Hey, Hamiltonians! We need to start a political action committee right here in the city. And we need YOU! Any ideas are welcome. Fundraising isn't the only way to help our party and our country. It could be a more action based approach, with lots of community input and involvement. Let me know what YOU think. My email address is reginamalkah@hotmail.com. This is a very inclusive and welcoming group, so don't hesitate to drop me a line. Ciao!
by Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News
Republicans for Obama? Yes, but the numbers nor the desperation are not quite at the level of rats leaving a sinking ship, not yet, anyway....
"An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team," said Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel. "Biden's selection is good news for Obama and America." Hagel said. "Palin doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview published by the Omaha World-Herald. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything." Could Palin lead the country if GOP presidential nominee John McCain could not? "I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president of the United States," Hagel said. McCain and other Republicans have defended Palin's qualifications, citing Alaska's proximity to Russia. Palin told ABC News, "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." Hagel took issue with that argument. "I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."
Hagel told the newspaper that other governors have been elected to serve in the White House without experience in Washington. He said judgment and character were also important for the job. "But I do think in a world that is so complicated, so interconnected and so combustible, you really got to have some people in charge that have some sense of the bigger scope of the world," Hagel said. "I think that's just a requirement."
from Chuck Lasker of GOPforObama: Here's some research for you! As a Republican for Obama, I collect these links....
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/gophome
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/22/susan-eisenhower-leaving-gop-for-good-cites-mccains-rove-style-politics/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kari-lundgren/my-catholic-faith-pushes_b_125023.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chuck-lasker/economy-tanking-war-on-tw_b_126981.html
http://conservativesforobama.blogspot.com/
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/09/19/what-republicans-say-about-mccain-palin/
http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Core+Pages&type=gen&mod=Core+Pages&tier=3&gid=B33A5C6E2CF04C9596A3EF81822D9F8E <http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Core+Pages&type=gen&mod=Core+Pages&tier=3&gid=B33A5C6E2CF04C9596A3EF81822D9F8E>
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0908/Republican_Congressman_endorses_Obama.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/950451/republicans_for_obama.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/us/politics/31repubs.html?ref=
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/mar/24/0002/
"The economy is fundamentally strong." - President Herbert Hoover, after the stock market plummets in 1929.
"The fundamentals of the economy are strong." - John McCain, after the stock market plummets in 2008
Iowa Congressman Jim Leach discusses the effect that recent events have had on the election. "The post-convention dust has settled, and the current financial crisis is bringing the media focus back to which candidate can provide the change we need. This is neither a time for the Obama camp to panic nor shift basic strategies. Elections are about issues and personalities. And on the issues -- ending the war, establishing a tax policy that puts middle class concerns first, addressing the health care needs of Americans --the case for a new fairness and new decency in public life is compelling. So is the remarkable personality of Barack Obama. While Governor Palin has sparked enthusiasm in the Republican Party's base, the Obama campaign continues to organize assiduously and register new voters, many under 30.
Former GOP Virginia Governor Linwood Holton today endorsed a Democrat for president for the first time and is going to stump critical areas of the state for him. Linwood Holton is the hero of moderate Republicans in Virginia. He defeated the segregationist Democrat for governor and fought GOP rightwingers. Holton is widely regarded as the father of the Republican party in Virginia. When Richmond public schools were ordered integrated Holton enrolled his children in the AA school close to the governor's mansion and walked them to school. He supported his son-in-law Tim Kaine for governor but has never supported a Democratic presidential candidate.
from Reporter Brunswick in Minnesota: Four prominent Minnesota business leaders announced their support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, an effort to counter criticism from Republicans that Obama's tax policies would hurt business and stifle job creation.
"We've spent so much time trying to incent those at the very top that we've forgotten about those in the very middle and that makes up the vast majority of the American population," said Robert Pohlad, chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiAmericas, Inc. and president of Pohlad Cos., at a State Capitol news conference announcing the endorsements.
Acknowledging that they might find themselves paying higher tax bills if Obama were elected, the business leaders suggested that more government spending, used prudently, would move people up the economic ladder and strengthen the middle class.
Robert Ryan, a retired vice president and CFO of Medtronic, said Obama's health care proposal would benefit the uninsured and underinsured.
Lois Quam, a onetime UnitedHealth executive and now managing director of alternative investments for Piper Jaffray, said business leaders should be concerned about McCain's decision-making skills, pointing to his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a hasty bow to the right wing of the Republican Party. Quam is a longtime Democratic contributor, was a Hillary Clinton delegate to the Democratic National Convention and is the wife of former DFL House Majority Leader Matt Entenza. Phillips, Ryan and Pohlad, whose family owns the Minnesota Twins, have contributed to both Republican and Democratic candidates and political committees over the years, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Republican venture capitalists support ObamaTwo Seattle-area venture capitalists who have long supported Republican candidates are tossing their support behind presidential candidate Barack Obama. Bill Ruckelshaus, who led the Environmental Protection Agency in the Nixon and Reagan administrations and currently serves as a strategic director at Madrona Venture Group, said in a statement released today that the "stakes are too high" not to support Obama. He went on to cite Obama's plan to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil by focusing on clean energy technologies.
Bob Nelsen, the co-founder and managing partner of Arch Venture Partners, offered this rationale for supporting Obama. "I have never voted for a Democrat for President in my life because I never saw a true leader like Senator Obama who wants to lead the world by building on what is best about America. I trust Senator Obama to do the right thing and to listen to dissenting views. I believe he deeply cares about the country as whole, not just a few partisan factions. I am not voting for him based on a list of his positions, but I will cast my vote based on a belief that he is the right man at the right time for the United States."
The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal recently faulted McCain's attack on the SEC chairman as "unpresidential", saying the assault on Mr Cox was both false and deeply unfair. The broadside came as polls show his Democrat rival, Barack Obama, edging ahead in key swing states amid public anxiety over the banking crisis.
By Frank Schaeffer: Dear Republicans: This election all Republicans who love America must vote for Obama. A vote for business-as-usual and a continuation of the Neoconservative/Religious Right/ party of corporate American alienation is a vote against America. As a former Republican activist, I appeal to your patriotism and honor.
Unless you haven't been paying attention to the recent history of the Republican Party you will know that today Republican ideology and energy is derived from three sources:
* The Religious Right,
* The Neoconservative Movement,
* Corporate business interests.
You also should know that when it comes to the Religious Right my late father and evangelist, Francis Schaeffer, was the intellectual voice that made it happen. As his young sidekick (in the 70s and 80s) I helped take his message to a huge evangelical audience. I mention this by way of saying that even if you hate my guts -- for having dropped out of the Republican Party, for writing novels that make fun of you, and for reregistering as an independent voter, let alone for supporting Senator Obama -- perhaps you should listen up. I happen to know what I'm talking about.
Let's look at the three power centers that drive the Republican Party today.
The Religious Right came about for one reason and one reason only: it was a reaction to Roe v. Wade and the legalization of abortion in 1973. The Supreme Court essentially created the culture wars. (A state-by-state approach to legalizing abortion would have been better and resulted in much the same situation we have today in terms of the availability of abortion.) Take Roe out of the political mix and there would be no Religious Right.
That said -- certain power-hungry individuals (Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, Rove, Reed et al.) took the energy of our original pro-life movement and used it to build a hate campaign reminiscent of the early momentum that drove European Fascist parties in the mid-1920s through the mid-1940s. Fear of the "other" gays, immigrants, intellectuals, artists, the media, feminists, etc., morphed into a general critique of "the elite" which turned out to be anyone with an education or even big city dwellers. The Religious Right became a crude populist movement pitting the resentful rubes against the rest.
Take a hard look at yourselves. Play back this year's Republican convention and you'll see an all-white crowd of people screaming for offshore oil drilling -- fat lot of good that will do! more carbon! more polution! -- and essentially reacting like starved hyenas when presented with a piece of juicy carrion. At the convention Sarah Palin and others produced nothing more than a snide list of smart ass put downs aimed at the really dumb, with so little substance that former conservatives such the late William F. Buckley, for instance (let alone my late father) would simply have been ashamed to be in your company. You have become a hate-filled rabble proud of your ignorance and resentful of the rest of your own country, resentment that's exceeded only by your maudlin (and false) sense of victimhood.
People that hate half the population of their own country can scarcely be called patriots. On the contrary, people who exult in mocking as their only way to "contribute" to solving our huge environmental, energy, military and economic problems are true subversives.
The smell emanating from your convention was that of a beer hall putsch circa 1930s, not anything remotely like participation in a democracy. Now you all know what it felt like to be in a lynch mob minus the hanging. You should be ashamed. But shame is something that apparently Republicans are no longer capable of feeling, at least when you get together in a mob.
If you could feel shame there would have been a series of contrite public apologies at your convention for the incredible fiasco of non-governing that has typified the Bush administration. My pension, other people's pensions, our homes, jobs and economy are in chaos because of you. Young Americans are dying in Iraq because of you. The world is a more dangerous place because of you. America is hated because of you. Yes, that is you personally. I blame all of you.
You are the people who gave us eight years of Bush. My Marine son fought in his wars. Cowards, where were most of your sons and daughters? The President's daughters were getting arrested for under age drinking and harassing their Secret Service detail. The rest of you were shopping.
Far from saying you're sorry for the state our country is in you're trying to change the subject by reviving a culture war that has nothing to do with the principled fight against abortion of the 1970s that my dad and I began, and everything to do with simply hating people not like yourselves. The ultimate irony is that you're doing this in the name of Jesus Christ, someone, by the way, whom I try to follow as a Christian. You have become blasphemers by dragging our Lord into your political games.
The Republican Party and the Religious Right have become "Christian" warmongers who applaud the use of torture, start needless wars, fight against civil rights for gays and other disadvantaged Americans, and perhaps worst of all, in terms of the long-term impact, have literally turned your hands against God's creation.
You have a little fool for a vice presidential candidate who says she doesn't believe that human beings have anything to do with the phenomena of global warming and the endangering of all human life on this planet. Dream on. This fool claims to know what she knows because of an absolute "I don't blink" confidence in herself. So on top of everything else this fool who says she is a Christian, proves she is not. She lacks any shred of decent humility, the most basic biblical virtue.
The Neoconservative MovementLet's be honest: the Neoconservative Movement is nothing more than an kill-all-the-Arabs, pro-Israel-at-any-cost, morally bankrupt lobby that actually turns out to be anti-Israel. Why? Because taken to the logical conclusion the neoconservative's position on everything--from illegal West Bank settlements, to making war on Iran, not to mention the absolutely useless waste of life that's taken place in Iraq, warlike preparations against Syria and just about every other Middle Eastern country, no, scratch that, every other country in the world--puts Israel in worse jeopardy than ever before.
Fortunately for everyone, it seems that most Israelis "get" this, as well as most Jewish Americans (who vote Democratic) even if a few Neoconservative Jews, most Evangelicals and all the other Republican zealots don't. (Most Jews also know that the idiot fringe so-called Christian Zionists like Rev., Hagee, are no friends to Israel, rather they are perpetuating a doomsday nineteenth century Armageddon/ "Rapture" cult that wants to use the Jews as cosmic "End Times" cannon fodder.)
Get it through your thick heads: a state of permanent war between the West, including Israel and the United States, and the Muslim world is a war that Israel will eventually lose. Do the demographic math!
Republicans: You have been tricked and misled by; Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney, Jr. Dick Cheney. These neofools have unwittingly set in motion the destruction of Israel (probably in our lifetimes) and have maybe killed America too. Bastards! Republicans: It will be remembered that you embraced these world-hating self-deluded paranoid blabberers and made their twisted sound-bite polemics your own.
Those who, like me, actually believe that Israel has the right to exist should look on the Neoconservatives listed above with the same loathing that we look back on the idiots who goaded Europe into World War I, also in the name of "nationalism," "democracy" and "freedom."
Belligerent posturing is not a policy, it is idiocy. You Republicans have become the party of perpetual fear and aggressive non-provoked war, seeing enemies where there are none and/or provoking former friends to become our enemies, and/or faking reasons for war and/or wasting our soldier's blood in places such as Afghanistan, where our cause was just but you fumbled the ball.
Your moron vice presidential candidate is still at it! While turning her son's deployment to war into a flag-dishonoring political circus stunt she repeated the Bush lie and said that her son was going off to fight the perpetrators of 9/11. This is a barefaced lie and you all know it. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. The only reason we attacked them is because the fools listed above decided it would be good for Israel and our stupid "president" went along.
Now you belligerent asses are supporting the same idiot (McCain) that helped bring us Iraq. He is now champing at the bit to revive the cold, and maybe a hot war with Russia! Have you gone mad? Can't you see you have an old foolish semi-senile man mired in the bathos of post-Vietnam "we were denied victory" psychosis for a candidate? Don't you know that Bush has made us weak?
You Republicans did to our military what the USSR could not do: demoralize it, stretch it beyond breaking and set it back decades. And now you want MORE wars?!
Corporate Business InterestsThe Republican Party claims traditional values. It has propagated a laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests and has -- literally -- stood back and encouraged the rape of the earth. You are the party of the earth-hogging SUV. You have literally sowed the wind and reaped the hurricanes.
This is as self-defeating as it is embarrassing for those claiming the moral high ground, particularly those who say that their philosophy represents traditional Judeo-Christian values. We all live here for crying out loud! Will you now fight our God and Creator too for the "right" to burn the last drop of oil while on a weekend jaunt to nowhere in your all-terrain piece of garbage?
ConclusionThe Republican problem is a systemic disparagement of government, community, faith in our institutions, family, God's creation and the mitigating institutions that put a check on something any party aligned with a religious movement should know all about: sin. Greed is not the only problem. Human weakness and stupidity (i.e., "sin") is the problem! And the genius of the American system is supposedly that we have a system of checks and balances to mitigate our fallen state. You have destroyed those checks and balances.
Bush felt no guilt about promoting completely unqualified people to high posts merely on the basis of social, ideological or political connections. I'll take that a step further: I don't think Bush ever wanted the government to work. You Republicans hate our government as bitterly as our terrorist enemies do. You have been trying to deconstruct it. Since the government is seen as the enemy of freedom by you, if it doesn't work so much the better!
We have met the enemy and he is us! When Islamists tried to destroy our country by flying planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers, we rightly called them terrorists. When the Republicans in the Congress and the White House set about destroying our country, our standing in the world, our military and our economy, but much more effectively, you called them statesmen. It is time for all Americans -- including all you who are patriotic Republicans -- to sweep away these putrid earth-consuming, family killing, government bashing "me" worshipping individualistic fools--that or to watch our country be swept away by them. We can't afford eight more years of this willful ignorance. Obama in 2008!
How Cuba will determine the 2008 Election.
Whether you are pro-Cuba or anti-Cuba, the debate may continue for centuries. One thing is certain. The nearly fifty year old, U.S. Embargo on Cuba has not worked, does not work and will not work. In stating so, we are not acknowledging, supporting or condoning Cuba’s current government.
We are saying it’s time for some of America’s voters, politicians and media to evolve with Cuba, perhaps more than any other issue. It could be said; how politicians act and vote towards the five decade old failed U.S. policies with Cuba is a clear reflection on their character.
We are saying that continuing the anti Cuba embargo policies is a clear reflection of a persons character. Whether running for President of the United States, Senate, Congress or any government leadership position; a person should demonstrated the ability to change course, try new directions and see different points of view. Especially if the policy they supported has failed for fifty years.
The anti-Cuba politicians, lobby and community is a small percentage of all populations, including the Cuban population itself. Yet the anti-Cuba movement has controlled the presidency of the United States and both political houses; including this elections Republican candidate John McCain for nearly fifty years. John McCain is anti-Cuba, while Barack Obama is pro-Cuba.
Why would any politician, business person and human continue enforcing on themselves, and worse others; a failed Cuba policy that the majority of people in America, the world and mostly the island of Cuba itself do not want? See the Election 08 FREE CUBA FILM SERIES and you will find out.
Then it’s up to you to decide when you cast your vote on “Election Moment”, if you are voting for character.
Election moment is the truest moment in any election when you, the voter stand there in the privacy of your own mind right before you vote. Only you will know if you cast a vote for character, and only you can determine the issues that reflect a person’s character. Cuba is one of those clear character issues.
Election 08 FREE CUBA FILM SERIES, is committed to bring the real Cuba to America. We’ve selected three diverse films that provide audiences with a modern day love story set in Havana, Cuba. A film that gives you a glimpse into the future with the childhood version of The Buena Vista Club, and lastly, an impacting documentary that brings to life, the hidden true history of Cuban terrorism, the U.S. Politicians directly related to Fidel Castro who continued to master mind the anti Cuba movement in the U.S. and the political families who continue to enforce their historically failed policies against Cuba on the world through violence, economics and political warfare.
Will you vote for a person who is pro-Cuba and promises to create a powerful future for America uniting the world.
Or will you vote for a person who is anti-Cuba and promises to bend history to make sure America stays the current course isolating the world.
Only you will know on your “Election Moment.”
Luis Moro
www.EveryThingCuba.com
(sorry I know this is posted twice, but I am sending it to more groups)
This video should be watched. Everyone that wants McCain for his war experience, need to see this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w
Thanks,
YES WE CAN
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/Colonial82
Back in 2004 I heard a speech that inspired me. I said that person would be the next president. I am a registered Republican and I believe with all my hear that this country needs to stop being divided.
There can not be a red America and a blue America. We need to be a United States of America.
There are so many things we need to do to make sure our country is secure and prosperous in this century, and I believe that Obama is the president to help us realize our potential.
Please donate for one America!
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668683139&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Drudge Report is reporting foreign news is reporting that Bush plans to attack Iran before the end of his term.
We need to impeach him NOW
I would like to put this public service announcement to share my thoughts of Strickland for VP. I have always lived in Ohio and I pay attention to politics, especially lately.
Strickland is not that popular because anything he did. He won because we just came off of the worst Republican governor in our state's history and maybe the country. Then the Republicans run the corrupt former Secretary of State against him who held bad stocks like Diebold which he brought right before he bought the machines for Ohio. The best candidate for Democratic nominee had already dropped out, mayor of Columbus Michael Coleman.
Strickland, in his great time in office, CUT student loans for Ohio students by 25%. And past that, he hasn't done anything since getting here except sign into law a waste of time strip club law. Then he was the mouthpiece of the Hillary garbage in Ohio.Strickland even had a financial scandal in his past.
He is just a man that got lucky and in the right place at the right time.
Please as an Ohioan, NO to Strickland as VP. I don't want him that close to the presidency.
Thank you and have a good day.I don't want this to be taken as a personal attack against Strickland, he could be a nice guy, I just don't think he is VP material.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/19/83319/5605/481/518183
He can win Ohio
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/14/931/32551/262/515359
As an Ohioan, thank God he won't be our VP. I don't think that highly of Strickland.
For all those lost and missing in China quake and Burma along for those who have survived.
Events like these puts things in perspective.
