This is really sad. What a vibrant community this was.
If Barack ever wants to get this community really behind him ever again (in 2010 or 2012), he really needs to get a public option through on the healthcare bill. Not a trigger, not any other lame replacement. Yes, the rest of the reforms are important, but the public option is a litmus test.
Anything less will be considered a Republican victory, or at-least they will say it is (and be heard).
If there is to be vigorous Democratic support in 2010 or 2012 there MUST be a public option passed.
Dear World:
The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located, and the parts responsible for it were replaced Tuesday night, November 4. Early tests of the newly- installed equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly, and we expect it to be fully operational by mid-January.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage, and we look forward to resuming full service --- and hopefully even to improving it in years to come.
Thank you for your patience and understanding,
The USA
IowaStateDaily.comPre-emptive ejection: Audience members removed at McCain rally in Cedar FallsBy Dylan Boyle — Daily Staff WriterPublished: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 2:57 PM CDTAudience members escorted out of Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., campaign event in Cedar Falls questioned why they were asked to leave Sunday’s rally even though they were not protesting.David Zarifis, director of public safety for the University of Northern Iowa, said McCain staffers requested UNI police assist in escorting out “about four or five” people from the rally prior to McCain’s speech.Zarifis said while the people who were taken out weren’t protesting or causing problems, McCain’s staff were worried they would during the speech.“Apparently, they had been identified by those staffers as potential protesters within the event,” Zarifis said. “The facility was rented by the RNC for the McCain campaign, so it’s really a private facility for them. We assisted in their desires to have those people removed.”Lara Elborno, a student at the University of Iowa, said she was approached by a police officer and a McCain staffer and was told she had to leave or she would be arrested for trespassing.“It was a very confusing, very frustrating situation,” Elborno said. “I said that I had a right to be there, I wasn’t doing anything disruptive — I was sitting, waiting for the rally to start.”She said McCain staffers wouldn’t tell her why she was being asked to leave and when she got outside, she saw “a group of about 20 people” who had all been asked to leave.Elborno said after seeing the people who were asked to leave, she was concerned that McCain’s staffers were profiling people on appearance to determine who might be a potential protester.“When I started talking to them, it kind of became clear that they were kind of just telling people to leave that they thought maybe would be disruptive, but based on what? Based on how they looked,” Elborno said. “It was pretty much all young people, the college demographic.”Elborno said even McCain supporters were among those being asked to leave.“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”Elborno said while she has protested at events before, no plans were discussed beforehand for a protest and she shouldn’t have been taken out because she was not causing a disturbance.“If I had been disruptive, then I would have deserved to be taken out,” Elborno said. “But at the time I was asked to leave, I wasn’t doing anything.”Elborno said she’s stunned at how the situation was handled, especially McCain’s staffers’ refusal to discuss the matter.“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.Despite repeated attempts, McCain’s campaign could not be reached for comment.
source
Can you believe it??
See the YouTube video here
Upon arriving at the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Cincinnati to vote early today I happened upon some friends of my mothers - 3 small, elderly Jewish women. They were quite upset as they were being refused admitance to the polling location due to their Obama T-Shirts, hats and buttons. Apparently you cannot wear Obama/McCain gear into polling locations here in Ohio.... They were practically on the verge of tears. After a minute or two of this a huge man (6'5", 300 lbs easy) wearing a Dale Earnhardt jacket and Bengal's baseball cap left the voting line, came up to us and introduced himself as Mike. He told us he had overheard our conversation and asked if the ladies would like to borrow his jacket to put over their t-shirts so they could go in and vote. The ladies quickly agreed. As long as I live I will never forget the image of these eighty plus year old Jewish ladies walking into the polling location wearing a huge Dale Earnhardt racing jacket that came over their hands and down to their knees! Mike, patiently waited for each woman to cast thier vote, accepted thier many thanks and then got back in line (I saved him a place while he was helping out the ladies). When Mike got back in line I asked him if he was an Obama supporter. He said that he was not, but that he couldn't stand to see those ladies so upset. I thanked him for being a gentleman in a time of bitter partisanship and wished him well. After I voted I walked out to the street to find my mother's friends surrouding our new friend Mike - they were laughing and having a great time. I joined them and soon learned that Mike had changed his mind in the polling booth and ended up voting for Obama. When I asked him why he changed his mind at the last minute, he explained that while he was waiting for his jacket he got into a conversation with one of the ladies who had explained how the Jewish community, and she, had worked side by side with the black community during the civil rights movements of the 60's, and that this vote was the culmination of those personal and community efforts so many years ago. That this election for her was more than just a vote...but a chance at history. Mike looked at me and said, "Obama's going to win and I didn't want to tell my grandchildren some day that I had an opportunity to vote for the first black president, but I missed my chance at history and voted for the other guy."
Clearly an elitist celebrity.
See the rest here and definitely worth seeing the rest of the photos
Early in 2007, just as her husband launched his presidential bid, Cindy McCain decided to resolve an old problem -- the lack of cellular telephone coverage on her remote 15-acre ranch near Sedona, nestled deep in a tree-lined canyon called Hidden Valley.
By the time Sen. John McCain's presidential bid was in full swing this summer, the ranch had wireless coverage from the two cellular companies most often used by campaign staff -- Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
[...]
Ethics lawyers said Cindy McCain's dealings with the wireless companies stand out because Sen. John McCain is a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission and the telecommunications industry. He has been a leading advocate for industry-backed legislation, fighting regulations and taxes on telecommunications services.
McCain and his campaign have close ties to Verizon and AT&T. Five campaign officials, including campaign manager Rick Davis, have worked as lobbyists for Verizon. Former McCain staffer Robert Fisher is an in-house lobbyist for Verizon and is volunteering for the campaign. Fisher, Verizon chief executive Ivan Seidenberg and company lobbyists have raised more than $1.3 million for McCain's presidential campaign and Verizon employees are among the top 20 corporate donors over McCain's political career, giving more than $155,000 to his campaigns.
McCain's Senate chief of staff Mark Buse, senior strategist Charles R. Black Jr., and several other campaign staffers have registered as AT&T lobbyists in the past. AT&T Executive Vice President Timothy McKone and AT&T lobbyists have raised more than $2.3 million for McCain. AT&T employees have donated more than $325,000 to McCain campaigns, putting the company in the No. 3 spot for career donations to McCain, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Three telecommunications specialists consulted by The Post said the proposed site covers so few users that it is unlikely to generate enough traffic to justify the investment. Robb Alarcon, an industry specialist who helps plan tower placement, said the proposed location appeared to be a "strategic build," free-of-charge coverage to high-priority customers. A former Verizon executive vice president, who asked not to be named because he worked for the company, agreed with Alarcon, saying, "It was a VIP kind of thing."
Read the rest here
... hard-liners still control the major levers of power in Miami. Such is their clout in turning out reliable voters that McCain dropped his stance of 2000, when he said he would support normalizing relations with Cuba even under Fidel Castro. ("I'd be willing to do the same thing we did with—with Vietnam.") McCain has allied his campaign with the Cuban Liberty Council, an uncompromising anti-Castro group that has all but dictated policy to George W. Bush.
As a result, McCain's campaign and advisers find themselves allied with and/or supporting militants who have committed acts that any reasonable observer would define as terrorism. On July 20, while campaigning for McCain in Miami and just prior to speaking at a McCain event, Sen. Joe Lieberman met with the wife of convicted serial bomber Eduardo Arocena and promised to pursue a presidential pardon on his behalf. Arocena is the founder of the notorious Cuban exile militant group Omega 7, renowned for a string of bombings from 1975 to 1983. Arocena was convicted of the 1980 murder of a Cuban diplomat in Manhattan. In 1983, Arocena was arrested and charged with 42 counts pertaining to conspiracy, explosives, firearms, and destruction of foreign government property within the United States. He is currently serving a life sentence in federal prison in Indiana.
Arocena is not the only militant who's received help from McCain's team. In September, McCain announced he was choosing Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Republican congressman from Miami, as his senior adviser and spokesman on Latin America. Rep. Diaz-Balart is a fierce hard-liner on Cuba, advocating, at various times, a blockade of the island, even military action if needed, to unseat Fidel Castro (his former uncle, once married to Diaz-Balart's aunt). He, too, has been a supporter of certain kinds of terrorists who have struck on American soil. Since 2000, Diaz-Balart and his colleague Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have lobbied for and helped win the release of several convicted exile terrorists from U.S. prisons. Among the most notorious were Omega 7 members Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, both convicted for their roles in the 1976 assassination of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American colleague Ronni Moffitt with a car bomb in Washington, D.C. According to four agents I interviewed, the FBI also suspect the pair were involved in other bombings and attacks. (Suarez is known by the nickname "Charco de Sangre"—Pool of Blood.)
Diaz-Balart also pushed for the release of Valentin Hernandez, who gunned down Miami resident and Cuban émigré Luciano Nieves in February 1975 for speaking out in support of a dialogue with Cuba.
Nor has McCain's senior adviser Diaz-Balart ever wavered in seeking "due process" for legendary bombers and would-be Castro assassins Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. Both were charged with the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing all 73 civilian passengers
On Huffington Post by Carl Bernstein:
Ayers and the McCain-G. Gordon Liddy Symbiosis
Petraeus yesterday gave a talk at the Heritage Foundation in which he more or less echoed Barack Obama's views on negotiating with hostile foreign leaders:
QUESTION: One question, it came up in the debate last night, I know it has to do-- Petraeus: Oh, I'm not walking into minefields now [laughter from crowd). I try to go around -- QUESTION: It was a British general who said we must learn how to talk to our enemy. A british general -- not a U.S. Can you comment? Petraeus: Well, all I would say -- I didn't actually see that, we were doing some other stuff last night -- look, I'm trying to go around minefields these days, not blunder into them. But I do think you have to talk to enemies. I mean again, you've got to set things up, you've got to know who you're talking to, you've got to have your objectives straight, all the rest of this stuff. I mean, so I'm not trying to get into the middle of domestic politics. But I mean what we did do in Iraq ultimately was sit down with some of those that were shooting at us. What we tried to do was identify those who might be reconcilable.
Petraeus: Oh, I'm not walking into minefields now [laughter from crowd). I try to go around --
QUESTION: It was a British general who said we must learn how to talk to our enemy. A british general -- not a U.S. Can you comment?
Petraeus: Well, all I would say -- I didn't actually see that, we were doing some other stuff last night -- look, I'm trying to go around minefields these days, not blunder into them. But I do think you have to talk to enemies.
I mean again, you've got to set things up, you've got to know who you're talking to, you've got to have your objectives straight, all the rest of this stuff. I mean, so I'm not trying to get into the middle of domestic politics. But I mean what we did do in Iraq ultimately was sit down with some of those that were shooting at us. What we tried to do was identify those who might be reconcilable.
See the video
While Ambien is a heavily advertised drug here in the US - $200 million annually in ad spending - it's extremely potent and has the potential to be addictive. That's why it's a D.E.A. Schedule IV controlled substance.In addition to the addictive qualities, Ambien has a rather bizarre and frightening potential side effect if you take the drug and don't quickly fall asleep for eight hours - you're physically awake up but your conscious mind doesn't know it (and everyone around you will think you're actually awake when you really aren't). It's somewhat akin to sleepwalking. The effects are so striking that in 2007 the FDA required a relabeling (Official Sanofi-Aventis PDF):
A variety of abnormal thinking and behavior changes have been reported to occur in association with the use of sedative-hypnotics. Some of these changes may be characterized by decreased inhibition (e.g., aggressiveness and extroversion that seemed out of character), similar to effects produced by alcohol and other CNS depressants. Visual and auditory hallucinations have been reported as well as behavioral changes such as bizarre behavior, agitation, and depersonalization. Complex behaviors such as "sleep-driving"(i.e., driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative-hypnotic, with amnesia for the event) have been reported. These events can occur in sedative- hypnotic- naive as well as in sedative-hypnotic-experienced persons. Although behaviors such as” sleep-driving” may occur with Ambien alone at therapeutic doses, the use of alcohol and other CNS depressants with Ambien appears to increase the risk of such behaviors, as does the use of Ambien at doses exceeding the maximum recommended dose. Due to the risk to the patient and the community, discontinuation of Ambien should be strongly considered for patients who report a "sleep-driving" episode. Other complex behaviors (e.g., preparing and eating food, making phone calls, or having sex) have been reported in patients who are not fully awake after taking a sedative-hypnotic. As with “sleep-driving”, patients usually do not remember these events. (italics and bold my highlights)
The impact on McCain's less-than-stellar personal constitution is substantial. From the earlier ABC News story:
"Ambien should only be taken when you have a window of seven to eight hours for sleep," Greenblatt said. "Your staff should know that you've taken the medication, and that you should not be involved in any decision-making during that time."Fotinakes added that sleeping pills and other sedatives have been proven to be more potent in the elderly. In light of this, he said, "It may not be the best idea for the commander-in-chief to be under the influence when he or she may have to make a snap decision regarding national security in the middle of the night; Hillary's so-called telephone call at 3:00 a.m."
McCain's associations continue to be increasingly interesting as well. We've known for a while that McCain has befriended a convicted felon who advised his supporters on how best to shoot federal officials, used the money of a convicted criminal to help buy a house, befriended a radical anti-Catholic televangelist, befriended a radical anti-American televangelist, was a long-time associate of Charles Keating, and hired for his campaign the publisher of a Confederate nostalgia magazine who has described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist." This week, we also learned about McCain serving on the board of the extremist U.S. Council for World Freedom, where he worked alongside Iran-Contra figures, and a eugenics researcher studying "white superiority."
McCain’s game is craps. So is Jeff Dearth’s. Jeff was at the table when McCain showed up and happily made room for him. Apparently there is some kind of rule or tradition in craps that everyone’s hands are supposed to be above the table when the dice are about to be thrown. McCain—“very likely distracted by one of the many people who approached him that evening,” Jeff says charitably—apparently was violating this rule. A small middle-aged woman at the table, apparently a “regular,” reached out and pulled McCain’s arm away. I’ll let Jeff take over the story:
“McCain immediately turned to the woman and said between clenched teeth: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME.’ The woman started to explain...McCain interrupted her: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME,’ he repeated viciously. The woman again tried to explain. ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?’ McCain continued, his voice rising and his hands now raised in the ‘bring it on’ position. He was red-faced. By this time all the action at the table had stopped. I was completely shocked. McCain had totally lost it, and in the space of about ten seconds. ‘Sir, you must be courteous to the other players at the table,’ the pit boss said to McCain. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? ASK ANYBODY AROUND HERE WHO I AM.”
Also watch this
An important point that Barack needs to be making is that the top 5% of earners are getting the lions share of income. That is why he can significantly raise federal income tax revenue be only raising taxes on that top 5%.
Despite how many times Barack has stated that he will only raise taxes on that top 5%, many folks don't believe his intentions on taxes because they don't know the numbers. They think he will have to raise taxes on people of lesser income to get enough additional tax revenue.
Here are the numbers:
In 2006, the top 1% of wage earners earned 22.06% of all money earned (based on Adjusted Gross Income, AGI). The top 5% earned 36.66%. Note that this percentage has been going way up over time. Back in 1980, the top 5% "only" earned 21.01% of all income. In other words, they went from a bit over 4 times their "share" to over 7 times their "share".
The bottom 50% of all wage earners earned only 17.68% of all income earned in 1980. By 2006, this share was DOWN to only 12.51%. In other words, the bottom half went from 1/3rd of their share down to 1/4th.
One other interesting statistic. In 1980 the top 1% of taxpayers paid federal income tax at an average tax rate of 34.47%. In 2006, this rate had dropped to 22.79%
One of the first things Martin Chalfie wanted to do after learning that he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is endorse Barack Obama for President of the United States. That brings the total number of Nobel Prize winners in science endorsing Obama to 63. Originally 61 winners came out and endorsed Obama, but soon after the release of the letter, Murray Gell-Mann, who won the Prize in Physics in 1969 came forward to add his name.
Cafardi recently issued an endorsement for Obama and claimed the pro-life movement is dead -- drawing a strong rebuke from pro-life advocates.
Franciscan University issued a statement saying Cafardi did not represent the views of the college, but it appears Cafardi has resigned on his own without pressure from university officials.
I hadn't before seen direct evidence that there actually were victims who where billed, but the Alaska Violent Crimes Compensation Board was getting appeals for payment from victims.
Watch the video
Former U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini told PolitickerAZ.com Monday that he thinks Sen. John McCain's involvement in the Keating Five scandal of the late '80s and early '90s is fair game as an issue in the presidential contest between the senator from Arizona and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
DeConcini was officially sanctioned as having acted inappropriately by calling two meetings between federal investigators and the Keating Five, in what was seen as an exercise in pressuring the feds to drop their investigation of Keating's activities.
"The question that should be raised is that McCain's big issue here is that he shouldn't have been at that meeting with the regulators that first time because he had a conflict. He took these three trips that he didn't report and his wife invested $350,000 with Keating," DeConcini said.
"You can criticize rest of us," he said, "but none of us had traveled with or invested with [Keating]."
To DeConcini, McCain was let off the hook too easily, due to the fact that McCain was a member of the U.S. House at the time of the meetings and the Senate concluded it didn't have jurisdiction to look into his unreported trips with Keating.
McCain's involvement should have been more scrutinized, especially the business relationship that existed between Cindy McCain, the senator's wife, and Keating.
October 7, 2008Palin's Secrecy Betrays Campaign PromisesRITA BEAMISH | October 7, 2008 03:20 AM EST | APSarah Palin's promise for a new era of government openness as the reform governor of Alaska started to crack even before Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign built a wall of protectiveness around her.[...]her administration has claimed broad exceptions to Alaska's freedom of information rules to keep government e-mails secret, and it's shown reluctance to disclose documents about sensitive topics, ranging from polar bears to policy issues. And her state's online checkbook is limited in its detail.Disclosures about private e-mail accounts used by Palin and her top aides have raised questions about whether they were trying to evade disclosure under the state's public records law. Her aides have denied this.[...]For citizens or journalists seeking public records in Alaska, the government generally must provide copies of records upon request within 10 days. The Associated Press has received some documents it sought in as little as one day.But when the AP asked for documents about nursing homes last June, state officials demanded $5,000 in fees and never responded to the news agency's request to waive the fees and produce the records for the public's benefit.Alaska now charges $960 per e-mail account for searches, plus additional fees for copying.[...]
Now Palin is dogged by accusations of stonewalling in a home-state investigation into whether she pressured officials to fire her former brother-in-law, a state trooper. After initially promising to cooperate, Palin challenged the lawmakers' impartiality. The results of that investigation are expected to be made public as early as Friday."As soon as the heat comes on, the openness and transparency goes away," said Anchorage Daily News editorial page editor Matt Zencey.
Monday, October 06, 2008 "Kill him!", Palin supporter says of Obama in her presence. She says nothing. John Aravosis (DC) · 10/06/2008 07:17:00 PM ET On the heels of a McCain supporter yelling that Obama was a "terrorist" today - and McCain said nothing in response to admonish the supporter - the Washington Post reports (via ThinkProgress) that a Palin supporter at one of her rallies today yelled for Obama to be assassinated after Palin, again, told the lie that some of Obama's best friends are terrorists:
"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said."Boooo!" said the crowd."And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued."Boooo!" the crowd repeated."Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.Palin went on to say that "Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers's living room, and they've worked together on various projects in Chicago."
