Time Words's Blog

Climate-Gate

Time Words — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:03:50 EST

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed

The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas

Blackwaterdog blog posts

Time Words — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:44:07 EST

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/18/816179/-End-of-the-road.-One-last-photo-diary-%28and-a-personal-thanks%29

Tragedy of Hope

Time Words — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:55:29 EST

I've been struggling with some kind of flu and so was unable yesterday to give Obama's Nobel Acceptance speech its due. It's a remarkable address - Niebuhr made manifest. What strikes me about it most of all - and I do not mean this in any way as a sectarian or non-ecumenical statement - is that it was an address by a deeply serious Christian. It was not Christianist. It did not seek to take sacred text or papal diktat to insist on a public policy or to declare that the president of the United States is somehow the instrument of God or good or that America is somehow more divinely favored than any other nation. It was written and spoken in such a way to reach anyone of any faith or none. It translated a deeply Augustinian grasp of history into a secular and universal language. It was an expression of tragic hope.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/12/the-tragedy-of-hope.html

expanding our moral imagination

Time Words — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:28:54 EST

Norway clips

http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/nyheter/spill/verdi/117947

Becoming President during war time

Time Words — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:25:35 EST

An Open Letter to Michael Moore from President Obama

You begin by asking me:

Do you really want to be the new "war president"?

Of course, I would prefer not to be.

I would rather not have to be dealing with winding down the Iraq war, a war I opposed from the start.

I would rather that the Bush administration have used the unprecedented seven years of control and influence it had over Afghanistan to stabilize that country and cripple Al Queda.

I would rather that it have withdrawn support from Mussharaf in Pakistan and flooded that country with humanitarian and civil-society support to help prevent the current cross-border Taliban statelets from evolving and growing more powerful, threatening to destabilize both countries.

But that's not what actually happened. There were actually two badly-mismanaged wars underway when I took office. So I didn't ask to be a war president - I became president during wartime. It's a distinction with a difference.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/30/809130/-An-Open-Letter-to-Michael-Moore-from-President-Obama

Tokyo bow

Time Words — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:39:02 EST

A note to some detractors, it is customary for many to flaunt their power... particularly those who recently achieved it. But, the TRUE test of the mighty and powerful is to act in humility and respect of others. To be truly strong, one must be strong enough to be gentle. Mr Obama knows this. Many here don't. Guess that's why he's the President, and many here AIN'T. It's like the difference between the recently rich and those who've always had wealth; those who've always had wealth have good taste but those who recently became wealthy are ostentatious & stand to lose it by spending on trifling demonstrations of wealth w/no return & partying to show off their wealth... to the poor. HOW many athletes don't go broke after they retire? It is indeed to show humility when seeking to bridge differences, not like the arrogant, pompous Duhhh-Duhbya Bushette!
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/11/14/2009-11-14_obama_hails_expanded_us_engagement_in_asia_.html#ixzz0Wrt4GYSg

Real anniversary

Time Words — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:07:23 EST

Tears for Toot

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/11/heilemann_obama_sheds_tears_fo.html

mental break

Time Words — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:57:10 EDT

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Jackeens_for_Obama

Nobel

Time Words — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:31:56 EDT

" Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland

We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future but for what he has done in the previous year. We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do...He has created a new international climate...One of the first things he did was to go to Cairo to try to reach out to the Muslim world, then to restart the Mideast negotiations and then he reached out to the rest of the world through international institutions...The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons...Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play And further,

http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2009/10/obamas_nobel_likely_to_drive_r.php

Lies

Time Words — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:32:27 EDT

The problem with normal sex is that it leads to kissing and pretty soon you’ve got to talk to them. Once you know someone well the last thing you want to do is screw them. I like to give, never to receive; to have the power of the host, not the obligation of the guest. I can stop writing this and within two minutes I can be chained, in the arms of a whore. I know I am going to score and I know they don’t really want me. And within 10 minutes I am back writing.

What I hate are meaningless and heartless one-night stands where you tell all sorts of lies to get into bed with a woman you don’t care for. The worst things in life are free. Value seems to need a price tag. How can we respect a woman who doesn’t value herself? When I was young I used to think it wasn’t who you wanted to have sex with that was important, but who you were comfortable with socially and spiritually. Now I know that’s rubbish. It’s who you want to have sex with that’s important. In the past I have deceived the women I have been with. You lie to two people in your life; your partner and the police. Everyone else gets the truth.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/10/inside-the-mind-of-a-prostitution-connoisseur.html#more

how long

Time Words — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:13:22 EDT

How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/16/783113/-HOW-LONG

Billionaires for wealthcare

Time Words — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:02:50 EDT

Who we are

Billionaires for Wealthcare is a grassroots network of health insurance CEOs, industry lobbyists, talk-show hosts, and others profiting off of our broken health care system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1I9xsV-g9Y&feature=player_embedded#t=59

Let it Rain

Time Words — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:20:33 EDT

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/12/781065/-Photos:-Hey-racists,-Obama-is-here-to-stay.-You-cant-stop-him!

He nailed it

Time Words — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:41:31 EDT

FRANK: I don‘t think it‘s a big deal. Look, I think free speech—you know, heckling is a tradition, obviously, in the British parliament. They even have mikes that come down to hear the heckles.

I think what we should take it as—it is unusual—it‘s a sign of how effective the president was. These guys just couldn‘t handle it. I looked at John Boehner and he looked about as glum and as dour as—as possibly he could be.

So what Joe Wilson did was just scream out in frustration because the president was nailing it. So we‘ve got to be very clear, Wilson lied when he said the president lied. And he talked about illegal immigrants. It‘s clearly excluded from the bill.

So I would say what Wilson did was a mark of their frustration. And Barack Obama is a big boy. I think, I must say, to any Republicans particularly like Joe Wilson who want to get into a debate with Barack Obama is tugging on Superman‘s cape and pulling the Lone Ranger‘s mask. But if that‘s what he wants to do, free country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AYT8P50WEE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2009%2F9%2F10%2F780028%2F-Updated%3A-Once-Again-Barney-Frank-NAILS-It&feature=player_embedded

Death of the right

Time Words — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:09:59 EDT

Is there an analogous historical moment? Conservatives argue that this is 1965 and that a renaissance is at hand??
I disagree. Today, conservatives seem in a position closer to the one they occupied during the New Deal. The epithets so many on the right now hurl at Obama—"socialist," "fascist"—precisely echo the accusations Herbert Hoover and "Old Right" made against FDR in 1936.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/214253

Stephen Hawkings

Time Words — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:07:04 EDT

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Jackeens_for_Obama/512

Fox lies

Time Words — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:23:01 EDT

What we are up against. Ever wondered why people vote against their own interest, listening to billionaires lie to them and they have nothing?

"Naomi Klein many years ago awoke us to the concept that many big corporate advertisers back the right wing media shills to insure that the heat for fleecing the American economy is diverted to blaming the government, liberals, minorities and immigrants. Many top advertisers are not so much selling products through advertising as they are financing a political strategy of diversion through the winger media megaphone. FOX understands this and knows that eventually it will find companies that are not as consumer-oriented to "advertise" on Beck's program, because they are buying insurance on using mobs and creating a "frame" that stops legislation that would impede their gross profiteering and abandonment of the American worker"
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9298

Tusker Kenya

Time Words — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:42:51 EDT

Tusker: Makes Us Equal.

Has No Equal.

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/08/beer_summit_for_birthers.php

No strategy

Time Words — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:01:38 EDT

It just might be time for a Gen. George S. Obama strategy

"President Obama's ability to shape the debate on health care appears to be eroding,"

Perhaps a military metaphor would better inspire the White House to greater heights of determined animation; let's say, the 1944 unbowdlerized words of Gen. George Patton to his troops: "I don't want to get any messages saying, 'I am holding my position.' We are not holding a goddamned thing. Let the [reactionaries] do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose, like shit through a tin horn."

http://blog.buzzflash.com/carpenter/455

We are the world

Time Words — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:04:54 EDT

Great pics Obama abroad

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/sets/72157621218519789/show/

From Russia with L

Time Words — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:51:46 EDT

Obama amazed Moscow with his agenda during the second day of his visit: three public speeches to large audiences as well as meetings with rights advocates, businesspeople, the political opposition, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and even Patriarch Kirill. Thousands of people had the opportunity to see and hear the young U.S. president in person. Kremlin television was thrown into a state of confusion. Obama’s open and friendly style stood in stark contrast to the demonized image of the United States that Kremlin propaganda has promulgated for many years. Obama’s visit made a very strong impact on Russia, the results of which will last a very long time. It will be difficult for the ruling elite to deny the fact that the world had changed and that the United States had also changed. America has become more dynamic, wiser and more attractive, and the old, worn-out anti-U.S. propaganda that the Kremlin has relied on for the last eight years will no longer work.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1016/42/379421.htm

Pictures July 4th

Time Words — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:03:21 EDT

Pixs July 4th

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Jackeens_for_Obama

MJ peace to Iran

Time Words — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:52:36 EDT

They dont care about Us

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x329780

The Anti-Politician

Time Words — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:22:38 EDT

Cairo Analysis

And then there are the rare historical figures that appear now and then in human events to disregard those base reactive impulses with enough discipline to first develop their own idea of how things ought to be. And only after developing a detailed yet clear vision for society do they then enter the political fray. Probably the best example in the last century of such an anti-politician was Mohandas K. Gandhi, who returned home to India at the age of 46, after winning civil rights for immigrants in South Africa. He found a homeland thirsting for independence from the British Empire and its impositions. A media hero and cause celébre upon his return to Indian shores, the pro-independence advocates and parties sought Gandhi out to lead a revolution against the Crown.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/anti-politician-cairo

Paper from Lebanon

Time Words — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:51:42 EDT

Editorial

Barack Obama's long-awaited address to the Muslim world has proven to be an event of global magnitude, and a dramatic, international projection of the bully pulpit of the American presidency. Obama's speech in Cairo was an unprecedented display of rhetorical power, coming in an important context:

To measure the impact of such an innovative address, one even needs innovative tools, as well as time to digest it before completing the full evaluation. But we should remember the Cairo speech wasn't a show - it was an exercise in power politics of the first order. The credit here probably belongs to Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's chief of staff. Without Emmanuel, whose pro-Israeli sympathies can't be questioned, Obama wouldn't be taking on the pro-Israel lobby, whether on Palestine or Iran. Emmanuel has laid down a bruising challenge: come up with a better plan on these issues, or shut up.

Thus, Obama's speech wasn't a lightweight declaration of idealistic principles; it represented a country, through its innovative leader, speaking quietly and carrying a big stick.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=102672&categ_id=17

Islam

Time Words — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:10:31 EDT

The history of the relationship between America and the Muslim World is deeper and more complex than the common perception might suggest. Thomas Jefferson taught himself Arabic using his own Quran kept in his personal library, and had the first known presidential Iftaar by breaking fast with the Tunisian Ambassador at sunset. President Dwight Eisenhower attended the dedication ceremony of the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C. on June 28, 1957. President Bill Clinton issued the first presidential greeting for Ramadan, appointed the first Muslim American ambassador, M. Osman Siddique, to Fiji, and sent the first presidential Eid al-Adha greeting to Muslims. And one year after President George W. Bush placed the Holy Quran in the White House library in 2005, Representative Keith Ellison took the oath of office on the same Quran owned by Thomas Jefferson two hundred years before.

The Promised Land

Time Words — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:47:03 EDT

Obama in May 2008....
"I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I'm not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that's the safest ground politically.

I want to solve the problem, and so my job in being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth and say if Israel is building settlements without any regard to the effects that this has on the peace process, then we're going to be stuck in the same status quo that we've been stuck in for decades now, and that won't lift that existential dread."

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/obama_said_it_all_before.php

Payne oand D day

Time Words — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:15:47 EDT

The wingnuts have been mischaracterizing this statement from Obama's great uncle Charles Payne, 84. Its really sad they are twisting a veterans and wise man to take a shot at Prez

Relative and veteran to join Obama at D-Day event

On Tuesday, Payne said that quote has been taken out of context on political blogs.

"He didn't choose to go there because I was there. He has his own political agenda, which is what the president ought to have," Payne told the Tribune. "This is not a family affair."

Obama plans to deliver a speech Thursday in Egypt on U.S. relations with the Muslim world, before traveling to Germany.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-obama-uncle-03-jun03,0,4036860.story

Its so personal, its so tragic,

Time Words — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:24:40 EDT

Its so personal, its beyond "mob" comprehension
"I was haunted for a while that I had to decide before I knew for sure that death was inevitable, and once I got over the grief of having done that, the experience only deepened my belief that abortion should be the province of individual men and women. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I have concluded that a decision to undergo abortion or continue a pregnancy is often made instinctively, with a nearly primal conviction that it is the right thing to do under the circumstances. Trying to impose a rigid moral framework based on an extreme notion of equality of personhood doesn't even begin to speak to the complexities of what most people experience when trying to decide this question for themselves".

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/its-so-personal-not-knowing-for-sure.html#more

Obama's Gramps:

Time Words — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:16:11 EDT

WASHINGTON – Surely, Stanley Dunham was gazing skyward 65 years ago, on D-Day.

Dunham, the man whom Barack Obama would one day call Gramps, was a 26-year-old supply sergeant stationed near the English Channel with the U.S. Army Air Forces when the invasion of Normandy at last began. Six weeks later, he crossed the Channel, too, and followed the Allied front across France. A year later, he was on track to fight in Japan when the atom bomb sent him home instead.

Dunham, who died 17 years ago, was the Kansas-born grandfather with the outsized personality who helped to fill the hole in the future president's life created by the absence of Obama's Kenyan father. Sgt. Dunham's war years have been something of a mystery, the details of dates and places lost with the passage of time. The units that he served in were unknown even to the White House

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=13733652&ch=4226713&src=news

TGIF

Time Words — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:29:18 EDT

Hero Worshiping Photos. Zillions Of Them.

Five Guys...... and TGIF moment!!

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Jackeens_for_Obama

Our Model Marriage

Time Words — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:42:09 EDT

The first couple reflects this new reality. After college both Michelle and Barack spent years focusing on personal and professional advancement, waiting until they were 28 and 31, respectively, to tie the knot—a reassuring model for millennials who worry that "putting themselves first" could mean they'll end up alone. But more important is the egalitarian relationship the Obamas have maintained since marrying. When the two met in 1991 at a Chicago law firm, Barack was a summer associate; Michelle was his mentor. Until recently her résumé (mayoral assistant, nonprofit exec, hospital veep) was more impressive than his, as was her six-figure salary. And while Michelle sacrificed for Barack's bid, she did so only after establishing an identity outside of the relationship—and authority within it. In Illinois, Barack told friends he "would never [cheat]. Michelle would kick my butt." Afraid of emulating his absentee father, he'd often nix meetings because he was unwilling to "miss … bedtime for this." At home, Obama has practiced the same consensus-driven process he preaches on the stump—a process that resonates with pragmatic millennials. His marriage is as "post-boomer" as his management style.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/184773

DC

Time Words — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:31:08 EDT

Dick head

Dick!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hQFy9C-miC4/Shaj5nAe--I/AAAAAAAAKZI/Mxl-GdK6jkk/s1600-h/cartoonchen.gif

CIC

Time Words — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:19:32 EDT

Close GITMO

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaforamerica/gGxn5j/commentary

Pres Spock

Time Words — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:17:38 EDT

The Logic of EmpathyHow Obama is like Spock.
By John DickersonPosted Monday,
President Obama has seen the new Star Trek movie. "Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out," he told Newsweek, making the Vulcan salute with his hand. Some critics will see this as a new opportunity to question his citizenship. I think it can help them understand Obama's views about the law.

As Dahlia Lithwick has pointed out, conservatives have been trying to figure out what to make of the president's claim that he will look for "empathy" in his Supreme Court pick. It's not a new claim. Sen. Obama cited John Roberts' lack of empathy as the reason he was voting against him. (Jeffrey Toobin argues Obama has been vindicated.) For some, the confusion over empathy has become acute. Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele, who has promised to bring a hip-hop feel to his party, said: "Crazy nonsense empathetic! I'll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind!" A graduate of Georgetown University Law School, Steele was not quoting case law but, apparently, representing.

http://www.slate.com/id/2218596/

Picture Story

Time Words — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:46:30 EDT

Beautiful TIME picture video 100 days

http://www.time.com/time/video/?bcpid=1670048590&bclid=1342094282&bctid=21330961001

Ed Shultz answer

Time Words — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:02:05 EDT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30332826#30332826

Best Pics Obama 08-NYT

Time Words — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:18:52 EDT

Pultzer Price Photos Obama 08

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/2009-damon-pulitzer/index.htm

Obamas style

Time Words — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:09:48 EDT

HALPERIN'S TAKE: Why Obama is Exceptionally Good at His Job

1. On major decisions, almost without exception, he does what he thinks is right, rather then what might appear to be the politically expedient thing to do; in the end, doing what he thinks is right actually turns out to be better politics.

2. He-- and his vice president, chief of staff, deputy chiefs of staff, congressional relations office-- are experts on Congress and know how to approach, manage, manipulate, finesse, and meld with the institution in virtually every respect. (Up to and as far as the considerable limits of three-branch government and multiple egos).

3. He is temperamentally suited to both the public and private aspects of the job.

4. His honeymoon with the media and the public continues unabated.

5. His political operation (and its closely coordinated allies) is modern, well-funded, and skilled at not leaving fingerprints.

6. He has vast reservoirs of charm.

7. He trusts his staff. Clear guidelines, no micro-managing, accountability, less back-stabbing than most governments.

8. He knows how to control his public image.

9. He is emotionally stable, and has a rock-solid support system of immediate family, close friends, and reliable advisers.

10. Criticism from his political opponents-- no matter how personal, vile, or off base-- bothers him no more than such things bothered Dick Cheney (which is to say, not at all).

11. He's not afraid of losing-- because he doesn't expect to.

12. He talks to his constituents as if they are adults who are willing and able to deal with complexity-- which is intellectually and practically satisfying to him, pleasing to elites, and gratifying to many citizens.

13. He has created a political organization that has unprecedented access to polling and focus groups, but he maintains a healthy distance from the up-down-in-out minutia, even as his advisers use the data to maximum effect.

14. The cyclical nature of economics, politics, and sociological trends seems to be on his side. For now.

15. He is rarely angry, intimidated, stressed, fearful, or joyless.

16. He likes the job-- its challenges, its history, its resonance, its power, its perks.

http://thepage.time.com/halperins-take-why-obama-is-exceptionally-good-at-his-job/

Tea bagging

Time Words — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:09:55 EDT

Interesting analysis of teabaggers......

    I can't help but assign the tea protests a place in my view that the Right is generally going through the same convulsions that overtook the Left in the late 1970's and continued into the 1990's.

    The Left of that era grew to be increasingly insular, ideologically rigid, and dyspeptic. Identifying as a liberal during the Reagan era was a bit of a badge of honor, but the complete lack of power lead to all sorts of nuttiness. With nothing but a record of losing, it became possible for the anyone on the Left to come up with ridiculous policy prescriptions, and the lack of anyone in power listening made the advocate look bold and daring, rather than unstable and silly.

    Nowhere was this more evident than in what I call the "Protest Left."

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/deciphering-the-tea-tantrums.html

OBAMAISM

Time Words — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:38:13 EDT

What underlies so many of Obama’s decisions is an attachment to the institutions that hold up American society, a desire to make them function better rather than remake them altogether... [Obamaism]’s also a pretty good description of what used to pass for conservatism—a sense that social relations and institutions are fragile things, and that, while government can’t create wealth or impose equality, at moments like this it has to establish a new equilibrium between individuals and huge economic forces, so that society doesn’t crumble. But modern conservatism has grown into exactly the opposite of its origins, in Burke’s respect for tradition and Madison’s promotion of countervailing checks on concentrations of power. Instead, like any revolutionary creed, it is abstract, hard-edged, and indifferent to experience and existing conditions.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/the-conservatism-of-obama.html

G-Force

Time Words — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:49:32 EDT

G-Force

http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2009/04/video-president-obama-addresses-world.html

Toxic mess

Time Words — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:28:12 EDT

The toxic assets mess

March 30, 2009 On the Urgency of Restructuring Bank and Mortgage Debt,
and of Abandoning Toxic Asset Purchase

Toxic Asset Purchases

Debt Restructuring

Needed Legislation

Receivership Provisions

Foreclosure Abatement

Market Climate

As of last week, the Market Climate for stocks was characterized by reasonable valuations – moderate undervaluation on earnings-based measures that assume a reversion to above-average profit margins in the future, but continued overvaluation on measures that do not rely on future profit margins being above historical norms.

This is an important distinction, because much of my constructive perspective about valuations late last year was based on the expectation of something of a “writedown recession” whereby our policy focus would have been on properly defending customers through greater use of the receivership process – demonstrating that the financial system itself could remain sound even while allowing the writedown and restructuring of debt. I believed, as I wrote a year ago, that “The U.S. economy will get through this without the requirement of massive public bailouts. What is required, however, is that the stock and bondholders of financial companies take due losses. Customers and counterparties need not, and I expect will not, be harmed.” My optimism that our policy-makers would see clearly enough to follow this course was mistaken (fortunately, we are within 5% of where we stood at the beginning of this bear market).

The Danger of Inaction

http://www.hussman.net/wmc/wmc090330.htm

Go Big or Go Home

Time Words — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:56:35 EDT

A Diary on Kos....

Ryan's whole family lives in small town Pennsylvania, going back for generations. They're all Republicans. He says he thought about voting for Obama, but in the end, just went with McCain. The guy was a war hero, he says.

Well, the news conference just ended. So I ask Ryan what he thought.

I ask him if he thought President Obama was trying to do too much, too quickly. I ask him what he thinks about President Obama trying to fix health care, and energy, and education all in one big push.

The guy says, "Hey, I didn't vote for him. But he's right. You can't put out a forest fire with a bucket."

I agree. We've got big problems, we need big solutions, and we need them right now.

In spite of his Republican leanings, Ryan can't resist. He says, "Damn right. Go big or go home. That's what he's there for."
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/3/24/712655/-Rural-PA-to-Obama:-Damn-right.-Go-big-or-go-home.

Ageless Obama

Time Words — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:35:45 EDT

The new president of the Harvard Law Review was somewhat taken aback by the deluge of media coverage that followed hard on the heels of his election. The New York Times ran a “First Black” headline, which probably won’t be the last time that label is affixed to Barack Obama. The twenty-eight-year-old law student says he wasn’t going to run for the office until a black friend talked him into it. “There’s a door to kick down,” the friend argued, “and you’re in a position to kick it down.” The job does give him a great forum, but there’s a trade-off. “I like to read novels, listen to Miles Davis,” he says. “I don’t get to do that anymore. I don’t get dates anymore.” Still, he’s philosophical, even briskly cheerful, about his lost leisure. And that’s because Barack Obama has a game plan: he wants to tackle the quagmire of America’s inner cities. Federal money alone won’t do it, he argues. The deeper problem is that “those communities are unorganized. We need to get more people planning.” For preparation, Harvard Law School is a “perfect place to examine how the power structure works. It gives you a certain language.” When he’s fluent, he’ll be able to translate the language of the streets (“which I can speak”) into the language of the Establishment, and vice versa. The sense of mission derives in part from his experiences in the Third World. He saw brutal poverty while growing up in Singapore [Editor’s note: We should have said Indonesia.] with his mother, an anthropologist, and his half-brothers and -sisters in Kenya still live hand to mouth at times. Obama says that his late father’s experience in the Kenyan government left him a broken and bitter man, and he responds warily to the assumption that he himself will run for office. “If I go into politics it should grow out of work I’ve done on the local level, not because I’m some media creation.” Though, as media creations go, he’d be a pretty good one.

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1990/06/obama199006

Support

Time Words — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:02:35 EDT

Garth Brooks on Obama and Jay Leno

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29800974#29800974

Where did the wealth go?

Time Words — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:54:39 EDT

Where did the wealth Go?

On the current market crush......Where did the wealth go?

The second set of "losers" are the rich. The fact that the top 10 percent of American households own at least 70 percent of American assets means that the recent decline in asset prices hit the richest the hardest. This isn't to say that most are not still well off. While the market value of Warren Buffet's wealth fell by a whopping $25 billion, he still managed to hold on to assets that are worth $37 billion.

The fact that the losses are concentrated among the rich and baby boomers is not a bad thing. The last several decades have seen the wealthiest Americans get wealthier much faster than the average American. If they lose more now, it just helps reverse a longstanding inequitable trend. Likewise, if the collapse in stock prices means that more people now in their 50s and 60s (including me) have to work an extra few years before retiring, it is all to the good. It is grossly irresponsible for the baby boom generation to expect Generations X and Y to be saddled with our national debt, our trade debt, and our infrastructure debt -- and the retirement debt created by baby boomers enjoying long retirements supported by future tax increases on their children. So let's stop talking about wealth loss, and let's get to work creating the kind of world we can be proud to pass on to our children.

http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/03/where_did_all_the_wealth_go_to_our_kids.php

OMB

Time Words — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:39:48 EDT

O My Budget!

Attention Orszag Groupies

March 04, 2009 7:45 AM

When OMB director Peter Orszag quoted Toby Keith in his testimony before the House Budget Committee yesterday -- "there ain't no right way to do the wrong thing," Orszag said -- he was drawing from his own C&W lyric database.

The Princeton numbers-cruncher is a huge country fan and when he goes for runs that's what's in his iPod.

Expect another C&W nod today as he goes before the House Ways & Means Committee.

Change we can believe in

Time Words — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:03:43 EST

I just got an e-mail from MoveOn.org, and this is what it said:

Want to see what change looks like? Real change?

Well, here it is. Last week, President Obama unveiled his budget—his blueprint for America—and it's ambitious, amazing, and unapologetically progressive. [...]

The plan:

Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.3
Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.4
Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.5
Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.6
Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.7
Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies.
Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.9
Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.10
Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.11
Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.12
Stops unnecessary government subsidies to big banks, health insurance companies and big agribusinesses.13,14,15
Expands access to early childhood education and improves schools by investing in programs that make sure every child has a qualified, strong teacher.16
Negotiates for better prescription drug prices using Medicaid's tremendous bargaining power.17
Expands access to family planning for low-income women.18
Caps the pollution that causes global warming, and makes polluters pay to support clean energy innovation.19

This is the change we voted for. President Obama has done his part, now we need to do ours.

http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/

O-yes he CanAda

Time Words — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:30:34 EST

Slides O-Canada

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/fullpage/slideshow-obama-makes-first-foreign-trip-to-canada.php

The future calling Obama

Time Words — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:53:06 EST

What many do not understand is that the government is playing for time, not some brilliant economic miracle. We do not have the money or political leverage to solve this problem from the top down by divine fiat. We have to buy time -- literally -- for the ten-thousand smaller acts of restoration and renewal to take place. All this flow of money, this vast seemingly indiscriminate transfusion of economic blood, has one purpose: to keep the patient's heart pumping until the systemic crisis is past -- another 6-12-18 months. It is messy, sloppy, gross heroic medicine. Sure there's tremendous waste. Get used to it. And get these people out of the operating room!
It is very interesting to watch how this crisis reveals and highlights character: the sniveling privileged Wall Street upper-crust, the semi-hysterical, uninformed punditocracy, the puerile Republican opposition -- and Obama, cool as a cucumber, playing his game, five steps ahead, setting up moves that won't come to fruition for months or years, while his opposition flails at the thin air where he used to be. I love it.
It's the future that is calling Obama, not the present.
The Republican reaction to this stimulus package is on a par with McCain suspending his campaign during the primary to "handle" the economic crisis back in Washington. Completely clueless, cynical empty gestures. They think we'll forget. They're wrong. What Karl Rove wanted, and was willing to steal by any means necessary, Obama will get, handed to him as a free gift by the American people: real political power, the power to transform society for a generation or more.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/through-the-dus.html

Washington DC 4 BO inauguration

Time Words — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:14:12 EST

The inauguration.......

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/the_inauguration_of_president.html

We will not go down

Time Words — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:29:15 EST

Michael Heart - Song for Gaza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/10/15835/0971/63/682362&feature=player_embedded

http://www.michaelheart.com/Song_for_Gaza.html

Abe and BO

Time Words — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:07:38 EST

Lincoln's Memo to Obama
by Ronald C. White Jr

Illinois senator Everett Dirksen observed 50 years ago, “The first task of every politician is to get right with Lincoln.” As the inauguration of President Barack Obama converges with the beginning of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial, it is intriguing to think about what Lincoln might say across the years to the new president. In recent election campaigns many politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, have tried to associate themselves with Lincoln. President Obama has moved far beyond the invocation of Lincoln’s words to patterning his political spirit after his 19th-century model. Again and again Obama has buttressed his vision for America by beginning, “As Lincoln said. . . .”

Finally, Lincoln might have a heart-to-heart talk with Obama about the role of faith in politics. Lincoln, who never wore his faith on his sleeve, who did not formally join a church, has left us in his second inaugural address the most profound speech combining politics and religion ever delivered to the American public. In only 701 words, the second shortest inaugural address (George Washington delivered a second inaugural of only 134 words), Lincoln mentions God 14 times, quotes the Bible four times, and invokes prayer three times. Today, what the public may remember most about candidate Obama’s religion is his painful distancing of himself from his former pastor and congregation during the 2008 campaign. What the American public needs to know is in his thoughtful discussion of faith in The Audacity of Hope. If the Bill of Rights codifies the separation of church and state, Obama affirms that Americans, “as a religious people,” have never divided politics and religion. He couples the story of his own journey from skepticism to “embrace the Christian faith” with his admonition “to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people.” Obama says that part of the magnetism of the Christian faith that attracted him was the power of the African-American religious tradition to minister to the whole person and be an advocate for social justice.

Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, used inclusive language—“Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God”—to appeal to his entire audience, North and South. He would commend Obama’s intention, in our increasingly multicultural and multireligious nation, to make his case for the religious and moral values that are the historical foundation of our society in order “to engage all persons of faith in the larger project of American renewal.”

At the end of a compelling discussion of the Constitution in The Audacity of Hope, Obama exclaims, “I am left then with Lincoln.” The remarkable tether between Lincoln and Obama, suddenly in such plain view in recent months, is not an end but a beginning. For many Americans, Lincoln, however appreciated before, has at the outset of a new presidency moved from there and then to here and now. He has become strangely contemporary. Obama, at the beginning of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial, reminds us that whenever contemporary Americans try to trace an idea or truth about our national identity, we will find Lincoln’s initials—AL—carved on some tree, for he was there before us.

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=497057

ENOUGH

Time Words — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:23:17 EST

The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.

Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.

This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

• Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein's Life in War and Peace.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

Santa Obama

Time Words — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:33:15 EST

The favored response, at least among a large swath of Americans, has been to demand that President-elect Barack Obama play Santa Claus. I have lost track of how many groups have been squalling like babies over every move Obama makes - the economists, the environmentalists, the food reformers, the gays, the Latinos, the state legislatures, the consumer groups - no one he appoints, no policy he sets forth, and no one he talks to is "change they can believe in." They want an immediate economic recovery, an organic garden on the White House lawn, subsidized green jobs in every sector, bailouts for every state and every family, people of color running every federal department, trade tariffs, all the troops back home on Jan. 21, a dramatically new health care system, and for the Rev. Rick Warren to just lie down and die. They want it all and they want it right now. It doesn't matter that Obama is not yet our president.

The outpouring of demand and emotion is poignant, because it speaks to the starvation Americans have suffered when it comes to public life for at least the last eight years. The demands are loud and urgent because they have been neglected so willfully for so long. Things have gone so badly, and those in power have been so unmoved by the needs of so many average people, that we feel it makes sense to greet someone who appears to listen not with applause but with the howls like those of the peasants storming the gates of the Forbidden City. But here is where we need to pull back, and to realize that Obama didn't create the Forbidden City. We did.

I should make a confession here. I voted for Obama for many reasons, and I am extremely excited that he will be our next president. But I voted for him with the understanding that he was the only candidate who could bring basic competence back to our government; the only candidate whose FEMA would be capable of responding to another Hurricane Katrina and whose foreign policy would not result in global conflagration. Call me cynical, but for me that was enough: I do not expect that he will be able to prevent the incredible economic disruption that we have coming to us, to abolish racism or other social evils, to wean Americans from our destructive living habits, or to make any but the smallest changes in our disastrous systems for education, corrections and agriculture.

To put it another way: Obama will be busy enough tackling the political rot in this country. We will have to tackle the moral rot ourselves.

The talk of morality makes some people feel uncomfortable. Too bad. Many of the problems we face right now have their root causes in poor moral choices we made some time ago, and to view them in any other light is dangerous, delusional and doomed to failure. It's also the preferred way of doing things, because it allows us to shirk responsibilities, to point fingers, to demand that a savior perform some kind of impossible rescue. Unfortunately, if you want to solve a problem, the first thing you must do is see it clearly.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/2008/12/29/EDIU14TGNQ.DTL

GAZA

Time Words — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:04:03 EST

BBC Youtube report from Gaza. Check out the report from the foreign Dr in Gaza hospital reporting the proportion of casualties of men women children and combatants

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7812547.stm

Cry the beloved children

Time Words — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:14:47 EST

Molten Lead

03/01/09

JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, Aljazeera’s Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning.

It was impossible not to think about the tens of thousands of Gazan children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs to fall.

“ISRAEL MUST defend itself against the rockets that are terrorizing our Southern towns,” the Israeli spokesmen explained. “Palestinians must respond to the killing of their fighters inside the Gaza Strip,” the Hamas spokesmen declared.

As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.

Those who decided to close the crossings – under whatever pretext – knew that there is no real cease-fire under these conditions.

That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip “in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence”. From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.

WHAT WAS THE AIM? Tzipi Livni announced it openly: to liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza. The Qassams served only as a pretext.

http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html

Gaza withdrawal aims to 'freeze' peace process

Time Words — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:19:07 EST

From Times Online October 7, 2004Gaza withdrawal aims to 'freeze' peace process From Ian MacKinnon in Gaza

THE hidden goal of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is to put the peace process on ice and prevent a Palestinian state from emerging, a key aide to Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, said yesterday.

The pullout from all Jewish settlements in Gaza, due next year, would end the need for further talks with the Palestinians, Dov Weisglass told the newspaper Haaretz.

His remarkably candid comments came as Israel’s military operation in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp to halt the firing of Qassam rockets entered its seventh day. A four-man United Nations team also arrived to investigate claims that an ambulance from the organisation’s Palestinian relief agency had been used to transport the weapons, even though Israel has begun backtracking on that accusation.

At least three more Palestinians died in Gaza yesterday, bringing the death toll to 88, when Israeli tanks fired into the Jabaliya camp. Up to 3,500 inhabitants have been trapped there without food, water or electricity for the past week.

Operation Days of Penitence by 2,000 Israeli troops backed by 200 tanks and armoured bulldozers was the robust response to the killing of two Israeli toddlers by Qassam rocket fire. It seeks to halt once and for all the attacks by Hamas before next year’s planned Gaza withdrawal.

Palestinians have long argued that the evacuation of the 21 Jewish settlements — home to 8,000 people — was merely a ploy by Israel to consolidate its hold on land in the West Bank where 240,000 settlers live, an assertion that Mr Weisglass appeared to confirm.

“The significance of our disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process,” he said. “It supplies the formaldehyde necessary so there is no political process with Palestinians. When you freeze the process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state . . . Effectively, this whole package called a Palestinian state, with all it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article491335.ece

White Sox fan is fun

Time Words — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:44:39 EST

White Sox' World Series win in 2005, Obama issued a Senate floor statement notable for its detail about specific players and their performances.

I rise today as a U.S. Senator, as an Illinoisan, and as a proud resident of the Southside of Chicago, to congratulate the Chicago White Sox for winning the 2005 World Series. As my fellow Southsiders know, it has been a long time coming.

Founded in 1900 as the Chicago White Stockings, this year's team reached the World Series for the first time since 1959. Over a century of White Sox fans have cheered for superstars such as Luke Appling, Nellie Fox, Carlton Fisk, Luis Aparicio, Harold Baines, and of course Big Frank Thomas. But we haven't savored the sweet taste of a World Series championship since 1917 - until now.

Back then, Woodrow Wilson was President, and the Great War was raging in Europe. The White Sox were a bright spot in tough times.

The Sox won last night the way they have won all season--by playing aggressively, scrapping for every base and every run. When Juan Uribe threw to Paul Konerko for the final out, it was fitting that the ball beat the runner by only half a step. The four games against the Astros were decided by a total of six runs. Win by the skin of your teeth. Win or die trying, that's our motto this year.

Jermaine Dye is the World Series MVP, and I congratulate him for that, but I'm sure he'll be the first to say that everyone on this year's team deserves a part of that award. This is a team with so many great players, but no undisputed leader on the field. I don't claim to be a baseball expert - or particularly unbiased on this matter - but this is one of the most selfless, balanced teams I've ever seen. A team of unlikely heroes.

Scott Podsednik, who hadn't hit a home run all season, stepped up and hit two in the playoffs, including the walk-off winner in Game 2 on Sunday. Willie Harris, who barely played in the playoffs, got a pinch hit to get on base and bring home the only run last night. Geoff Blum, a former Astro, who got a pinch hit homer in the 14th inning to give us the margin of victory in Game 3. And the pitching--four complete games to close out the American League Championship Series. An 11 and 1 record in the playoffs. 15 scoreless innings to finish the World Series.

Before the season started, the Sox were a consensus .500 team. Even as we built and maintained the best record in the American League all season, there were many doubters. Towards the end of the season, we hit a rough patch, and the doubters got louder. They said Cleveland had more playoff experience. They said even if we held on to make the playoffs, we would get embarrassed in the first round. But during the stretch run, manager Ozzie Guillen and his "kids," as he calls them, were calm and relaxed. Even as Cleveland came on strong and our lead in the Central Division dwindled, Ozzie's kids continued to play pranks on each other in the clubhouse, and continued to run hard on the basepaths.

Once the playoffs started, there was no looking back. That difficult September was gone in an instant. We silenced the doubters by sweeping the World Champion Boston Red Sox. We silenced the Angels during the ALCS in five games. And we swept the Astros in four games.

I had the privilege of attending game one of the World Series on Saturday, and the fans in and around the park were a cross-section of the city. There were plenty of folks old enough to remember the '59 team. Almost everyone remembered the 2000 team that made the playoffs. A few were even alive in 1917. A staffer of mine, a Southside Irishman and a Sox fan all his life, mentioned a 92-year-old woman at Saturday's game. She was jumping and cheering so much with every hit and every run that my staffer worried for her health!

I would like to congratulate the entire White Sox organization, in particular Jerry Reinsdorf, Kenny Williams, and Ozzie Guillen. We will be celebrating this victory for a long time on the Southside, around the city of Chicago, and around the entire state of Illinois.

Later today, Senator Durbin and I will be introducing a resolution honoring the White Sox, and we will be asking for its immediate consideration and adoption. Thank you, and I yield the floor.

Dow is down and am out

Time Words — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:48:39 EST

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC9ftIE8XRQ

Obama Family

Time Words — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:13:24 EST

Slides, beautiful......

http://www.slide.com/r/giqV9k-k5D-pLxwZHK0f2RpgPJY2A-h8?view=original

Change is on the way in the ghetto

Time Words — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:41:29 EST

Rapper Jim Jones talks to The Daily Beast’s Touré about how the new president-elect inspired him to clean up the language in his music.

Jim Jones is a Harlem rapper with lots of stubble and sleepy eyes. While he’s not a gangster rapper, he’s far from what you’d call a “conscious” rapper. In other words, he’s not the type of person you’d expect to see embedding himself in a sweeping societal change, but sometimes flowers grow up through the concrete. Jimmy recently co-wrote and starred in an off-off-off-Broadway play called Hip-Hop Monologues: Inside the Life and Mind of Jim Jones, in which he’s almost killed during an impromptu dice game. (I hate it when that happens.)

I recently interviewed Jimmy about the play while sitting on the lip of the stage, and toward the end of our talk, I asked him how he felt about Obama’s victory. Since Election Day, every conversation I have eventually turns to Barack Obama and our emotional reactions to this American epiphany. Jim confessed that the election inspired him to drop the word “nigga” from his vocabulary—where it was a nearly ubiquitous presence—and replace it with “Obama.” He gave me a few examples: “What up, my Obama?” “Yo, did you see them Obamas last night?” “Now that’s a real Obama.”

“Now that’s a real Obama.”

I was blown away. Black men have used nigga for more than three decades as a way of expressing a certain gallows humor. It is a way of saying, “Hey, if America thinks we’re the national boogie monsters, then fine, we are. Boo!” It stems from a peculiarly black sense of the macabre. But the election has done more than just usher in a black president. It’s begun creating a new America where black people feel like the country perhaps doesn’t hate us the way it once did, and black men no longer feel a need to identify ourselves as America’s monsters.

If words have power, and the slang we use says something about the people we are, then Jimmy’s linguistic U-turn indicates a very powerful shift: away from self-describing as niggas (rebellious, angry, ignorant, hunted), and toward self-describing as Obamas (cool, intelligent, humble, powerful). Away from a self-appellation that reminds us of how America has wronged us, and toward a self-appellation suggesting that we are all reflections of, and extensions of, a shining example of black excellence.

Change is on the way.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-20/what-up-my-obama/

RedNecks for Obama

Time Words — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:14:35 EST

It would be a mistake to conclude that Appalachia is not sharing in the moment’s resurgence of American optimism."

by Danielle Blau and Yael Goldstein Love

Rednecks for Obama

On November 5, The New York Times web site ran an interactive map illustrating which of the nation’s counties went more strongly for McCain in 2008 than for Bush in 2004. The counties, as it turned out, were clustered around Appalachia. Pundits were quick to jump on this data point. “Appalachia Only Part of Country Where McCain Did Better Than Bush” ran a headline on The Huffington Post. “Ah, yes, Appalachia. … Obviously concerned about marginal tax rates for those earning over $250,000 a year, I suppose,” Andrew Sullivan remarked. The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Chicago Tribune all ran a November 8 AP story about the reddening of Appalachia and the Deep South, a story that seems to validate the “Appalachia Problem” decried in The New Yorker’s October 6 issue.

At a time when the American mood is youthful, hopeful, and expansive, it would be easy to cast Appalachia as the foil—tired, wary, and recoiling. Whether through the lens of pity or contempt, Appalachia has often been seen as the odd region out. Isolation and neglect have made it what it is, goes the long-standing attitude, and the result is at best inept and hapless—at worst violent and ignorant. But after a month spent in southeast Ohio where we volunteered as organizers for the Obama campaign, our impression could hardly contrast more sharply with this bleak picture.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811u/appalachia-obama

Barack in Pics

Time Words — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:23:59 EST

Journalist Pictures

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0810/callie-bp.html

Trey-Tribute to Ancestor Kings

Time Words — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:45:11 EST

By Trey from Wilmington, NC 57 minutes ago (Updated 57 minutes ago) For Them

Their past is inundated with beautiful leaders that illuminate their ancestry.
Their queens ruled with power and sovereignty, inspiring dignity and pride.
From Nzinga, Taytu, and Hatshepsut, to Cleopatra and Nefertiti,
no ruler built monuments as majestic, or temples that towered as high.

The waters of their land stretch from the Indian and Atlantic Oceans,
to the turquoise of the Mediterranean and the crystal Red Seas.
Yet it was of the underlying gold and diamonds that were spoken,
which made their sadistic captors desperate to invade and seize.

Brutally torn from their world by those that despised them,
all ties to their land, their legacies, their families, were severed.
They lived in constant danger with each day becoming more grim,
and were betrayed by the unimaginable journey they endeavored.

It was out of the strength, blood, sweat, and tears of Africans,
that the wealth and the power of this great country was forged.
They are part of our legacy, part of who we are as Americans;
and they are the reason that our image around the world is restored.

Through a night darker than a thousand midnights,
they struggled to survive until a day came,
that we would be judged by the content of our character,
that we would have the opportunity to aspire to the same.

By overcoming the hatred handed down by so many aggressors,
we are fulfilling our destiny, we are living out his dream;
enlightened by our heritage and living up to the glory of our ancestors.
Their faith is living through us, and their efforts are redeemed.

They built the house that now looms over Pennsylvania Avenue,
and they gave us the voices to affirm with dignity, that we can;
Now for the first time, their descendants have seen the view
from the vantage of the eagle, peering down upon the land.

An oppressor can not deny what is destined,
no matter his strength or his might.
The light of love, purity, and equality,
shone like divine rays of sun on that night.

In the midst of the cold evening’s darkness,
an army of thousands upon thousands
descended on Grant Park,
and gazed out in astonishment.

With overwhelming eloquence and beauty,
a leader stood taller than the mountains
and showed his faith in his country.
For them, he showed us that we can.

Trey Barefoot
treymjb2@yahoo.com
910-686-4675

From Lebanon, Beirut

Time Words — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:18:01 EST

Editorial from The Daily star of Lebanon, Beirut.

How Obama might be all that he can be for the Middle East
By The Daily Star

Saturday, November 08, 2008
Barack Obama's election to the most powerful office on Earth has sparked a torrent of superlatives about all the good he might do, but also a steady stream of warnings that those predicting an overhaul of US policy in the Middle East should not get their hopes up too high. It is is true that it would be unrealistic to expect a single man, no matter how influential, to work miracles in a region that has been cursed for decades - especially when the entire world is faced with an economic crisis of dimensions not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Arab response to hard facts, though, should not be to give up: Instead, it should be to help Obama live up to at least some of his potential.

The presence of Ross, for instance, does not necessarily mean that he will influence policy. It would guarantee, however, that if Obama means to honor his campaign pledge to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict early, he would have a walking repository of information at his disposal. Ross was at the heart of then-President Bill Clinton's repeated bids to strike a peace deal in the 1990s, and although those efforts ultimately failed, knowledge of why they failed
will be crucial to any future attempt. In addition, both Ross and Emmanuel would be useful "cover" for the inevitable cries of "anti-Semitism" that will result if and when an Obama administration has to pressure an Israeli government to accept a fair agreement.

The challenge for Arabs and Muslims, therefore, is not to stand around and wait for the new president to make all their dreams come true. It is to forget virtually everything they know about past American heads of state and figure out how to talk to this one.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=97496

Best Moments 2007-2008

Time Words — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:58:16 EST

Best speech

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

Others may be better known, but Barack Obama's thunderous oration at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on November 10 2007 was a turning point. He was stuck in neutral, and Hillary Clinton looked inevitable. Then he tore the roof off the place. Remember, if he'd lost the Iowa caucuses, he may well have been forced out of the contest. The momentum that led to his Iowa victory began that night.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/08/us-elections2008-barack-obama-john-mccain

THE BIG NIGHT- Nov4th 2008

Time Words — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:07:54 EST

Considering that past, perhaps the most incisive comment on Mr. Obama’s election actually came long ago. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the Hawaii Legislature in 1959, two years before Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu, and declared that the civil rights movement aimed not just to free blacks but “to free the soul of America.”

Mr. King ended his Hawaii speech by quoting a prayer from a preacher who had once been a slave, and it’s an apt description of the idea of America today: “Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain’t what we was.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qiRwCuQmZA

Mr President

Time Words — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:48:51 EST

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=WSJ&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=DC_WP&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=NY_NYT&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=3

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=NY_NYP&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=3

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gGx3rR

News Papers on OBAMA

Time Words — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:24:59 EST

Americas Beauty

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darin-murphy/american-beauty_b_141362.html

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amandascott/gGx3Xq

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obamas_resounding_victory_by_t.php

OBAMA VICTORY

Time Words — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:43:21 EST

An Obama Victory Will Itself Reassert US Leadership: First Person of Color to Govern Any Country with a White Majority, Ever stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/an-obama-victory-will-its_b_141109.html mixx.com

If Barack Obama wins today, the world knows that he will be the first African-American president. In a country borne with the scourge of slavery, that struggled through a 100 years of nullification and interposition after the legal basis of slavery had been eliminated, the election of an African-American man to the presidency is an achievement for which no description is hyperbole: earthquake, transformational, monumental, whatever your pleasure.

The chasm Obama will have leapt is enormous. Not only has the US never had a person of color as president, with the one exception of John F. Kennedy, the presidents have all been protestant and mostly of Anglo-Saxon origin. That is, no woman, no person from southern Europe, no other non-protestant, has ever been President of the United States.

But, it is even much more than that -- no non-white person has governed any country that had a white majority. The converse, of course, is not true.

I have earlier written ("Obama's Millennials--83 Million Strong", June 30, 2008) that the human brain is wired to defend against "otherness" and then rationalize that reaction. The 78 million boomers grew up in an era of what might be called "Left-brain" equality -- granting/securing rights to minorities because it was logically and rationally the right thing to do. That, however, did not provide them the experience to reject skin color as "other" at the "Right-brain" emotional level.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/an-obama-victory-will-its_b_141109.html

OBAMA'S real challenge

Time Words — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:58:00 EST

Obama's Real Challenge: Shifting the Collective Consciousness

arack Obama's uniqueness as a politician is that he understands that real change involves a change in consciousness; and he is gifted at bringing it about. The challenge he now faces is the age-old dilemma encountered by anyone who has the potential to move a group or nation to a new level of awareness: How do you introduce to a collective a profound shift in attitude, belief, and understanding -- and not be silenced or marginalized in the process?

Typically, powerful, authentic leadership or new ideas that threaten the status quo evoke reptilian-brain survival responses from the "powers that be" -- be they political or religious authorities, scientific and medical establishments, or modern news media. Consider Galileo, who was put under house arrest and silenced by the Church for asserting that the Earth revolved around the Sun; or Martin Luther, who was forced into hiding for proclaiming his religious views; or the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, gunned down and imprisoned by Chinese authorities for demonstrating on behalf of human rights.

The masses, although sometimes at the forefront of consciousness shifts, nonetheless also have a long tradition of rejecting opportunities to lift their consciousness. The Christian story of Easter offers a timely example. On Palm Sunday the crowd hails Jesus as King of the Jews. Only a few days later, they demand that he be crucified. In the Christian tradition, the triumph of Christ was of course that he rose again, thereby profoundly shifting the consciousness of all "who have ears to hear."

This story of resistance to transformational change, followed by eventual triumph, has replayed itself throughout human history. Individuals with high ideals, vision, and a capacity to communicate important truths to others manage to be left alone initially -- until they come out from under the radar. Then the gatekeepers of the collective consciousness step in to swat them down.

Eventually, however, a consciousness shift does occur, simply because it must. Consciousness cannot remain static forever.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pamela-gerloff/obamas-real-challenge-s_b_92995.html

For Toot

Time Words — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:52:20 EST

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//081104/480/c5a0013ea6ab46e7b9b7df2c2a2187c9/#photoViewer=/081104/480/e2225dd136ed4a1d922ecc652200fb84

Anti-intellectualism - Ignoramus

Time Words — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:39:14 EDT

By Christopher Hitchens

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

http://slate.com/id/2203120

Terrorist fist-bump

Time Words — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:00:47 EDT

Best picture of Obama,
read the comments below
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/10/26/photo-of-the-day-oct-26.aspx

Why is Obama so calm?

Time Words — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:32:17 EDT

The Root of Obama’s Calm is Humility
Why is Barack Obama so calm. People have been throwing rocks at him for two years that we know about - and he smiles and nods his head, he remains calm. The world of finance collapses and Obama remains calm. John McCain calls him a muslim terrorist and he remains calm. What is going on with this man?

Barack Obama’s calm resides within his person - his reality. Barack Obama has a deep intelligence which most of us cannot grasp. His intellectual record goes back to when he was ten years old and admitted into an elite private school based on his academic ability. Through out his life he has proven to himself that problems are only challenges to be met. And he has met them.

His academic history is sterling. Even being admitted to Harvard would be considered an achievement to most of us - and being admitted without the support of an elite family, with only his intelligence to speak for him - makes Obama more rare. While at Harvard Obama became the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review. We are talking about the best of the best — not just academic best - but leadership best.

http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/24/the-root-of-obamas-calm-is-humility/

McCain

Time Words — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:35:42 EDT

In 1987, John McCain cast several votes in an attempt to force the Reagan administration to meet with RENAMO1, a guerrilla organization in Mozambique that State Department officials at the time described as a "terrorist group," 2 without requiring that the group meet any preconditions.

McCain's support for RENAMO directly contradicts his attacks on opponent Barack Obama for having "worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers" and having "pledged to meet, without preconditions, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea." Senator Obama has made it clear that this policy does not extend to non-governmental organizations. In response to questions about the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Obama specified that "we should not be dealing with them until they ... renounce terrorism."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/mccain-urged-reagan-admin_b_135431.html

Closing argument final verdict

Time Words — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:34:55 EDT

pictures

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/15/23610/024/717/627807

A man of all seasons

Time Words — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:54:04 EDT

Beautiful story about a strangers encounter with Obama, 20yrs ago
Mary lacked money to fly home to Norway – he saved her love

ÅSGÅRDSTRAND (VG): Mary was a newlywed and ready to move to Norway, but was stopped at the airport because she didn’t have enough money for the trip. Then a stranger turned up and paid for her.

Mary Menth Andersen was 31 years old at the time and had just married Norwegian Dag Andersen. She was looking forward to starting a new life in Åsgårdstrand in Vestfold with him. But first she had to get all of her belongings across to Norway. The date was November 2nd, 1988.
At the airport in Miami things were hectic as usual, with long lines at the check-in counters. When it was finally Mary’s turn and she had placed her luggage on the baggage line, she got the message that would crush her bubbling feeling of happiness.
-You’ll have to pay a 103 dollar surcharge if you want to bring both those suitcases to Norway, the man behind the counter said.
Mary had no money. Her new husband had travelled ahead of her to Norway, and she had no one else to call.
-I was completely desperate and tried to think which of my things I could manage without. But I had already made such a careful selection of my most prized possessions, says Mary.

I started to cry, tears were pouring down my face and I had no idea what to do. Then I heard a gentle and friendly voice behind me saying, That’s OK, I’ll pay for her.
Mary turned around to see a tall man whom she had never seen before.
-He had a gentle and kind voice that was still firm and decisive. The first thing I thought was, Who is this man?
Although this happened 20 years ago, Mary still remembers the authority that radiated from the man.-It was Barack Obama, read on....

http://leishacamden.blogspot.com/2008/10/not-that-it-matters.html

Eisenhower and Obama

Time Words — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:27:25 EDT

This article is worth a read from everyone. more so that Eisenhower's family are supporting Barack

For ultimately, Eisenhower understood that misguided national priorities that place military expansion and unchecked cronyism above other vital aspects of our national life condemn us to "destroy from within what we are trying to protect from without." Instead, he argued, crises must be met not by spectacular and costly exercises of radical governance but through a consistent commitment to "balance in and among national programs." This requires a holistic understanding of what makes a nation strong. For Eisenhower understood that an uneducated country is an undefended country, that a country without adequate health care is an undefended country, that a country that bullies its friends in the international community is an undefended country; and, above all, that a country in which corporate-political corruption has compromised its people's faith in their leaders is a country they will not fight for. Ultimately, that country - and the principles on which it was founded -- cannot long endure.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eugene-jarecki/lessons-of-the-fall-ikes_b_129272.html

Enough, change is coming

Time Words — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:35:39 EDT

Freedom and justice and liberty. I'm going to lower the working class taxes and make tastier food. John McCain's opposed to Hurricanes. But I voted against him. John McCain voted to ruin your life, eight days. Gotta give it to him, the man's got experience.

Enough(sound bite from Sen. Obama)! This time we won' t take more of the same. It's time for a change. Yeah. You're a wolf in sheep's clothing. Dick Cheney in a skirt. oh, Pretend you don't know. You're running from your shadow. I'm gonna use a better military strategy, and take care of our soldiers

I'm gonna go to Afghanistan myself and brush the dirt of these shoulders. John McCain thought the war was a great idea. He said it would be easy. Now we're all split thin, and have to get what we need to build up in Afghanistan. We've got Wall Street scrambling, Greenspan gasping and you say we're doing just fine. But you can't just sprinkle sugar on a piece of sh*t and convince people that it Easter. Oh, yeah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BZCXLEEsws

Obamas Rescue Plan

Time Words — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:54:51 EDT

Obama set out seven principles (several of which he has regularly mentioned on the campaign trail) for what he would like to see included in the government's bailout plan.

- No blank check. If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight. Given the breach of trust we have seen and the magnitude of the taxpayer money involved, there can be no blank check.
- Rescue requires mutual responsibility. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate to expect those institutions that benefit to help protect American homeowners and the American economy. We cannot underwrite continued irresponsibility, where CEOs cash in and our regulators look the other way. We cannot abet and reward the unconscionable practices that triggered this crisis. We have to end them.
- Taxpayers should be protected. This should not be a handout to Wall Street. It should be structured in a way that maximizes the ability of taxpayers to recoup their investment. Going forward, we need to make sure that the institutions that benefit from financial insurance also bear the cost of that insurance.
- Help homeowners stay in their homes. This crisis started with homeowners and they bear the brunt of the nearly unprecedented collapse in housing prices. We cannot have a plan for Wall Street banks that does not help homeowners stay in their homes and help distressed communities.
- A global response. As I said on Friday, this is a global financial crisis and it requires a global solution. The United States must lead, but we must also insist that other nations, who have a huge stake in the outcome, join us in helping to secure the financial markets.
- Main Street, not just Wall Street. The American people need to know that we feel as great a sense of urgency about the emergency on Main Street as we do the emergency on Wall Street. That is why I call on Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families – a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, save one million jobs through rebuilding our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance to help ensure that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built in America.
- Build a regulatory structure for the 21st Century. While there is not time in a week to remake our regulatory structure to prevent abuses in the future, we should commit ourselves to the kind of reforms I have been advocating for several years. We need new rules of the road for the 21st Century economy, together with the means and willingness to enforce them.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/obama-picks-up.html

NATIVE ALASKA ON PALIN

Time Words — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:20:20 EDT

Former Alaska Native chief speaks out on Palin, oil and his state

By Evon Peter

I am a former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in tribe from Arctic Village, Alaska and the current Executive Director of Native Movement. My organization provides culturally based leadership development through offices in Alaska and Arizona. My wife, who is Navajo, and I have been based out of Flagstaff, Arizona for the past few years, although I travel home to Alaska in support of our initiatives there as well. It is interesting to me that my wife and I find ourselves as Indigenous people from the two states where McCain and Palin originate in their leadership.

I am writing this letter to raise awareness about the ongoing colonization and violation of human rights being carried out against Alaska Native peoples in the name of unsustainable progress, with a particular emphasis on the role of Sarah Palin and the Republican leadership. My hope is that it helps to elevate truth about the nature of Alaskan politics in relation to Alaska Native peoples and that it lays a framework for our path to justice.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/

Reckless

Time Words — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:47:16 EDT

The McCain campaign has gone to great lengths to present the selection of Sarah Palin as one made after a careful, meticulous vetting process. But evidence continues to suggest that the Arizona Republican made his VP choice with surprising haste.

On Saturday, a Democrat tasked with opposition research contacted the Huffington Post with this piece of information: as of this weekend, the McCain campaign had not gone through old newspaper articles from the Valley Frontiersman, Palin's hometown newspaper.

How does he know? The paper's (massive) archives are not online. And when he went to research past content, he was told he was the first to inquire.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/31/mccain-camp-didnt-search_n_122823.html

Plain

Time Words — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:07:21 EDT

This comparison of Obama and Palin experience is the next smear we are witnessing from the media. At this moment in this election its no longer about the experience any of the candidate has but
What is their position on national issues and policies?

After 18 months we know Obama's position on
1. The Iraq war
2. Fight against terror
3. Nuclear proliferation
4. The economy - taxes, stimulus, jobs
5. Energy. global warming as a national priority
6. Health care
7. Social security, education
8. Constitutional matters including 2nd amendment and torture
And many more
We also now know his management skills and style

On the other hand we know "zero" about Palin and worse McCain appears to equally know less.
This is all that matters, talk about small town mayor or governor does not hold.

The cross

Time Words — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:24:11 EDT

McCain on the cross

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4bTvhXMO7I

Cant Lead, John

Time Words — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:48:47 EDT

No John....

Unfit to Lead

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

Obama the star

Time Words — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:41:11 EDT

Obama: star of his own movie His 'celebrity' comes from an emotional identity with voters, not from 'rock star' hysteria. By Neal Gabler
August 9, 2008 THE MOST UBIQUITOUS POLITICAL trope of the presidential campaign has been that Barack Obama is not just any old politician; he's a "rock star." (There are 770,000 Google hits of Obama and "rock star" and counting.) He attracts the kind of huge crowds that congregate around rock stars. He elicits the fevered passion from his adherents that a rock star does. He has the loose-limbed bearing, the cool, the charisma of a rock star, and his constituency is disproportionately young, like a rock star's. Obama is the Britney Spears of this political season, as a recent John McCain political ad implies.

Like all cliches, this one has some truth and a lot more gas. The last time the media carted out this theme was 40 years ago, when Robert Kennedy, running for president, attracted the same sort of frenzied adulation and also threatened to upset the political apple cart by assembling a coalition of the young, the disenfranchised and the well-educated. But for Obama and for Bobby, the characterization is insulting and

imprecise. It is insulting because it suggests that their devotees' effusions are just a visceral reaction -- the political equivalent of puppy love. And it is imprecise because Obama is -- and Bobby was -- more movie star than rock star, which is an analogy with a difference. Rock stars, with some glaring exceptions, typically whip up the crowd; the thrill tends to be short-lived. Movie stars, by contrast, tend to create a long-standing emotional identification with their audience. It's a difference that may have a bearing on the outcome of this election as voters weigh the advantages of being a movie star against its disadvantages. Movie stardom can be confused with mere celebrity, which has connotations of insubstantiality.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-gablernew9-2008aug09,0,4392176.story?track=ntothtml

Anti-Obama "Times" Editorial Gutted

Time Words — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:37:56 EDT

Anti-Obama "Times" Editorial Gutted
by slangist
Fri Jul 04, 2008 at 07:19:12 PM PDT

Gene McCarthy used to say that the function of liberal Republicans was that, when they saw a drowning man, they would throw him a rope exactly halfway too short to reach him. Under the ironclad economic rule that there are no progressive multimillion dollar corporations, the New York Times is now, and always has been, a liberal Republican paper. In the editorial today, "New and Not Improved," the Times is letting its desire to appear loftily superior outrun the facts. Just as it did when it permitted the discredited Judith Miller to shill for the Iraq war, the Times is now flacking for the Republicans with today's arguments. As usual, it does so just to create the appearance of being evenhanded while proclaiming a nonexistent equivalence of disreputability between the candidates.

* slangist's diary :: ::
*

As reported extensively on DailyKos, Sen. Barack Obama has never promised to use public funds. Sen. John McCain not only promised to, he undertook a legal obligation to do so when he pledged future public funding to a bank for a loan during the primaries. McCain is actually violating the election law, which is far worse than not accepting public funding.

Obama would be silly to give up the advantage in grassroots donors obtainable through the internet whom McCain can never reach. The internet has proved to be a better, more widespread method of campaign financing than the tax form checkoff system. The claim that Obama reneged on a pledge to accept public funding is a Republican talking point, not a fact. What happened was that Obama said he would talk to McCain to see if they could jointly agree to a package involving public funding and both-candidate-enforced limits on 527s and other swiftboaters, but McCain refused to relinquish the swiftboaters. So no deal -- not through Obama's inaction but McCain's.

(And because of the internet we are also going to beat McCain at independent expenditures through 527s this year, as well as on small contributions, so McCain's self-proclaimed ignorance of the internet is going to bite him right where it hurts every Republican the worst, in the wallet.)

Given the Republican habit of calling Democrats traitors since at least 1946, Obama would have also been silly not to let others take the lead on defeating the FISA rewrite, even though it would legitimize the administration's use of telcos to illegally spy on Americans. Obama actually understands being a senator, as McCain does not, and is letting Feingold and Dodd do the heavy lifting on filibustering telco immunity. We don't need a sacrifical lamb for a nominee. We need a guy tough enough to get elected. As I have said before, I have to give Obama FISA just like I had to give JFK his reluctance to push for civil rights. They're leaders and get to make calculations like that, which is not the same as rolling over supinely.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/4/21453/60552/374/546774

Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain

Time Words — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:46:18 EDT

Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain
Phillip Butler | March 27, 2008

As some of you might know, John McCain is a long-time acquaintance of mine that goes way back to our time together at the U.S. Naval Academy and as Prisoners of War in Vietnam. He is a man I respect and admire in some ways. But there are a number of reasons why I will not vote for him for President of the United States.

When I was a Plebe (4th classman, or freshman) at the Naval Academy in 1957-58, I was assigned to the 17th Company for my four years there. In those days we had about 3,600 midshipmen spread among 24 companies, thus about 150 midshipmen to a company. As fortune would have it, John, a First Classman (senior) and his room mate lived directly across the hall from me and my two room mates. Believe me when I say that back then I would never in a million or more years have dreamed that the crazy guy across the hall would someday be a Senator and candidate for President!

John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4 inch thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the Academy. John had me "coming around" to his room frequently during my plebe year. And on one occasion he took me with him to escape "over the wall" in the dead of night. He had a taxi cab waiting for us that took us to a bar some 7 miles away. John had a few beers, but forbid me to drink (watching out for me I guess) and made me drink cokes. I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact he barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always "No - John McCain was a POW with me." The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years. And we have our own seniority system, based on time as a POW.

John's treatment as a POW:

1) Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969. After September of 1969 the Vietnamese stopped the torture and gave us increased food and rudimentary health care. Several hundred of us were captured much earlier. I got there April 20, 1965 so my bad treatment period lasted 4 1/2 years. President Ho Chi Minh died on September 9, 1969, and the new regime that replaced him and his policies was more pragmatic. They realized we were worth a lot as bargaining chips if we were alive. And they were right because eventually Americans gave up on the war and agreed to trade our POW's for their country. A damn good trade in my opinion! But my point here is that John allows the media to make him out to be THE hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals.

2) John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection. Unfortunately this was often the case - new POW's arriving with broken bones and serious combat injuries. Many died from their wounds. Medical care was non-existent to rudimentary. Relief from pain was almost never given and often the wounds were used as an available way to torture the POW. Because John's father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater, he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW's suffered similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for political propaganda.

3) John was offered, and refused, "early release." Many of us were given this offer. It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to "admit" that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was "lenient and humane." So I, like numerous others, refused the offer. This was obviously something none of us could accept. Besides, we were bound by our service regulations, Geneva Conventions and loyalties to refuse early release until all the POW's were released, with the sick and wounded going first.

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,164859_1,00.html

Not now, not this time

Time Words — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:48:12 EDT

The Fear cow/......
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/jun/29/1?picture=335168344

Future is now

Time Words — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 23:10:23 EDT

Barack to the future

http://www.scouttufankjian.com/main.php

Prof Obama,

Time Words — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:44:55 EDT

"No one is forcing you to care," he said. "You can take your diploma, walk off this stage and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy."

"But I hope you don't, because our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation."

"At a time of war, we need you to work for peace," he said.

"At a time of inequality, we need you to work for opportunity. At a time of so much cynicism and so much doubt, we need you to make us believe again."

Invoking his life journey to public service, the Senator said, "I spent much of my childhood adrift. Through service, I discovered how my own improbable story fit into the larger story of America."

Senator Obama concluded, that like the presidency of John F. Kennedy, he too will call on the country to united "in service to a greater good."

"I intend to make it a cause of my presidency."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/25/171029/926/85/522655

The Money Man

Time Words — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:13:23 EDT

The Amazing Money Machine

History has a way of prizing timeless qualities like vision and oratory above temporal things like money. So if Barack Obama becomes our nation’s first black president, civics textbooks will probably never note his fund-raising prowess or the financial challenges he had to overcome simply to compete with the likes of Hillary Clinton. But Obama would not be where he is today if he did not possess a preternatural ability to elicit huge sums. Obama prompts an impulse in people to reach for historical antecedents when describing him—as a speaker, Martin Luther King Jr.; as an inspiration to young voters, Robert F. Kennedy. No one I’m aware of has suggested an apt comparison for Obama, the mighty fund-raiser. But whenever I think about the quarter billion dollars he has raised so far, the image that leaps to mind is Scrooge McDuck diving joyously into his piles of gold.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance

Crow Nation

Time Words — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:23:23 EDT

Beautiful Crows

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080519/ids_photos_ts/r2910042487.jpg/#photoViewer=/080519/ids_photos_ts/r3637229194.jpg

Wow Wow Wow! Oregon

Time Words — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:53:23 EDT

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/18/20037/6285/661/518011

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/obama-draws-record-crowd-in-oregon/#comment-1015799

Grateful Dead

Time Words — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:06:15 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w79f18ngSFc&feature=related

Presidential press conference

Time Words — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:44:02 EDT

Presidential press conference

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/17/95136/1885/278/517377

President

Time Words — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:05:26 EDT

Obama for president

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Barack-Obama/ss/events/pl/020807obama/im:/080516/480/9a82876418fe40efb0531e271cfae68a/