out pace us in the space race, and we must forge ahead and continue to be a leader in space technology and innovation.
