The best reason that I can give to every Barack Obama supporter to VOTE EARLY is a very simple one. With all of the Voter challenges and Voter supression that is going on you need to know that you will get to vote in this General Election. Therefore; by voting early you will be able to discover if you have any Registration Problems and you will have time to correct it so that you can vote.
SO PLEASE VOTE EARLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/27164066#27164066
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/27164066#27229073
John McCain scored the zinger of the night with, "I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."
But his performance in the third debate was, in fact, incredibly Bush-like, mirroring Bush's signature stubbornness -- especially on Iraq -- by doubling down on a failed strategy.
By Matthew MoskThere is more trouble this week for Harry Sargeant, the Florida fundraiser who has been bundling checks for Republican Sen. John McCain.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) released a letter today outlining his findings after reviewing contracts Sargeant's oil company brokered with the U.S. Department of Defense.
They aren't pretty.
The decision to devote some of the $700 billion financial rescue for direct cash infusions into banks has reopened the rift over whether financial institutions that get federal help should abide by executive pay limits.
Some lawmakers disagree.
National Review Boots Buckley Son For Obama Boost Christopher Buckley owns part of National Review. (Rick Maiman - AP) Enlarge Photo By Howard KurtzWashington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, October 15, 2008; Page C01
(If you believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, then you must write to the National Review and DEMAND that they reinstate Mr. Christopher Buckley to his full prior position with an apology for violating his Constitutional Right to Free Speech.)
(I do not care if he is a Liberal or a Conservative, I do believe in the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.)
Throughout his nearly two-year-long campaign for the White House, Barack Obama has talked about Americans' hunger for unity -- their ache for a government that will get past the petty divisions of recent decades, put aside partisanship, and come together to solve problems. From what we can tell, Obama's desire to provide that kind of presidency is sincere and stems from his own personality and history. Throughout his life, people have remarked on his ability to make those who disagree with him feel as though he has listened to their perspective and approached them with an open mind, even if he hasn't brought them around to agreeing with him.
But as we finally approach the end of this campaign, one has to wonder whether Obama knows quite what he's in for. Not what will happen over the next three weeks but what he'll face if he actually wins. Because for all his talk of bringing Americans together, a President Obama could face an opposition so consumed with disgust and anger and outright hate that it would make the 1990s look like a tea party.
That, of course, was what was supposed to happen if Hillary Clinton were the nominee. In fact, one of the arguments Obama supporters made early in the primary process was that if Clinton prevailed, the vast right-wing conspiracy would kick into high gear, besieging the woman they had hated so much for so long with an assault of unimagined viciousness. But now there is little doubt that that machinery of obsessive hostility was easily retrofitted for a new target.
Obama's apparently genuine desire for civility and inclusiveness shouldn't be mistaken for naiveté; as his opponents have discovered, he knows how to wield a shiv when necessary. In this race he has had to deal not only with the institutional efforts against him from his opponent and the Republican National Committee, but with a widely distributed campaign of smears and lies spread through viral e-mails and extremist Web sites. Unlike the McCain campaign, this broader effort will not fold up operations on Nov. 4. If Obama wins, the people now devoting their energies to seeing that he doesn't get elected will simply devote their energies to seeing that his presidency goes down in flames.
And the urgency of their cause (if not the despicable tactics they will no doubt use to advance it) will be thoroughly justified. Conservatives will quickly realize that the extraordinary challenges facing the government provide the opportunity for Obama to be either a spectacular failure or one of America's greatest presidents.
No president accomplishes all of his goals, but consider what Obama has before him. No matter what else he does, there are four large tasks on which his term in office will likely be judged. If he sees the country through the current economic crisis, brings the war in Iraq to an end, passes health-care reform that actually achieves something close to universal coverage, and sets the country on a course away from a reliance on fossil fuels, Obama would be considered the most important president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. If he succeeds, his presidency would be a mirror image of George W. Bush's, with accomplishments equal in grandeur to Bush's failures.
And that, of course, would be an unmitigated disaster for the GOP. It took 24 years after the death of the greatest Democratic president for an actual conservative (Richard Nixon) to win the White House, and Roosevelt's legacy was such that even Ronald Reagan's assaults on the New Deal and the Great Society were more rhetorical than substantive. Reagan may have hated Social Security and Medicare, but he wasn't going to risk his presidency in a futile attempt to dismantle them.
The danger for the GOP is that Obama's potential accomplishments could be just as lasting. If he does usher in a new energy paradigm, Republicans won't get anywhere advocating a return to the old one (and no matter what, it seems unlikely that we'll be hearing those weirdly gleeful chants of "Drill, baby drill!" after this election is over). If he guides us out of Iraq with a minimum of ensuing chaos, their foreign-policy and national security proposals will continue to be stained by the memory of conservative support for Bush's disastrous escapades. If Obama actually passes health-care reform, Americans will be grateful to Democrats for at least mitigating one of our most anxiety-provoking public-policy problems. And Republicans are already denying that they were ever really serious about the free-market fundamentalism that they championed for so long and that has proven so calamitous to the economy. If Obama sees us through to an economic revival, it will be almost impossible for them to explain why their ideas about the economy ought not be dismissed out of hand.
These are all best-case scenarios, of course -- a thousand different variables will determine whether any of these goals are achieved, much less all of four. But there is real potential for an Obama presidency to be truly transformative, which makes the stakes enormously high. Much higher than they were, certainly, when Bill Clinton was president.
Which is why it's worth remembering just how virulent the opposition to Clinton's presidency was. Republicans began plotting to impeach Clinton long before anyone had ever heard the name "Lewinsky," and many on the right simply refused to accept that he legitimately occupied the office he held. Then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, when talking to Democrats, used to refer to Clinton as "your president." Even Bob Dole admitted, "We had a pretty hard-right group in the party who were just never going to accept him." And Clinton didn't even steal an election.
The efforts ranged from those inside political institutions -- like the endless string of congressional hearings into trumped-up "scandals," culminating in impeachment -- to the independent and thoroughly unhinged. There were books charging that the Clintons were guilty of all manner of offenses against decency, like the one that claimed Hillary had decorated the White House Christmas tree with crack pipes. There was the obsession with Vincent Foster's suicide, a death that birthed more conspiracy theories than any since JFK's. Then there was "The Clinton Chronicles," a video that charged that not only was Bill Clinton the head of a cocaine-smuggling operation but that he had also arranged for the murder of dozens of his enemies and political opponents. It may sound like nothing more than lunatic ravings of the kind that today you'd find on the most obscure Web sites, but hundreds of thousands of copies were distributed thanks to the efforts of Jerry Falwell, a close friend of Republican presidents and politicians. Such was the burning fire of their hatred that some conservatives kept on writing books about how awful Clinton was even after he left office.
If Obama prevails, the forces now arguing that he is some kind of America-hating Manchurian Candidate will turn their attention and their funding to a sustained campaign to delegitimize and hamstring the Obama presidency, so that as much of the administration's time as possible is taken up with beating back one bogus charge after another. Without a doubt, the drones of the right-wing echo chamber will raise a new mountain of absurd charges, like termites constructing their mound from a mixture of twigs, dirt, and their own phlegm. And they will have help from Republicans in Congress, many if not most of whom can be counted on to make it their purpose in life to prevent Obama from accomplishing anything (though without the majority's subpoena power, they won't have nearly the ability to bedevil Obama that they had with Clinton).
There is some reason for hope, however. The outside groups arrayed against Obama have not exactly been models of competence and effectiveness this year (see Laura Rozen's piece in Mother Jones on how casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, thought to be the next Richard Mellon Scaife, disappointed conservatives). When it comes to assembling the dirt, John Boehner is no Newt Gingrich or Tom DeLay. Among all the insinuations that Obama might be a terrorist, furthermore, is a healthy does of red-baiting that is more silly than frightening (if you want a taste, go read some of Andy McCarthy's recent posts at National Review Online's The Corner). Saying Obama might be the next Alger Hiss doesn't have much impact when so few people remember who Alger Hiss was.
And just as the increasingly hateful tone of the crowds at John McCain's rallies (especially when Sarah Palin is there to egg on the thugs) is turning off moderate voters, the anti-Obama forces' worst enemy will be their own craziness. As Garrett Epps wrote in the Prospect in 2002, Bill Clinton didn't destroy his enemies; he drove them insane, and they destroyed themselves. We can only hope history will repeat itself.
Night of the Living Constitution Explaining the judicial consequences of an Obama presidency by Terry Eastland 10/20/2008, Volume 014, Issue 06
Have you noticed how the justices of the Supreme Court are living longer and longer, compiling more and more years of service--far more than they used to? Doubtless the justices tire of seeing their ages mentioned in stories triggered by the presidential race that contemplate who is most likely to retire and leave a vacancy to be filled. But here is what the birth certificates say:
John Paul Stevens, 88 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75Antonin Scalia, 72 Anthony Kennedy, 72Stephen Breyer, 70 David Souter, 69 Clarence Thomas, 60Samuel Alito, 58John Roberts (the chief justice), 53.
By Mary Pat FlahertyThe Wisconsin Republican Party has issued a call for volunteer poll watchers for Election Day, and the criteria is a little specific, seeking especially folks made of sterner stuff.
Jonathan Waclawski, the party's election day operations, wrote in a Sept. 8 e-mail that he needed contact information for people "who would potentially be willing to volunteer ... at inner city (more intimidating) polling places. Particularly, I am interested in names of Milwaukee area veterans, policemen, security personnel, firefighters etc. ... If you have any connections with such organizations, please pass that information on."
SUN CITY CENTER, Fla. -- The sign over the woodworking shop says "Sawdust Engineers," and there was a time when the men now bent over the tools used to put on ties or make sales calls, building their pensions so they could one day leave the rat race for this warm world of unbroken sunshine.
The moment of truth in last night's debate came when Bob Schieffer asked the candidates if they would be willing to repeat, face to face, some of the personal charges they have made against each other in their ads and on the trail.
By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press Writer Sat Oct 11, 11:44 AM ET
CHICAGO - Jailed political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer who helped launch Barack Obama on his political career, is whispering secrets to federal prosecutors about corruption in Illinois and the political fallout could be explosive.
Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose administration faces multiple federal investigations over how it handed out jobs and money with advice from Rezko, is considered the most vulnerable.
(Cindy McCain obviously does not read the Newspapers nor use FACTCHECK.ORG or she would not make statements like that one which has been proven to be FALSE. John McCain has run a Campaign that has been much more NEGATIVE than Barack Obama by far. Just in the past week John McCain's ads have been 98% NEGATIVE to Barack Obama's 32%.)
(I find it strange that a man of Honor and Courage, finds it necessary to send the Women in his life out to make the DIRTY & NEGATIVE ATTACKS on Barack Obama. When John McCain had the opportunity in the last Debate to say it to Barack Obama's face he did not do it. Draw your own conclusion.)
Obama opens a double-digit lead in new NEWSWEEK poll
The global financial meltdown has caused a dramatic shift in the 2008 presidential race, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. With four weeks left in the presidential campaign, Barack Obama now leads John McCain by double digits, 52 percent to 41 percent among registered voters—a marked shift from the last NEWSWEEK poll, conducted one month ago, when the two candidates were tied at 46 percent.
(Just so I can say "I TOLD YOU SO," A Poll that was taken from the 2nd through the 4th of October showed Barack Obama leading by 10 points. I said Barack would have a 10 point or better lead on OCTOBER 4th.)
It has been over four weeks now since Paulson announced the Financial Crisis and other than passing a Bill of Appropriation nothing has been done at all. I thought everything would fail if we did not act immediately. How could Paulson go to Congress and tell them he needed 700 Billion dollars immediately or the Finanacial System would fail, with out having a plan all ready to put into place and start immmediately.
Think about this simple thing if we took the 700 Billion dollars and created jobs at $50,000 a year that would hired 16 million people. I think that we should have secured the Mortages for the people who were having problems with their mortgages earning less than $250,000 a year Not a BUY-OUT but have made up the difference between the Currant Fair market Value and 50% of the Loan Value. I would have Refinanced them at a Fixed Interest Rate of 6.0% for 30 years and provided FHA Insurance. That would mean that we Taxpayers would have picked up 50% of the Loss and the Lender would have Eaten 50% of the loss.
Then I would have used the Balance of the Money to create Job Programs on the Various Infrastructures we need to re-new and add to the country.
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 2 hours, 40 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - John McCain and Barack Obama outlined steps to counter the faltering economy and plummeting stock market on Friday, fresh evidence of the dominant role of pocketbook issues in their race for the White House.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1417423198/bctid1834283910 "Palin Land"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvXf9AUHTqM McCain speech where Treason and Kill him is shouted from the audience
(Do John McCain and Sarah Palin have no Morality at all to keep up this kind of Rhetoric to enflame the Redneck Conservative Radicals?)
Republican economic policy holds that lower taxes will increase government revenues by stimulating economic growth. That has never happened, and we have tried it twice now, with Reagan and Bush 43. The result has been increasing national debt.
The 13-minute Obama campaign video on John McCain and the Keating savings & loan industry fiasco.
