to all of you, for all that you have done for Barack and Joe. This is it...the day we have been working and waiting for. It all comes down to this...my heart is racing, my stomach is doing cartwheels, and i have been on the phone today with family and friends and fellow supporters to make sure everyone has a ride to the polls. i talked with my neighbors and people in my neighborhood, to make sure everyone could get to their polling place.
i have never been so proud to be an American....this country is coming together and unifying in the name of change and it fills me with such hope, i can hardly speak the words.
tonight, i will be attending an Election Night party with my Brother and Sister. we have been on the phone today, filled with excitement and, i have to admit, my nerves are all over the place. i waited up to see the results that came in last night from NH and i saw that as a sign of things to come.
this country and this world will be a better place when Barack and Joe win tonight. i know that nothing is final until all the votes are counted, but i have HOPE! i have so much hope, that my cup is running over!
what a glorious and historic day this is...and we are all a part of it.
Blessings to you all, today and everyday.
Yes We Can!!!!!!!!!
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A record number of West Virginia voters have cast their ballots early this year. According to Secretary of State Betty Ireland's office, more than 153,000 ballots were cast during early voting, which ended Saturday, and more than 13,000 absentee votes have been cast. County clerks throughout the state reported high turnout for early voting. Clerks said they're ready with troubleshooters and extra machines to address any problems that develop on Election Day.
I pray that everything goes smoothly on election day.....
McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee were paying for the calls, according to a "work paper" handed to Cole and her co-workers at the Weston offices of 1.2.1 Direct Response, a company based in Philadelphia.
"I was working at the call center," Cole said. "We got a campaign ad talking about how Obama had been part of terrorist attacks on the Capitol, the Pentagon and a judge's home and had ties with Bill Ayers.
"Last Thursday, I told them I did not want to read it," Cole said. "They said, 'Either you read it or you go home.'
"I told them I wasn't going to read it. They made me go home without pay for the rest of the day."
The "work paper" told callers to say:
"Hello, I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers [airs], whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans.
"And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democrat allies lack the judgment to lead our country.
"This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee."
Cole said, "We were just supposed to read that message and hang up. One of my other issues working there was that someone told me it didn't matter who picked up the phone, whether it was a 5-year-old or a 95-year-old. We should read the message."
Cole, who started working at the center a few months earlier, returned to work on Friday.
"I talked to one of our 'coaches,' which is what our supervisors were called. I said I was unhappy with the situation and I quit," she said Tuesday.
Asked about the claims about Ayers and the "extreme leftist agenda," no one from the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C., returned telephone calls on Tuesday. Neither did Gail Gitcho, regional spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, based in Alexandria, Va.
Russell Andrews, a spokesman for 1.2.1 Direct Response, did not return several telephone calls made to his Philadelphia office on Tuesday.
1.2.1 Direct Response helps private companies and other organizations with fundraising, media coverage, advertising, marketing and publicity, according to its Web site.
That Web site reports that the company employs more than 550 people to make telephone calls, including 220 in Weston, 210 in Parkersburg, 170 in Media, Pa., and 150 in Philadelphia.
The McCain-Palin campaign has repeatedly tried to tie Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, to Obama. When Ayers was associated with Weather Underground, Obama was 8 years old.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton released a statement about Obama and Ayers reported by The Washington Post on Feb. 19.
"Sen. Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an 8-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost 40 years ago is ridiculous," Burton said.
Numerous other publications - including The New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and Time magazine - have also noted that Obama and Ayers never had a close relationship.
Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 348-5164.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A poll out Thursday from American Research Group shows Barack Obama with an 8% lead over John McCain in West Virginia. It's the first poll to show a lead for Obama in the Mountain State.
The poll of 600 likely voters took place from 10/4 to 10/8 and has a margin of error of 4%. Previous polls taken last month showed the Republican McCain with a 4 to 5% lead over Obama in West Virginia.
i drove to Portsmouth to see him speak and he did a fantastic job. i took my teenage daughter with me and she cheered just as loud as i did. she said she wished she was old enough to vote for Barack. i told her to take this moment with her and let it inspire her to do good things in her life. and, i told her, you will be able to vote in the next presidential election when we will be voting for 4 more years of Barack in office!!! it was a memorable night that my daughter and i will never forget.
this is an exerpt from an article regarding McCain's work with council of world freedom. the link to the entire article is at the bottom.
Democratic strategist Paul Begala lit the fire when, during an appearance on Meet the Press, he warned that this relatively obscure detail from McCain's past could draw him into a guilt-by-association game he was bound to regret.
"John McCain sat on the board of...the U.S. Council for World Freedom," said Begala, "The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981 when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League - the parent organization - which ADL said 'has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.'"
But McCain's involvement in the U.S. Council for World Freedom, which extended from 1981 through, possibly, 1986 is significant -- not merely because it ties him to unsavory characters but because it firmly associates him with a foreign policy that was, at the time and still, controversial.
"I didn't know that [McCain had] served on the board," said Shannon O'NeilDouglas Dillon Fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It is a little bit surprising to me. But all of those organizations did come from the Republican side mostly. Often the people were tied to the military and they saw the world in black and white terms... My impression is [McCain] still sees the world in back and white."
The USCWF was founded in Phoenix, Arizona in November 1981 as an offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League. The group was, from the onset, saddled with the disreputable reputation of its parent group. The WACL had ties to ultra-right figures and Latin American death squads. Roger Pearson, the chairman of the WACL, was expelled from the group in 1980 under allegations that he was a member of a neo-Nazi organization.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/why-mccains-time-with-cou_n_132470.html
It is time for a change. We need all to Register to vote!!!
P.S. Don't just depend on mailing it! Go in person if you can!!
The local NBC affiliate in Huntington, WV has a headline : VP Candidate Biden Says No to Coal Plants in U.S. The people here were starting to get used to the idea of voting for Obama, the local union UMWA staged a walk out to protest the NRA false claims about his gun stance! So I was hopeful that Obama would at least get a few votes. THIS ONE HEADLINE will give everyone of those on the fence or grudgingly going Obama the excuse they needed to vote McCain. With all the "I heart coal" bumper stickers, etc. this will be the end. UNLESS there is swift action, not just from spokespeople, but from the candidate, to ease their minds about the #$% coal industry. The article is complete with response from the Republican representative from the area.
This off-the-cuff one line is a game changer here in the coal fields. It is time to stand up and actually try to win WV or let those working so hard to do it FOR them give it up.
http://www.wsaz.com/political/headlines/29627029.html
If you don't already do it, you really should be checking out the Anchorage Daily News site regularly, for local Palin news, editorials and op-eds, and its excellent Alaska Politics blog (special bonus Ted Stevens coverage there). Today, for example, the paper hits Palin hard in an editorial for abdicating to the McCain campaign on Troopergate.
And here's a brand-new gem on a stunning, overlooked McCain gaffe from David Hulen at the Alaska Politics blog:
Candidates spend a lot of time talking, and they all misspeak sometimes. But did anyone else notice this, from Wednesday's much-covered McCain-Palin Town Hall event in Grand Rapids, Mich., where Palin answered questions from people in the audience? McCain said this as he's talking up Palin's foreign policy/national security credentials: "I also know, if I might remind you, that she is commander of the Alaska National Guard. In fact, you may know that on Sept. 11 a large contingent of the Alaska Guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them. So I think she understands our national security challenges..."The ceremony Palin attended at Fort Wainwright last week didn't involve the Alaska National Guard. Palin's son is in the Army, and his unit - 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division - deployed to Iraq. The idea of McCain (or Palin, for that matter) having their finger on the button, completely terrifies me......
"I also know, if I might remind you, that she is commander of the Alaska National Guard. In fact, you may know that on Sept. 11 a large contingent of the Alaska Guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them. So I think she understands our national security challenges..."
The ceremony Palin attended at Fort Wainwright last week didn't involve the Alaska National Guard. Palin's son is in the Army, and his unit - 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division - deployed to Iraq.
The idea of McCain (or Palin, for that matter) having their finger on the button, completely terrifies me......
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts plans to hold a press conference in Charleston Monday to discuss what he describes as "attempts by a film crew hired by the National Rifle Association to get miners to distort the record of Barack Obama on guns and the 2nd amendment."
“Our members were approached on company property by this film crew and were peppered with questions regarding Sen. Obama’s positions on guns and the 2nd Amendment,” Cecil Roberts said in a press release issued Saturday. “We’re going to talk about that, because it marks a return of the gutter politics of the past by those of the say-anything, do-anything crowd who believe they can continue to use wedge issues to divide West Virginians. They think we’re not smart enough to figure out what they’re doing.”
Coal miners from the Blacksville #2 mine in northern West Virginia will accompany Roberts at the press conference in Charleston.
this is truly a disturbing and manipulative attack against Barack. I was truly disgusted to hear of this and I am thankful that the President of the UMWA is holding a press conference to expose the despicable acts of the N.R.A.
In a September 18 opinion letter, Ashley Stinnett blasts Barack Obama as being wrong to help poor people. In this letter, Mr. Stinnett cites distortions of Sen. Obama's record, tops them off with fear and then sprinkles on some stereotypes. Mr. Stinnett insists that Sen. Obama's tax plan will triple taxes in all income brackets. Neutral fact checking organizations have labeled these assertions as less than truthful. Sen. Obama's tax plan will roll back the Bush tax credit for families making more than $250,000, who, when I checked last, did not need any assistance fighting off "vindictive strategies aimed … at the upper classes." Instead, Sen. Obama will institute a $500 payroll tax credit for every working individual. The result will be lower taxes for most of those in the middle and lower income brackets.
The fear-mongering strategy of labeling Democrats as socialists, long employed by the GOP, is baseless and shamefully tries to muddy the waters to hide the truth. Relying on these tactics assumes that the readers are too stupid to know the difference. Topping these letters off with stereotypes of African-Americans and people in poverty further demonstrate that these charges should not be taken seriously.
Ladybug, Ladybug fly away home. Your house is on fire your children are crying.
This little diddy was spoken by children in the 50's, it took growing to being a mature woman and mother for me to understand it. I now apply it to Governor Sarah Palin the VP hopeful. She is a mother and woman with every right to run for any office; qualified or not. Being qualified or haviing a particular set of skills is not a constitutionl requirement for president or vice president. The people set the standard of qualifications by their vote.
There are some personal responsibilities we as women should extol. As women we are not merely men in skirts and heels and lipstick we are better than that. We are a human dynamic needed to bring balance to the male dynamic that has governed our nations and the world direction for too long. So Gov. Palin when she tells us no, she did not hesitate a moment when asked to be Vice President led with a male dynamic. A father at home with five children, one an ifant and all infants have special needs and a special need pregnant teenager. I am of the belief that all children are born gifted and challenged. So all children are special, we put these titles on children that need not be there. I know down syndrome children and I know extremely gifted children and both are challenging. Sometime a child is born to be average, and their challenge is not to get lost in the fray of growing up. Actually Gov. Palin has nothing in her personality that makes me think she would be good at home with the baby, she does not look that patient. Todd might be the best prime parent.
I was in an elected position and had to be away from home for 4 days at a time. I hired a cleaning woman. For Palin to tell us that she fired the household help, and that she can conceive, run the government, raise her children, be at their events as in hockey mom, without any stress or strain on the family me believe she is hallucinating and in denial. At home fathers work out just fine if there is a mother who comes home once in awhile to check the bathroom wastebasket, something fathers do not know to do, they do know to check under matresses for reading materials.
This ladybug governor's house is on fire and she can not hear her children crying.
She teaches her children and wants us to teach ours that God and celibacy is the way to diminish teen pregnancy. Well I will tell her that yes, celibacy will work if you are with your children 24/7. It is irresponsible for her to be glib about her pregnant daughter who is a sexually active teen whose mother says no to teen clinics, no to free birthcontrol, no to distribution of condoms, no to age appropriate sex education. She was not home and with these two new challenges in her family she is going as far away as possible she is going to Washington D.C. There are no snowmobiles and moose in D.C.this is a family of children used to something quite different than what she wants to bring them into at a crucial time in their lives.
The little girl holding the baby and slicking his hair with saliva was cute but foreboding, she will be the surrogate mother for this baby, she already knows this, even if mommy doesn't.
Gov. Palin in everyway meets the constitutional requirement for VP because there really are none. But will the people see her as meeting the qualifications for president of the United States god forebid anything happens to McCain.
What we have in that pair is one is too old, his photos from his release for Vietnam war prison reminds us of just how old he is. They should have kept them in the vault. And Palin is needed at her own house, not the White House, her house is on fire, her children are crying.
Community organizing is a process by which disempowered people—most often low- and moderate-income people—are brought together to act in their common self-interest (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/community_organizing). It is in this vein that many Americans, most often college students and, increasingly, retired persons, resolve to put their talents to use improving the community around them. Every community is built upon the work of those whose only real reward is the fact that they make a difference in the lives of the people around them.
This is why I was so disheartened by the comments made at the Republican National Convention mocking the role of community organizers. I served a year as an Americorps*VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) increasing the awareness and participation in a county 4-H program. While my role may have been small, I take heart in the fact that I may have made a difference in my community. By mocking those who help those people who need help (those in poverty, mainly), I feel that the Republican candidates have shown great hypocrisy in stating that they care about average people. How can you care for someone when you mock those who try to change their lives for the better?
I don't know why, but a letter to the editor in the local paper prompted me to write a rebuttal. The letter was citing the works of Jerome Corsi, the conservative conspiracy theorist, in reasons not to vote for Obama/Biden. The letter can be found here. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I just had to shoot out a rapid response to the editor. I don't know if it will be published, but the editor did email me right back witha question (one of the sentences had been cut off). So, just in case it doesn't make it into the newspaper, here it is:
In a September 9th letter to the editor, Thomas Harshbarger insists that Sen. Joe Biden has ties to Iran and Muslim extremists, stating the book “Atomic Iran” by Jerome Corsi as an inspiration for this pronouncement. It is important to note, however, that this source material is little more than conspiracy theory. Jerome Corsi is a controversial conservative writer who spouts off half formed conspiracy theories that even conservatives distance themselves from (such as Pres. Bush trying to merge the US, Canada and Mexico into one nation and that there is a government conspiracy concerning 9/11). The book in which Mr. Harshbarger has given his trust has garnered much criticism. One newspaper even labels him a “literary mugger” in an article about the book [Daily News (New York), 2/24/05]. Mr. Corsi has proven that he is not above inventing “facts” when they conveniently fit into his ideological theories. Given Mr. Corsi’s penchant for conspiracy theories based on inaccuracies, bias and hate (he is commonly quoted slurring not only democrats, but Muslims and Catholics as well), readers would be well advised to ignore any of the “facts” brought forth in his books when it comes to a situation as important as this election.
In a September 9th letter to the editor, Thomas Harshbarger insists that Sen. Joe Biden has ties to Iran and Muslim extremists, stating the book “Atomic Iran” by Jerome Corsi as an inspiration for this pronouncement. It is important to note, however, that this source material is little more than conspiracy theory. Jerome Corsi is a controversial conservative writer who spouts off half formed conspiracy theories that even conservatives distance themselves from (such as Pres. Bush trying to merge the US, Canada and Mexico into one nation and that there is a government conspiracy concerning 9/11).
The book in which Mr. Harshbarger has given his trust has garnered much criticism. One newspaper even labels him a “literary mugger” in an article about the book [Daily News (New York), 2/24/05]. Mr. Corsi has proven that he is not above inventing “facts” when they conveniently fit into his ideological theories.
Given Mr. Corsi’s penchant for conspiracy theories based on inaccuracies, bias and hate (he is commonly quoted slurring not only democrats, but Muslims and Catholics as well), readers would be well advised to ignore any of the “facts” brought forth in his books when it comes to a situation as important as this election.
Remember the last time the number of jobs grew more rapidly under an Republican president? John McCain can't. Because he wasn't born yet. Over the past 75 years, one trend has held constant. Rapid job growth only occurs when there's a Democrat in The White House.
No Republican President -- not Eisenhower, not Nixon, not Reagan, not Bush -- has ever created more jobs, or created jobs at a faster rate, than his Democratic predecessor. It's not even close. The contrast has been especially stark over the past 16 years, when 23.1 million jobs were created under Clinton and less than 5 million were created under Bush. On average, job growth under Democrats is more than twice that under Republicans.
Whatever benchmark you use, the difference is dramatic. Since Truman was elected in 1948, 53.2 million new jobs were created during the 24 years when Democrats held The White House, and 38.3 million were created during the 36 years of Republican administrations. Check it out for yourself:
Millions of Jobs Added
Truman 1949 -1952 5.2 Eisenhower 1953 - 1956 2.7 Eisenhower 1957 - 1960 0.8 Kennedy/Johnson 1961 - 1964 5.7 Johnson 1965 - 1968 9.8 Nixon 1969 - 1972 6.1 Nixon/Ford 1972 - 1976 5.2 Carter 1977 - 1980 10.4 Reagan 1981 - 1984 5.2 Reagan 1985 - 1988 10.8 Bush 1989 - 1992 2.5 Clinton 1993 - 1996 11.6 Clinton 1997 - 2000 11.5 Bush 2001 - 2004 (0.1) Bush 2005 - 2008 5.1
Of course, business cycles aren't timed to coincide with presidential inaugurals. But after 60 years it's hard to argue that the Democratic presidents are just lucky.
Republicans consistently dwell on the outlier of the trend, Reagan's second four-year term, when jobs grew at a robust rate of 2.7 million a year. But that four-year spurt is balanced out by the anemic rate of job expansion during Reagan's first term and during the first Bush Administration. As the financial experts always say, you should never lose sight of the big picture and always think about the long term.
One final point. You also have to wonder if John McCain ever seriously focused on job growth. Since his grandfather owned an oil company, his family seems to have been unaffected by the Great Depression.
Source: The Bureau of Labor Statistics, seasonally adjusted non-farm payrolls. [Job increases for G.W. Bush are through August 2008. Most economists expect more job losses before the end of this year.]
i was attending funeral services this weekend for my aunt, who lost her battle with cancer. while i was parked and inside the church, someone actually pulled my obama sticker off my car. we returned to our vehicles and were leaving for the cemetery. i was opening my trunk to put some of my sister's things inside (she was staying with me), and i noticed it was gone. it was there when we arrived, because i unloaded food for the church when we got there and it was still on. it made me angry to think that i was inside, mourning with my family and saying our final goodbyes to my aunt and this happened.
it is so sad how low people will stoop. and they had to have known that there were funeral services going on, because the hearse was parked right ahead of me.
how can people be so ignorant and mean?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-bergthold/the-vp-choice-that-lost-t_b_122381.html
from the huffington post. com
McCain just gave up his campaign..... great choice, John. OH HAPPY DAY!!!!!
Obama/Biden '08
One of the great things about being an Obama volunteer is meeting people, all kinds of people, from all over. When we were in WV campaigning, I met Victoria Wilborn it was fun being with her, she knew everybody in Huntington and beyond. She is a member of SEIU and was an incredible canvasser.
We now stay in touch, she writes wonderful poetry which I have forwarded to the Obama campaign, I hope he and Michelle get to read it.
She called me the other day to tell me of going to visit a cousin he lived so poorly with holes in his roof, siding missing from what would be a house if not for the fact that it is now rendered a shack. When in WV I pretty much stayed in the city and that was an eyeful how some of the people had to live there. Victoria told me the name of the place he lived it was a prophetic name but I forget it I will find out and add it to this writing.
There has been some pressure on Arab- and Muslim-American groups to respond to the recent cover of The New Yorker, which satirizes the bigotry and fear-mongering at the heart of anti-Obama media campaigns that seek to “smear” the candidate by implying that he is Muslim. The cover depicts presidential hopefuls Barack and Michelle Obama in the oval office. Barack, dressed in traditional Muslim religious clothing while Michelle sports a 60’s afro alá Angela Davis, fatigues, combat boots, and a machine gun slung Rambo-style over her back. A portrait of Osama Bin Laden holds a place of honor over the mantel while the Stars and Stripes crackle in the fire place.
Do we understand that this cover was intended as a satirical commentary on vicious racially and religiously motivated hate campaigns intended to frighten white America away from a minority candidate? Yes, we do. Do we believe that regardless of the artists’ intentions there is some concern that the imagery could overpower the commentary and reinforce the fears and prejudices it was meant to critique? Yes, we do. But can we look past the noise about whether or not The New Yorker cover is offensive, a red-herring issue with fairly predictable responses on all sides, to deeper questions such as “Why is the label, ‘Muslim,’ such a powerful and popular a weapon against Obama” and “What should the Obama camp be doing, rather than denouncing a magazine cover?” Yes, we can.
