John P's Blog

Can you imagine?

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:21:16 EST

I've lived a lot of years and truthfully have had my share of burdens (like everyone) but I can't imagine what it must be like for Barack every minute of every day.

Will they ever get it?

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:25:24 EST

It will take many villages

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:58:14 EST

One Day at a time

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:10:08 EST

Why can't we do this?

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:24:01 EST

The Animal Odd Couple: A short Video from CBS worth the view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0TjfOKnF-c

He has created his future

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:02:54 EST

Let's start anew

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:22:33 EST

Love to the Obama Family

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:58:35 EST

Parade Magazine has posted an open letter written by Barack Obama to his daughters Sasha and Malia. Here are a few excerpts; the full letter is available at Parade.com, and the print version will be in the January 18th issue. See if you can get through it without tearing up a little.

The eloquent letter begins on a humorous note, addressing the girls' steady consumption of ice cream on the campaign trail, why he decided to run for president, and, of course, the incoming puppy.

Dear Malia and Sasha,
I know that you've both had a lot of fun these last two years on the campaign trail, going to picnics and parades and state fairs, eating all sorts of junk food your mother and I probably shouldn't have let you have. But I also know that it hasn't always been easy for you and Mom, and that as excited as you both are about that new puppy, it doesn't make up for all the time we've been apart. I know how much I've missed these past two years, and today I want to tell you a little more about why I decided to take our family on this journey.
When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me--about how I'd make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn't seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldn't count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours. In the end, girls, that's why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation.

He then goes on to address education, the environment, war, and the lessons their grandmother -- his mother, Ann Dunham -- taught him.

She helped me understand that America is great not because it is perfect but because it can always be made better--and that the unfinished work of perfecting our union falls to each of us. It's a charge we pass on to our children, coming closer with each new generation to what we know America should be.

He concludes by echoing the message in his victory speech on November 4th.

I am so proud of both of you. I love you more than you can ever know. And I am grateful every day for your patience, poise, grace, and humor as we prepare to start our new life together in the White House.

The end or the beginning?

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:21:24 EST

I'm sad to think that so many of my favorite bloggers are discouraged about this website that has meant so much to more people than can be imagined. The Waterfront Rally in Portland (below) seems so long ago now. We've all been through a lot. Having never blogged before, for the most part, this has been an amazing experience. Is it really over? Deep down we must know that this is just the beginnng.

Say it isn't so

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:48:24 EST

The Paradox and The Promise of this Moment

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:17:46 EST

Barack Obama Makes Passionate Case for Quick Government Action Today ~ DailyKos

In a speech aimed at galvanizing Congress and rallying the American people behind his massive proposed stimulus, President-Elect Obama today underscored the need for "dramatic action as soon as possible," the necessity for transparency as we move ahead in the reinvestment process and a promise to reform a "weak and outdated regulatory system."

Echoes of FDR can be heard in some of its passages:

It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy – where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.

The boost, he explained, will focus on investment in energy, education, health care and infrastructure. "It is not just another public works program." "It’s a plan that recognizes both the paradox and the promise of this moment – the fact that there are millions of Americans trying to find work, even as, all around the country, there is so much work to be done."

In a nod to the importance of transparency--and the power of the Internet to disseminate information--he promised to post information on stimulus spending: "Every American will be able to hold Washington accountable for these decisions by going online to see how and where their tax dollars are being spent."

After a couple of decades of hearing government bashed at every turn as evil incarnate, it's more than refreshing to hear an unapologetic argument made that a vigorous and active role for government is not only a legitimate option, but absolutely necessary for recovery.

We'll see in the next days if Congress is getting the message that the next president--and the country--want action now.

It's been all about him

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:45:15 EST

Barry Britt

Rest awhile

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:28:38 EST

The first snow at Crater Lake, Oregon. Now there is an abundance.

This is one of the most beautiful places in all the world at any time of the year.

Loud, collective anger

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:17:06 EST

I have a lot of respect for Bob Herbert. Today, his column in the New York Times is entitled "Add Up the Damage" and here's part of what it says:

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don't think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry - a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches - over the damage he's done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool's gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

Exploiting the public's understandable fears, Mr. Bush made it sound as if Iraq was about to nuke us: "We cannot wait," he said, "for the final proof - the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

He then set the blaze that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. (A car bomb over the weekend killed two dozen more Iraqis, many of them religious pilgrims.) The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Happy New Year Everybody

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:07:28 EST

"We are the ones we've been waiting for." President-Elect Barack Obama

We have a lot to do in 2009. I'm confident we can.

Who's being helped?

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:17:47 EST

Transparency on Change.gov

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:04:02 EST

The Obama transition rolled out a new version of one of its transparency tools on Monday: an updated website that allows interested observers to more easily read and submit questions to the staff.

A few weeks ago, the President-elect's new media team put together an "Open For Questions" feature that provided a platform for citizens to query the team on relevant topics. The move was hailed by good-government groups as a nod towards inclusiveness and accountability. Visitors to change.gov pushed to the forefront questions that they most wanted the President-elect to field. Now, they will have an easier time doing it. The new function to the site allows viewers to sort questions -- on which they can vote -- by category or topic. The Transition Teams explains:

"In this round, you can still view all of the questions that have been submitted -- or you can break down the questions by category for easier navigation. For instance, you can read the top-ranking question regarding Energy and the Environment and browse through other questions on the same topic by clicking on that issue. We think this change is valuable. It serves the other key purpose of features like Open for Questions: making your input easy to pass on to the members of our Transition team that are crafting solutions to these vital issues right now."

No surprise here

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 09:06:13 EST

From a recent CNN quick vote:

Do you believe that despite U.S. President George W. Bush's low approval ratings, the policies of his administration will be vindicated by history?

Yes - 30%

No - 70%

I am one of those Americans

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:59:06 EST

President-elect Barack Obama takes a group photo with Marines after his workout at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Base in Kailua, Hawaii, on Monday.

From an article by Lawrence Jackson, AP Poll: Obama is man Americans admire most

Open the door to 2009

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:03:18 EST

So much to do

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 13:00:08 EST

I've been so impressed with Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the whole Transition Team during this time of setting up. It is hard to pinpoint one quote from all that our President has been saying since his election but I did single out this one:

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us."

The war on science that has been waged for the last eight years may have already done us so much harm. What a relief to have the hope that we have a leader with knowledge, understanding, and the skills to unite. We need so many changes in our society without delay.

Announced in the Oregonian this morning

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:07:30 EST

WASHINGTON - "President-elect Barack Obama has picked an Oregon State professor to run the agency in charge of marine fisheries and climate monitoring.

Jane Lubchenco is a marine biologist and an expert on overfishing and climate change.

Obama announced Saturday morning that she would head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He says the appointment is part of restoring science to the top of the nation's agenda.

The agency is known as NOAA (noh-ah). It is in charge of the National Weather Service, climate monitoring, the oceans, fisheries management and coastal restoration.

The appointment has had Oregon scientists and others buzzing this week. John Byrne, a former Oregon State president who was head of NOAA in the Reagan administration, called Lubchenco a world-class scientist."

On a personal note, we in Oregon are very pleased to have some Pacific Northwest representation close to those experts in all fields being selected for the Obama Administration. His other appointees this morning as regards to science sound awesome too.

Reality Hurts but it can Rebuild

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 10:58:33 EST

"A 'news anchor' said the other day, speaking of the sinking economy, it has gotten so bad that "people are only buying what they need."

Let that sink in. It is so bad that people are only buying what they need.

The world that collapsed was built on people buying things they didn't need. Then throwing them away and buying more.

That delusion is shredded into tatters and blows away in the wind ... this is a moment of clarity, in which like any recovering addict we can see that such a world was insane."
The above is an excerpt from an article called "The Betrayal of The Commons" by Richard Thieme.

Interesting email from MoveOn.org

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:39:56 EST

This was forwarded to me from a MoveOn.org member:

Hundreds of thousands of us nominated and voted, and now the results are in—we know where to focus MoveOn's efforts for the next year.

We asked you to vote for your three top goals, but after looking at the results, it's clear that four rose above and beyond the rest.

Here's how it worked out, in descending order:

1. Universal Health Care

2. Economic Recovery and Job Creation

3. Build a Green Economy and Stop Climate Change

4. End the War in Iraq

Reality Bites

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 08:44:58 EST

Congratulations Barack

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:52:17 EST

You probably have already seen this. As a young man in my seventies, I have to say that there have been few people to impress me as much as Barack has or does. Congratulations to him and to all of us. Though this is a well-deserved honor, I think it is real to expect that we will have to be patient as Barack Obama's time in history unfolds. Either we are going to agree or disagree. But one thing is certain, he needs us to be here.

Does he feel the burden of his legacy?

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:26:58 EST

The Change Begins With Us

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:02:32 EST

Way to go!

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:30:46 EST

There is a time for everything under the sun. And now is the time to repair our image abroad. I must say, this news is very reassuring. Good move, Barack.

The incoming Obama administration has notified all politically-appointed ambassadors that they must vacate their posts as of Jan. 20, the day President-elect Barack Obama takes the oath of office, a State Department official said.
...
Political ambassadors sometimes are permitted to stay on briefly during a new administration, but the sweeping nature of the directive suggests that Obama has little interest in retaining any of Bush's ambassadorial appointees.

Amazing!

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:20:12 EST

Thank you Blogger, Mickiboop

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:55:55 EST

I was reading through the blogs and came upon one by Mickiboop. Then went to her page and read through her other recent entries. Mickiboop included this http://change.gov saying that the other change.gov was not the right one. I kept wondering about it as I never received an answer to my requests to be updated. There is an enormous difference in websites.

Please be alert to the website that is actually from the Transition Team.

The Best of Answers

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:41:19 EST

Article in the Philadelphia Inquirer

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:57:09 EST

Worldview: Obama has a chance to restore U.S. image abroad Posted on Sun, Nov. 9, 2008

By Trudy Rubin, Inquirer Opinion Columnist

Shortly after the election, I moderated a panel of journalists from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America who discussed "How the World Sees the U.S. Presidential Elections" for the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. What they said, along with the reaction from other foreign media and leaders, underlines the remarkable opportunities awaiting President-elect Barack Obama. He has a unique chance to stem the tide of anti-Americanism that threatens our security and our ability to lead.

"That one picture of Obama and his wife, African Americans, holding hands with [Joseph R.] Biden [Jr.] and his wife was worth more than all of the hundreds of millions this administration has spent on public diplomacy," said panelist Paulo Sotero, former Washington correspondent for the Brazilian daily O Estado de S. Paulo.

The victory of an African American and the level of citizen involvement in the U.S. election have refurbished the nation's democratic image. It undercuts the efforts of jihadis to bill the United States as the Great Satan. "Anti-Americanism will not suddenly, magically disappear," French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy wrote in the Financial Times, a British paper. "But it will have a harder time surviving and it will be forced to revisit its sales pitch."

Yes, the challenges Obama faces are stupendous, and expectations placed upon him impossibly high. His honeymoon is likely to be brief. Much will depend on the quality of his top appointees.

But, as Financial Times columnist Philip Stevens wrote, authoritarians no longer will be able to hide their belligerence "behind America's unpopularity." He referred to Russia's threat, shortly after Obama's victory, to deploy missiles in its Baltic enclave of Kalinigrad unless Washington canceled plans to deploy missile defenses in central Europe. Whatever the wisdom of the U.S. project, Russia's churlish challenge to Obama is more likely to stir European hostility than support for Moscow.

Stevens also noted that Europeans no longer would be able to use their differences with President Bush as an excuse for failing to contribute to global security. If a President Obama asks for more European troops in Afghanistan, it will be harder to stiff him. As a former British ambassador to Washington, Christopher Myers, put it: "We will be so stunned by him that, for a while at least, it is going to be very hard to say 'no' to him."

This raises the key question of what Obama can do to cement this new U.S. image before the global euphoria wanes.

I put this question to my three panelists; their answers revealed a continued desire around the world for a United States that exerts global leadership, but leadership with a different attitude and tone.

Sotero and Keiko Iizuka, deputy political editor of Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, stressed the need for Obama to put the United States back on a fiscally responsible path. Washington cannot exert leadership on trade or on security issues unless it renews its economic strength and institutions.

Sotero spoke of the need for a President Obama to "engage . . . but not preach," and to abandon the notion that "if you are not with us you are against us." Brazil, the biggest South American power, may differ with the United States, but that doesn't mean they can't work together, he said.

Al-Jazeera's Washington bureau chief, Abderrahim Foukara, urged Obama to stress soft power rather than military action. All three panelists stressed the need for gestures early in the new administration that could change attitudes toward the United States.

Foukara worries about growing anti-Americanism in the Middle East and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. He said he believed an early Obama trip to the Middle East "would have a tremendous impact on the region. If Obama can build bridges with the Arab world," that could temper hostility on both sides. Obama shouldn't wait too long to travel lest the emotional moment be lost.

Some news reports say Obama is considering making a major speech in an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office. If the new U.S. leader can strike the right tone, he could buy time and build support for renewed efforts to reach an Israeli-Arab peace.

Iizuka said she believed it was important for Obama to indicate quickly that the United States would retain a strong presence in Asia and a strong alliance with Japan. She said she thought an Obama initiative on climate change also would galvanize global attention.

For Sotero, the most crucial U.S. gestures will be those that rejuvenate the U.S. democratic image that inspired South Americans, including Brazilians, to oppose past dictators. "I remember when the U.S. Declaration of Independence was banned in Latin America," he said. "Obama should say 'torture nevermore' in his inaugural address."

Closing Guantanamo would be another important gesture. So would dropping sanctions on Cuba, the best way to undermine that country's government, and talking to Hugo Chavez, which would deflate the Venezuelan president's bluster.

Of course, the new president will need to unveil a new strategy on Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, but that is food for a separate column. What these foreign journalists made clear were the stunning opportunities created by Obama's election - if he can seize the time.

Barack's Saturday Radio Address

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:13:22 EST

On Tuesday, Americans stood in lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen. It didn’t matter who they were or where they came from; what they looked like or what party they belonged to – they came out and cast their ballot because they believed that in this country, our destiny is not written for us, but by us. We should all take pride in the fact that we once again displayed for the world the power of our democracy, and reaffirmed the great American ideal that this is a nation where anything is possible.
This week, I spoke with President Bush, who graciously offered his full support and assistance in this period of transition. Michelle and I look forward to meeting with him and the First Lady on Monday to begin that process. This speaks to a fundamental recognition that here in America we can compete vigorously in elections and challenge each other’s ideas, yet come together in service of a common purpose once the voting is done. And that is particularly important at a moment when we face the most serious challenges of our lifetime.
Yesterday, we woke to more sobering news about the state of our economy. The 240,000 jobs lost in October marks the 10th consecutive month that our economy has shed jobs. In total, we’ve lost nearly 1.2 million jobs this year, and more than 10 million Americans are now unemployed. Tens of millions of families are struggling to figure out how to pay the bills and stay in their homes. Their stories are an urgent reminder that we are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime, and we must act swiftly to resolve them.
In the wake of these disturbing reports, I met with members of my Transition Economic Advisory Board, who will help guide the work of my transition team in developing a strong set of policies to respond to this crisis. While we must recognize that we only have one President at a time and that President Bush is the leader of our government, I want to ensure that we hit the ground running on January 20th because we don’t have a moment to lose.
We discussed several of the most immediate challenges facing our economy and key priorities on which to focus in the days and weeks ahead to ease the credit crisis, help hardworking families, and restore growth and prosperity.
First, we need a rescue plan for the middle class that invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provides relief to families that are watching their paychecks shrink and their life savings disappear.
Then, we’ll address the spreading impact of the financial crisis on other sectors of our economy, and ensure that the rescue plan that passed Congress is working to stabilize financial markets while protecting taxpayers, helping homeowners, and not unduly rewarding the management of financial firms that are receiving government assistance.
Finally, we will move forward with a set of policies that will grow our middle-class and strengthen our economy in the long-term. We can’t afford to wait on moving forward on the key priorities that I identified during the campaign, including clean energy, health care, education and tax relief for middle class families.
Let me close by saying I do not underestimate the enormity of the task that lies ahead. We’ve taken some major actions to date, and we will need further actions during this transition and subsequent months. Some of those choices will be difficult, but America is a strong and resilient country. I know that we will succeed if we put aside partisanship and work together as one nation. And that is what I intend to do.

Barack's Speech

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:17:35 EST

Can someone tell me where I can find a copy of Barack's speech in Chicago on Tuesday, both video and printed? Is it somewhere on the barackobama.com website? Thanks.

Only the Beginning

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:27:20 EST

The challenges we face are startling. The truth is: We Can Face Them and do what needs to be done. I have never been more certain of something in all of my life .... except when I met my lovely wife and I knew for certain that she was a love like no other.

We are both happy, relieved and ready to take on what lies ahead.

Making Calls

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:56:25 EST

It feels so good to call. It is possible to make 40 calls in an hour. The great Obama staff have even put the polling location for each caller on the formula of what to say so that we can tell them this information or leave it as a message. Is this a great organization, or what?

You and your family are in our prayers

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:29:17 EST

Being close to your mother and your grandmother was a treasure beyond words. Losing them is a great void like no other. We send our thoughts with deep gratitude for the person you are Barack. Your family is a great example of caring togetherness and strength.

How sweet it has been

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:45:24 EST

How sweet life is when there's mutual agreement. During all of these months, we've been on the same page with each other, there have been voters around Oregon or Washington and a few relatives on the East Coast most especially who have been wild and unreasonable in their disdain of our views and support of Barack and Joe. This picture was in today's Oregonian. 25 years of marriage and good coping skills, don't you think?

Dean Hanson/Albuquerque Journal

Harry and Marita Weil of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, N.M., plan to vote for opposing presidential candidates for the first time in their 25-year marriage, and they've posted "his" and "hers" campaign signs in their front yard.

Cartoon: "You Know I'm Right...."

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:24:28 EST

by Jack Ohman, The Oregonian, Sunday, November 2, 2008, 7:00 P.M.

Matt Drudge, still making stuff up

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 07:53:22 EST

Part of a blog that appears on Daily Kos this morning is below. Desperation and deeply rooted anger lead to the worse kind of lying and labeling.

Drudge report says that Barack has been and is saying "I will change the world." Daily Kos Blogger answers: "That is the quote being falsely attributed to Barack Obama by Matt Drudge and Rupert Murdoch's Sky News. Strangely, even though both attribute the quote to Obama, neither bothers to specify when and where he is alleged to have made the comment.

There's a simple reason for that. He didn't say it. In fact, on the campaign trail, Barack Obama always makes the exact opposite point, saying that he believes that change comes from the bottom-up -- that he believes that he cannot change the world on his own.

Barack Obama doesn't say, "Yes I can." He says, "Yes we can." He also says "You and I together, we will change this country, and we will change the world."

In ways, this has been a fascinating journey all of these months. It's amazing how bold and brutal some in the media, whether it be online, on TV or radio, or in the newspapers are. And it is sad that John McCain, who I felt so sorry for in 2000 when he was being trashed, is now going right up to election day pulling the same nonsense that was done to him.

Alerts for Oregon

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:35:59 EDT

171,288 calls were made at phonebanks or at homes around Oregon on Tuesday. Today the goal for calls was 225,000. Hope we made it! This particular part of the campaign ends Thursday, October 30th at 8:00 PM.

The mail-in deadline for Oregonians is this Friday, October 31st. If you are like me, this deadline for your ballots would be more like tomorrow, Thursday, October 30th. If you don't use the easy mail-in way we have here in Oregon to vote, then you'll need to find your nearest official office drop box.

Oregon Alert

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:59:53 EDT

171,288 calls were made at phonebanks or at homes around Oregon yesterday. The goal for today is 225,000. This particular part of the campaign ends Thursday, October 30 at 8:00 PM.

Whether its been phonebanking (at home for us) or talking to voters face-to-face, this time in history is one that I will never forget.

Mail in Deadline for Oregon

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:53:03 EDT

The mail-in deadline for Oregonians is this Friday, Oct. 31st. If you are like me, the deadline would be more like Thursday, Oct. 30th. If you haven't used the easy mail in way to vote, then you'll need to find your nearest official drop box.

CNN

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:27:40 EDT

According to Huffington Post, CNN has refused to accept Barack's 30-minute appearance because they feel it more relevant to have their anchors, reporters and pundits stay on message. WOW! Here is a link to give feeback about their decision.

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/dotcom/

therecord.barackobama.com

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 09:03:21 EDT

Have you seen the therecord.barackobama.com? It's been great to get all the latest in one place. Thanks to the Obama workers who are amazing.

.59 cents required for Lane County ballots

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:59:50 EDT

Lane County, Oregon ballots will need .59 cents for mailing. There has been the usual uproar because people didn't realize this, so the State of Oregon will pay the extra .17 cents if you don't send in your ballot with the correct postage.

Let's get in those ballots Oregon. It feels so good!

Democratic Party of Oregon

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:15:44 EDT

Please check out www.oregondemocrats.org for full information on the State of Change Candidates' Tour going on. Also, did you know that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore will be in Portland on Oct. 24 at two separate events?

The Buffalo News Endorsement

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:08:38 EDT

Buffalo News Editorial, may be not the NYT or Washington Post, but is this endorsement and others like it as important? I think so. I believe in Barack Obama and Joe Biden. My ballot is ready for Monday's mail here in Oregon. And I am proud and happy to say that.

Here is the Buffalo News endorsement of Barack Obama:

The only thing we have to fear, a great president once said, is fear itself. Barack Obama is not afraid.

Concerned. Alert. Maybe even a little alarmed. But the Democratic candidate for president of the United States is not afraid and, of perhaps even more importance, he does not seek to be elected by making us afraid.

If Americans want a future where our leaders respond to challenges with judgment and principle, rather than panic and rashness, they will elect Barack Obama president. We recommend they do so.

Our preference for Obama is not based only on matters of character, intelligence and calm. It also flows from his superior positions on such basic issues as war and peace, energy and environment, the economy and taxation, health care and justice.

Fundamentally, Obama does not want us to fear the future, the ever smaller, ever more complicated world, the problems we face and the choices we must make. He most certainly does not want us to be afraid of one another. And Obama does not even want us to be afraid of his rival candidate.

There was a time when it was reasonable to hope that the same would be true of the Republican candidate, John McCain.

The senator from Arizona has a long history of public service, most notably five years of imprisonment and torture in Vietnam, that also has included conspicuous examples of political courage. He has, at various times in the past, stood for sensible and compassionate immigration reform and against the darker aspects of the Bush administration’s anti-terror tactics. He has done so even when substantial numbers of the American people and the leadership of his own party were against him.

A contest between John McCain, that John McCain, and Barack Obama could have presented the American voter with an embarrassment of riches: two serious, principled, devoted candidates for president, at a time when the world desperately needs those characteristics, promoting differing but reasonable visions of policy and personality.

But in recent weeks,

as the polls have shown McCain’s long dream of becoming president slipping away, he has fully and stunningly embraced the politics of fear. He, personally and through running mate Sarah Palin, has launched a smear campaign against Obama that smacks of racism and includes distortions and red herrings. We once considered McCain, when he was an independent thinker focused on issues, as a very serious contender for American leadership; his selection of the unqualified Palin for a post a heartbeat away from the presidency rules that out.

Obama, on the other hand, decided to remain true to himself and the persona and policies that got him this far. While adversaries see the senator from Illinois as aloof, and even some friends fear that he is maddeningly passive, the crucible of the interminable campaign has shown Obama to posses the intelligence, judgment and temperament that clearly make him the better choice this year.

Obama was correct to be deeply suspicious of President Bush’s optional war in Iraq, even as he correctly cautions against leaving that country in a way that would be as foolhardy as we entered. He knows that war must be ended as soon as possible, not for reasons of surrender or foolhardy pacifism, but because the real threat to civilization still hides in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He knows that that threat cannot be successfully opposed by an America that continues to turn its back on old and potential allies, as well as on American principles of justice and respect.

Obama, unlike McCain, knows the damage that the Bushera tax cuts have done to the federal government’s fiscal stability even as they have shifted the burden of taxation off the shoulders of the rich and onto the backs of the working classes. His plan to end the giveaways to the wealthy, while protecting those with incomes of less than $250,000 a year, is the correct approach. McCain, in contrast, admitted early in the primaries that economics was not a strong point for him. It must be, for the next president.

Obama and McCain once shared a concern for the global environment and rejected quick-and-dirty fixes such as wholesale offshore drilling. While Obama has changed a bit on that as energy issues intensified during the campaign, McCain has gone completely into the grip of the oil giants and the shortsighted.

Obama, the former professor of constitutional law, also is more worthy of trust in matters of justice, including the operation of a Justice Department free of partisanship and a military that does not operate kangaroo courts anywhere in the world.

Perhaps most important of all, Obama is the more likely of the two to face the near future of the world’s financial problems with wisdom and even-handedness, never forgetting that government has a crucial role to play in setting the rules by which trillions of dollars in trades can be created, so as to guard against the very real possibility that they will just as quickly evaporate.

Obama’s experience in the inner workings of government is not as extensive as that of his opponent, or as much as many reasonable people would like. But his experience in life, starting with little and experiencing much, is just the kind of thing America needs to rebuild its faith in itself and its standing in the world. He has the potential to be a transformative president.

For all that he offers, Barack Obama deserves to be elected.

A sad and disturbing example of the wrong kind of ambition

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:26:01 EDT

Jake Tapper reports that John McCain has turned to another GOP operative the candidate previously scorned for practicing dirty campaign tactics against McCain during the South Carolina primary in 2000:

ABC News has learned that Warren Tompkins, one of the strategists of then-Gov. George W. Bush's South Carolina campaign in 2000 -- which Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blamed for his family being slimed -- is now a part of the McCain-Palin campaign team, albeit in an "unofficial" role.
Tompkins, a protégé of Lee Atwater, has been dispatched to North Carolina to assess the state for the McCain-Palin campaign, Southern GOP strategists tell ABC News.
The McCain campaign says only that Tompkins has "no official role" with the campaign. The Raleigh News and Observer spotted Tompkins in the state "surveying North Carolina for the McCain campaign to determine what can be done to shore up the state."

90% of the time, John McCain

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:37:26 EDT

Barack Obama approves of this ad:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185304443/bctid1859660952

Please view and pass on. It says it all.

Article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:42:29 EDT

I think this is a very fair and balanced article by Robert F. Kennedy with thoughts that need considering and questions to be answered.

"In 2004, America's malleable mainstream media allowed itself to be manipulated by artful Republican operatives into devoting weeks of broadcast attention and drums of ink to unfairly desecrating John Kerry's genuine Vietnam heroics while obligingly muzzling serious discussion of George W. Bush's shameful wartime record of evasion and cowardice.

Last week found the American media once again boarding Republican swift boats against this season's Democratic candidate armed with unfair and hypocritical attacks artfully designed by GOP strategists to distract attention from the cataclysmic outcomes of Republican governance. Vice Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin has taken to faulting Senator Barack Obama for his casual acquaintance with a respected Illinois educator Bill Ayers, who forty years ago was a member of the Weathermen, a movement active when Obama was eight and which he has denounced as "detestable." Palin argues that the relationship proves that Obama sees "America as being so imperfect that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

The Times dedicated a page one article to Obama's relations with Ayers and CNN's Anderson Cooper obliged Palin by rewarding her reckless accusations about Obama's patriotism with a major investigative report. Fox, meanwhile, is still riveting its audience with wall to wall coverage of this pressing irrelevancy.

But if McCarthy-era guilt-by-association is once again a valid political consideration, Palin, it would seem, has more to lose than Obama. Palin, it could be argued, following her own logic, thinks so little of America's perfection that she continues to "pal around" with a man--her husband, actually--who only recently terminated his seven-year membership in the Alaskan Independence Party. Putting plunder above patriotism, the members of this treasonous cabal aim to break our country into pieces and walk away with Alaska's rich federal oil fields and one-fifth of America's land base--an area three-fourths the size of the Civil War Confederacy.

AIP's charter commits the party "to the ultimate independence of Alaska," from the United States which it refers to as "the colonial bureaucracy in Washington." It proclaims Alaska's 1959 induction as a state "as illegal and in violation of the United Nations charter and international law."

AIP's creation was inspired by the rabidly violent anti-Americanism of its founding father Joe Vogler, "I'm an Alaskan, not an American," reads a favorite Vogler quote on AIP's current website, "I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." According to Vogler AIP's central purpose was to drive Alaska's secession from the United States. Alaska, says current Chairwoman Lynette Clark, "should be an independent nation."

Vogler was murdered in 1993 during an illegal sale of plastic explosives that went bad. The prior year, he had renounced his allegiance to the United States explaining that, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government." He cursed the stars and stripes, promising, "I won't be buried under their damned flag...when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Palin has never denounced Vogler or his detestable anti-Americanism.

Palin's husband Todd remained an AIP party member from 1995 to 2002. Sarah can be described in McCarthy-era palaver as a "fellow traveler." While retaining her Republican registration, she attended the AIP's 1994 convention where the party called for a draft constitution to secede from the United States and create an independent nation of Alaska. The McCain Campaign has reluctantly acknowledged that she also attended AIP's 2000 Convention. She apparently found the experience so inspiring that she agreed to give a keynote address at the AIP's 2006 convention and she recorded a video greeting for this year's 2008 convention. In other words, this is not something that happened when she was eight!

So when Palin accuses Barack of "not seeing the same America as you and me," maybe she is referring to an America without Alaska. In any case, isn't it time the media start giving equal time to Palin's buddy list of anti-American bombers and other radical associates?"

Ken Burns asks "What's Happened to John McCain"

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:51:08 EDT

This is a great article by Ken Burns. "What happened to John McCain? What happened to the man so many of us in New Hampshire have admired and respected for so long? The fierce bipartisan warrior, the straight talker, the maverick whose ideas nearly everyone found some common ground with now seems missing in action. He seems to have betrayed the very attributes that originally commended him to us and earned our earlier trust and support.

We continue to stand in awe of his heroic service to his country during Vietnam, but now he shamelessly uses those experiences at every opportunity, as if it excuses him from having to answer any really tough questions about the economy or foreign policy. The answer to everything is not to mention his admittedly harrowing POW days. My experience interviewing heroes of war is that most prefer to deflect attention from themselves and let their record speak for itself. McCain seems to think that it buys him a permanent pass. But it is impossible to know how to fight the new wars if you are hopelessly lost in the old ones.

Surrounded and programmed by the lobbyists he once despised, the man who once effortlessly straddled the aisle and spoke from the heart now carefully hews to a prompter-read, soulless far-right agenda.

This is a man who once denounced and purposefully avoided the politics of personal destruction, having felt firsthand its painful consequences in 2000 in South Carolina, but who now wants to win at any cost. By ridiculing his opponent's commitment to public service, he has undermined the very reason we were drawn to McCain in the first place. By trying to steal the mantle of change from the Democrats, he demonstrates only the riskiness of his shoot-from-the-hip style. That may have worked in the Senate and on the campaign trail, but it is hardly presidential. In fact, it is frightening in the extreme and bespeaks an instability difficult to reconcile considering our complicated world and its myriad problems.

More to the point, he continues almost daily to demonstrate that instability and other judgmental and temperamental concerns, issues and complaints that originally brought a slew of challengers into the Republican primary contests. And in the most important decision of his candidacy, he cynically and irresponsibly chose the supremely unqualified Sarah Palin, cheapening the race as if it were some high school popularity contest or the latest "American Idol" competition.

Even the most ardent true-believers among us must be privately shaking in their boots contemplating a heart-beat-away Palin presidency during these difficult times. When Putin acts up, who do you want whispering in your President's ear: Joe Biden or Sarah Palin?

McCain is a man who once championed openness and fairness in government, who now wants to continue the failed policies of the current administration and who increasingly wants to make the crucial decisions of our democracy behind closed doors with the same cronies who got us into this mess in the first place. And he has shown a profound indifference to and often startling ignorance of economic affairs just as our country inches toward depression.

That threatens to make him the next Herbert Hoover if he should win. And his old strong suit, foreign policy, is slipping away too, as gaffe after gaffe displays his fundamental shortcomings. I want my President to know the difference between a Sunni and Shia. John McCain does not.

We in New Hampshire bear some responsibility, I suppose. Thinking we had the old McCain, we gave him a decisive victory in our primary that permitted him to vanquish those challengers. But he betrayed us. If you have to say you're a maverick in your ads, it's clear you're not. The real maverick turns out to be Barack Obama, who bucked his party's establishment and whose once-lonely positions have been adopted by nearly everyone including even the Bush administration. Nearly everyone, that is, except John McCain. So what happened to him?

That's what Granite State citizens have been asking the last few months. The answer is enough to turn us blue."

Bottoms Up Economics

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 12:47:03 EDT

Robert Reich, UC Berkeley Professor of Public Policy, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and author has written the following in the SanFrancisco Gate. He feels that the Mother of All Bailouts may be necessary to unfreeze our capital markets, but it won't unfreeze the American economy. His facts and honesty regarding the earnings of most Americans and his insights into investing in the productivity of the working people are worth listening to.

Mr. Reich continues: "Bailout or no bailout, we're heading into deep recession. One of the first initiatives that Congress and the next administration will need to take will be an economic stimulus package. But not even this will remedy the underlying problem: The earnings of most Americans haven't kept up with the cost of living. That means there's not enough purchasing power to keep the economy going.

Adjusted for inflation, the incomes of nongovernment workers are lower today than in 2000. They're barely higher than they were in the mid-1970s. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago.

Per-person productivity has grown considerably over the past three decades and has continued to rise even in the lackluster recovery of this decade. But most Americans haven't reaped the benefits of these productivity gains. The benefits have gone largely to the top.

The top 1 percent of American earners now take home about 20 percent of total national income. In 1980, the top 1 percent took home just 8 percent. Inequality on this scale is bad for many reasons, but it is also bad for the economy.

The wealthy devote a smaller percentage of their earnings to buying things than the rest of us because, after all, they're rich and already have most of what they want. Instead of buying, the very wealthy are more likely to invest their earnings wherever around the world they can get the highest return.

The last time the top 1 percent took home 20 percent of total income was 1928. After that, the economy caved in.

The underlying earnings problem has been masked for years as middle- and lower-income Americans found means to live beyond their paychecks. The first coping mechanism was to send more women into paid work. The percentage of American working mothers with school-age children has almost doubled since 1970, to more than 70 percent. But there's a limit to how many mothers can maintain paying jobs.

So Americans turned to a second coping mechanism - working more hours. Americans have became veritable workaholics, putting in 350 more hours a year than the average European, more even than the notoriously industrious Japanese.

But there's also a limit to how many hours Americans can work. So we turned to a third way of coping. We began to borrow. With housing prices rising briskly through the 1990s and even faster this decade, we turned our homes into piggy banks.

But now, with the bursting of the housing bubble, we're reaching the end of our ability to borrow, just as lenders have reached the end of their capacity to lend.

That means there's not enough purchasing power in the economy to buy all the goods and services it's producing. We're finally reaping the whirlwind of widening inequality and ever more concentrated wealth. The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the real earnings of middle- and lower-middle-class Americans.

The answer isn't to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up the prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway. Nor is it to give tax breaks to the very wealthy and to giant corporations in the hope they will trickle down to everyone else. We've tried that and it hasn't worked. Nothing trickled down.

The long-term answer is for America to invest in the productivity of our working people - enabling families to afford health insurance and have access to good schools and higher education, while also rebuilding our infrastructure and investing in the clean-energy technologies of the future. We must also adopt progressive taxes at the federal, state and local levels.

Call it bottom-up economics. It would be a sad irony if the Wall Street bailout robs us of the resources we need to invest in average Americans and rebuild America from the bottom up."

Still more to do in Oregon

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:38:55 EDT

By no means, is our work over in Oregon. It feels sometimes that resistance is coming in the strangest of ways. Yet, I noted this web posting today by Anna Song of KATU news which is encouraging.

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Oregon. – "Two counties in the Portland metro area have seen a dramatic shift in party affiliation among registered voters this year, with Democrats now outnumbering Republicans. In 2004, there were nearly 4,800 more Republicans in Washington County and about 3,600 more in Clackamas County.

This year, Democrats have the edge in Washington County by more than 22,000 voters while there are now 10,000 more Democrats than Republicans in Clackamas County, according to statistics tallied at the end of August.

Washington County Republican Party Chair Kevin Hoar said the change has a lot to do with young people moving into the area. He said a fourth of all Washington County residents did not live there six years ago. But the figures don't discourage Republicans. They point out that President Bush lost in Oregon by just 8,000 votes in 2000 and by just 4 percent in 2004.

Meanwhile, the state's Democratic Party is thrilled to have bigger numbers.

The deadline to register to vote in Oregon is Oct. 14. In Washington State, you can register in person at your county elections department until 15 days before the election."

May I add that McCain ads far outweigh in number those that appear for Barack. Gordon Smith has been putting out ads for months and months aligning himself to Barack and most recently to Ted Kennedy. So if Democrats are increasing throughout Oregon, it isn't because we are seeing or being influenced by Democratic Party TV ads.

The American Promise

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:22:17 EDT

This is a great video for those who already know and for the trolls who are confused. Please share the message of this moment in history.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCx0J3NiABY

Who are the winners and the losers?

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:28:52 EDT

Alan Fishman, Washington Mutual's CEO for less than three weeks, signed on with a $7.5 million bonus added to his salary and a lump sum payment for severance that comes to $6.15 million. He did really well, wouldn't you say? There are a lot of losers in what has happened to WaMu.

"I have the Confederacy before me, and the bankers behind me, and for my country I fear the bankers most." Abraham Lincoln

Barack is amazing

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:45:36 EDT

Just a week and a half ago, John McCain said, "The economy is strong." Now he wants to "suspend his campaign to rush back to Washington so that he can fix up the crisis."

Barack, there are better times coming your way. This silly stuff, these twisted plots to undermine you every day have to be very trying. Let me tell you that I admire how carefully you think and act and stay above so much nonsense. Your focus is inspiring.

A Western Oil Company opened in Iraq yesterday

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:08:40 EDT

Today on the Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC) she gave some interesting details regarding Iraq and Iraq President Nouri Al-Maliki's comments in an interview about the war in Iraq. He talks openly about the Bush Administration in this very interesting video.

We're apparently near financial collapse and yet Iraq opens a western oil company for the first time since 1972. Does any of that make sense?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26861141#26861141

Don't forget Oregon

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:59:38 EDT

I hope that we begin to see some of our Democratic legislators and 'celebrities' out and about Oregon SOON. Our two former Governors would bring great presence to this campaign. We are waiting for Governor Kulongoski to speak up and show his support of Barack Obama. Oregonians need to see our Senators and Representatives more.

We need some Obama ads to counter the Republican ads that are now being aired primetime. And we need callers. Don't forget or take for granted the Pacific Northwest.

No Deal, Paul Krugman, NYTimes

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:12:14 EDT

I'm sure everyone remembers how urgent Shock and Awe was to the Bush Administration, and how if we didn't get the Patriot Act signed quickly we would never be safe again. Well, here we go again. There is a crisis, to be sure, but I feel so uncomfortable about rushing into the Treasury's Plan without oversight and benefits to all of us at the bottom.

Here is an article in today's New York Times from Paul Krugman:

"I hate to say this, but looking at the plan as leaked, I have to say no deal. Not unless Treasury explains, very clearly, why this is supposed to work, other than through having taxpayers pay premium prices for lousy assets.

As I posted earlier today, it seems all too likely that a “fair price” for mortgage-related assets will still leave much of the financial sector in trouble. And there’s nothing at all in the draft that says what happens next; although I do notice that there’s nothing in the plan requiring Treasury to pay a fair market price. So is the plan to pay premium prices to the most troubled institutions? Or is the hope that restoring liquidity will magically make the problem go away?

Here’s the thing: historically, financial system rescues have involved seizing the troubled institutions and guaranteeing their debts; only after that did the government try to repackage and sell their assets. The feds took over S&Ls first, protecting their depositors, then transferred their bad assets to the RTC. The Swedes took over troubled banks, again protecting their depositors, before transferring their assets to their equivalent institutions.

The Treasury plan, by contrast, looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world.

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving.

I hope I’m wrong about this. But let me say it again: Treasury needs to explain why this is supposed to work — not try to panic Congress into giving it a blank check. Otherwise, no deal."

Some good talking points

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:06:18 EDT

As we set out today in whatever way we are going to try to reach voters, here are some good talking points that appear on JedReport:

Sat Sep 20, 1:24 AM PacificMcCain Praised Banking Deregulation Earlier This Month

In a magazine article published earlier this month, John McCain not only claimed credit for the banking deregulation, but he hailed it as a model for what should be done with health care (emphasis added):

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.
(h/t: Paul Krugman)

Of course now that things have imploded at Lehman and AIG, John McCain claims to be the world's most sincere champion of tougher regulation. But his new position has all the credibility of his campaign's attacks, which is to say none at all.

Meanwhile, in stark contrast to McCain, one year ago Barack Obama proposed new regulations that would have prevented the mortgage crisis that led to the situation we find ourselves in today.

Billions for Bailout

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 08:10:49 EDT

Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont, has written on Huffington Post. His information and insights are amazing. Let's hope that Congress thinks before they act! Here is what one legislative critical thinker sees.

"The current financial crisis facing our country has been caused by the extreme right-wing economic policies pursued by the Bush administration. These policies, which include huge tax breaks for the rich, unfettered free trade and the wholesale deregulation of commerce, have resulted in a massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the very wealthy.

The middle class has really been under assault. Since President Bush has been in office, nearly 6 million Americans have slipped into poverty, median family income for working Americans has declined by more than $2,000, more than 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance, over 4 million have lost their pensions, foreclosures are at an all time high, total consumer debt has more than doubled, and we have a national debt of over $9.7 trillion dollars.

While the middle class collapses, the richest people in this country have made out like bandits and have not had it so good since the 1920s. The top 0.1 percent now earn more money than the bottom 50 percent of Americans, and the top 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. The wealthiest 400 people in our country saw their wealth increase by $670 billion while Bush has been president. In the midst of all of this, Bush lowered taxes on the very rich so that they are paying lower income tax rates than teachers, police officers or nurses.

Now, having mismanaged the economy for eight years as well as having lied about our situation by continually insisting, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," the Bush administration, six weeks before an election, wants the middle class of this country to spend many hundreds of billions on a bailout. The wealthiest people, who have benefited from Bush's policies and are in the best position to pay, are being asked for no sacrifice at all. This is absurd. This is the most extreme example that I can recall of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.

In my view, we need to go forward in addressing this financial crisis by insisting on four basic principles:

(1) The people who can best afford to pay and the people who have benefited most from Bush's economic policies are the people who should provide the funds for the bailout. It would be immoral to ask the middle class, the people whose standard of living has declined under Bush, to pay for this bailout while the rich, once again, avoid their responsibilities. Further, if the government is going to save companies from bankruptcy, the taxpayers of this country should be rewarded for assuming the risk by sharing in the gains that result from this government bailout.

Specifically, to pay for the bailout, which is estimated to cost up to $1 trillion, the government should:

a) Impose a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for single taxpayers. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue;

b) Ensure that assets purchased from banks are realistically discounted so companies are not rewarded for their risky behavior and taxpayers can recover the amount they paid for them; and

c) Require that taxpayers receive equity stakes in the bailed-out companies so that the assumption of risk is rewarded when companies' stock goes up.

(2) There must be a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages. Among many other areas, we can create millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and moving our country from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Further, we must protect working families from the difficult times they are experiencing. We must ensure that every child has health insurance and that every American has access to quality health and dental care, that families can send their children to college, that seniors are not allowed to go without heat in the winter, and that no American goes to bed hungry.

(3) Legislation must be passed which undoes the damage caused by excessive de-regulation. That means reinstalling the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down in 1999. That means re-regulating the energy markets so that we never again see the rampant speculation in oil that helped drive up prices. That means regulating or abolishing various financial instruments that have created the enormous shadow banking system that is at the heart of the collapse of AIG and the financial services meltdown.

(4) We must end the danger posed by companies that are "too big too fail," that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need to determine which companies fall in this category and then break them up. Right now, for example, the Bank of America, the nation's largest depository institution, has absorbed Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender, and Merrill Lynch, the nation's largest brokerage house. We should not be trying to solve the current financial crisis by creating even larger, more powerful institutions. Their failure could cause even more harm to the entire economy."

An Open Letter to all Republicans

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:17:24 EDT

from Frank Schaeffer, a former Religious Right Activist who is quoted in this article as saying, "I don't think Bush ever wanted the government to work.'

Dear Republicans: This election all Republicans who love America must vote for Obama. A vote for business-as-usual and a continuation of the Neoconservative/Religious Right/ party of corporate American alienation is a vote against America. As a former Republican activist, I appeal to your patriotism and honor.

Unless you haven't been paying attention to the recent history of the Republican Party you will know that today Republican ideology and energy is derived from three sources:

* The Religious Right,

* The Neoconservative Movement,

* Corporate business interests.

You also should know that when it comes to the Religious Right my late father and evangelist, Francis Schaeffer, was the intellectual voice that made it happen. As his young sidekick (in the 70s and 80s) I helped take his message to a huge evangelical audience.

I mention this by way of saying that even if you hate my guts -- for having dropped out of the Republican Party, for writing novels that make fun of you, and for reregistering as an independent voter, let alone for supporting Senator Obama -- perhaps you should listen up. I happen to know what I'm talking about.

So let's look at the three power centers that drive the Republican Party today.

The Religious Right
The Religious Right came about for one reason and one reason only: it was a reaction to Roe v. Wade and the legalization of abortion in 1973. The Supreme Court essentially created the culture wars. (A state-by-state approach to legalizing abortion would have been better and resulted in much the same situation we have today in terms of the availability of abortion.) Take Roe out of the political mix and there would be no Religious Right.

That said -- certain power-hungry individuals (Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, Rove, Reed et al.) took the energy of our original pro-life movement and used it to build a hate campaign reminiscent of the early momentum that drove European Fascist parties in the mid-1920s through the mid-1940s. Fear of the "other" gays, immigrants, intellectuals, artists, the media, feminists, etc., morphed into a general critique of "the elite" which turned out to be anyone with an education or even big city dwellers. The Religious Right became a crude populist movement pitting the resentful rubes against the rest.

Take a hard look at yourselves. Play back this year's Republican convention and you'll see an all-white crowd of people screaming for offshore oil drilling -- fat lot of good that will do! more carbon! more polution! -- and essentially reacting like starved hyenas when presented with a piece of juicy carrion. At the convention Sarah Palin and others produced nothing more than a snide list of smart ass put downs aimed at the really dumb, with so little substance that former conservatives such the late William F. Buckley, for instance (let alone my late father) would simply have been ashamed to be in your company. You have become a hate-filled rabble proud of your ignorance and resentful of the rest of your own country, resentment that's exceeded only by your maudlin (and false) sense of victimhood.

People that hate half the population of their own country can scarcely be called patriots. On the contrary, people who exult in mocking as their only way to "contribute" to solving our huge environmental, energy, military and economic problems are true subversives.

The smell emanating from your convention was that of a beer hall putsch circa 1930s, not anything remotely like participation in a democracy. Now you all know what it felt like to be in a lynch mob minus the hanging. You should be ashamed. But shame is something that apparently Republicans are no longer capable of feeling, at least when you get together in a mob.

If you could feel shame there would have been a series of contrite public apologies at your convention for the incredible fiasco of non-governing that has typified the Bush administration. My pension, other people's pensions, our homes, jobs and economy are in chaos because of you. Young Americans are dying in Iraq because of you. The world is a more dangerous place because of you. America is hated because of you. Yes, that is you personally. I blame all of you.

You are the people who gave us eight years of Bush. My Marine son fought in his wars. Cowards, where were most of your sons and daughters? The President's daughters were getting arrested for under age drinking and harassing their Secret Service detail. The rest of you were shopping.

Far from saying you're sorry for the state our country is in you're trying to change the subject by reviving a culture war that has nothing to do with the principled fight against abortion of the 1970s that my dad and I began, and everything to do with simply hating people not like yourselves. The ultimate irony is that you're doing this in the name of Jesus Christ, someone, by the way, whom I try to follow as a Christian. You have become blasphemers by dragging our Lord into your political games.

The Republican Party and the Religious Right have become "Christian" warmongers who applaud the use of torture, start needless wars, fight against civil rights for gays and other disadvantaged Americans, and perhaps worst of all, in terms of the long-term impact, have literally turned your hands against God's creation.

You have a little fool for a vice presidential candidate who says she doesn't believe that human beings have anything to do with the phenomena of global warming and the endangering of all human life on this planet. Dream on. This fool claims to know what she knows because of an absolute "I don't blink" confidence in herself. So on top of everything else this fool who says she is a Christian, proves she is not. She lacks any shred of decent humility, the most basic biblical virtue.

The Neoconservative Movement
Let's be honest: the Neoconservative Movement is nothing more than an kill-all-the-Arabs, pro-Israel-at-any-cost, morally bankrupt lobby that actually turns out to be anti-Israel. Why? Because taken to the logical conclusion the neoconservative's position on everything--from illegal West Bank settlements, to making war on Iran, not to mention the absolutely useless waste of life that's taken place in Iraq, warlike preparations against Syria and just about every other Middle Eastern country, no, scratch that, every other country in the world--puts Israel in worse jeopardy than ever before.

Fortunately for everyone, it seems that most Israelis "get" this, as well as most Jewish Americans (who vote Democratic) even if a few Neoconservative Jews, most Evangelicals and all the other Republican zealots don't. (Most Jews also know that the idiot fringe so-called Christian Zionists like Rev., Hagee, are no friends to Israel, rather they are perpetuating a doomsday nineteenth century Armageddon/ "Rapture" cult that wants to use the Jews as cosmic "End Times" cannon fodder.)

Get it through your thick heads: a state of permanent war between the West, including Israel and the United States, and the Muslim world is a war that Israel will eventually lose. Do the demographic math!

Republicans: You have been tricked and misled by; Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney, Jr. Dick Cheney. These neofools have unwittingly set in motion the destruction of Israel (probably in our lifetimes) and have maybe killed America too. Bastards! Republicans: It will be remembered that you embraced these world-hating self-deluded paranoid blabberers and made their twisted sound-bite polemics your own.

Those who, like me, actually believe that Israel has the right to exist should look on the Neoconservatives listed above with the same loathing that we look back on the idiots who goaded Europe into World War I, also in the name of "nationalism," "democracy" and "freedom."

Belligerent posturing is not a policy, it is idiocy. You Republicans have become the party of perpetual fear and aggressive non-provoked war, seeing enemies where there are none and/or provoking former friends to become our enemies, and/or faking reasons for war and/or wasting our soldier's blood in places such as Afghanistan, where our cause was just but you fumbled the ball.

Your moron vice presidential candidate is still at it! While turning her son's deployment to war into a flag-dishonoring political circus stunt she repeated the Bush lie and said that her son was going off to fight the perpetrators of 9/11. This is a barefaced lie and you all know it. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. The only reason we attacked them is because the fools listed above decided it would be good for Israel and our stupid "president" went along.

Now you belligerent asses are supporting the same idiot (McCain) that helped bring us Iraq. He is now champing at the bit to revive the cold, and maybe a hot war with Russia! Have you gone mad? Can't you see you have an old foolish semi-senile man mired in the bathos of post-Vietnam "we were denied victory" psychosis for a candidate? Don't you know that Bush has made us weak?

You Republicans did to our military what the USSR could not do: demoralize it, stretch it beyond breaking and set it back decades. And now you want MORE wars?!

Corporate Business Interests
The Republican Party claims traditional values. It has propagated a laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests and has -- literally -- stood back and encouraged the rape of the earth. You are the party of the earth-hogging SUV. You have literally sowed the wind and reaped the hurricanes.

This is as self-defeating as it is embarrassing for those claiming the moral high ground, particularly those who say that their philosophy represents traditional Judeo-Christian values. We all live here for crying out loud! Will you now fight our God and Creator too for the "right" to burn the last drop of oil while on a weekend jaunt to nowhere in your all-terrain piece of garbage?

Conclusion
The Republican problem is a systemic disparagement of government, community, faith in our institutions, family, God's creation and the mitigating institutions that put a check on something any party aligned with a religious movement should know all about: sin. Greed is not the only problem. Human weakness and stupidity (i.e., "sin") is the problem! And the genius of the American system is supposedly that we have a system of checks and balances to mitigate our fallen state. You have destroyed those checks and balances.

Bush felt no guilt about promoting completely unqualified people to high posts merely on the basis of social, ideological or political connections. I'll take that a step further: I don't think Bush ever wanted the government to work. You Republicans hate our government as bitterly as our terrorist enemies do. You have been trying to deconstruct it. Since the government is seen as the enemy of freedom by you, if it doesn't work so much the better!

We have met the enemy and he is us! When Islamists tried to destroy our country by flying planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers, we rightly called them terrorists. When the Republicans in the Congress and the White House set about destroying our country, our standing in the world, our military and our economy, but much more effectively, you called them statesmen. It is time for all Americans -- including all you who are patriotic Republicans -- to sweep away these putrid earth-consuming, family killing, government bashing "me" worshipping individualistic fools--that or to watch our country be swept away by them. We can't afford eight more years of this willful ignorance. Obama in 2008!

How would you rate your confidence level?

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:55:22 EDT

We privatize profit and socialize losses. Yes, we privatize profit whether gains are acquired legally or illegally. And we socialize losses (as it seems may happen now) to bail out the huge mistakes for the decisions, actions and processes that so many citizens have had no part of.

And Bush just told us to be confident!

A Palin-McCain Administration

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:17:38 EDT

I can't begin to tell you how many people have been asking me if Sarah Palin is the one running for the Presidency on the Republican ticket.

Well, if you can stomach seeing her, this video let's us know what it is Mrs. Palin intends to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKQDyL5gzc

Endorsements

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:45:32 EDT

Does anyone think that Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel, Michael Bloomburg and some others will ever endorse Barack Obama?

I can't imagine what it is that is keeping these citizens from doing so.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:43:00 EDT

On Sept. 15th, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. posted this on Huffington Post:

Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."

It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.

Palin Doctrine

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:26:27 EDT

An article on Huffington Post by Arianna Huffington:

Sarah Palin may not have known what the Bush Doctrine was, but we're getting a pretty good idea of what the Palin Doctrine is. Or will be -- because it's still currently under construction. And what is it going to look like? Let's just say, it's going to seem familiar.

According to London's Daily Telegraph, the architects of the Palin Doctrine are a group of people who have been singularly wrong about virtually everything in the last decade -- the neocons, who have been briefing Palin for weeks.

As predicted, the fact that she didn't know anything wasn't a bug, it was a feature. She's perfect for the neocons: likeable on the outside, a blank slate on the inside. To borrow from an old cliché, if Sarah Palin didn't exist, the neocons would have had to invent her.

In fact, this is how one former White House aide describes her: "She's bright and she's a blank page. She's going places and it's worth going there with her."

Of course, the place her neocon mentors hope she's going is the White House. Given their dismal track record, they're smart enough to figure that the American public wouldn't be too keen on letting them in the front door again, so they are trying to sneak in hidden behind Palin's skirt. The Trojan Moose approaches.

The Daily Telegraph details how the neocon talent scouts spotted their political Eliza Doolittle back in the summer of '07. The love connection began, appropriately enough, on a love boat:

"Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs. Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin."

So nice to meet you, Governor. And don't forget, cucumber sandwiches and preemptive invasions on the Lido Deck at four!

Not surprisingly, Palin's biggest fan is Bill Kristol, who describes her as the "specter of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism" that "is haunting the liberal elites."

Among her other Henry Higginses is neo-neocon Joe Lieberman, who is reportedly helping prep Palin for the big ball -- her debate with Joe Biden.

She's already passed her first test with flying colors: being willing to link 9/11 with Iraq, something not even the president is still willing to do. Last week, she told a group of Iraq-bound soldiers that they were going to "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

By George (Bush), I think she's got it! Congratulations, Professor Kristol, your student is coming along just fine.

Of course, the neocons know they already have an ally at the top of the GOP ticket. McCain may have been a reformer on campaign finance, but when it comes to foreign policy, he has always been solidly in the neocon club. He loves to burnish his foreign policy bona fides by talking about how he wanted to fire Donald Rumsfeld months before Bush did. But he doesn't talk a lot about how, in the days immediately after 9/11, he was part of the neocon crowd itching to get into Iraq.

Just a few days after the attack, McCain was already talking about "some other countries" that helped Bin Laden. Countries like Syria, Iran, and...Iraq. And a few weeks later, during an October 18, 2001 appearance on David Letterman, McCain answered a question about how the war in Afghanistan was going by announcing that the invasion of Iraq would be "the second phase" of the war on terror (how prescient of him to know that Saddam wouldn't give up those nonexistent WMD). What's more, he tried to buttress the case for attacking Iraq by claiming that the recent spate of anthrax attacks "may have come from Iraq." Or Fort Detrick.

Six years later, demonstrating how little he's learned from the debacle in Iraq, McCain hired Randy Scheunemann, a neocon darling who helped form The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002, as his campaign's chief foreign policy advisor.

As TPMMuckraker noted in July, "Of all the hawkish Washington foreign-policy types pushing both before and after 9/11 for war with Iraq -- a war that an overwhelming majority of Americans now considers a mistake -- Scheunemann, though not a marquee name, was among the most energetic and influential. And in the invasion's aftermath, he consistently opposed steps that might have helped stabilize the country."

And now, according to the Daily Telegraph, Scheunemann is briefing Sarah Palin.

McCain's selection of Palin may have been reckless, but it was anything but random. The neocons' view of the world may be disastrous, dangerous, discredited, and deadly -- but it's far from dead. Their patron saint, Dick Cheney, the scowling embodiment of the Neocon Doctrine, had way too much baggage -- and way too low approval ratings -- to mount a run for the White House.

That's why the Palin pick was so brilliant. On the outside, she's exponentially more likable and talented at connecting with people than Cheney ever was. But on the inside, once she graduates from the neocon finishing school, she'll be a complete and total Dick. Cheney. With lipstick.

Barack Obama's Statement re: our economic problems

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:14:43 EDT

An official statement is released:

This morning we woke up to some very serious and troubling news from Wall Street.
The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that are generating enormous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.
The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store. Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.
I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It’s a philosophy we’ve had for the last eight years – one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. It’s a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise, and one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises.
Well now, instead of prosperity trickling down, the pain has trickled up – from the struggles of hardworking Americans on Main Street to the largest firms of Wall Street.
This country can’t afford another four years of this failed philosophy. For years, I have consistently called for modernizing the rules of the road to suit a 21st century market – rules that would protect American investors and consumers. And I’ve called for policies that grow our economy and our middle-class together. That is the change I am calling for in this campaign, and that is the change I will bring as President.

Joe Biden Speaks to HQ staff and volunteers

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:14:19 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voFcuP6Mq9Y

Please take a look. This is so true. HQ staff and volunteers are the best ever and Joe Biden will be a wonderful Vice President. What a lift to hear this well-deserved praise and spirit.

Strengthening the Middle Class

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:18:04 EDT

"I've often said that in the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. But I believe that Barack Obama has the right understanding of the fundamental challenges we face and the right vision for where we need to go as a nation.

When my secretary pays taxes at a higher rate than I do, it's clear we need to restore that sense of fairness to our economy that allows all Americans a chance at the American Dream.

Barack Obama will do that. His plan to strengthen the middle class will help all Americans move forward, which makes us all stronger -- businesses and families alike."

Warren Buffett, CEO and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

How a politician campaigns tells you how he or she will govern

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:34:16 EDT

September 12, 2008Op-Ed Columnist, New York TimesBlizzard of Lies By PAUL KRUGMAN

Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere?

These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign — and they’re all out-and-out lies.

Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. I spent much of 2000 — my first year at The Times — trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign’s claims about taxes, spending and Social Security.

But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.

Take the case of the Bridge to Nowhere, which supposedly gives Ms. Palin credentials as a reformer. Well, when campaigning for governor, Ms. Palin didn’t say “no thanks” — she was all for the bridge, even though it had already become a national scandal, insisting that she would “not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.”

Oh, and when she finally did decide to cancel the project, she didn’t righteously reject a handout from Washington: she accepted the handout, but spent it on something else. You see, long before she decided to cancel the bridge, Congress had told Alaska that it could keep the federal money originally earmarked for that project and use it elsewhere.

So the whole story of Ms. Palin’s alleged heroic stand against wasteful spending is fiction.

Or take the story of Mr. Obama’s alleged advocacy of kindergarten sex-ed. In reality, he supported legislation calling for “age and developmentally appropriate education”; in the case of young children, that would have meant guidance to help them avoid sexual predators.

And then there’s the claim that Mr. Obama’s use of the ordinary metaphor “putting lipstick on a pig” was a sexist smear, and on and on.

Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.

They’re probably also counting on the prevalence of horse-race reporting, so that instead of the story being “McCain campaign lies,” it becomes “Obama on defensive in face of attacks.”

Still, how upset should we be about the McCain campaign’s lies? I mean, politics ain’t beanbag, and all that.

One answer is that the muck being hurled by the McCain campaign is preventing a debate on real issues — on whether the country really wants, for example, to continue the economic policies of the last eight years.

But there’s another answer, which may be even more important: 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 Republican 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.

Rickroll'd

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:36:32 EDT

Our daughter sent this to us today. Notice the explanation she sent below of what Rickroll'd is. She was right, we had no clue what it was but we surely enjoyed McCain getting Barackroll'd. Hope you do too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TiQCJXpbKgFor all those who have no idea what that means, awhile ago a trend started to see how many people could have Rick Astley's 80's song played all over. I think it was called Rickroll'd.

Barack's New Book

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:32:54 EDT

Change We Can Believe In, Barack's Plan to renew America's Promise, was in our mail today. It is wonderful and will be such a good tool to share with others when they have questions about the future. The layout makes it possible to now have at my fingertips some of Barack's answers to many major concerns that my friends and neighbors are questioning us about.

September 11, 2001

John P. (Oregon) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:16:32 EDT

Hilda was a senior citizen who worked as a substitute teacher for my wife's cousin in her kindergarten class in New Jersey. For all who knew her she was a light in the worlds of the children she spent her days with. She was about to begin a new life, fully retired, in California with her two daughters and their families, living 6 months with one of them and 6 months with the other. She was on Flight 93. Her loss has been felt coast to coast.

My older son Dan was in New York City with colleagues for meetings and due to fly back to California the morning of September 11, 2001 on Flight 93 from Newark Airport. He and his buddies were exhausted by the lateness of their last meeting and changed their flight time to the afternoon on that day. No flights were then available and they drove back to the West Coast.

With so little time, so much needs to be checked out!

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:59:39 EDT

This appears on Daily Kos this evening. By Kagro X

McCain/Palin: Putting Japan First by Kagro X Wed Sep 10, 2008 at 11:00:57 AM PDT "Drill, baby, drill!" "Sell out to the Japanese, baby, sell out to the Japanese!"

The Republicans have just spent a month going completely frothy over the need to drill for oil and natural gas in every backyard in America, claiming it'll lower gasoline prices at the pump. But did you know that in the meantime, they've been preparing to secret all that natural gas out of the country and sell it to the Japanese?

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) did: He wrote this letter on September 2, 2008 to The Honorable Samuel W. Bodman U.S. Department of Energy 1000 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20585

Dear Secretary Bodman,

On June 3, 2008 and July 30, 2008 respectively, your Department issued and affirmed an order pursuant to Section 3 of the Natural Gas Act that will allow two major integrated oil companies – ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil – to export 98.1 billion cubic feet of Alaskan natural gas to Japan and other Pacific Rim countries. This order, which will allow the export of as much natural gas as is used by 1.4 million American families in a year, comes at a time when the President had demanded that the moratoria on oil and gas drilling along our environmentally-sensitive coastal areas be lifted and Americans are being warned that their winter heating bills are going to be dramatically higher. The Administration is trying to have it both ways – arguing that we need to drill everywhere because we don’t have adequate energy supplies, while finding that we have so much energy that big oil companies can export it overseas and keep prices here at home higher than they would otherwise be.

Well, well, well. Energy prices going through the roof in the U.S., supposedly because we're not drilling enough, and the Republicans are selling what we are drilling out the back door! Wish I could say this was a surprise. And sakes alive! Who'd have guessed it'd be Slick Sarah Palin and the Alaskans selling it off? We're all paying through the nose for our energy needs down here, Republicans are wetting themselves over the supposed need for more drilling, and Slick Sarah and her cronies are hawking their America's wares to overseas bidders. Which, not coincidentally, has the effect of hiking the prices Reg'lar Hockey Moms pay to, say, heat the seats in their new boondoggle hockey rinks, and, it seems, boosting the dividend checks paid directly to... Alaskan families like Sarah Palin's, who received $3200 per head this year. Wow! I haven't seen a scam this blatant since yesterday, when we found out Slick Sarah was charging Alaska taxpayers $60 a day to sleep in and munch those mooseburgers in her own kitchen. So they're pumping up prices by selling off the gas they told you was ours to the Japanese, and then paying themselves bonuses when they do!

5 Stars to Barack's Education Plan

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:11:24 EDT

I'm so glad that the Education Plan Barack presented yesterday is on his website. I went through it and thought it sensible, creative and full of inovation. When I emailed the various news outlets and TV stations this morning, I asked if they had missed his presentation on education since all they can talk about is some pig with lipstick. Hopefully they'll begin to bring the finer message that we all seem to yearn for.

When is enough, enough from the McCain campaign

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:26:46 EDT

A wounded veteran responds to Meghan McCain's Quote.[Updated] by Broken Skull Tue Sep 09, 2008 at 04:02:28 PM PDT on Daily Kos

I respect everyone's military service, and I think that most of us feel the same way. We respect our brothers and sisters in arms, whether or not we agree with them. We all respect the service of the families left behind when a service member deploys. Although this is a different type of service, it is service none the less and should be respected. Even though I disagree with Sen. McCain's policies, I respect his service. He stood up and took the oath and went to combat, he spent 5 and a half miserable years as a prisoner of war. It is important as vets and supporter of vets to respect each other's service.

Thats not the message we are getting today from the McCain family.

This morning Meghan McCain sat down for an interview as a McCain surrogate on the today show. While making her way through an answer about her father she stated: "No one knows what war is like other than my family. Period."

There are 4155 families that lost a loved one in Iraq, 584 that have lost a loved one in Afghanistan. There are tens of thousands of injured soldiers like myself, who not only deal with their injuries but have families that deal with the injuries too. Does Meghan McCain think that those 4,739 families that are grieving the loss of their loved ones don't know about war. Does she think that the tens of thousands of us wounded soldiers don't know about war. Yes, she does.

This is not a simple mistake or a gaffe, this is a freudian slip and it gives us an insight into how Sen. McCain feels about the service of those of are not him. Sen. McCain has shown us by his voting record that we don't matter.

Sen. McCain was publicly against the bi-patisan Webb/Hagel GI Bill. He tried to introduce his own watered down version because the Webb/Hagel bill was "too generous". If you did 3 tours in Iraq and want to get out and go to school...Sen. McCain thinks you don't matter.

Sen. McCain voted against the bipartisan Webb/Hagel Dwell time amendment. This amendment would have required troops to be home for the same amount of time as they are deployed. If you are going on your third tour to Iraq just 90 days after you returned from your last one...Sen. McCain thinks you don't matter. Even if that means that your propensity for PTSD is now much higher.

Sen. McCain has voted against increasing veterans and military health care 29 times. These bills would have fully staffed the va and dod hospitals, money that could have been used to clean up Walter Reed before it became a national disgrace. If you have to wait in line for an increasing amount of time because they are an increasing amount of veterans and not enough staff...Sen. McCain doesn't care.

These are just 3 examples of the myriad of times that Sen. McCain has used his vote to say "your service doesn't matter". Now we have Sen. McCain's daughter acting as an agent for the campaign saying your service doesn't matter.

Endorsement

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:01:59 EDT

Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, who supported Bush in 2004 has endorsed Barack Obama saying, "The country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama." Thanks Mayor Koch. Wouldn't it be great if we can begin to get some more endorsements at this crucial time?

Chilling

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:53:28 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w

Please pass this on. This should be airing on mainstream TV 24/7 instead of the McCain/Palin lies that have taken over every news broadcast. I worry that we will not reach voters whose only means of finding things out is from a TV set. You may not think many live like that but being a senior citizen I know that they do.

Sarah says Barack is "dynamic"

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:00:41 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO6dmBm1SFw

Take a look, sounds like she might have even voted for him.

Already being shipped

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:35:48 EDT

Just got word that Barack Obama's new book is already being shipped from Powell's in Portland. Can hardly wait to sit with it and share it.

No Maverick - Great Ad

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:12:36 EDT

Here we go. Great ad. We need to call a spade, a spade or in this case, a lie, a lie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBtbG5xjFBY

Pennsylvania Governor speaks out

John P. (Oregon) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:40:11 EDT

Read this on Huffington Post and all I can say is when is Governor Kulongoski of Oregon going to get on board? We in Oregon are waiting for your support. It is not only the time for all of our grassroots efforts to be enhanced but we need all of our Democratic leaders to show their enthusiasm in every possible way, 24/7 non-stop all through September and October. Bravo to Gov. Rendell of Pennsylvania as he decried a double standard in the treatment of Sarah Palin on Monday, saying that if it was he who was at the center of the "troopergate" investigation, the press would be calling for his head.

"She (Palin) claims to be a reformer," said the Pennsylvania Democrat. "And yet she is being investigated on the charge that she used her power as governor to fire someone who was going through a messy divorce with a relative of hers. Could you imagine if I was doing the same thing in Pennsylvania? You would be calling for my impeachment."

"[The McCain camp] has tried to again obscure the facts about Gov. Palin. 'She is a reformer and against earmarks.' No she isn't, when she was mayor of that town she hired a lobbyist to get earmarks... 'She was against the bridge to nowhere.' No she wasn't. She was for the bridge to nowhere first... She is a budget balancer. But she left the town in greater debt then when she became mayor, so she is not a budget balancer."

"First of all, let me say it should be embarrassing for the Republican ticket that Rick Davis, Sen. McCain's campaign manager, said 'this election is not about issues.' Good Lord, with all the challenges facing America it has to be about issues...They don't want to talk about issues because when the truth comes out about issues the American people will favor Sen. Obama tremendously."

The Republicans, he added, "would make the all time all-star team for spiders the way they can spin." Would Palin siphon off Clinton supporters in Pennsylvania? No, said Rendell, who expected Barack Obama to receive somewhere along the lines of "95,96, or 97 percent of the vote." Was she qualified to serve as VP? Absolutely not, he bemoaned.

"Well, I refer you to a McCain camp document they put out when [Virginia] Gov. Kaine was considered to be vice president. They attacked his experience and derided Richmond [where Kaine was formerly mayor] because it was the 105th largest city ... I think Gov. Palin was mayor of the 50,000th [most populated] city in the America... It was fair game to say Gov. Kaine was not qualified because of his credentials. If they are going to be consistent then they believe that Gov. Palin is unqualified to be vice president."

Way to go Gov. Rendell.

Voting information

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:14:49 EDT

I'm wondering if there is or will be anything on barackobama.com that will help voters, especially seniors and our new young voters to become familiar with how their ballots will look. I would imagine that something could be done within each of the states' pages on this website. Maybe since we have offices in so many cities, we could have samples of ballots on hand. The reason I am bringing this up is that yesterday we visited one of the Obama campaign offices in Oregon and a young man who is a first time voter came in asking for some information about the ballot and what it would look like. Since this was his first time, he wanted to be certain that his vote would count for Barack.

Do we know dates when registering ends in every state as we talk to or email or blog with so many people now. All pertinent information is invaluable at this point. I don't think we can leave any stone unturned or take anything for granted.

This is not just an Oregon or a Northwest Problem

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:29:48 EDT

Saw this on Oregonlive.com this morning. There are infrastructure problems in every state. Now I ask you how can one state keep the funds granted it for a Bridge to Nowhere?

Less driving means Oregon gets less federal money for highwaysby Dylan Rivera, The Oregonian Friday September 05, 2008, 10:10 PM

Starting next week, the federal government will slash the money it pays Oregon and other states for major bridge and highway projects.

Millions of dollars that Oregon receives daily in reimbursements for federal highway repairs and improvements will be slowed to weekly payments -- and, over the next several weeks, will likely be cut by one-third. That's because a federal fund dedicated to highway projects is running dry.

Reduced driving by Oregonians and most Americans is the cause for the shortfall. An 18.4-cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax hasn't changed since 1993, and less gas used for less driving means less revenue, even as motorists pay higher prices at the pump.

The decline in driving has confounded efforts to predict when the highway trust fund crisis would come up, said Travis Brouwer, federal affairs adviser for the Oregon Department of Transportation. "The incoming revenue has been unstable," Brouwer said. "We can't look to the past to provide an accurate estimate on how much will come in the next year."

Transportation planners nationwide have known for years that the highway trust fund was headed for a crisis. "The crisis is now," the commission's report said in January. You could say the crisis actually arrived Friday.

The Federal Highway Trust Fund will be about $300 million in the red this month -- a year earlier than was forecast in 2005. The fund this month owes states $4.4 billion in reimbursements for the federal share of highway construction and repair projects. But it will have only about $4.1 billion from fuel tax revenue, including what was a starting balance of $1.4 billion.

For now on, the U.S. Department of Transportation plans to reimburse states weekly. If the department estimates the fund has 20 percent less money than it promised to pay, it will only pay 80 cents on the dollar next week. The following week, it would first finish paying the previous week's obligations, then pay a partial amount of that week's bills. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, in announcing the shortfall Friday, blamed Congress for not acting sooner. "Every family understands that constantly spending more than you earn is a recipe for insolvency," she said.

Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, one of the most influential members of Congress on transportation issues, blasted the administration. "It's about time this administration accepted the magnitude of the looming crisis facing the Highway Trust Fund and stopped being a roadblock to a solution," the Springfield Democrat said.

"If we don't pass a solution fast, we'll be forced to cancel critical highway construction and repair projects that ensure our roads and bridges are safe and secure," Sen. Patty Murray, D.-Wash., said Friday. "This crisis could lead to millions of construction layoffs across this country at a time when the unemployment rate is already the highest it has been in nearly five years."

Has there been any accountability?

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:04:45 EDT

I am wondering if anyone knows how the Alaskan Governor used the funds she kept for the Bridge to Nowhere once she said no after saying yes to that project?

Part of Sen. Boxer's statement

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:40:21 EDT

Saw California Senator Barbara Boxer's statement on the Internet this evening. Thought I'd share part of it with you.

"Last night at the Republican National Convention, John McCain used the word "fight" more than 40 times in his speech.
In the 16 years that we have served together in the Senate, I have seen John McCain fight.
I have seen him fight against raising the federal minimum wage 14 times.
I have seen him fight against making sure that women earn equal pay for equal work.
I have seen him fight against a women's right to choose so consistently that he received a zero percent vote rating from pro-choice organizations.
I have seen him fight against helping families gain access to birth control.
I have seen him fight against Social Security, even going so far as to call its current funding system "an absolute disgrace."
And I saw him fight against the new GI Bill of Rights until it became politically untenable for him to do so.
John McCain voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 100 percent of the time in 2008 -- that's no maverick.
We do have two real fighters for change in this election -- their names are Barack Obama and Joe Biden."

Some thing good has to come from all of this

John P. (Oregon) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:37:49 EDT

I watched Jon Stewart last night and was amazed at how his show put together a segment on Republicans not even being able to say the word 'choice' as if it was not in their vocabulary. Also there have been a couple of his shows this week that have made good points for us all to use regarding so many of their lies as they bombard the airwaves.

I am repeating something from Daily Kos that I put online yesterday. It goes along with the 'tired' methods by which the McCain campaign is engaging their base. I say 'tired' but the sad truth is that they work on some people.

And Who Said Republicans Don't Like Recycling .... by BarbinMD Fri Sep 05, 2008 at 03:40:39 PM PDT

Call this a delayed reaction, but after 3 straight nights of Republican speeches, my brain is a little fried. But as the brain buzz began to wear off, something Rudy Giuliani said the other night, attacking Barack Obama's readiness to lead, rang a bell. Giuliani said:

...he's never run a city, never run a state, never run a business. He's never had to lead people in crisis.

Where had I heard that before? Why did it sound so familiar? And then I remembered the quote I used in one of the live blogging threads I put up Tuesday night. It was from Rudy Giuliani last year, attacking John McCain's readiness to lead. Giuliani said about McCain:

...he has never run a city, never run a state, never run a government. He has never been responsible as a mayor for the safety and security of millions of people...
If this is true, it bears witness to the Republican party's shallow attempts to win at all costs.

A great quote

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:53:27 EDT

I saw a wonderful quote that one of our bloggers put online earlier in the evening. It bears repeating:

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

Great Community Organizer video

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:10:28 EDT

Does anyone know how to get this to Obama HQ? After you enjoy it, of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpniuotfpR8

Amazing

John P. (Oregon) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:02:58 EDT

Just found this on Daily Kos written by BarbinMD.

And Who Said Republicans Don't Like Recycling .... by BarbinMD Fri Sep 05, 2008 at 03:40:39 PM PDT

...he's never run a city, never run a state, never run a business. He's never had to lead people in crisis.

Where had I heard that before? Why did it sound so familiar? And then I remembered the quote I used in one of the live blogging threads I put up Tuesday night. It was from Rudy Giuliani last year, attacking Barack Obama's John McCain's readiness to lead. Giuliani said McCain:

...has never run a city, never run a state, never run a government. He has never been responsible as a mayor for the safety and security of millions of people...

Can you believe

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:32:08 EDT

I put on C-Span this morning and they were showing the full appearance of Joe Biden in Florida today. He was great. Then this afternoon, I checked C-Span again and couldn't believe that they were repeating it. He spoke firmly and with great warmth. He answered every question fully leaving such a positive impression that better days are ahead. I'm just as concerned about the RNC news as everyone else is but I somehow have to hang on to the conviction that 'not this time' is going to be our reality.

Here goes

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:55:25 EDT

Yeh, here goes my great big THANK YOU for the most wonderfully inspiring, encouraging and honest convention. The whole four days were tremendous. Thanks Barack, Joe and all my fellow-Democrats. What a celebration we are. It's going to happen. It has to happen.

C-Span

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:47:00 EDT

Hey everyone, you have to stay tuned to C-Span. They are giving us every speech. Perhaps their website has videos of them all. I've learned a lot in the last two days about what is happening in other states from so many representatives and citizens because of C-Span's non-stop commitment to bring us everything that is happening on the Convention floor.

What is up?

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:17:15 EDT

This is about the fourth day that whenever I try to get onto the members' community blogs, I am showed "We are doing maintenance," "Check back later." Not very good for me because I am having a little get together again where I show others how to use and feel comfortable with the barackobama.com website. It will be interesting if this blog goes through since I probably won't be able to see it. But if you do, can someone help us.

Thanks

John P. (Oregon) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:25:03 EDT

I just wanted to say thank you for the live streams that I've seen this past week. They have all touched different issues with Barack answering some very thoughtful and challenging questions. It is not only great to see Barack in action on this level but it is fantastic to visit other states (in this way) and to get to know what is important and of concern to our fellow Americans. This is a very great tool.

Welcome

John P. (Oregon) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:17:37 EDT

Welcome to all the Senator Clinton supporters. You are our sisters and brothers. We take you to our hearts, not simply to get your votes or to defeat John McCain, but because we share a common dream with you - a better, more compassionate, more equitable America. It is not you joining us, it is our joining together as part of the same family. Welcome indeed!

Don't forget to call Oregon

John P. (Oregon) — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:41:28 EDT

Oregonians are going to be getting their ballots in the mail within a day or two, if they haven't already. Bill Clinton has been in Portland, eastern Oregon and going up and down the North and Central Coast for many days now. Hillary was here last Friday and Saturday and is due back this Friday and Saturday. John McCain is doing fund raisers throughout Oregon and Washington this week too. Don't forget to call Oregon even though it seems as if Barack is our choice. Thanks.