Organizing for America | North Alabama for Obama

North Alabama for Obama

To coordinate the activities and events of groups and people in North Alabama. Cell phones are magic. Long distance calls are usually the same as local calls, as far as the cell phone company is concerned. We will have phone calling parties, get out the vote etc. Iowa caucus, January 3 (1 week after Christmas) New Hampshire Primary, January 8 (2 weeks after Christmas) South Carolina Primary, January 26, (5 weeks from Christmas) The Atlanta Group sponsors a free bus ride to South Carolina almost every weekend. Twenty states have primaries on Feb. 5, super Tuesday. Time is short but not too short and there is plenty to do. http://youtube.com/watch?v=drTiSz7vLh8

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Hate Grows in America

By Junelle from Anniston, AL - Aug 14th, 2009 at 3:22 pm EDT

Also listed in: 4 groups

Craziness has invaded America as certainly as if it had been invaded by a super virus. Not a craziness that can be cured with a shot of truth or common sense. This is a special strain, born, fed and cultivated like a crop of Hemlock.

Why any of us are surprised that the Right would stoop to feeding people false and inflammatory information, whip them into a furor, and then set them loose is a mystery. We watched them conform the Constitution and Bill of Rights to meet their needs for eight long years.

What is alarming and frustrating for me is the number of people who don't bother to read. They can be bombarded with newspapers (remember them?), on-line articles, or facts. They choose instead to believe the Glenn Becks, and Lou Dobbs of the world.

What is the common thread here? HATE! Hatred for our President. The Righteous Right, as I like to call them, will do anything, say anything, and I am afraid, cross any line to win.

Unite my friends, blog, write letters, and talk even when it is uncomfortable. Let's turn this around by being the rational ones.

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Enlightening thoughts...

By Vicky from Madison - Oct 23rd, 2008 at 10:15 pm EDT

Also listed in: North Alabama for Obama

Received this in an email and it just resonates truth for me...

"Let me see if I have this straight....

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different." Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable. Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded. If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a
State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, beco me chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have
any real leadership experience. If your total resume is: local sportscaster, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people,then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian. If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth
control, you are eroding the fiber of society. If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's. If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now."

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Music Video: Sailcat - Change The World

By Michael Hubbard - Oct 10th, 2008 at 9:46 pm EDT

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Sailcat of 70's Motorcycle Mama fame have come out of self imposed retirement to promote Barack Obama. We hope this music video will lift your spirits and help you to Change The World.

Love & Respect

John D. Wyker aka Sailcat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Di4cOsoLc

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One percent

By Mike from Lansing, MI - Oct 1st, 2008 at 9:23 pm EDT

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1%, or 1 vote out of 100

There have been 12 Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the entire election would have been different. More than half were decided by less than a 2% margin.

In 2004,    57,787 votes would have given us President Kerry.
In 2000,    269 votes would have given us President Gore
In 1996,    575,515 votes would have given us President Dole.

From ABC News:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceandsociety/2008/09/squeakers.html

==========
"Squeakers"
Ned Potter
ABC News
September 29, 2008

How close have Presidential elections been? Closer, perhaps, than we ever guessed. Mike Sheppard, a grad student in statistics at Michigan State, has done a mathematical exercise that shows it.

He ran a computer program to answer this question: "What is the smallest number of total votes that need to be switched from one candidate to another, and from which states, to affect the outcome of the election?"

The answer: in some years, very, very few. Take a look at his analysis HERE. It shows the powerful interaction between the popular vote and the electoral college.

[...]
==========

Full article here:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceandsociety/2008/09/squeakers.html

Detailed analysis here, including colored maps:
https://www.msu.edu/~sheppa28/elections.html

-Mike Sheppard

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Why I have never voted before.

By Ryan E. Poole - www.Power Poole.com - Sep 8th, 2008 at 6:30 pm EDT

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Why I have never voted before.

    My name is Ryan E. Poole. I was born in 1971 in Ann Arbor Michigan (GO BLUE :) and I am a 37 year old African American male now living in Huntsville, AL. I lived in Michigan with my mother until I was 10 years old. As part of the first wave of Generation X’ers growing up in the north, I rarely experienced what I call racism. From 1st to 4th grade, I had to ride the bus 20 or 30 miles across town by myself in order to attend a fairly integrated private Christian school. Because I attended a church sponsored school, politics was rarely the subject of a lesson. I honestly cannot even recall any substantive lessons about the struggles of civil rights or voting for that matter.

    When I turned 11, my mom remarried and our new family moved to Alabama because of a Chrysler plant closing. Moving from north to south in the 80’s was a big culture shock for me to say the least. The lines drawn between races were definitely made more prominent in the south. One thing I distinctly remember seeing in Michigan was more interracial couples. As a teenager in Alabama, I remember hearing many more discussions about the civil rights movement but even in those conversations, there was not really an emphasis placed on the importance of voting from older blacks or whites. I am not sure if that was because the civil rights movement was actually more about equality than voting or whether it was just an assumption that everybody here knows that they are supposed to vote. At any rate, I grew up embracing a typical Generation X mindset that my vote really did not count, so why bother. However, my reason for not voting was not based on ignorance of the struggle or even the voting process for that matter.

    While attending college, I remember many heated discussions with older people from the South, including my professors, about the importance of voting. I even devoted my free time to winning those kinds of arguments by proving that our votes really did not count or at least that we had no way to truly prove that they counted. The stock rebuttal that every “pro-voter” relied on, without fail, was that many people died for the right for black people to vote. My response was, dying for a cause or right that was not truly understood did not make the cause any nobler, no matter how sincere the martyrs. One can imagine how blasphemous this sounded to those older black southerners, whose parents died in that very struggle. They spent countless hours trying to convince me of the error of my ways and came pretty close to stoning me after some of those “discussions.” It always ended with my challenge – “prove to me that my vote or your vote or anybody’s vote actually counts in electing the President.” No one was ever able to do so, so I never saw the point.

    Years later, the fiascos of the last two Bush elections only confirmed my position that our vote really does not count. Even before those two clear violations of America’s trust, my understanding of the Electoral College from a pragmatist standpoint gave me all the ammunition I needed. State ballots are designed to suggest that the voters are voting for actual presidential candidates. In reality, we are only voting for presidential electors who in turn vote for a presidential candidate more than a month later. While many states require that their electors vote as they have pledged, the Constitution does not require the same. The discrepancies in exit polls, the differences in electronic counting versus hand counting, the non-reconciling of ballots or types of ballots after the vote, and lack of secure storing methods all are points that cannot be disputed by pro-voters. In short, there is no viable or consistent checks and balances for the current voting process and therefore no possible way to prove that our votes actually count. This is what I actually meant when I said the people who died for the right to vote did not understand the process. Otherwise, in my mind, somebody would have suggested fighting for more than just the right to vote. They would have realized that they needed to ensure that the votes that they so dearly wanted to cast would actually count or at least gave the next generation the commission to ensure that they counted.

Commercial break...    Read More »

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The Guide to the Conservative Palinguage

By Michael Hubbard - Sep 6th, 2008 at 4:26 pm EDT

Also listed in: 5 groups

Up in the Twin Cities area folks are speaking a new language. Or, should I say Palinguage. It sounds sorta familiar because it's Latin based. But different from the plain English we're used to speaking, in Palinguage recognizable words take on new meanings. Won't you take a moment to learn some Plainguage so you can talk like a hypocritical conservative?

REPEAT THE FOLLOWING:

If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire." If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."

If you live in an Urban area and you get a girl pregnant you're a "baby daddy." If you're the same in Alaska you're a "teen father." (Actually, according to your own MySpace page you're an F'n redneck that don't want any kids, but that's too long a phrase for the evil liberal media to take out of context and flog morning noon and night).

Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America. White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."

If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic." Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."

Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you're "unpatriotic." Name your kid Track, you're "colorful."

If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless." A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."

If you say that for the "first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country" it makes you "unfit" to be First Lady. If you are a registered member of a fringe political group that advocates secession that makes you "First Dude."

A DUI from twenty years ago is "old news." A speech given without proper citation from twenty years ago is "relevant information."

And, finally, if you're a man and you decide to run for office despite your wife's recurrence of cancer you're a "questionable spouse." If you're a woman and you decide to run for office despite having five kids including a newborn... Well, we don't know what that is 'cause THAT'S NOT A FAIR QUESTION TO ASK.

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The Guide to the Conservative Palinguage Vol II

By Michael Hubbard - Sep 6th, 2008 at 4:25 pm EDT

Also listed in: 5 groups

This is the Vol. 2 of The Guide to the Conservative Palinguage. I'm calling this one the People's Edition because you, the people, have obviously been taking AP courses in talking Conservative. I've been slammed with responses. Enough that I can promise you there will be future volumes. Along with some of mine, I've mixed in a few of yours for everybody's linguistic pleasure.

Before we start, I'd like to note that I intimated in Vol. 1 that English is a Latin based language. Hondorf was among a few others who pointed out that English is "primarily German based, yes, but it is really a hybrid of Germanic and Romanic languages . . . by the way, I am a redneck."

Clearly, none of us should judge a neck by its color.

A reminder, we're collecting Palinisms here, and over at That Minority Thing.com. If you've got 'em, send 'em.

Ready? Let's begin!

If you get 18 million people to vote for you in a national presidential primary, you're a "phoney." Get 100,000+ people to vote you governor of the 47th most populous state in the Union, you're "well loved."

SoyAA says: If you are biracial and born in a state not connected to the lower 48, America needs darn near 2 years and 3 major speeches to "get to know you." If you're white and from a state not connected to the lower 48, America needs 36 minutes and 38 seconds worth of an acceptance speech to know you're "one of us."

If you give your wife a dap on stage, it's actually a "terrorist fist jab." If your daughter licks her palm so that she can slick down your youngest child's hair on national TV it's an "adorable moment." (Seriously, forget about abstinence only, teach these folks some grooming skills).

DTD SAYS: If your pastor rails against inequality in the United States of America, you're an "extremist." If your pastor welcomes a sermon by a member of Jews for Jesus who preaches that the killing of Jews by terrorists is a lesson to Jews that they must convert to Christianity, you're a "fundamentalist."

If you're a black man and you use a scholarship to get into college, then work your way up to being the president of the Harvard Law Review, you're "uppity." If you're a conservative and your parents pay your way to Hawaii Pacific University . . . you only have four more schools to attend over the next five years before you somehow manage to graduate (it might be five more schools over the next five years. No one has yet verified whether or not Palin was actually ever registered at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. But, you know how shady people are who ever attended any kind of school in Hawaii).

SeanOcali says: If you're 18, white, and get a 16 year old girl pregnant "life happens." If you're 18, black, and impregnate a 16 year old girl, you're a "registered sex offender."

If you spend 18 months building a campaign around the theme of "Change," it's just "empty rhetoric." If one week before your party's national convention you SUDDENLY make your candidacy about "Change," that's "red meat."

And your last lesson for the day:

If you are a Democrat, an Independent, or even a moderate Republican, if you're female, male, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, bi-racial, multi-ethnic, or GLBT, if you're a Jew, Gentile, Muslim, agnostic or atheist -- "Yes, we can!"

If you're a pitbull with lipstick from Alaska, "Yup, yup!"

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Townhall.com: Real agents of change

By Michael Hubbard - Sep 6th, 2008 at 4:24 pm EDT

Also listed in: 4 groups

This holds to my theory that it's pretty much only the "right" wing radio hosts that keep on bringing up Palin's daughter as a ploy to try to get the "mainstream" media to start talking about it.

We started hearing Limbaugh starting to whine about how badly Palin was being treated the day after the story broke about her daughter being pregnant, mainly blaming Obama's (and us liberal bloggers 'that still live in our mama's basements, I've owned my own home since age 18 though so....) campaign, when it was Obama who had in fact said that he wouldn't make it an issue and anyone in his campaign would be fired if they did. Of course you didn't hear him mention that.

from impalin'

Townhall: Agents of Change Posted in Scandal

Townhall.com columnists are the real agents of change in this campaign. They've changed their stance on supporting John McCain, they've changed their stance on the importance of experience, and they've changed their position on the legitimacy of the National Enquirer.

The final point is the easiest to demonstrate, which I will attempt to do right here.

Columnist Brian Fitzpatrick called it "America's New Newspaper of Record" in an article criticizing the mainstream media for "ignoring" the Edwards scandal.
Columnist Michael Medved: "While the National Enquirer (America's new 'journal of record'?) doggedly pursued the stories, more respectable reporters chose to ignore all sorts of available evidence of hanky-panky— including the on-the-record payment of $114,000 to a blonde, new-agey space-case with no relevant experience to travel with the candidate around the world (even to Africa) making web videos about his 'essence.' "
Columnist Brent Bozell III: "But the networks didn't sweep this under the rug. They sat on top of the dirty rug for months while the Enquirer dug out the Edwards affair, and now that it's out, they want it swept right back under the rug before the Democratic convention."
Columnist Cal Thomas: "The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times knew about the Enquirer stories on Edwards, but refused to assign reporters to look into them."
Columnist and conservative sweetheart Ann Coulter: "The mainstream media's reaction to the National Enquirer's reports on John Edwards' 'love child' scandal has been reminiscent of the Soviet press."

Guess what? The mainstream media agencies are NOT reporting on the potential Palin scandals that are currently making headlines at the National Enquirer. And why is this? The Enquirer is not a reputable news source. It wasn't before the Edwards scandal, and it isn't now. That's why we don't hear people complaining about the media not reporting on the Enquirer's story: conservatives only complain about media bias when it's not in their favor. This is a story the mainstream media is leaving out (as they should be), just as they were right to take the Enquirer's Edwards story with a grain of salt, not reporting on it until all the facts came out.

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Tired of Repugs hiding behind Palin's skirt and daughter?

By Michael Hubbard - Sep 6th, 2008 at 4:21 pm EDT

Also listed in: 5 groups

In don't know if this will work so if the video doesn't show up below just click this link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/04/jon-stewart-hits-karl-rov_n_123852.html

Wednesday night on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart hit Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly with damning evidence of their hypocrisy regarding Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

While Rove recently praised Palin's experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Stewart showed video of Rove trashing Virginia Governor — and former Richmond Mayor — Tim Kaine's executive experience, listing all the cities that are bigger than Richmond and calling such a pick "political."

Then, after recent video of O'Reilly describing Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a family issue, Stewart showed a clip of the Fox News host blaming Jamie Lynn Spears' parents for her teenage pregnancy.

Finally, after showing video of Dick Morris complaining about the rampant sexism in the media coverage of Sarah Palin, Stewart unveiled a clip of Morris saying that Hillary hides behind the sexism defense, and that anytime "the big boys" pick on Hillary, "she retreats behind the apron strings."

"In Dick Morris' defense," Stewart said, "he is a lying sack of sh*t."

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Fact vs. Fiction

By Michael Hubbard - Sep 6th, 2008 at 4:16 pm EDT

Also listed in: 4 groups

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/09/palin_v_reality.php
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform -- not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state -- by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right -- change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington -- throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate. ___
--
Cate Gormley
Communications Director
WIN (Women's Information Network)
Democratic. Pro-Choice. Women. Network.
202-387-7200
www.winonline.org

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Major Government, Military Corruption

By Cynthia - Aug 28th, 2008 at 7:32 pm EDT

Also listed in: 10 groups

Major Government, Military Corruption
Trillions Missing at Defense Department

” ‘According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,’ Rumsfeld admitted. $2.3 trillion — that’s $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America.”
— CBS News, 1/29/02, U.S. Secretary of Defense raises evidence of government, military corruption

“A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units. When military leaders were scrambling to find enough chemical and biological warfare suits to protect U.S. troops, the department was caught selling these suits as surplus on the Internet ‘for pennies on the dollar.’ ”
— San Francisco Chronicle, 5/18/03

“The Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable.”
— New York Times, 6/9/04

One of the most stunning underreported stories in the media is the well-established fact that at the very least hundreds of billions of dollars (if not trillions) are missing from the accounts of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld himself admitted that $2.3 trillion may be missing. Why hasn’t this astounding evidence of major government and military corruption broadcast in headline news around the world? Why isn’t anyone talking about it now?

As the media is failing so badly at getting this news out, excerpts from the few media articles and government documents which reported the problem have been compiled below. Click on the links provided for verification. To understand how the media is failing at its job on this and other critically important stories, read the two-page summary by top journalists at http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacover-up. You can help to change this vastly irresponsible behavior by informing your friends and colleagues and calling on all of our media and elected representatives to address this critical problem. Together, we can and will build a brighter future.

The War On Waste
January 29, 2002, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

On Sept. 10 [2001], Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, “the adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.” He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat. Rumsfeld promised change but the next day—Sept. 11—the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten. Just last week President Bush announced, “my 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending.” More money for the Pentagon…while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends. “According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,” Rumsfeld admitted. $2.3 trillion—that’s $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. A former Marine turned whistle-blower is risking his job by speaking out…about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency’s balance sheets. Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service…tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records. “The director looked at me and said ‘Why do you care about this stuff?’ It took me aback. My supervisor asking me why I care about doing a good job,” said Minnery. He was reassigned and says officials then covered up the problem. The Pentagon’s Inspector General “partially substantiated” several of Minnery’s allegations.

Note: To see the three-minute CBS video clip of this shocking admission, click here. For another key four-minute clip, click here. Even though this news was originally not reported because of the overwhelming trauma of 9/11, why wasn’t it broadcast loudly once it finally was reported? Why isn’t this making media headlines now?

DOD Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week
September 10, 2001, Department of Defense
http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2001/s20010910-secdef.html (DOD website)

Remarks as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, The Pentagon, September 10, 2001. The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. The adversary [is] the Pentagon bureaucracy. An average American family works an entire year to generate $6,000 in income taxes. Here we spill many times that amount every hour by duplication and by inattention. According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. This is not just about money. It’s not about waste. It’s about our responsibility to the men and women in uniform who put their lives at risk. It’s about respect for taxpayers’ dollars. A cab driver in New York City ought to be able to feel confident that we care about those dollars.

Note: Is it possible that this is more than just problems with a bureaucracy? When we are talking about trillions of dollars, I strongly suspect that major corruption at very high levels may be involved. For a couple striking examples of major corruption not adequately covered by the media from highly respected sources, see the fascinating accounts at http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacover-up#levine.

Fiscal mess awaits new defense chief: Gates inherits ‘worst-managed’ federal agency
December 13, 2006, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco’s leading newspaper)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/13/MNG96MUHPF1.DTL

Robert Gates will face … the enormous task of cleaning up the Pentagon’s tangled finances, which outside auditors lambaste as so chaotic that no one knows how much money is being spent on defense at any given time. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget believes the Pentagon’s financial management systems are in such a mess “that independent auditors still cannot certify the accuracy of the financial statements.” David Walker, the U.S. Comptroller General, issued a devastating assessment of the Pentagon’s finances, which include an annual budget of over $500 billion. The Pentagon’s financial problems “are pervasive, complex, long-standing and deeply rooted in virtually all business operations throughout the department,” Walker told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Financial problems like the Pentagon’s “would put any civilian company out of business,” said Kwai Chan, a former GAO auditor … and author of a report entitled “Financial Management in the Department of Defense: No One is Accountable.” Winslow Wheeler, a former national security expert for the Senate Budget Committee, called the Defense Department “the worst-managed agency in the federal government, (that) can’t account for the half-trillion dollars it spends each year, and seeks to produce weapons that are irrelevant or ineffective, or both.” Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, also has promised greater oversight … by resurrecting an oversight and investigations subcommittee, which the GOP dissolved after winning control of Congress in 1994.

Sustained Improvement in Federal Financial Management Is Crucial to Addressing Our Nation’s Financial Condition and Long-term Fiscal Imbalance
March 1, 2006, Government Accountability Office (formerly Government Accounting Office)
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06406thigh.pdf - Official .pdf version of 2005 report summary on GAO website
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-406T - Non-.pdf version

GAO is required by law to annually audit the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government. Until the problems discussed in GAO’s audit report on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements are adequately addressed, they will continue to…hinder the federal government from having reliable financial information to operate in an economical, efficient, and effective manner. For the ninth consecutive year, certain material weaknesses in internal control and in selected accounting and financial reporting practices resulted in conditions that continued to prevent GAO from being able to provide the Congress and American people an opinion as to whether the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government are fairly stated in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. Major impediments to an opinion on the consolidated financial statements continued to be (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense. The federal government’s fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion, representing close to four times gross domestic product (GDP) in fiscal year 2005 and up from about $20 trillion or two times GDP in 2000.

Defense Department drops $100M on unused airline tickets
June 9, 2004, USA Today/New York Times/Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2004-06-09-pentagon-flights_x.htm
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01EED61630F93AA35755C0A9629C8B63

The Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable, congressional investigators say. The GAO estimated that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department bought at least $100 million in tickets that were not used or used only partially by a passenger who did not complete all legs of a flight. The waste went undetected because the department relied on individuals to report the unused tickets. They did not do so. “The millions of dollars wasted on unused airline tickets provides another example of why DOD financial management is one of our high-risk areas, with DOD highly vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse,” the GAO said. Two of the three lawmakers who asked for the study were Republicans, and both were highly critical of the Pentagon’s lack of financial control. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said, “It’s outrageous that the Defense Department would be sending additional federal tax dollars to the airlines by way of unused passenger tickets.” While one GAO report focused on the unused tickets, the second investigation found potential fraud. It said the department paid travelers for tickets the department already bought and reimbursed employees for tickets that had not been authorized. It is a crime for a government employee knowingly to request reimbursement for goods and services he or she did not buy. To demonstrate how easy it was to have the Pentagon pay for airline travel, the investigators posed as Defense employees, had the department generate a ticket and showed up at the ticket counter to pick up a boarding pass.

Note: Isn’t it interesting how both the New York Times and the Washington Post omitted the above statement in bold from their reports of this Associated Press article?

Military waste under fire: $1 trillion missing
May 18, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco’s leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/18/MN251738.DTL

The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat…couldn’t account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes. The nonpartisan General Accounting Office has raised the volume of its perennial complaints about the financial woes at Defense, which recently failed its seventh audit in as many years. “Overhauling DOD’s financial management operations represent a challenge that goes far beyond financial accounting,” GAO chief David Walker told lawmakers. Recent government reports suggest the Pentagon’s money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units. When military leaders were scrambling to find enough chemical and biological warfare suits to protect U.S. troops, the department was caught selling these suits as surplus on the Internet “for pennies on the dollar,” a GAO official said. “We are overhauling our financial management system,” said Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon’s chief financial officer. “The Pentagon has failed to address financial problems that dwarf those of Enron,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles. Gregory Kutz, director of GAO’s financial management division [said] “I’ve been to Wal-Mart. They were able to tell me how many tubes of toothpaste were in Fairfax, Va. And DOD can’t find its chem-bio suits.” Opposition to defense spending is portrayed as unpatriotic. Legislators are often more concerned about winning Pentagon pork than controlling defense waste.

Note: For an intriguing Online Journal article exposing possible deep corruption on the part of the Pentagon’s former CFO (Chief Financial Officer) Dov Zakheim, click here.

Congressional Testimony of DOD Inspector General
May 8, 2001, Department of Defense Inspector General
http://www.dodig.osd.mil/Audit/reports/fy01/01-120.pdf - Report No. D-2001-120

Statement of Robert J Lieberman, Deputy Inspector General, Department of Defense, Before the Subcommittee on Governmental Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations, House Committee on Government Reform of Defense Financial Management. The extensive DoD efforts to compile and audit the FY 2000 financial statements, for the Department as a whole and for the 10 subsidiary reporting entities like the Army, Navy and Air Force General Funds, could not overcome the impediments caused by poor systems and unreliable documentation of transactions and assets. Some examples of the problems in these year-end statements follow. Department-level accounting adjustment entries used to compile the financial statements were $4.4 trillion, with $1.1 trillion of those unsupported by reliable explanatory information and audit trails. This is an improvement from FY 1999, when $7.6 trillion of adjustments were made with $2.3 trillion unsupported, but remains a good indication of the need for wholesale changes to the financial data reporting systems. Accurate reporting of inventory and property remains a continuing challenge for each of the Military Departments and Defense Logistics Agency because of problems in logistics and other feeder systems. Although the DoD has put a full decade of effort into improving its financial reporting, it seems that everyone involved-—the Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, the audit community, and DoD managers—-have been unable to determine or clearly articulate exactly how much progress has been made.

Note: Why didn’t these reports become headline news? Why isn’t anyone being assigned to seriously investigate these continually unresolved core issues and report to the public that the largest, most powerful country in the world is a long way from being able to track its own finances. For lots more major media articles on major government corruption, click here. And for the deeper reasons behind these issues, a top U.S. general’s explanation is available here. You can help to build a better world by sharing this vital information with your friends and colleagues and contacting members of the media and your government representatives asking them to address this pervasive problem. Thanks for caring.

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An Alabama Birthday Bash!

By Rachel (Hussein) - Aug 5th, 2008 at 8:49 am EDT

Also listed in: 10 groups

On August 4, 2008, some residents in the Huntsville-Madison area used Barack Obama’s birthday as the perfect opportunity to work at turning Alabama into Alobama. Volunteers with Huntsville for Obama threw a party which included voter registration, Obama gear, and plenty of fun and entertainment. . . Read More »

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Whosoever Controls Your Money......

By Michael Hubbard - Jul 30th, 2008 at 9:41 am EDT

Also listed in: 6 groups

While you read this, remember that when you go in and punch that time clock and fight those nasty office politicians that part of that hunk o' tax they take out of your check is going back into your company's CEO and board members pockets by way of corporate welfare....all so they could pit you in competition with communists overseas.

Still gonna vote Republican??

From our good friends over at conceptual guerilla....

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/625

Greetings good citizen,

Are you sick and tired of hearing what a 'great deal' free trade is (especially when your own experiences with 'global labor arbitrage' have come back to haunt you recently). Your paycheck couldn't feed a fly and you have zero leverage to demand a raise.

Well, how about if I were to tell you that it's even worse than that?

You know how I'm always saying 'whosoever controls your money, controls you'?

Well, the 'evidence' that some elite group has indeed seized control the global economy by creating a 'monopoly' on how goods are priced (as well as having 'a near' monopoly on being able to create that currency as well) puts 'free trade' in a somewhat different light.

From today's Asia Times we have this piece from Dr. Henry C.K. Liu:

CHINA'S DOLLAR MILLSTONE, Part 1
Breaking free from dollar hegemony [The following is from page one]

Page 1 of 4
CHINA'S DOLLAR MILLSTONE, Part 1
Breaking free from dollar hegemony
By Henry C K Liu

The vast expansion of US-led globalized trade since the Cold War ended in 1991 had been fueled by unsustainable serial debt bubbles built on dollar hegemony, which came into existence on a global scale with the emergence of deregulated global financial markets that made cross-border flow of funds routine since the 1990s.

Dollar hegemony is a geopolitically constructed peculiarity through which critical commodities, the most notable being oil, are denominated in fiat dollars, not backed by gold or other species since then president Richard Nixon took the US dollar off gold in 1971. The recycling of petro-dollars into other dollar assets is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973. After that, everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil, and every economy needs oil. Dollar hegemony separates the trade value of every currency from direct connection to the productivity of the issuing economy to link it directly to the size of dollar reserves held by the issuing central bank. Dollar hegemony enables the US to own indirectly but essentially the entire global economy by requiring its wealth to be denominated in fiat dollars that the US can print at will with little in the way of monetary penalties.

So, the US has a 'lock' on the world's economy. What Dr. Liu is pointing out here is that the world has been turned into some greedy fuck's piggy bank because they control the 'asset' used to price all of those goods.

The arrow points to Ben Bernanke, but I will remind readers that our 'central bank' the Federal Reserve is not a part of the Federal Government and that its full name is the Federal Reserve CORPORATION! A company that is 'privately held' and reputed to be 'owned' by several foreign banks/banking 'families'.

Well good citizen, somewhere within this snake pit is a 'cartel' or a single individual that quite literally 'owns the world'! (And he or she used the US nuclear card to get it.)

Since whoever it is has been actively working to destroy the US economy, I don't think this individual is a US citizen…not that it particularly matters. Let us continue:

World trade is now a game in which the US produces fiat dollars of uncertain exchange value and zero intrinsic value, and the rest of the world produces goods and services that fiat dollars can buy at "market prices" quoted in dollars. Such market prices are no longer based on mark-ups over production costs set by socio-economic conditions in the producing countries. They are kept artificially low to compensate for the effect of overcapacity in the global economy created by a combination of overinvestment and weak demand due to low wages in every economy.

Such low market prices in turn push further down already low wages to further cut cost in an unending race to the bottom. The higher the production volume above market demand, the lower the unit market price of a product must go in order to increase sales volume to keep revenue from falling. Lower market prices require lower production costs which in turn push wages lower. Lower wages in turn further reduce demand. [You see, an 'unending death spiral'…]

To prevent loss of revenue from falling prices, producers must produce at still higher volume, thus further lowering market prices and wages in a downward spiral. Export economies are forced to compete for market share in the global market by lowering both domestic wages and the exchange rate of their currencies. Lower exchange rates push up the market price of commodities which must be compensated for by even lower wages. The adverse effects of dollar hegemony on wages apply not only to the emerging export economies but also to the importing US economy. Workers all over the world are oppressed victims of dollar hegemony, which turns the labor theory of value up-side-down.

In a global market operating under dollar hegemony, the world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture Ricardian comparative advantage. The theory of comparative advantage as espoused by British economist David Ricardo (1772-1823) asserts that trade can benefit all participating nations, even those that command no absolute advantage, because such nations can still benefit from specializing in producing products with the lowest opportunity cost, which is measured by how much production of another good needs to be reduced to increase production by one additional unit of that good.

This theory reflected British national opinion at the 19th century when free trade benefited Britain more than its trade partners. However, in today's globalized trade when factors of production such as capital, credit, technology, management, information, branding, distribution and sales are mobile across national borders and can generate profit much greater than manufacturing, the theory of comparative advantage has a hard time holding up against measurable data.

Under dollar hegemony, exporting nations compete in the global market to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign capital and debt, to pay for imported energy, raw material and capital goods, to pay intellectual property fees and information technology fees. Moreover, their central banks must accumulate dollar reserves to ward off speculative attacks on the value of their currencies in world currency markets. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. Only the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, is exempt from this pressure to accumulate dollars because it can issue theoretically unlimited additional dollars at will with monetary immunity. The dollar is merely a Federal Reserve note, no more, no less.

Dollar hegemony has created a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world's other central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making the dollar stronger, fueling a massive global debt bubble denominated in dollars as the US becomes the world's largest debtor nation. Yet a strong dollar, while viewed by US authorities as in the US national interest, in reality drives the defacement of all fiat currencies that operate as derivative currencies of the dollar, in turn driving the current commodity-led inflation. When the dollar falls against the euro, it does not mean the euro is rising in purchasing power. It only means the dollar is losing purchasing power faster than the euro. A strong dollar does not always mean high dollar exchange rates. It means only that the dollars will stay firmly anchored as the prime reserve currency for international trade even as it falls in exchange value against other trading currencies.

In recent decades, central banks of all governments, led by the US Federal Reserve during Alan Greenspan's watch, had bought economic growth with loose money to feed debt bubbles and to contain inflation with "structural unemployment", which has been defined as up to 6% of the workforce, to keep the labor market from being inflationary. Central banking has mutated from being an institution to safeguard the value of money so as to ensure wages from full employment do not lose purchasing power into one with a perverted mandate to promote and preserve dollar hegemony by releasing debt bubbles denominated in fiat dollars. (See Critique of Central Banking, Asia Times Online, November 6, 2002.)

Despite all the talk about globalization as an irresistible trend of progress, the priority for the United States in the final analysis has been to advance its superpower economic objectives, not its obligations as the center of the global monetary system. This superpower economic objective includes the global expansion of US economic dominance through dollar hegemony, reducing all domestic economies, including that of the US, to be merely local units of a global empire. Thus when the US asserts that a healthy and strong economy in Europe, Japan and even Russia and China, all former enemies, is part of the Pax Americana, it is essentially declaring a neocolonial claim on these economies.

The concept of "stakeholder" in the global geopolitical-economic order advanced by Robert B Zoellick, former US deputy secretary of state and now president of the World Bank, is a solicitation from the US to emerging economic powerhouses to support this Pax Americana. The device for accomplishing this neo-imperialism is a coordinated monetary policy managed by a global system of central banking, first adopted in the US in 1913 to allow a financial elite to gain monetary control of the US national economy, and after the Cold War, to allow the US as the sole remaining superpower controlled by a financial oligarchy to gain monetary control of the entire global economy.

Move over Napoleon, Hitler, Caesar, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, someone's about to show you the 'right' way to conquer the planet. Where both military might and God have failed, money (and anonymity) may well succeed.

With the help of supranational institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlements, the US aims to negate national economic sovereignty with globalization of unregulated trade conducted under dollar hegemony. Unregulated trade globalization in the 21st century aims to neutralize national economic sovereignty to preempt national development financed by sovereign credit. Trade through export has become the sole operative path for national economic growth in a political world order of sovereign nation states that has existed since the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. No national domestic economy can henceforth prosper without first adding to the prosperity of US-controlled global economy denominated in dollars.

Before you start 'jumping for joy' I'd like to point out that the US is merely the vehicle chosen to 'execute' this plan…it has not nor will it 'benefit' the US or its citizens. No good citizen, whoever is behind this diabolical scheme has deliberately placed us/this nation in the crosshairs of every freedom loving nation in the world.

Holy Dollar Empire

Echoing the Holy Roman Empire, the global economy has been operating as a global Holy Dollar Empire with [someone inside] the Federal Reserve as the Holy Dollar Emperor. Similar to the Holy Roman Empire, which disintegrated from the rise of Lutheran nationalism, this Holy Dollar Empire will eventually disintegrate from progressive centrifugal forces of a new populist economic nationalism. This new nationalism is not to be confused with regressive trade protectionism. The formation of the new Group of Five (G5 - China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa) in the 2008 Group of Eight Summit in Tokyo (G8 - the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the European Union) is a sign of this new trend of progressive economic nationalism. The 2008 US presidential election may herald in a new populism in US history to reform the structure of US debt capitalism. [The latest attempt to resuscitate the Doha round of trade talks ended in failure today…]

In his speech to the G5 leaders, China's President Hu Jintao said: "It is necessary to take into full account the issue of food security in tackling the challenges in energy, climate change and other fields." Apart from calling for the setting up of an UN-led international co-operation mechanism and a global food-security safeguard system, Hu said all countries should strengthen cooperation in grain reserves, a process of proven success in China but not recommended by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which views such scheme as a distortion of trade.

Liberation from this Holy Dollar Empire of dollar hegemony can only come from sovereign nations withdrawing from the global central banking regime to return to a national banking regime within a world order of sovereign nation states to put monetary policy back in its proper role of supporting national development goals, rather than sacrificing national development to support global dollar hegemony through wage-suppressing export-led growth.

While Dr. Liu is absolutely right, he faces the same problem we confront when it comes to the 'political will' to make the necessary changes.

Perhaps more importantly is what will happen if the US fails to drive this demon from its bosom. Think about it good citizen, would our creditors even hesitate to pull the plug on the dollar?

They needn't 'invade' or risk the nuclear wrath of the world's only remaining superpower…all they need to do is stop accepting our 'scrip'…and it's 'game over'.

The question to ask yourself good citizen is do you want to die defending the right of this reckless, greedy S.O.B. to exploit the world?

I didn't think so,

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

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Afghanistan Email Refuted by The ARMY

By Michael Hubbard - Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:33 am EDT

Also listed in: 5 groups

I know, I know, everybody already knows this but.............

I thought you Republicans surely were better scholars than to repeat false rumors without verifying them first. Hell, even the Army itself refutes this story and they say in the article in ARMY TIMES (see below and reference link from ARMY TIMES itself) that they were indeed delayed at Bagram Airbase as he TOOK TIME TO SHAKE HANDS WITH THE TROOPS AND THANK THEM FOR THEIR SERVICE.

Having been in the Army I'm sure this Captain (and probably the other officers signing their names to it are getting reamed over it right now. I find it ironic though that Porter tries to put Obama's calibre down, looks like the bullet's in the other chamber now though eh Captain?
1 it was reported on our local right wing radio station today that this email was false. Obama didn't even play basketball in Afghanistan, those pictures were in fact from Kuwait. 2 This From Obama's "fight the smears" website: The truth about Barack's foreign trip Lie:

Barack Obama didn't take time to meet with troops on his overseas trip.

Conservative blogs, referencing an inaccurate email from abroad, have been spreading the rumor that Barack Obama gave troops the cold shoulder on his foreign trip.

Truth:

Barack Obama spent time throughout his trip visiting with and thanking our troops in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was proud to meet so many of our troops overseas and has repeatedly praised their service and dedication.

UPDATE FROM ARMY TIMES: "Anti-Obama e-mail was wrong"

"An Army officer's negative e-mail account of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's visit with the troops in Afghanistan that set the blogosphere ablaze prompted Army officials to correct aspects of the e-mail and resulted in a statement from the message's author that "some of the information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong." 3 This from ARMY TIMES website: .. -->StartFragment --> Anti-Obama e-mail was wrong
By Matthew Cox and Rick Maze - Staff writers
Posted : Monday Jul 28, 2008 16:16:12 EDT

An Army officer's negative e-mail account of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's visit with the troops in Afghanistan that set the blogosphere ablaze prompted Army officials to correct aspects of the e-mail and resulted in a statement from the message's author that "some of the information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong."

The e-mail, signed by Capt. Jeffrey S. Porter at Bagram Airbase, characterized Obama's July 19 visit with soldiers there as contrary to the positive portrayals of the mainstream press.

"As the soldiers where (sic) lined up to shake his hand he blew them off and didn't say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the general," the e-mail said.

Porter wrote that Obama then went straight to the base's "Clamshell" or recreation facility to pose for "publicity pictures playing basketball" and "shunned the opportunity to talk to soldiers to thank them for their service. I swear we got more thanks from the NBA Basketball Players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from one of the Senators, who wants to be the President of the United States. I just don't understand how anyone would want him to be our Commander-in-Chief. It was almost that he was scared to be around those that provide the freedom for him and our great country."

Army Times sent an e-mail to Porter, a Utah Army National Guard member assigned to the 142nd Military Intelligence Battalion, asking if he could verify that he wrote the controversial e-mail and requesting an interview.

Porter's reply declined the interview request, but said:

"I am writing this to ask that you delete my e-mail and not forward it, after checking my sources some of the information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong. This e-mail was meant only for my family. Please respect my wishes and delete the e-mail and if there are any blogs you have my e-mail portrayed on I would ask if you would take it down too."

When contacted, Tiffany Porter who identified herself as his wife, said: "There were discrepancies in the e-mail, but I am not at liberty to say more."

The Army refuted the accuracy of the account of the Obama visit.

"These comments are inappropriate and factually incorrect," Bagram spokesman Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green told the New York Daily News.

Obama didn't play basketball at Bagram or visit the Clamshell, she said.

"We were a bit delayed ... as he took time to shake hands, speak to troops and pose for photographs," Nielson-Green said.

Opinion aside, Obama campaign officials cited factual errors in the e-mail. Porter said Obama had gone to play basketball; Obama aides said that during the trip he only played basketball in Kuwait, not during stops in Iraq or Afghanistan.

An Obama campaign Web site, called "Fight the Smears," labels it a "lie" that Obama refused to meet with the troops. It includes links to news stories and videos showing Obama interacting with crowds of service members as evidence

Reference: http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/troopssmear

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/military_blog_obama_072508w/

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Desperately Seeking Alabama Obama Supporters!

By Allison Ruby Reid-Cunningham - Jul 27th, 2008 at 8:10 pm EDT

Also listed in: 7 groups

I'm sure you've seen a lot of negative smears and lies about Obama on the internet and other media outlets. Let's work together to overwhelm these lies with truth and drown out the divisions with HOPE!

People all over the country are writing one blog post per week about Obama for the next 10 weeks. We have 55+ bloggers in 25 states, but we're missing ALABAMA!!We want to include bloggers in all 50 states, so we can't do it without you!!

It would be great to get people who live in so-called "red states" involved with this project, since you may be most in need of Operation HOPE!.

If you're new to blogging, I can get you set up with you own blog in less than 5 minutes! so why not? Join Operation HOPE! One of the greatest things about Obama's campaign is the way that people whose voices have previously been silent are listened to and respected. Lots of folks have set up their first blog just to participate in this event, so we'd love to have you!!

If you are already an active blogger, it doesn't take any extra effort. and your blog will probably get more traffic, since I'll be linking all the bloggers and promoting the event.

Please check out the event details and sign up if you're interested in blogging for Obama: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/444wt

I am coordinating the bloggers (with an interactive map and links to all the active bloggers doing 10 posts in 10 weeks) on my "Crush on Obama" blog at: http://rubycrushonobama.blogspot.com

Hope to see you in the blogosphere!

-Ruby

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Are Republicans Actually Anti-God?

By Michael Hubbard - Jul 26th, 2008 at 10:54 am EDT

Also listed in: 5 groups

As someone who has identified primarily as an evangelical most of my life I can't stand to see so many politicians think that we can be fooled yet again by trying to out Jesus each other during another campaign season.

I voted Republican from 1992 when I was 18 up until 2004 when I finally came to the conclusion that Christian values were something that the "right" were not interested in, conservatism isn't something they were interested in either. I came to this conclusion after watching them make the same case over and over those 10 years that they had been in control of Congress and especially at that time after Republicans had a president that hadn't used a veto against anything they wanted.

They could have done something about abortion if they wanted to. They could have curbed spending if they wanted to. Christian/Conservative talking points so far have proven to be nothing more than mere talking points to the Republican Party and I really have come to believe that they are of the mindset that if they did in fact "do" something about the things they promise us they'll do something about then they'd loose valuable talking points, plus we might catch on to what they are doing on other issues like selling our country off piece by piece, job by job to overseas intrests, primarily in communists countries.

Issues like the fact that under the Republican leadership major corporations are subsidized to send our jobs to communist countries like red China and Vietnam. That alone tells me that Republicans would rather see booming economies in those places where God has been outlawed, places like China or Indonesia where Christians often have to go undercover and meet in hiding we've learned about things like that in Sunday school since before we started regular school.

This November let's not be fooled again by the G.O.P.'s tactics of pandering to the church but then sitting back and doing nothing about it.

Barack Obama has championed doing something about these "free" trade agreements that have made it impossible for our generation to do better than (or even as well as) our parents generation? No Republican has. What we need are "fair" trade agreements to get our fellow Americans back to working for a decent wage in THIS country, rather than support regimes who don't allow their people to worship our Lord and Saviour.

Republicans support communism, Communists jail their citizens for unappporved worship. Christians help put Republicans in office. We can do better than this. We should do better than this.

For Christ's Crown and Covenant,

Michael A. Hubbard
Decatur, Alabama 35603

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Wonder Why 500 People Apply for One Posted Job?

By Michael Hubbard - Jul 21st, 2008 at 2:44 pm EDT

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http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/globaleconomy/ns03162004.cfm Sadly this was first printed in 2004.....Who the hell is "anti-American? Republicans are the ones who fight the hardest to keep this sort of thing going, well against the will of most of the American people, at least the ones who have "dirtied" their brains against the Limbaughs and Hannitys. If you're a non union worker making a good living in this country and think that the Republicans have yours or America's best intrests at heart, keep reading, you'll be a believer too one day...........I'm afraid.

June 8, 2006—China's frequent violations of workers' rights give that nation an unfair trade advantage that has cost more than 1 million U.S. jobs, according to a petition filed with the U.S. Trade Representative by the AFL-CIO and the Industrial Union Council (IUC), made up of nine industrial unions. The petition calls on the Bush administration to take immediate action to impose trade remedies against China and negotiate a binding agreement to reduce the trade remedies if China enforces workers' rights. Chinese Workers' Low Wages Reduce Cost of Chinese Exports The 179-page petition extensively documents that China prevents workers from joining unions and bargaining collectively, denies its citizens safe working conditions, provides no minimum wage and uses forced labor. As a result, Chinese workers' wages are between 47 percent and 85 percent lower than they should be, which in turn reduces the price of Chinese manufactured goods. If China did not violate workers' rights, the price of Chinese manufactured goods would increase by 12 percent to 77 percent, according to the petition. Jing-Hua Lu, a former factory worker in China and a forceful advocate for international workers' rights, told reporters that it's imperative the U.S. government take action against China now. "The U.S. administration should take this petition seriously," Lu said. "Chinese workers need to be able to exercise their right of freedom of association. It is a basic right, and a basic answer to the dilemma of Chinese workers and the flight of jobs to China to exploit low wages." The U.S. trade deficit with China is the largest in U.S. history with one country—$201 billion. The trade deficit affects the nation's jobs: cheaper foreign imports of products formerly made in the United States mean America's workers lose jobs as companies move overseas. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute estimates the trade deficit cost the United States 410,000 manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2005. "I look around my town and think about the people who stood next to me on the plant floor," says Teresa Luna, a member of USW International Union Local 1191, who lost her job when the Magnequench missile technology plant in Valparaiso, Ind., closed and relocated to China. "I hear how every time there is any type of job opening, hundreds of applicants show up to fill one spot. The jobs are just gone." Trade Law Previously Used Only to Aid Corporations Mark Barenberg, a Columbia University law professor, prepared the petition, which was filed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The petition was filed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The act allows the government to take action against countries that engage in unfair trade practices against the United States. Although the regulation has been used extensively to protect corporate interests, the first time Section 301 was invoked to protest a nation's labor practices was when the AFL-CIO filed its first petition on China's workers' rights violations, in 2004. That petition was rejected by the Bush administration. The Bush administration's refusal to comply with the Trade Act allowed workers' rights violations in China to get worse and contributed to the loss of hundreds of thousands of additional American jobs. Under the law, the Bush administration has 45 days to decide whether to accept the petition. If it accepts the petition, it has 60 days to hold a hearing and one year to decide what actions to take. The AFL-CIO is seeking immediate action by the Bush administration to impose trade remedies against China, such as sanctions or tariffs, and to negotiate an agreement that connects China's progress in enforcing workers' rights with trade sanction relief. If the White House rejects the petition, Barenberg says, it must find that China either does not repress workers' rights or that the repression does not adversely affect the U.S. economy. "Exploitation of human beings through repression of fundamental rights for economic gain is both morally repugnant and economically dangerous," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka says. "The fact is that China is violating international trade law, and our nation is doing nothing about it." "I wonder: Do these corporations realize that they are trading away our lives?" Luna asks. "We must stop these corporations from making their own rules. This is not what our country is about."

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Muscle Shoals Swamper Pete Carr Post Rare Vids

By Michael Hubbard - Jul 20th, 2008 at 9:04 am EDT

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No politics on this post, just got to hand it to a good friend's body of work. For anyone who doesn't know, at the same time all of the racial tension and violence was going on here in Alabama in places like Birmingham and Selma (causing national embarassment for the state and international emarasment for the country), up in Muscle Shoals Alabama some of the best soul music was being made for Atlantic records with stars like OTIS REDDING, ARETHA FRANKLIN, WILSON PICKETT and really too many to mention here was being created with an interracial cast that primarily featured the Muscle Shoals Sound Rythm Section aka The Swampers. In the 60's the swampers lead guitarist was another friend of mine named Eddie Hinton, long rest his soul. Eddie left the studio back around 1969 from full time lead guitar and was replaced by Duane Allman for about a year until the Allman Brother's Band hit it big. Well, Duane was replaced by his old bandmate from The Hourglass, Pete Carr as full time lead where he stayed and played lead guitar for the studio throughout the 70's. Pete played on hits like Kodachrome by Paul Simon, Main Street (and everything else) by Bob Seegar (yep, that's him on that stirring lead guitar) that's Pete playing on Tonight's the Night and Sailing (both acoustic and electric parts) and again, too many hits to mention. Recording a song in Muscle Shoals in the 60's and 70's meant that your song was at least 51% more likely to have a hit come of it than anywhere else in the world. Consequently if you hear a song recorded in the 70's you're probably 51% more likely to be listening to Pete Carr play guitar on it and not know it.

Oh, the link to the page is at the end of the article.....I do tend to be long winded.

Pete is being inducted into the Musician's Hall of Fame next month along with the other four Swampers, Jimmy Johnson, Barry Beckett, David Hood and Roger Hawkins, all still of Muscle Shoals.

The first video is a two-fer-one with his appearance on network television with Lenny LeBlanc performing first a rocking cover of "Something About You" followed by their hit "Falling" on "AB" back in 1977. The next up is a performance on "SNL" featuring RONEE BLAKLEY along with the whole MUSCLE SHOALS SOUND RYTHM SECTION follwed by Rod Stewart's video to the hit "Tonight's the Night" which doesn't actually show Pete but does feature his amazing guitar work, or as Pete calls it his "slut" guitars. Thinking back on the first time I heard that song when I was a kid, I remember that was really the first time that sort of sound was heard so Brotha Pedro, we wannabes out here honor you for setting the standard in music. And hey, we all know Duane Allman played lead guitar for MSS back in the earliest days of the 70's after another friend I lucked up on meeting as a young man here in Alabama (I was 12 actually lol) Eddie Hinton left the top guitar slinger spot at MSS Studio, well it was PETE that with the Swampers almost immediatly following his producing Wyker's Motorcycle Mama album (peaked at 12 on Billboard in 1972) when he was ONLY 22 YEARS OLD back in '72 (and that was after he'd left home at the age of about "15 or 16" to play bass for The Hourglass along with GREGG & DUANE ALLMAN and noted CAPRICORN PRODUCER AND VP JOHNNY SANDLIN!!!) it was PETE that you hear on most ALL OF BOB SEEGAR'S ALBUMS from 70's, PAUL SIMON'S KODACHROME and STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS plus pretty much a toss up of any guitar work you hear from 70's, be it country, soul, or rock n' roll. Ya'll take a look at these vids and you'll see why Pete doesn't just meet the standards but has indeed set the standard for not only guitar, but recording, producing and writing. I'd like to congratulate Pete on his upcoming induction to the national hall of fame, and ya'll, I know he's got more of these great gems so if you like what you see and want to see more, be sure to drop him a line and let him know. Pete still lives in the Shoals with his wife Debra and son John, and he still slings a mean guitar. So without further ado.......................

Pete's rundown and link to the videos:

The page:

http://www.playthatguitar.com/Videos.html

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It's like Letterman and Cronkite had a baby

By Michael Hubbard - Jul 17th, 2008 at 3:45 am EDT

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You know, it accurs to me that Limbaugh and Hannity and their types are in fact what they claim Networks and other "liberal media" organizations the mainstream media.

Limbaugh and Hannity do a three hour radio show five days a week. The two shows run back to back and in our area Boortz precedes Limbaugh for two hours and a local right wing host follows Hannity for another two hours. That's fifteen hours per week on air for Limbaugh AND Hannity plus ANOTHER FOUR HOURS worth of right wing programming bringing us to a grande totale of THIRTY-EIGHT HOURS PER WEEK of RIGHT WING PROGRAMMING

Now we've got three networks that have a national newscast that last one hour each hmmm, that's five hours each per week bringing us to a grand total of 15 hours per week of "left wing indoctrination." OH! But the networks newscasts are usually run in most cities at the same time. So really that's five hours of the "liberal media." If you want to count Olberman and Matthews at MSNBC, sure that's a total of SEVEN HOURS PER WEEK of so called "LIBERAL MEDIA" PROGRAMMING.

It would seem that Limbaugh and Hannity types are the mainstream media. Limbaugh has forty odd million listeners per day. Hannity is probably not far behind (he's also got two television shows on Foxx News). The nightly news couldn't even comprehend numbers like that. People used to listen to top 40 radio while they were at work. But much of the entertainment industry's dollars are spent on right wing political programming. Obviously top 40 radio has suffered. Politics seem to be the new background music. NO WONDER PEOPLE WITH DEPRESSION IS UP! Think about it though, Limbaugh and Hannity are simply entertainers. They aren't reporting the news. They use the news as a prop for their daily "shows." Limbaugh has funny little songs and uses a lot of what used to be called "Schtick." and mixes in a lot of opinions about newstories he reads that someone else wrote.

Really I guess what I'm trying to say is it seems so obvious who is really controlling the media as far as exposure goes. Hannity, Limbaugh and company get a huge share of the market billing a bunch of entertainerment at the news. This not news, it's commentary on the news, the programs like this at one time were very boring, the had very old men discussing very boring issues, usually fighting over them. Now they dress the shows up with Foxxy chicks, cool theme music and special effects. It's all like David Letterman meets Walter Cronkite.

Not counting the fact that pretty much all media is bought and paid for, be it by Rupert Murdoch of Foxx News or whatever Ted Turner type of conglomoration. I think that may be why neither right wing or left wing commentators are really interested in getting to actual gut issues that plague this country in nearing Biblical proportions. The modern day robber barrons at the top don't want us to notice just how much money they are making selling this country out. By focusing on Barack Obama bumping fists with his wife, running cute little cartoons to Bob Dylan tunes and cute comical lyrics over and over again they know that we'll get distracted by whether or not Obama wears a flag pin and that makes it harder to get back to the fact that the dollar is humiliatingly low in value, we pay eight or ten bucks to fill up our mowers, ethanol burns faster than gas but we still pay around four bucks a gallon, our jobs are being sent to communist countries helping the economies of people who dislike us very much while we struggle to earn and save enough money up to go back and forth to work everyday so we can compete daily with people who don't mind making TWENTY-FIVE CENTS PER HOUR.

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Bush's Failure As Commander In Chief

By Michael Hubbard - Jul 16th, 2008 at 4:09 am EDT

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Matt Rothchild had a piece of solid gold on the Progressive Point of View today. I'll the text speak for itself.

"Let's conduct a thought experiment here. Imagine Al Gore was President almost seven years after 9-11 and Osama Bin Laden was still on the loose. Foxx News everynight would be leading with that story. Imagine day 2491 and the Commander in Chief is still asleep at the wheel. Day 2491 and do you know where Bin Laden is? Hell Gore would've been run out on a rail by now but somehow Bush gets off the hook for his disgraceful performance as Commander in Chief. By all accounts he let Osama go when he was cornered in the caves of Tora Bora and then Bush shifted intelligence resources from Afghanistan to Iraq and as a result the Taliban and Al Queda have reqrouped there in Afghanistan and Pakistahn and meanwhile the U.S. is managing to kill civilians at wedding parties. 47 of them on July 6th. 39 were women and children. The dead also included the bride. The Red Cross says that 250 civilians have died in Afghanistan in recent days and last month more U.S. soldiers died there than in Iraq. With his cutsomary lack of skill Bush has made a mess now of both countries and we're none the safer for it."

I couldn't agree more other than I'd say that Bush (combined with a little over a decade of Republican rule in Congress) has also ruined this country. Now we have a Republican candidate who has as his chief economic advisor the former senator Phil Gramm! The main player in deregulating the banking industry which caused the current housing crisis running around telling all of us average workin' men and women to quit whining. That these economic woes are all in our minds. WHAT AN ASS!!

Anyone who isn't a CEO of a multi-national Fortune 500 company or a multi-millionaire that is still voting Republican, please do consider seeing a shrink. You've obviously got some kind of self hatred complex that causes you to want these woes. If you still don't understand that you've been fooled and you're continuing to be fooled by people who are playing on nothing but your emotions on what you want for America. If they were really interested in any of these social issues, they would have done something about it wouldn't they?

Instead they encouraged your boss to send your job to a communist country and put you in direct competition with people who make 20 cents an hour. You like the "good old days" in America? You miss the good life we had from the 50's to the 90's? It wasn't Republicans that gave us those good old days. Democrats had the house for FORTY YEARS. You know what? LIFE WAS GREAT!! NO REPUBLICAN HAS EVER LEFT OFFICE WITH LESS THAN A 5% UNEMPLOYMENT RATE!!! No Democratic has ever had more. Think about it. Look, he said the pledge, he's not a muslim, his ideas for change are sound and good. I've got to ask, are you not supporting Obama because he's black? Come on rest of the country, Obama took the primaries in Georgia, Alabama (my homestate), and Mississippi. That would have been impossible 20 years ago. I've got great hope for us the hard working average guy to see through this stuff. To understand that even if the guy that has the right idea is black, that's fine. Democrats aren't the supporters of communism, that's what Republicans have been doing. They do it with American jobs, they do it with government subsidies to corporations for sending American jobs to communist regimes. It's that simple really. I'll close this on this note, a friend said to me that he'd (Obama) have me and boys out pickin' cotton. You know what I said? At least we'll have jobs.

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