$5 Friday for Obama

New Obama Group Forming 'AmericaNOchange'

Al Boek — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:42:29 EST

Fellow President Obama Supporters and Former Ones"

AS the founder of the Obama Group named YESWECANSOLVEIT...

I have taken the liberty of forming still another group called

AmericaNOchange. I doubt this one gets approved.

Thought I'd better hurry and write this and send it to all groups that

I am still a member of before I am banned here forever. Why would

that happen? you ask. Because I just formed a new group with a little

kid yelling "Hey You" while flipping off the viewer. Hope the president

and his staff gets the message.

The esculation of the war in Afghanistan is the last straw. Three strikes

your out!

First, he keeps the same people on the payroll that got us into this

financial disaster. He let's Bush and Cheney walk scot-free. He continues

to bail out the banks, "all too big to fail" why they screw us in every way.

And tonight on national tv he will try to convience us all that the way to

end the war in Aftganistan is to exculate it. This did not work in Vietnam,

I know, because I volunteered to go there, and it will not work in Aftganistan.

To add insult to injury. The powers that be, the ones backing McCain in

my city in Northern California, are all meeting to determine what the same

good ole boys get to do with local stimulus funds...So my question is?

WHAT THE HELL HAS CHANGED IN AMERICAN PRESIDENT OBAMA?

I am so damned mad right now, I swear, if I could afford it, I'd trade in

my next presidential ballot for a passport.

Al Boek, Ex-Supporter of a One-Term President

earlallenboek@yahoo.com

530-549-4315

Redding, California

My Notes From The May 28, 2009 Healthcare Teleconference

Czarina CarolforObama — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:38:53 EDT

Here are some notes I took from today's conference call, May 28, 2009.

Mind you, I came in after the conference had already started.

Also, this is not verbatim. I have done some paraphrasing but I still think it's pretty accurate.

David Plouffe was introduced at 1:12 p.m. by Mitch Stewart.

David Plouffe thanked everyone for working for Obama to help him get 365 electoral votes. Although we accomplished so much in Nov., this cleared the way for the opportunity to make change. In essence, it was just the first step. We worked very hard for the opportunity to have real healthcare reform for businesses and families that are being crushed by healthcare costs. The President ran on reform to healthcare and education. It had been talked about for so long but nothing had been done. So, now is the time.

David Plouffe went on to say that the President is defying the cynics, skeptics, and critics but this change is not going to happen in D.C. alone. It will come from other parts of the country to Washington. We will be asked to spend precious time that many of us have little to spare, but we need to implement this into our lives where we will be calling of lists, and knocking on doors.

We need to speak with our family members and colleagues. Nothing is more powerful than human beings talking to other human beings. We need to be passionate about why healthcare reform is so important. So, we need to take ownership of this. (House parties on June 6, service on June 27). If the country is demanding healthcare reform, we’ll get it done and Washington will not have any option but to follow us.

We need to get costs under control and make sure everyone can have affordable healthcare coverage. As we head into the summer, we all can’t focus on just relaxing. We will have to roll up our sleeves and go out there and make healthcare happen. There is huge interest in this. This is not some distant Washington debate. Most people have health insurance but they know they are paying more for themselves and so are their employers. It affects everyone.

So, spread your net wide. This shouldn’t be a lonely affair. You can lead it in your community. If we all work together, we can make the promise of the election a reality.

From the President of the United States:

President Obama says hello, Mitch…calling from Air Force One line, I think. Mitch tells President, you are talking to the President.

President: It is great to talk to everybody. I want to start off by saying thanks to everyone who knocked on doors and registered voters. You had the confidence that we could reclaim the sensibility in Washington, that we could restore a sense of fairness and stability to our economy. We have to keep ourselves safe but be true to our ideals. That is the kind of change you voted for and that is why I am President, and I will never forget this.

Economic Recovery Act was successful because of us. Hundreds of thousands of pledges were signed by all of us. Americans from coast to coast were committed to making investments in energy and healthcare. We passed a budget plan and Economic Recovery Act. Now, we have the task of passing a healthcare reform act. Healthcare costs are crushing families.

Businesses and families are also getting hammered each and every day. Millions of Americans have lost their healthcare. The President has heard these stories via email and other forums from the citizens of the United States. The President cited an example of a lady who is fighting an insurance company who threatens to cut off her health insurance, and she’s already depleted her savings.

We need healthcare reform legislation that fixes the things that are broken. The status quo is unacceptable, and we need to get it done this year, or we won’t get it done. All of us need to educate our friends, relatives, and neighbors. We can protect choice of doctors, hospitals, healthcare providers, and ensure affordable healthcare. The President greatly appreciates all our support.

Question from Mary Alice in Grand Rapids, MI. She mentions her county went blue for the first time since 1968.

Mary Alice asks, as volunteers, what do you need us to do in order to grow this grassroots movement?

Answer by PBO: We need you to stay involved. The election only gave us an opportunity for change. We need to remobilize, reach out to friends and neighbors in support of our agenda. On 6/6, host a kickoff event to help launch healthcare reform. We need to refute arguments as to why we can’t drive down costs. The most important thing is to mobilize people in local communities block by block, neighbor by neighbor to make sure everyone understands. When that happens, Congressmen will take notice. Some are in districts or in states where right now politicians are resistant. We need to mobilize and telll them it’s not acceptable to preserve the status quo. To get involved, go to the Organizing for American website on www.barackobama.com.

Bonnie from Portland:

Question: My son has graduated from college this past winter, and he is burdened with college loans and cannot afford healthcare. What will you make available to young people like my son?

PBO: I have personal experiences and know how tough it is. We want to make higher education more affordable by increasing PEL grants. This year, the Administration will implement an income-based repayment loan and are dedicated also to simplifying the student loan application. We need to eliminate middle men in the current student loan programs who get fees off the top. As to the issue around healthcare for these young people, we must ensure young people can stay on their parents' health insurance plan up to age 25.

From Leanne in Birmingham, AL

Question: In a state as conservative as AL, what is the most important goal that can be accomplished ?

PBO: Keep organizing and talking to people, especially young people (who historically haven’t voted as much.) What I think the American citizens want, even in the most conservative communities, is action. It’s not a red or blue state thing. It is an American recognition that Washington needs to get off the dime. Inaction on healthcare leads to costs everywhere, including AL. If we want to cut our deficits, and a lot of conservative communities are concerned about all the debt we are building up, the most important thing we can do to close our budget gap is to rein in healthcare costs. Change comes from the bottom up, when people in their communities are out there talking, persuading, presenting facts, supplying information. Grassroots work makes a difference primarily because people trust their friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers as opposed to talking heads on tv. So, having the tone of reasonably presenting the case of why change is needed, that will work everywhere. That is why I was successful, and that’s why we will keep on being successful.

The President thanks us all for a great job and then hangs up.

Mitch:Two more things to go over.

Sign up to host or attend a 6/6 healthcare organizing kickoff, you can do so by pressing 1. If you need more information, press 2.
Would like to thank everyone for joining us and I really appreciate all of your hard work that you’ve done so far.

For more info, check out the website.

Unity Celebration: Emerging Leadership in the Era of Obama Gala Weekend

Preston — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:41:03 EDT

Democratic Family,

You are Cordially invited

to Attend the

First Annual

Washington,DC, Atlanta Georgia and New York City

Unity Celebration:Emerging Leadership in the Era of Obama

Golf and Gala Stellar Weekend

Atlantic Station Luxgerious - Twelve Hotel

Friday, July 24th and Saturday, July 25th 2009

Senator Ronald Ramsey, Host

and

Preston L. Harden, Master of Ceremony

Featuring

An Historic Weekend of Events

Twelve Hotel - July 24th & July 25th - 12:00pm to 12Midnight

To host the Summer Olympics in Chicago - 2020 and San Francisco/New York - 2024, BACK TO BACK

Declan Cheah Yun Keat — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:21:20 EST

To host the Summer Olympics in Chicago - 2020 and San Francisco/New York - 2024, BACK TO BACK to boost the economy to the greatest height in human history. This is proven during the Clinton administration (1993 - 2001), Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. Besides, the Europeans & Latin America (Athens - 2004, London - 2012 & Rio De Jeneiro - 2016) had hosted the Olympics TRIPPLE in the last 16 years. It's time for the Americans to create history and for the first time in human history by organizing the Olympics TWICE, BACK TO BACK on American soil. As it has never being done before in the history of the Olympics and mankind.

INAUGURAL EVENT - HOTEL/TRANSPORTATION INCLUDED

INAUGURAL from Union City, GA — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:14:26 EST

INAUGURAL BUS TRIP - FROM: ATLANTA

Register @ www.event-ology.com.

DISCOUNTS FOR GROUPS OF 4+

You might find this interesting....

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:32:13 EST

November 9, 2008Op-Ed ColumnistIt Still Felt Good the Morning After By FRANK RICH

ON the morning after a black man won the White House, America’s tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy.

Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. We felt good not only because we had breached a racial barrier as old as the Republic. Dawn also brought the realization that we were at last emerging from an abusive relationship with our country’s 21st-century leaders. The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America.

For eight years, we’ve been told by those in power that we are small, bigoted and stupid — easily divided and easily frightened. This was the toxic catechism of Bush-Rove politics. It was the soiled banner picked up by the sad McCain campaign, and it was often abetted by an amen corner in the dominant news media. We heard this slander of America so often that we all started to believe it, liberals most certainly included. If I had a dollar for every Democrat who told me there was no way that Americans would ever turn against the war in Iraq or definitively reject Bush governance or elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president, I could almost start to recoup my 401(k). Few wanted to take yes for an answer.

So let’s be blunt. Almost every assumption about America that was taken as a given by our political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night.

The most conspicuous clichés to fall, of course, were the twin suppositions that a decisive number of white Americans wouldn’t vote for a black presidential candidate — and that they were lying to pollsters about their rampant racism. But the polls were accurate. There was no “Bradley effect.” A higher percentage of white men voted for Obama than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton included.

Obama also won all four of those hunting-and-Hillary-loving Rust Belt states that became 2008’s obsession among slumming upper-middle-class white journalists: Pennsylvania and Michigan by double digits, as well as Ohio and even Indiana, which has gone Democratic only once (1964) since 1936. The solid Republican South, led by Virginia and North Carolina, started to turn blue as well. While there are still bigots in America, they are in unambiguous retreat.

And what about all those terrified Jews who reportedly abandoned their progressive heritage to buy into the smears libeling Obama as an Israel-hating terrorist? Obama drew a larger percentage of Jews nationally (78) than Kerry had (74) and — mazel tov, Sarah Silverman! — won Florida.

Let’s defend Hispanic-Americans, too, while we’re at it. In one of the more notorious observations of the campaign year, a Clinton pollster, Sergio Bendixen, told The New Yorker in January that “the Hispanic voter — and I want to say this very carefully — has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” Let us say very carefully that a black presidential candidate won Latinos — the fastest-growing demographic in the electorate — 67 percent to 31 (up from Kerry’s 53-to-44 edge and Gore’s 62-to-35).

Young voters also triumphed over the condescension of the experts. “Are they going to show up?” Cokie Roberts of ABC News asked in February. “Probably not. They never have before. By the time November comes, they’ll be tired.” In fact they turned up in larger numbers than in 2004, and their disproportionate Democratic margin made a serious difference, as did their hard work on the ground. They’re not the ones who need Geritol.

The same commentators who dismissed every conceivable American demographic as racist, lazy or both got Sarah Palin wrong too. When she made her debut in St. Paul, the punditocracy was nearly uniform in declaring her selection a brilliant coup. There hadn’t been so much instant over-the-top praise by the press for a cynical political stunt since President Bush “landed” a jet on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in that short-lived triumph “Mission Accomplished.”

The rave reviews for Palin were completely disingenuous. Anyone paying attention (with the possible exception of John McCain) could see she was woefully ill-equipped to serve half-a-heartbeat away from the presidency. The conservatives Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy said so on MSNBC when they didn’t know their mikes were on. But, hey, she was a dazzling TV presence, the thinking went, so surely doltish Americans would rally around her anyway. “She killed!” cheered Noonan about the vice-presidential debate, revising her opinion upward and marveling at Palin’s gift for talking “over the heads of the media straight to the people.” Many talking heads thought she tied or beat Joe Biden.

The people, however, were reaching a less charitable conclusion and were well ahead of the Beltway curve in fleeing Palin. Only after polls confirmed that she was costing McCain votes did conventional wisdom in Washington finally change, demoting her from Republican savior to scapegoat overnight.

But Palin’s appeal wasn’t overestimated only because of her kitschy “American Idol” star quality. Her fierce embrace of the old Karl Rove wedge politics, the divisive pitting of the “real America” against the secular “other” America, was also regarded as a sure-fire winner. The second most persistent assumption by both pundits and the McCain campaign this year — after the likely triumph of racism — was that the culture war battlegrounds from 2000 and 2004 would remain intact.

This is true in exactly one instance: gay civil rights. Though Rove’s promised “permanent Republican majority” lies in humiliating ruins, his and Bush’s one secure legacy will be their demagogic exploitation of homophobia. The success of the four state initiatives banning either same-sex marriage or same-sex adoptions was the sole retro trend on Tuesday. And Obama, who largely soft-pedaled the issue this year, was little help. In California, where other races split more or less evenly on a same-sex marriage ban, some 70 percent of black voters contributed to its narrow victory.

That lagging indicator aside, nearly every other result on Tuesday suggests that while the right wants to keep fighting the old boomer culture wars, no one else does. Three state initiatives restricting abortion failed. Bill Ayers proved a lame villain, scaring no one. Americans do not want to revisit Vietnam (including in Iraq). For all the attention paid by the news media and McCain-Palin to rancorous remembrances of things past, I sometimes wondered whether most Americans thought the Weather Underground was a reunion band and the Hanoi Hilton a chain hotel. Socialism, the evil empire and even Ronald Reagan may be half-forgotten blurs too.

If there were any doubts the 1960s are over, they were put to rest Tuesday night when our new first family won the hearts of the world as it emerged on that vast blue stage to join the celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park. The bloody skirmishes that took place on that same spot during the Democratic convention 40 years ago — young vs. old, students vs. cops, white vs. black — seemed as remote as the moon. This is another America — hardly a perfect or prejudice-free America, but a union that can change and does, aspiring to perfection even if it can never achieve it.

Still, change may come slowly to the undying myths bequeathed to us by the Bush decade. “Don’t think for a minute that power concedes,” Obama is fond of saying. Neither does groupthink. We now keep hearing, for instance, that America is “a center-right nation” — apparently because the percentages of Americans who call themselves conservative (34), moderate (44) and liberal (22) remain virtually unchanged from four years ago. But if we’ve learned anything this year, surely it’s that labels are overrated. Those same polls find that more and more self-described conservatives no longer consider themselves Republicans. Americans now say they favor government doing more (51 percent), not less (43) — an 11-point swing since 2004 — and they still overwhelmingly reject the Iraq war. That’s a centrist country tilting center-left, and that’s the majority who voted for Obama.

The post-Bush-Rove Republican Party is in the minority because it has driven away women, the young, suburbanites, black Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, educated Americans, gay Americans and, increasingly, working-class Americans. Who’s left? The only states where the G.O.P. increased its percentage of the presidential vote relative to the Democrats were West Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. Even the North Carolina county where Palin expressed her delight at being in the “real America” went for Obama by more than 18 percentage points.

The actual real America is everywhere. It is the America that has been in shell shock since the aftermath of 9/11, when our government wielded a brutal attack by terrorists as a club to ratchet up our fears, betray our deepest constitutional values and turn Americans against one another in the name of “patriotism.” What we started to remember the morning after Election Day was what we had forgotten over the past eight years, as our abusive relationship with the Bush administration and its press enablers dragged on: That’s not who we are.

So even as we celebrated our first black president, we looked around and rediscovered the nation that had elected him. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Obama said in February, and indeed millions of such Americans were here all along, waiting for a leader. This was the week that they reclaimed their country.

Barack Obama Inaugural Bus Trip From: Atlanta - To: Washington D.C.

INAUGURAL from Union City, GA — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:19:11 EST

Event Name:Barack Obama Inaugural Bus TripDescription:Come and experience history in the making as you bear witness to Senator Barack Obama give his historic inauguration speech when he takes office as the first black president of the United States of America on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. Register for the event at www.event-ology.com

Thank You America

Connie Russell — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:36:46 EST

It's been a while since I visited my blog site. Thanks to Jules Federle, the regional field director, and Randy Paris, field organizer for Triad-West, I was hired by the campaign as a Deputy Field Organizer, and with the added responsibility, I didn't have time to write.

Thank you America for bringing a historic change to our country. We have made a great choice. I believe that President-Elect Obama will do his very best to put our country back on track, but we must be patient with him and not expect any miracles. He is the next president and not the next miracle worker--that title belongs to Jesus.

This has been a remarkable journey for me, and one that I will never forget. I worked with Randy Paris, field organizer, for Triad-West, Davidson County (Lexington). We had a very good team. We worked very hard to help turn NC blue, and change the course of history for our country. I am a 61-year-old African-American female and Randy is a 20-year-old Jewish student at Wake Forest University. God not only gave me a great field organizer, but a son as well. I love him dearly. And as Randy's mom would address me, "Miss Connie, aka "Loco* in loco parentis for Randy

We all have something to be proud of. Who would have ever "thunk" it? Now troops, we must continue the journey to help change the racial, social, and economic divide in our respective counties and states.

Love to you all,

Connie

Condolences for Sen. Barack Obama

Tracy/Louisiana 4 OBAMA — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:04:23 EST

My heart goes out to Sen. Obama and his family. On the eve of an historic election to have to deal with the loss of his grandmother is very sad. The thought she came so close to seeing history, if only one more day. She knew what a great grandson she has!!! My thoughts and prayers are with the entire family on the eve of this election. VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

This is worth a read...

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:31:50 EDT

October 30, 2008Op-Ed ColumnistAmerican Stories By ROGER COHEN

Of the countless words Barack Obama has uttered since he opened his campaign for president on an icy Illinois morning in February 2007, a handful have kept reverberating in my mind:

“For as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible.”

Perhaps the words echo because I’m a naturalized American, and I came here, like many others, seeking relief from Britain’s subtle barriers of religion and class, and possibility broader than in Europe’s confines.

Perhaps they resonate because, having South African parents, I spent part of my childhood in the land of apartheid, and so absorbed as an infant the humiliation of racial segregation, the fear and anger that are the harvest of hurt — just as they are, in Obama’s words, “the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.”

Perhaps they speak to me because I live in New York and watch every day a miracle of civility emerge from the struggles and fatigue of people drawn from every corner of the globe to the glimmer of possibility at the tapering edge of the city’s ruler-straight canyons.

Perhaps they move me because the possibility of stories has animated my life; and no nation offers a blanker page on which to write than America.

Or perhaps it’s simply because those 22 words cleave the air with the sharp blade of truth.

Nowhere else could a 47-year-old man, born, as he has written, of a father “black as pitch” and a mother “white as milk,” a generation distant from the mud shacks of western Kenya, raised for a time as Barry Soetoro (his stepfather’s family name) in Muslim Indonesia, then entrusted to his grandparents in Hawaii — nowhere else could this Barack Hussein Obama rise so far and so fast.

It’s for this sense of possibility, and not for grim-faced dread, that people look to America, which is why the Obama campaign has stirred such global passions.

Americans are decent people. They’re not interested in where you came from. They’re interested in who you are. That has not changed.

But much has in the last eight years. This is a moment of anguish. The Bush presidency has engineered the unlikely double whammy of undermining free-market capitalism and essential freedoms, the nation’s twin badges.

American luster is gone. The American idea has, in Joyce Carol Oates’s words, become a “cruel joke.” Americans are worrying and hurting.

So it is important to step back, from the last machinations of this endless campaign, and think again about what America is.

It is renewal, the place where impossible stories get written.

It is the overcoming of history, the leaving behind of war and barriers, in the name of a future freed from the cruel gyre of memory.

It is reinvention, the absorption of one identity in something larger — the notion that “out of many, we are truly one.”

It is a place better than Bush’s land of shadows where a leader entrusted with the hopes of the earth cannot find within himself a solitary phrase to uplift the soul.

Multiple polls now show Obama with a clear lead. But nobody can know the outcome and nobody should underestimate the immense psychological leap that sending a black couple to the White House would represent.

What I am sure of is this: an ever more interconnected world, where financial chain reactions spread with the virulence of plagues, thirsts for American renewal and a form of American leadership sensitive to humanity’s tied fate.

I also know that this biracial politician, the Harvard graduate who gets whites because he was raised by them, the Kenyan’s son who gets blacks because it was among them that mixed race placed him, is an emblematic figure of the border-hopping 21st century. He is the providential mestizo whose name — O-Ba-Ma — has the three-syllable universality of some child’s lullaby.

And what has he done? What does his experience amount to? Does his record not demonstrate he’s a radical? The interrogation continues. It’s true that his experience is limited.

But Americans seem to be trusting what their eyes tell them: temperament trumps experience and every instinct of this man, whose very identity represents an act of reconciliation, hones toward building change from the center.

Earlier this year, at the end of a road of reddish earth in western Kenya, I found Obama’s half-sister Auma. “He can be trusted,” she said, “to be in dialogue with the world.”

Dialogue, between Americans and beyond America, has been a constant theme. Last year, I spoke to Obama, who told me: “Part of our capacity to lead is linked to our capacity to show restraint.”

Watching the way he has allowed his opponents’ weaknesses to reveal themselves, the way he has enticed them into self-defeating exhaustion pounding against the wall of his equanimity, I have come to understand better what he meant.

Stories require restraint, too. Restraint engages the imagination, which has always been stirred by the American idea, and can be once again.

Joe the Plumber

Renee - It's A New Day — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:50:07 EDT

Is not registered to vote:

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/The_Politico_Ben_Smith_s_Blog_The_Joe_file_The_Joe_file

and he does get a tax break but thinks Obama would change things:

http://digg.com/political_opinion/The_Politico_Ben_Smith_s_Blog_Joe_Obama_s_tap_dance_almo

I think Joe would fit in well with some of the people we've seen lately at some of the McCain/Palin rallies.

BTW, in January the Plumbers union endorsed Obama.

The Book is Available for Download!

Victoria DePaul, Author — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:38:12 EDT

Greetings All

Well the book is finally available. Many thanks to those who participated. Your quotes are included. For those of you who still wish to participate for the print version, you can still do so. visit www.obamaworcester.com to enter your quote. The website for download and/or online reading is available, though the contact form will not be working until tommorrow. Please pass this ebook to everyone you know so that everyone will understand the power of leadership based on positive human energy!

www.ebookobama.com

Successful leaders understand that people are the basic energy unit and therefore the source of energy and power of any organization. Barack Obama stands out as an example of superior leadership– a leader who understands the difference between inspiration and motivation. Inspiration awakens people. Motivation moves people. Barack Obama knows that personal empowerment is the ultimate motivation of all our efforts and behaviors. Understanding this difference is what moves ordinary people from complacency to positive action. Positive action, originating in positive energy, is what yields positive results. This is the basis of his campaign, one of the most powerful Grassroots organizations ever. Understanding the power of the ‘intrapreneurial’ spirit (intrapreneur: an entrepreneur that works within an organization) that lives within, Barack Obama doesn’t call forth volunteers– he calls forth the leader that resides in all of us. He demands personal accountability—and gets it. In Obama: Leadership for the 21st Century, I define the dynamics of human energy and organizational human energy systems. I explain how Barack Obama, by using the concept of intrapreneurship, has succeeded in establishing a culture of ingenuity, enthusiasm, passion, collaboration– unlocking new levels of personal power and control. Leaders such as Barack Obama, who are able to unleash human energy, to foster intrapreneurship will ride the wave of the future into the third millennium.

Former Republican Governor William Milliken is having second thoughts about that McCain endorsement:

MINDY FOR OBAMA — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:41:44 EDT

y: Former Republican Governor William Milliken is having second thoughts
about that McCain endorsement:

"He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.

"I'm disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues.
"

Milliken, a lifelong Republican, is among some past leaders from the party's moderate wing voicing reservations and, in some cases, opposition to McCain's candidacy.

More evidence that the McCain VP pick of a creationist pushing, anti-choice advocate, and otherwise wholly unqualified candidate has scared the living daylights out of the moderate Republicans. Coupled with McCain's embrace of Bush's epic economic failures and there appears to be a full-on fracture occurring within the Republican party.
Governor Milliken is hardly the only one:

"That's not my kind of Republicanism," said Chafee, who now calls himself an independent. "I saw what Bush and Cheney did. They came in with a (budget) surplus and a stable world, and look what's happened now. In eight short years they've taken one peaceful and prosperous world, and they've torn it into tatters.
"

As for McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his running mate, "there's no question she's totally unqualified," Chafee said.

He had similar reservations about Obama's lack of experience, but said the Democrat's handling of the campaign convinced him he's ready to lead.

Chafee said he has spoken with several other moderate Republican leaders, and "there are a whole lot of us deserting.
"

Thankfully, these moderates appear to be willing to truly put "Country First" by voting for the most qualified candidate to lead America into the future -- Barack Obama. As long as the McCain/Palin campaign continues down the self-destructive path of hate and divisiveness, while offering no real, progressive solutions for the future, look for more moderates to abandon the GOP ship next month and beyond.

Enough is enough -- moderates seem to be getting the message.

http://feeds. dailykos. com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/zk3GKdY_Z_M/626472

I'm a little confused

Renee - It's A New Day — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:27:27 EDT

Great video. Share and make it go viral!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg5tl87rEE4

It's also on DIGG:

http://digg.com/politics/I_m_a_Little_Confused_3

John McCain's rage is a national security concern

Renee - It's A New Day — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:01:40 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAyK-enrF1g

BARACK OBAMA OFFICIAL "YES WE DID".... CELEBRATION FINALE WATCH PARTY... 11.04.08

Preston — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:49:24 EDT

THE BARACK OBAMA OFFICIAL "YES WE DID".... CELEBRATION FINALE WATCH PARTY will be held at: FOX SPORTS GRILL @ ATLANTIC STATION 261 19th Street, Atlanta, Georgia, 30363 (404) 207-1369 Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 @ 6:30pm - until we say YES WE DID!!!! Sign-up/RSVP below. We are expecting News coverage so please show your support and wear your OBAMA clothing/hats, bring your OBAMA signs/balloons and let's celebrate an OBAMA VICTORY.... **Food and Drinks will be available at Fox Restaurants. ***Parking available Atlantic Station or take MARTA to Art Station Station (Free Shuttle Provided from Arts Center MARTA Station) "In November Georgia turns - Obama Blue" Shuttles depart every 5-10 minutes. Free Ride Hours of Operation Mon-Fri || 5:00 am to 1:00am Sat-Sun || 5:00 am to 1:00am Call 404-249-9138 for more shuttle information. Let's make history together... See you there.... PS: Kids are allowed, please feel free to bring your family for this historic event.

RSVP by clicking below at:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gs79r7

Thank you for your support,

Preston L. Harden,
Georgia's 7th Congressional
District Delegate
GO OBAMA!!!!! 2008
(404) 376-6833

Obama Minute

Renee - It's A New Day — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 08:46:53 EDT

Please sign up to donate tomorrow at noon eastern to try and raise 1 million dollars for the campaign.

http://www.anobamaminute.com/

Got a letter published in USA Today

Bryan in Miami — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:33:49 EDT

In the friday, October 3rd issue. I'm Bryan Wither

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/10/election-is-not.html#more

"I'm writing to comment on Sen. John McCain's request to postpone the first presidential debate.

In 1988, when George H.W. Bush debated Michael Dukakis and their running mates, Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen, faced off, there were riots in the streets of Algeria and concerns of a recessionhere. None of this stopped these men from standing squarely in front of the American people and discussing the issues.

Sen. Barack Obama's response was spot on. The president of the United States has to be expected to deal with more than one thing at a time. The two men competing for the highest office in America need to be able to show that they can walk and chew gum at once. "

Fun stuff.

OBAMA MOVIE.....HELP SPREAD THE WORD!!

swimmer — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:50:01 EDT

Friends, colleagues: I've just discovered a documentary that is going to change this election! It's called "Who Is This Guy?" I am a news junkie and it's a take on Barack Obama and this election like I have never seen before. Anyone who cares about this country needs to see this film before November 4th. Who we choose as the new leader of the free world has never been more important. This film tells the historic narrative of this election with factual analysis and real people without ever demonizing or belittling anyone. The production is stunning -- it'll make you angry, make you laugh, cry and wonder "how did I miss this?

I don't know where else this film is available but I found "Who Is This Guy?" at my local Blockbuster! It answers: Who is Obama...what drives him...how did he get here, and describes the monumentally historic reality of this election and its reach.

This is what I discovered about it:

SYNOPSIS: Narrated by Blair Underwood, the film is an in-depth look at Barack Obama as a senator, family man, steward of the community and presidential candidate through the prism of luminaries, politicos, academics, politically active celebrities and former friends and associates of Barack Obama. "Who Is This Guy" is a snapshot of Barack Obama's candidacy for president and the spin that factored into this historic 2008 election leading up to the DNC. The film captures the imaginations of luminaries and regular Americans as they describe Barack Obama, some having worked with him in the trenches of Chicago politics, Obama supporters in his movement for change and others who simply want their voices heard -- answering two often asked questions: Who is he? Why Obama now?

Send this to everyone you know and ask them to send out their own email blast reaching at least 100 people more...to buy it, rent it, and then go vote!

Get you local office to rent it and do a watch party! LET'S GET FIRED UP & READY TO WIN!!!!

Declare Yourself

Renee - It's A New Day — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:25:43 EDT

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Hollywood_Declares_Themselves

Clergy Uses Pulpit to Support McCain in Indiana

! A Scandinavian-American Nicknamed Hussein — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:36:13 EDT

Well, Rovian politics is back in its full hypocritical, Unconstitutional presence in Indiana, suggesting that the Republicans are worried about that state. It's hard to believe that a thinking clergyman with an IQ beyond moronic cannot understand the reasons why churches are protected from paying taxes. If they advocate for candidates (and not issues, many of which ARE moral), they are becoming political platforms for the party they support and should be denied tax exempt status. Frankly, the IRS should crack down vigorously when such violatons occur and invoke sanctions swiftly to keep the practice from spreading.

"Anyone voting for Obama is schizophrenic" was the mantra for the sermon by the "Rev" Ron Johnson Jr. of the "Living Stones" church in Crown Point, Indiana, south of Chicago. He is part of a group, funded not coincidentally by a group from Arizona, that contends that clergy have an obligation to advise their congregations how to vote. Apparently, the members of Living Stones congregation are unable (or unwilling) to think for themselves.

For those who do, I might suggest that the schizophrenia suggested by their pastor is best known by himself, who is providing a first hand account of contradiction in action. There may not be many unemployed, homeless, or citizens without health insurance in Crown Point, but if there are, only but for the grace of God go others who sit smugly and silently in their pews as though they were divinely protected from such sitations. And, anyone who knows scripture, would recognize that policies compassionately aimed at addressing these inequities are what Christianity is about. The Bible is more focused on how people treat other people with compassion and selflesslessness than it is about finding ways to justify the greed and self-interest that hide behind so many Republican policies. That, in my view, is the hyprocrisy that ought to be pointed out as a guide to living life in a Christian way at the Living Stones church.

I'm going to be looking for ways to support efforts to discover these politicos in clerical garb and make sure they are exposed and accountable to the law. I hope you will join me in condemning this violaton of our Constitution. Future posts will contain information on how you can help.You can start by sending the Reverend a piece of your mind. See the church website here, complete with flag waving propoganda.Contact the church here. We must stop this nonsense if we want to preserve the principles of our Constitutional democracy.

Where's Wallstreet? — Apparently hiding in shame

! A Scandinavian-American Nicknamed Hussein — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:23:31 EDT

We find the country in a financial crisis, and one that was predicted by many, because of a fundamental flaw in the philosophy advocating de-regulation. The flawed premise, proved over and over again to be untrue, is that without oversight, people can be counted on to regulate themselves and do the right thing. That principle may apply in some situations, but when it comes to money and greed, it fails miserably.

It is indisputable that Wall Street failed catastrophically to adequately regulate itself. Everyone had their hand in the cookie jar, and the cookie jar broke. Having broken the cookie jar, one might expect the perpetrator, as a Mom would expect a youngster, to apologize and offer to do something to make things right.

But, with THIS Wall Street, supposedly populated by some of the best and brightest from Business Schools and the financial industry, apologies, confessions and repentance are curiously absent. There has been no admission of error, no acknowledgment of misjudgment, and no recommendation for resolving the mess that has been created coming from the perpetrators. At the very LEAST, one would expect that someone among them, someone with a scintilla of leadership or moral responsiblity, would recommend that the 800 financial firms on the "protected list" agree to ante up a fund of some sort to assist distressed homeowners —or fund a panel of experts —or to voluntarily agree to future standards of conduct or restraint in compensation or risk tolerance. In short, no contrition has been observed.

No, not even a peep has been heard. And in that deafening silence, an admission of malfeasance and selfish interest screams loudly to the rest of the country. They, the barons of Wall Street, the super well compensated and the entitled, are apparently not people who can be trusted or respected. And to that, one can only say shame on you Wall Street. In the end, you may end up getting worse than you deserve. And when that occurs, look closely in the mirror, and be ashamed of what you see, because there is no punishment that will ever make up for the damage you have done to the country, the trust you have breached, and the moral responsibility you have rejected. You deserve to be repudiated.You deserve to be taught a lesson in humility. Shame on you, Wall Street.

Watch Letterman Tonight! Is McCain even trying?

Mac Guy for Obama — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:31:20 EDT

What do you have to do piss off David Letterman? Lie to his face. John McCain, trying hard to figure out why he is down double-digit against Obama when voters are polled - "who do you trust during trying economic times?"

The McCain campaign is being hit on all sides. The NY Times reporting that Rick Davis' firm has been getting paychecks, up an until last month. Over $345,000 in total...not including the $2 million he previously received from Fannie and Freddie.

I can't believe the amount of desperation and panic. I have never thought John McCain would raise the white flag, 6 weeks from the election. Does he not want to even try?

I'm not saying that the Obama campaign should lessen up, they should continue with the plan and march directly to the White House. Calm, steady and trustworthy is what the American people want in a president during these troubling times. Not someone who's making decisions like they just found a dead body in the trunk. I feel that I'm watching the McCain campaign spiral into a "everyone's against me" mentality and will show the American people that the McCain-Palin ticket is not worthy of running our country. The Republicans are just full of attacks and lies, not substance.

Listen to Katie Couric as Sarah Palin "Specifically, when in the past 26 years, John McCain has been on the side of regulation?" Sarah Palin, when cornered, moves to Folksy Sarah - "Well, I'll find out and get it to ya." Are you serious?!?!?

As much as I'm disgusted with the lies and conceit, I think the American people will now start seeing the truth....An old, tired politician who will try ANYTHING to get elected, right next to someone who is so under-qualified in both experience and judgment, is potentially the most scary part of the McCain campaign.

Tune in - CBS at 11:35pm ET.

Lee

Thank You McCain

Renee - It's A New Day — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:54:07 EDT

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

Watch and share with everyone!

I'm a little confused

Renee - It's A New Day — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:36:37 EDT

I'm a little confused...

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

Growing up in Alaska eating mooseburgers and going aerial shooting for wolves in the winter; 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, 750,000 people, become 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 weather girl, 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 disf igured 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 your 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.

Confronting an Economic Crisis

MINDY FOR OBAMA — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:10:01 EDT

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery

Confronting an Economic Crisis

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

Golden, Colorado

Over the last few days, we have seen clearly what’s at stake in this election. The news from Wall Street has shaken the American people’s faith in our economy. The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that have generated tremendous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.

Since this turmoil began over a year ago, the housing market has collapsed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be effectively taken over by the government. Three of America’s five largest investment banks failed or have been sold off in distress. Yesterday, Wall Street suffered its worst losses since just after 9/11. We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations. Yet Senator McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong

A few hours later, his campaign sent him back out to clean up his remarks, and he tried to explain himself again this morning by saying that what he meant was that American workers are strong. But we know that Senator McCain meant what he said the first time, because he has said it over and over again throughout this campaign – no fewer than 16 times, according to one independent count.

Now I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for all of the problems we’re facing, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. Because the truth is, what Senator McCain said yesterday fits with the same economic philosophy that he’s had for 26 years. It’s the philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down. It’s the philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise. It’s a philosophy that lets Washington lobbyists shred consumer protections and distort our economy so it works for the special interests instead of working people.

We’ve had this philosophy for eight years. We know the results. You feel it in your own lives. Jobs have disappeared, and peoples’ life savings have been put at risk. Millions of families face foreclosure, and millions more have seen their home values plummet. The cost of everything from gas to groceries to health care has gone up, while the dream of a college education for our kids and a secure and dignified retirement for our seniors is slipping away. These are the struggles that Americans are facing. This is the pain that has now trickled up.

So let’s be clear: what we’ve seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed. And I am running for President of the United States because the dreams of the American people must not be endangered any more. It’s time to put an end to a broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy. It’s time for change that makes a real difference in your lives.

If you want to understand the difference between how Senator McCain and I would govern as President, you can start by taking a look at how we’ve responded to this crisis. Because Senator McCain’s approach was the same as the Bush Administration’s: support ideological policies that made the crisis more likely; do nothing as the crisis hits; and then scramble as the whole thing collapses. My approach has been to try to prevent this turmoil.

In February of 2006, I introduced legislation to stop mortgage transactions that promoted fraud, risk or abuse. A year later, before the crisis hit, I warned Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke about the risks of mounting foreclosures and urged them to bring together all the stakeholders to find solutions to the subprime mortgage meltdown. Senator McCain did nothing.

Last September, I stood up at NASDAQ and said it’s time to realize that we are in this together – that there is no dividing line between Wall Street and Main Street – and warned of a growing loss of trust in our capital markets. Months later, Senator McCain told a newspaper that he’d love to give them a solution to the mortgage crisis, "but" – he said – "I don’t know one."

In January, I outlined a plan to help revive our faltering economy, which formed the basis for a bipartisan stimulus package that passed the Congress. Senator McCain used the crisis as an excuse to push a so-called stimulus plan that offered another huge and permanent corporate tax cut, including $4 billion for the big oil companies, but no immediate help for workers.

This March, in the wake of the Bear Stearns bailout, I called for a new, 21st century regulatory framework to restore accountability, transparency, and trust in our financial markets. Just a few weeks earlier, Senator McCain made it clear where he stands: "I’m always for less regulation," he said, and referred to himself as "fundamentally a deregulator."

This is what happens when you confuse the free market with a free license to let special interests take whatever they can get, however they can get it. This is what happens when you see seven years of incomes falling for the average worker while Wall Street is booming, and declare – as Senator McCain did earlier this year – that we’ve made great progress economically under George Bush. That is how you can reach the conclusion – as late as yesterday – that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

Well, we have a different way of measuring the fundamentals of our economy. We know that the fundamentals that we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great –that America is a place where you can make it if you try.

Americans have always pursued our dreams within a free market that has been the engine of our progress. It’s a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and rewarded the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon of science, and technology, and discovery. But the American economy has worked in large part because we have guided the market’s invisible hand with a higher principle – that America prospers when all Americans can prosper. That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make competition fair, and open, and honest.

Too often, over the last quarter century, we have lost this sense of shared prosperity. And this has not happened by accident. It’s because of decisions made in boardrooms, on trading floors and in Washington. We failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both.

Let me be clear: the American economy does not stand still, and neither should the rules that govern it. The evolution of industries often warrants regulatory reform - to foster competition, lower prices, or replace outdated oversight structures. Old institutions cannot adequately oversee new practices. Old rules may not fit the roads where our economy is leading. But instead of sensible reform that rewarded success and freed the creative forces of the market, too often we’ve excused an ethic of greed, corner-cutting and inside dealing that threatens the long-term stability of our economic system.

It happened in the 1980s, when we loosened restrictions on Savings and Loans and appointed regulators who ignored even these weaker rules. Too many S&Ls took advantage of the lax rules set by Washington to gamble that they could make big money in speculative real estate. Confident of their clout in Washington, they made hundreds of billions in bad loans, knowing that if they lost money, the government would bail them out. And they were right. The gambles did not pay off, our economy went into recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Sound familiar?

And it has happened again during this decade, in part because of how we deregulated the financial services sector. After we repealed outmoded rules instead of updating them, we were left overseeing 21st century innovation with 20th century regulations. When subprime mortgage lending took a reckless and unsustainable turn, a patchwork of regulators systematically and deliberately eliminated the regulations protecting the American people and failed to raise warning flags that could have protected investors and the pensions American workers count on.

This was not the invisible hand of the market at work. These cycles of bubble and bust were symptoms of the ideology that my opponent is running to continue. John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers. In fact, one of the biggest proponents of deregulation in the financial sector is Phil Gramm – the same man who helped write John McCain’s economic plan; the same man who said that we’re going through a ‘mental recession’; and the same man who called the United States of America a "nation of whiners." So it’s hard to understand how Senator McCain is going to get us out of this crisis by doing the same things with the same old players.

Make no mistake: my opponent is running for four more years of policies that will throw the economy further out of balance. His outrage at Wall Street would be more convincing if he wasn’t offering them more tax cuts. His call for fiscal responsibility would be believable if he wasn’t for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and more of a trillion dollar war in Iraq paid for with deficit spending and borrowing from foreign creditors like China. His newfound support for regulation bears no resemblance to his scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement. John McCain cannot be trusted to reestablish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason: he has shown time and again that he does not believe in it.

What has happened these last eight years is not some historical anomaly, so we know what to expect if we try these policies for another four. When lobbyists run your campaign, the special interests end up gaming the system. When the White House is hostile to any kind of oversight, corporations cut corners and consumers pay the price. When regulators are chosen for their disdain for regulation and we gut their ability to enforce the law, then the interests of the American people are not protected. It’s an ideology that intentionally breeds incompetence in Washington and irresponsibility on Wall Street, and it’s time to turn the page.

Just today, Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book – you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here’s the thing – this isn’t 9/11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I’ll provide it, John McCain won’t, and that’s the choice for the American people in this election.

History shows us that there is no substitute for presidential leadership in a time of economic crisis. FDR and Harry Truman didn’t put their heads in the sand, or hand accountability over to a Commission. Bill Clinton didn’t put off hard choices. They led, and that’s what I will do. My priority as President will be the stability of the American economy and the prosperity of the American people. And I will make sure that our response focuses on middle class Americans – not the companies that created the problem.

To get out of this crisis – and to ensure that we are not doomed to repeat a cycle of bubble and bust again and again – we must take immediate measures to create jobs and continue to address the housing crisis; we must build a 21st century regulatory framework, and we must pursue a bold opportunity agenda that creates new jobs and grows the American economy.

To jumpstart job creation, I have proposed a $50 billion Emergency Economic Plan that would save 1 million jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure, repairing our schools, and helping our states and localities avoid damaging budget cuts.

I worked with leaders in Congress to create a new FHA Housing Security Program, which will help stabilize the housing market and allow Americans facing foreclosure to keep their homes at rates they can afford. Going forward, we need to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as we know them with a structure that is focused on helping people buy homes – not engaging in market speculation. We can’t have a situation like the old S&L scandal where its "heads" investors win, and "tails" taxpayers lose. That’s going to take ending the lobbyist-driven dominance of these institutions that we’ve seen for far too long in Washington.

To prevent fraud in the mortgage market, I’ve proposed tough penalties on fraudulent lenders, and a Home Score system that will ensure consumers fully understand mortgage offers and whether they’ll be able to make payments. To help low- and middle-income families, I will ease the burden on struggling homeowners through a universal homeowner’s tax credit. This will add up to a 10 percent break off the mortgage interest rate for 10 million households. That’s another $500 each year for many middle class families.

Unlike Senator McCain, I will change our bankruptcy laws to make it easier for families to stay in their homes. Right now, if you’re a family that owns one house, bankruptcy judges are actually barred from helping you keep a roof over your head by writing down the value of your mortgage. If you own seven homes, the judge is free to write down any or all of the debt on your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh homes. Now that may be of comfort to Senator McCain, but that’s the kind of out-of-touch Washington loophole that makes no sense. When I’m President, we’ll make our laws work for working people.

But as we’ve seen the last few days, the crisis in our financial markets now reaches well beyond the housing market. That’s why it’s time to do what I called for last September and again this past March – and it is only more overdue today.

Our capital markets cannot succeed without the public’s trust. It’s time to get serious about regulatory oversight, and that’s what I will do as President. That starts with the core principles for reform that I discussed at Cooper Union.

First, if you’re a financial institution that can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision. When the Federal Reserve steps in as a lender of last resort, it is providing an insurance policy underwritten by the American taxpayer. In return, taxpayers have every right to expect that financial institutions with access to that credit are not taking excessive risks.

Second, we must reform requirements on all regulated financial institutions. We must strengthen capital requirements, particularly for complex financial instruments like some of the mortgage securities and other derivatives at the center of our current crisis. We must develop and rigorously manage liquidity risk. We must investigate rating agencies and potential conflicts of interest with the people they are rating. And we must establish transparency requirements that demand full disclosure by financial institutions to shareholders and counterparties. As we reform our regulatory system at home, we must address the same problems abroad so that financial institutions around the world are subject to similar rules of the road.

Third, we need to streamline our regulatory agencies. Our overlapping and competing regulatory agencies cannot oversee the large and complex institutions that dominate the financial landscape. Different institutions compete in multiple markets - Washington should not pretend otherwise. A streamlined system will provide better oversight and reduce costs.

Fourth, we need to regulate institutions for what they do, not what they are. Over the last few years, commercial banks and thrift institutions were subject to guidelines on subprime mortgages that did not apply to mortgage brokers and companies. This regulatory framework failed to protect homeowners, and made no sense for our financial system. When it comes to protecting the American people, it should make no difference what kind of institution they are dealing with.

Fifth, we must crack down on trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation. The last six months have shown that this remains a serious problem in many markets and becomes especially problematic during moments of great financial turmoil. We cannot embrace the administration’s vision of turning over the protection of investors to the industries themselves. We need regulators that actually enforce the rules instead of overlooking them. The SEC should investigate and punish market manipulation, and report its conclusions to Congress.

Sixth, we must establish a process that identifies systemic risks to the financial system like the crisis that has overtaken our economy. Too often, we end up where we are today: dealing with threats to the financial system that weren’t anticipated by regulators. We need a standing financial market advisory group to meet regularly and provide advice to the President, Congress, and regulators on the state of our financial markets and the risks they face. It’s time to anticipate risks before they erupt into a full-blown crisis.

These six principles should guide the legal reforms needed to establish a 21st century regulatory system. But the change we need goes beyond laws and regulation. Financial institutions must do a better job at managing risks. There is something wrong when boards of directors or senior managers don’t understand the implications of the risks assumed by their own institutions. It’s time to realign incentives and CEO compensation packages, so that both high level executives and employees better serve the interests of shareholders.

Finally, the American people must be able to trust that their government is looking out for all of us - not the special interests that have set the agenda in Washington for eight years, and the lobbyists who run John McCain’s campaign.

I’ve spent my career taking on lobbyists and their money, and I’ve won. If you wanted a special favor in Illinois, there was actually a law that let you give campaign cash to politicians for their own personal use. In the State House, they called it business-as-usual. I called it legalized bribery, and while it didn’t make me the most popular guy in Springfield, I put an end to it.

When I got to Washington, we saw some of the worst corruption since Watergate. I led the fight for reform in my party, and let me tell you – not everyone in my party was too happy about it. When I proposed forcing lobbyists to disclose who they’re raising money from and who in Congress they’re funneling it to, I had a few choice words directed my way on the floor of the Senate. But we got it done, and we banned gifts from lobbyists, and free rides on their fancy jets. And I am the only candidate who can say that Washington lobbyists do not fund my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am President of the United States. That’s how we’re going to end the outrage of special interests tipping the scales.

The most important thing we must do is restore opportunity for all Americans. To get our economy growing, we need to recapture that fundamental American promise. That if you work hard, you can pay the bills. That if you get sick, you won’t go bankrupt. That your kids can get a good education, and that we can leave a legacy of greater opportunity to future generations.

That’s the change the American people need. While Senator McCain likes to talk about change these days, his economic program offers nothing but more of the same. The American people need more than change as a slogan– we need change that makes a real difference in your life.

Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it. I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America. I will eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups – that’s how we’ll grow our economy and create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95% of all working families. My opponent doesn’t want you to know this, but under my plan, tax rates will actually be less than they were under Ronald Reagan. If you make less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increase one single dime. In fact, I offer three times the tax relief for middle-class families as Senator McCain does – because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

I will finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And I will stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most

I will create the jobs of the future by transforming our energy economy. We’ll tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy – wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.

And now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. But in exchange, I will ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American – if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

This is the change we need – the kind of bottom up growth and innovation that will advance the American economy by advancing the dreams of all Americans.

Times are hard. I will not pretend that the changes we need will come without cost – though I have presented ways we can achieve these changes in a fiscally responsible way. I know that we’ll have to overcome our doubts and divisions and the determined opposition of powerful special interests before we can truly reform a broken economy and advance opportunity.

But I am running for President because we simply cannot afford four more years of an economic philosophy that works for Wall Street instead of Main Street, and ends up devastating both.

I don’t want to wake up in four years to find that more Americans fell out of the middle-class, and more families lost their savings. I don’t want to see that our country failed to invest in our ability to compete, our children’s future was mortgaged on another mountain of debt, and our financial markets failed to find a firmer footing.

This time – this election – is our chance to stand up and say: enough is enough!

We can do this because Americans have done this before. Time and again, we’ve battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other’s success. That’s why our economy hasn’t just been the world’s greatest wealth generator – it’s bound America together, it’s created jobs, and it’s made the dream of opportunity a reality for generation after generation of Americans.

Now it falls to us. And I need you to make it happen. If you want the next four years looking just like the last eight, then I am not your candidate. But if you want real change – if you want an economy that rewards work, and that works for Main Street and Wall Street; if you want tax relief for the middle class and millions of new jobs; if you want health care you can afford and education so that our kids can compete; then I ask you to knock on some doors, and make some calls, and talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote on November 4th. And if you do, I promise you – we will win Colorado, we will win this election, and we will change America together.

Early Voting

Renee - It's A New Day — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:01:52 EDT

Early Voting
About half the states--23, to be exact--offer some sort of early voting. Early voting differs from absentee voting in that voters may visit an election official’s office or, in some states, other satellite voting locations, and cast a vote in person without offering an excuse for not being able to vote on election day. Satellite voting locations vary by state, and may include other county and state offices (besides the election official’s office), grocery stores, shopping malls, schools, libraries, and other locations. Early voting generally is conducted on the same voting equipment used in the regular election, as opposed to absentee voting, which is conducted on mail-in paper ballots. The time period for early voting varies from state to state, but most often it is available during a period of 10-14 days before the election, generally ending on the Friday or Saturday immediately preceding the election.

Early Voting

The following states permit in-person early voting at election offices and, in some states, other satellite locations.

Alaska

Nebraska

Arizona

Nevada

Arkansas

New Mexico

California

North Carolina

Colorado

North Dakota*

Florida

Oklahoma

Georgia

Tennessee

Hawaii

Texas

Indiana

Utah

Iowa

Vermont

Kansas

West Virginia

Maine

* Early voting is not offered in all counties. In North Dakota, it is offered at the county election officer’s discretion.

For More Information

Other sources of information on absentee and early voting include the following:

Election Assistance Commission

Federal Voting Assistance Program (for military and overseas voters)

Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (text of federal law)

Federal Post Card Application (for registration and absentee ballot request)

Hockey Moms Against Palin

Renee - It's A New Day — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:51:51 EDT

Enjoy the laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URIypadX3n0&eurl=http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/hockey_moms_against_palin.html

It's getting embarrassing how much McCain Deceives

Mac Guy for Obama — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:02:14 EDT

From Bloomberg

McCain-Palin Crowd-Size Estimates Not Backed by Officials

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Senator John McCain has drawn some of the biggest crowds of his presidential campaign since adding Alaska Governor Sarah Palinto his ticket on Aug. 29. Now officials say they can't substantiate the figures McCain's aides are claiming.

McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal.

Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events.

In recent days, journalists attending the rallies have been raising questions about the crowd estimates with the campaign. In a story on Sept. 11 about Palin's attraction for some Virginia women voters, Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher estimated the crowd to be 8,000, not the 23,000 cited by the campaign.

``The 23,000 figure was substantiated on the ground,'' McCain spokesmanTucker Bounds said. ``The campaign is willing to stand by the fact that it was our biggest crowd to date.''

``Since day one, this campaign has been consistent that we're not going to win or lose based on crowd size but the substance of John McCain's record,'' Bounds said.

Town Hall Meetings

Until Palin, 44, joined him on the campaign trail, McCain, 72, had limited his political events to smaller town hall meetings and rallies of a few hundred people. His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, an Illinois senator, routinely draws thousands of people to his speeches, a phenomenon McCain has tried to use to his advantage by labeling Obama, 47, a celebrity.

That changed on Aug. 30, at Palin's first big public appearance after her nomination. The McCain campaign said 10,000 people showed up at the Consol Energy Arena in Washington, Pennsylvania, home of the Washington Wild Things baseball team.

The campaign attributed that estimate, and several that followed, to U.S. Secret Service figures, based on the number of people who passed through magnetometers.

``We didn't provide any numbers to the campaign,'' said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service. Wiley said he would not ``confirm or dispute'' the numbers the McCain campaign has given to reporters.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lorraine Woellert in Washington atlwoellert@bloomberg.net; Jeff Bliss in Washington atjbliss@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 13, 2008 10:19 EDT

Let's Make the Latest Book on Obama a best seller that ALL will be talking about...

Victoria DePaul, Author — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:50:28 EDT

I just finished reading the latest book on Obama, released a couple of days ago:

Change We Can Believe In

The book details Obama's plan to turn our nation around. Highly recommended and the profits go to charity. Let's make this a book seller. Get you copy today!

Palin Religous Right Extremist

End The War — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:45:19 EDT

Palin is a right wing extremist. She talks in tongues at her church. See story below

UPDATE: Sam Harris writes in the LA Times "Palin: average isn't good enough"

Reposted from:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html

Three months before she was thrust into the national political spotlight, Gov. Sarah Palin was asked to handle a much smaller task: addressing the graduating class of commission students at her one-time church, Wasilla Assembly of God.

Her speech in June provides as much insight into her policy leanings as anything uncovered since she was asked to be John McCain's running mate.

Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord.

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

Religion, however, was not strictly a thread in Palin's foreign policy. It was part of her energy proposals as well. Just prior to discussing Iraq, Alaska's governor asked the audience to pray for another matter -- a $30 billion national gas pipeline project that she wanted built in the state. "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.

THE STREAK LIVES

joe ruwe — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:18:54 EDT

Since going to Denver, my fundraising, blog and all the rest has been in chaos and my time has been short. But I wanted to report that regardless of my hectic life and yours, the Streak has lived on for 110 days in a row. At least one donation has come into the FR here for 110 in a row. 5 dollars, 20 dollars, a thousand dollars at a time. People donate 20 bucks out of every paycheck, some contribute 10 per week. Some put in 5 almost every day. Some go big and drop a grand or more at a time on the Obama for America campaign. It adds up. The average donation has been 29 dollars. 768 donations so far - that just blows my mind. I'm going for 1000.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who donates to my page - it really is making a difference. And THANK YOU to my friends like Marytnurse, Recovering Whine-O, Rich in FLA, My Gram, Anne, DDD, Maureen who keep the Streak going for me when I can't and help me overall in general.

Keep the Streak alive. Grassroots fundraising certainly beats lobbyists and special interests bribing everyone. The masses can control this election if we want to. It will take money (that's us) and organization and inspiration (that's Obama) and we have both and we need to go all out.

Less than 2 months to go.

Soon, this will all be over. We will either win or lose. It's us against them - and we all know it. The People versus the Machine. High stakes and profound implications are overbearing. I shudder to contemplate the historic and unimaginable importance in this years Presidential election. This race should be a silly landslide at this point - McCain/Palin is no match for Obama/Biden when it comes to experience, intellect, integrity, temperament, organizing abilities, fundraising, capacity to inspire people. Alas, it is not. Sadly, this election will come down to the wire and somehow miraculously be decided in a few key states. Humbug.

Every little extra thing we can do to help the Obama campaign will be adding up to make the ultimate difference this year. This election is about us, just like Obama says. It isn't about him, or history. It is a test to see if we can take back our government from corporate interests and allow it to be run by honest representatives. The eternal challenge. Only this time, it is more serious than ever. Frighteningly serious.

I have no doubts that the Bush/Cheney regime will continue to bungle the operation and stewardship of our government to increasing levels of national peril. I foresee even more economic chaos, military aggression or false-flag attacks on our Constitution before January of this winter. These guys still aren't behind bars or in front of a war crimes tribunal - these guys are still operating our government as I write this. I can only shudder and be prepared for anything.

We gotta win this year, that's all there is to it. So much is at stake. I think probably more than we know. I think the failures of the Bush administration are not even close to fully known or even imagined at this point. We have a lot of work to do still. The most important of course, is to win this election. Fixing our country happens after. Every single dollar will help. Everything we do will help. Keep doing it. And get a few friends to do it too.

Yes we can.

DONATE.

Senator Obama and the Palin effect

MINDY FOR OBAMA — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:06:55 EDT

Hi All- This is actually a blog I was lucky enough to pick up from a myspace friend-you may have heard of him, Deepak Chopra. I thought it was very insightful, and wanted to post it for you all. Enjoy!Take Care and Take HOPE!!! Change is coming to the world!!!!

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses . In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:
--Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad.
--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.
--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.
--"Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from "us" pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and "Why change? Everything's OK as it is." The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

Verb + Noun + POW = McCAIN's Standard Answer

Mac Guy for Obama — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:00:59 EDT

I finished watching Jay Leno last night and Jay tries every once in a while to try to make a serious point. When asked about his 7 homes, we got the standard McCain campaign rebuttal - I was a POW. "I didn't have a kitchen table."

Do we want another "Good job Brownie" president? I thought Rudy couldn't string together 5 words without 9/11 in there somewhere. McCain better stop wearing out the POW card, it will be empty come October.

McCain: The Artful Dodger

Mac Guy for Obama — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:18:50 EDT

Never seen a serious presidential candidate dodge such a simple question. Do we want someone who uses a noun, a verb and POW in every answer?

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/08/john-mccains-gr.html

Thanks...Lee

Obama/Biden

HEATHER — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:55:51 EDT

August 23, 2008 An Amazing Partnership Begins . . . . . . .

My American Prayer

Renee - It's A New Day — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:48:51 EDT

New video for Obama. Here are the lyrics:

This is my American Prayer

This is the time to finish what you started
And this is no time to dream
This is the room
We can turn off the dark tonight
Maybe then we might see

American Prayer
American Prayer

And this is the ground
That keeps our feet from getting wet
And this is the sky over our head
And what you see depends on where you stand
And how you jump will tell you where you're gonna land

American Prayer
American Prayer

My oh my
Couldn't get much higher
Lets not kick out the darkness
Make the lights brighter

And these are the hands
What are we gonna build with them?
This is the church you can't see
Give me your tired, your poor and huddled masses
You know they're yearning to breathe free
This is my American Prayer
American Prayer
American Prayer

When you get to the top of the mountain
Will you tell me what you see
If you get to the top of the mountain

Remember me

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/New_Obama_Video_American_Prayer

Help Needed to Write a Book about Obama

Victoria DePaul, Author — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:31:16 EDT

Greetings Friends,

My name is Victoria DePaul. I am an author, business consultant and training facilitator, specializing in leadership, management and personal self-development. Some weeks ago I began a book that explores Barack Obama's success as a leader. Because of the negative attack strategy that the republicans have chosen I have accelerated the time line for bringing this book to the public. I believe that many of Obama's supporters are drawn to his message because he can inspire and motivate. At this time the book is tentatively titled:

Obama: Leadership for the Third Millennium

In the absence of a viable platform promoting effective change, the Republican Party has resorted to what appears the only strategy they know- diverting the voter from any discussion of substance while creating suspicion of the opponent. And why not? It worked for George Bush. In 2003 he had most of Americans believing that there was a terrorist lurking on every corner. To change leadership would ensure certain attack and so for the sake of homeland security, in fear, his re-election was secured. Instead of a campaign based on real solutions for real problems, we can count on the Republic campaign strategy of smear and fear. John Kerry's campaign was damaged when Unfit for Command, co-authored by Jerome Corsi, attacked Kerry's war record. Now Corsi has authored another book of the smear and fear genre, this time attacking Barack Obama. While McCain strongly spoke out against the attacks on Kerry, this time he has no comment.

We knew it was coming. The attack on Barack Obama has been on-going. As we move closer to November we can expect it will intensify. This is American politics. Or so it has been. The Republicans have yet to figure out that we are on to them. The game is up. You would think that by now they would have asked themselves, 'what is it about Barack Obama that has aroused the passions of millions of supporters, not only in the USA but worldwide as well?" The answer is obvious to any 10 year old. In fact, there are many 10 year olds who are as excited about Barack Obama as their parents. While Republican leaders are top experts in generating fear and suspicion, Obama has presented himself as a leader able to involve millions of people by generating the hope of a new kind of politics and a vision of positive change.

I would like to include in this book quotes and stories from supporters on what makes Obama a superior leader. Ideally, I would like at least 2 quotes from each of the 50 states. If you are inspired, please visit this website, read more about the project and input your comment. Please forward this to anyone you know who wishes to participate in this project. All quotes must be received by August 31st.

The website is www.obamaworcester.com.

Feel Free to contact me at victoria.depaul@ymail.com

TAKING A STAND AGAINST NEGATIVITY

MINDY FOR OBAMA — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:12:28 EDT

HI, MY NAME IS MINDY CAMPBELL, AND I'M ADDICTED TO NEGATIVITY...

AND I FELT THE NEED TO REVISIT THIS BLOG.SO HERE GOES...

The first step in quitting something is admitting you have a problem, right? So, here I am! Negativity has affected my life for way too many years, and I'm ready to QUIT! Quit negativity, that is! The campaign that Senator Obama has run thus far has been an eye-opening, life changing experience for me. I have begun to see, even barely, the awesome country we have before us. I see so many inspiring people involved in this campaign for CHANGE, and it has really begun to change my life. And I am so glad for that. Lately, however, I have begun to see the seeds of negativity being sown even amongst us, Obama's supporters. This is frightening, I have to say. We are supposed to be fighting the status quo, not accepting it with open arms! We all know that the media will stop at nothing to bring us down. We KNOW this! We have been told this by Senator Obama, in not so many words. He has told us that as we get closer to victory the voices of dissent will only grow louder and stronger. He has told us that we can no longer afford to traffic in lies, fear and hate-that the time has come to turn our backs on that kind of politics-before the hour grows to late! And yet, it is not uncommon to see people out there literally SWIMMING in fear and hate! Good people who have once again let fear and hate take over their lives.

Well, I say no more! No more fear, lies and HATE! I've lived enough of my life drowning in that, and I'm so tired of it! That's why this campaign speaks to me, to my HEART! Senator Obama has opened a door for us. A door has been opened to live a life full of HOPE, we can close the door on fear. It's had its fun with us. He has shown us the pathway, now we just need to have the strength to take the first step. We are all here because we believe. But do we believe in OURSELVES? Do we believe that WE have the power to shake off the HATE, FEAR and NEGATIVITY that the media is throwing our way? I fear that if we cannot shake off the media lies, we will certainly never turn this country around. We now have the power in our MINDS to show the media it has no consequence in our lives. In school we learned how to get a bully to leave us alone. BY IGNORING IT! I call out to you all, IGNORE THE MEDIA! As I've become involved in this campaign, I have turned OFF my TV, and it has had enormous influence in my life already!

Why do I need FOX lies, and ABC moronic debates to tell me who to support? Do I care if Obama wears a freaking lapel flag pin? Bush wears a flag pin, how has that helped us in any way???? It's all a bunch of fluff, designed to take us away from our real cause, GETTING SENATOR OBAMA ELECTED AND MAKING REAL CHANGE IN THIS NATION AND IN THIS WORLD, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. I know we have the power to do this! I believe it in my heart! But, we will not do this if we are stuck in front of the TV, or computer spilling hatred.

This is the reason I have cancelled all my listservs on this network. Over the past month, I have seen the emails go from terrible to absolutely embarrassing. I used to find uplifting, encouraging ideas from supporters there, now not so much. Well, sorry folks, but if I wanted a life filled with hate, I'd be supporting McSame. That statement might not make me too popular, but I don't have time to worry about that.

Instead of getting involved in hate, fear and the like, I've chosen to fill my time with stuff that actually can make a difference. Writing postcards, making phonecalls, making posters, reading up on Obama's policies, books, etc... There are so many jobs to be done!

So, here it is, my admittance to an addiction of negativity. My rant on why I can't and WON'T stand for it any longer. I hope that some of you understand and see my point of view. I hope that some of you will see the power this is holding on ALL of our lives. As soon as we can see it, we can stop it.

I truly believe that we all have the power within us to become everything that we desire, and I know you all out there are wonderful people. I wirite this as a challenge to us all, that we may overcome the fear, hate, lies and negativity in our own walks of life, and rise up to the challenge of electing a President that will make this Nation the nation is should be, the nation it DESERVES to be. WE will make this nation all that it deserves to be. HAND IN HAND!

TAKE CARE AND TAKE HOPE!

Another Dimwit President? Bottom of the Class?

Mac Guy for Obama — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:07:23 EDT

John McCain, not the brightest bulb in the Senate. I ask any John McCain supporter - "Do you want another president who rattles off macho slogans or a president that has the mental ability to solve America's toughest problems?" I personally am embarrassed by President Bush. I feel that I must apologize to non-Americans for the disgrace we have in the White House.

I have never participated in the electoral process in the past. The only contribution to what I considered a corrupt system was voting. I never believed that a president can make a difference. The aftermath of the Bush administration and the birth of my two daughters during the Bush presidency changed everything. I do not want my kids growing up in a country that's looked down upon by others. I don't want a president who is 894 out of 899 in his class.

I DO want a president that is thoughtful, considerate, empathetic. I want a president who was selected as the editor of the top Law Review in the country. I want a president who leads by example. A good man with vision-not cowboy lingo and a rough-and-tumble past.

Does anyone want a president who would probably be pumping gas if it weren't for his Admiral father and grandfather and $100 million dollar wife?

The time is now. I cannot wait another year. Barack Obama will be our president and I will do anything to make that happen!

Lee

5 Things we need to know about this election

Renee - It's A New Day — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:47:06 EDT

Briefing from Moveon.org

Link

Obama honors late mother, visited his grandfather's grave at the National Memorial Cemetery

A DREAMER — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:45:11 EDT

Barack Obama tossed a white flower lei into the ocean where his mother's ashes were spread 13 years ago, visited Pearl Harbor and reveled in some bodysurfing Thursday, the last full day of family vacation before he'll return to the mainland and resume campaigning for president.

The Hawaii-born Democrat ambled down a rocky slope on Oahu's southern coast, near the Halona Blowhole, to throw flowers in the sea.

Two high school friends and a Secret Service agent accompanied him as a small crowd of onlookers watched from a distant lookout point. Waves crashed against the shore, sending a giant spray over the rock where he stood.

Obama kissed the lei, then broke it so he could let several flowers fly into the water at a time in memory of his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995.

The senator visited his grandfather's grave at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on Wednesday.

He also spent more than an hour with his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, at her apartment. He had stopped by almost every day of his stay.

Obama is due to wrap up his weeklong Hawaii vacation Friday.

Military abroad favoring Obama, money-wise

A DREAMER — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:28:24 EDT

It's not a ton of money or large number of donors, but it is interesting to note that more US military members deployed abroad are backing Democrat Barack Obama than Republican John McCain.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign money, reported today that Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than McCain. Ron Paul, who like Obama opposes the Iraq war, has received four times McCain's amount though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination.

Through June 30, Obama had received 134 donations totaling about $61,000 to 99 totaling about $45,500 for Paul, and 26 contributions totaling less than $11,000 for McCain, who graduated from the US Naval Academy, was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, and highlights his military experience.

Among all members of the military, whether deployed abroad or not, the gap between Obama and McCain is smaller, though Obama is still getting 57 percent of the cash.

The trend is a shift from both 2004 and 2000, when Republican George W. Bush substantially outraised John F. Kerry and Al Gore, respectively, among the US military. And if the shift in money translated to votes, it could be more significant.

"That's shocking. The academic debate is between some who say that junior enlisted ranks lean slightly Republican and some who say it's about equal, but no one would point to six-to-one" in Democrats' favor, Aaron Belkin, a professor of political science at the University of California who studies the military, said in the center's report.. "That represents a tremendous shift from 2000, when the military vote almost certainly was decisive in Florida and elsewhere, and leaned heavily towards the Republicans."

9 lies by Fox News

Renee - It's A New Day — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:00:30 EDT

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/FOX_s_Nine_Laughably_Inaccurate_Obama_Smears_The_Facts

DIGG

conservative supporting Barack Obama.

A DREAMER — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:27:12 EDT

I'm voting for Obama. I'm actually conservative in the sense that I don't really like big government (I'm anti-handout), but I'm starting to think I'm a bit more liberal than most.

Why I'm supporting Barack Obama

1) Obama is really, really smart. There are going to be problems and challenges in the next four years that are beyond anything we have ever seen or heard before. Global warming was really new for us these past few years, and if you think that's novel, I don't think we've seen anything yet. We're going to need one smart guy to deal with the incredible challenges ahead. Obama was the first black president of the harvard law review. I agree that being black doesn't qualify or disqualify obama for anything in particular, but I guess the fact that he was the president of the harvard law review is the important idea.

This is a nice article on his time spent there:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/a rticles/2007/01/28/at_harvard_law_a_unifying_voice/

I read it, it’s a nice article (check out that picture!) and it seems to me a fairly credible source.

2) The best presidents in history have statistically been the least experienced, and the worst presidents in history have been the most experienced. Least experienced presidents in history-think FDR, Abraham Lincoln (actually also a first-term senator for Illinios, just like Barack), Eisenhower (we have him to thank for civil-rights/our current interstate highway system), and George Washington. Most experienced presidents in history include James Buchanan, rated the 2nd worst president of all time. Buchanan's plan to keep the union together during his term (1857-1861) was to effectively do nothing.

For more on this visit: http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Info/experience.html)

3) I believe Obama's stance on energy issues is the kind of solutions and ideas we are going to need for the long-term. The Department of Transportation endorsed Obama’s idea (of properly inflating our tires to save gas), and I think the statement on proper tire inflation was just to suggest that maybe we should consider a little more conservation. In addition, when you watch the Beijing Olympics these next few weeks, look at the color of their sky: I believe it’s brown now. I heard it used to be black in some areas before they stopped letting cars drive through 3 months prior to the game. Not a world to leave the children, nor anything I would be very proud of.

I think that we need to move beyond the oil, and wind and solar are nice alternatives. I used to believe that nuclear was also a safe alternative, but I’m not so sure right now. Although France uses almost solely nuclear power, consider this: Have you ever heard of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident? A lot of people haven’t because it happened on April 26, 1986 in a country of (seemingly) little world impact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

It happened in Ukranie, and people STILL can’t live there, 30 years later. It’s a radioactive wasteland. A ridiculously high number of people there have odd unidentifiable types of cancer. Perhaps we can improve nuclear with our technology to avoid accidents like that? But perhaps we can't. What if these things still happen?

Let me be clear: I don't follow all of the Democrat logic. I think Congress is silly to permit us to import oil but not drill here. Do they think the environment of a major oil-producing country, such as, Saudia Arabia, is going to be any better for it? It’s pretty cocky for Pelosi to say, “let’s not ruin our environment here but let’s keep ruining the Middle East’s instead.” Not in my backyard (NIMBY), as one of my old government teachers, Marco Enriquez, used to say. Oil is not the long-term solution. One of the reasons few countries moved swiftly to counter Russia's attack on the democracy of Georgia was because Russia supplies oil to the European countries. I like to watch cable news a lot and Bill O'Reilly said on Tuesday (Aug. 12th) that he believes if there's going to be a 3rd World War, it will be over oil. And I think he's right. We need to get off oil. Pelosi is right that drilling will not solve the energy crisis long-term, but we are not solving any long-terms problems with her slow action either. We need Congress to pass the solar and wind tax credits, something Obama favors as well.

Natural, renewable energy, aka solar and wind, is the solution in my mind. It sounds almost radically liberal, but it’s natural and if we invested in it, it could really work.

4) Republican senators in the senate have said they are scared of McCain's temper and "scared of what he'd do with the presidency". I feel that McCain is the kind of man that wouldn't mind starting 8 simultaneous wars with all of the alleged nuclear capable countries.

Here's a good article that I read on McCain’s temper: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/politics/251578

I know it’s an Op-Ed for the AZDaily Star, so take it with a grain of salt. But it makes you think a little. And you know, Obama could have a temper, but so far I haven’t heard of it. The first article I posted on #1 kind of counters that too.

5) We borrow money from China to pay social security to this nation's oldest, most respected, most dignified, and most dependent citizens. The war and our spending has driven our debt into almost 9 trillion dollars, exceeding all past records. McCain's plans for increased warfare and military efforts are not sustainable for our national debt. Only Obama can relieve us from this mounting problem. example: if all of the nation's citizens were to pay off the debt right now, we'd each owe about half a million a household. We're going to need taxes now for our long-term sovereignty as a national politically and economically.

If you were to say that taxes are historically known to decrease the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of a country and slow down the economy, you’re ABSOLUTELY right. Raising taxes has been shown to slow down the economy. That’s 100% correct. Unfortunately, our social security debt is going through the roof and I’m not so sure we can afford to wait any longer. The first baby boomers will retire later this year and we won’t be able to pay them their money without borrowin it first.

(On the left: Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act of 1935)

Doesn’t that infuriate you?? That these hard-working people who paid an inordinately large chunk of their salary each month to social security might not even get it back? Because somewhere down the road China could say, “actually United States of America, we don’t want to give you a billion dollars in loans this year”. A scary thought! That’s why when there’s human right violations in China (Tibet) the world has to kind of just not say anything. We cannot afford to wait any longer on this. We must solve our national debt crisis, now.

6) John McCain can't use the internet. All voters have their little quirky reasons to vote for a candidate, and this is mine.

Thanks for reading! I'd love to get commentary on this...

Republicans For Obama

A DREAMER — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:03:13 EDT

In June the McCain campaign released a list of "prominent Democrats and Independents" supporting John McCain. Few of the names were prominent, and a review by the Huffington Post found that more than half of the list had "either obvious ties to the Republican Party or are regularly touted by GOP politicians as Democratic defectors."

The newly announced group of "Republicans for Obama" hope to have a more lasting impact. They certainly have a higher profile than McCain's Democratic defectors (other than top surrogate and possible veep Joe Lieberman). Organizers on a conference call this morning included former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee and Rita Hauser, a member of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. The Republican Mayor of Fairbanks, Alaska also endorsed Barack Obama today. (There's an already existing Republicans for Obama website founded by John Martin, a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan and lives in The Bronx.)

These so-called "Obamicans" -- throwbacks to the days of traditional Republicanism -- are disgusted by the Bush Administration's militant foreign policy, reckless spending and cronyism at home, and America's plummeting reputation in the world. In John McCain, they no longer see a maverick, but a continuation of the Bush-Cheney era.

"From my perspective, this is simply not a time for politics as usual," said Jim Leach, one of the smartest and most decent members of the House of Representatives, who represented eastern Iowa for three decades until 2006 and was one of only six House Republicans to presciently oppose the war in Iraq. "The case for inspiring, new political leadership and a social ethic has seldom been more self-evident."

Adds Leach: "Barack Obama's platform is a call for change. But the change that he is so gracefully articulating is more renewal than departure. While a break from the ideological policies of the moment, it is rooted in very old American values that are as much a part of the Republican as the Democratic tradition. There's an emphasis on individual rights, fairness and balance at home, and progressive internationalism."

Says Rita Hauser, "It is not traditional Republicanism to make war on everybody who disagree with you." The longtime foreign policy hand called McCain's response to the Russia-Georgia conflict "bellicose [and] threatening."

Like Leach, Lincoln Chafee is a reminder of the days when moderates could find a home in the Republican Party as advocates for fiscal responsibility, environmental protection and restraint in foreign policy. Chafee left the Republican Party in March to vote for Obama in Rhode Island's Democratic primary. He was the first Democrat Chafee had ever voted for.

Chafee served alongside McCain in the Senate; they were the only two Senate Republicans to oppose the Bush tax cuts in 2001. Chafee has since watched McCain adopt the very policies he once denounced. "Seeing the two different John McCain's is a fracture in his credibility," Chafee says.

How big of an impact this group will have remains to be seen. Obama performed well in traditionally Republican areas in the Democratic primary and attracted legions of "Obamicans" in swing areas like Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Yet partisanship has hardened since the primary has ended (usually the opposite occurs), with both Obama and McCain now drawing 90 percent support from self-identified members of their parties.

Both candidates have attempted to encroach on the other party's turf. McCain has made a bid for disaffected Clintonites, and elderly and blue-collar Democrats. Obama has courted moderate and suburban Republicans in swing states like Virginia and libertarians out West. It only takes a few points here or there to alter the election.

Hauser says the "Republicans for Obama" website will be online tomorrow and will include "a couple of hundred thousand names. We hope it will grow exponentially as we go through the campaign."

Change We Can Believe In

Renee - It's A New Day — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:06:18 EDT

Let's make Obama's new book #1. Pre-order it now on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Change-We-Can-Believe-Americas/dp/0307460452/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218643468&sr=8-1

A Texas sized THANK YOU!

MINDY FOR OBAMA — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:59:41 EDT

To Barack Obama for making me realize this country is worth fighting for when I'd all but given up. For awakening in me a love for community when I felt like we are all alone. For teaching me what it means to stand up for something when for so long we've been trained to stay seated. For giving me the tools I need to feel empowered in this life. And mostly, for opening up this Nation and showing me just how many awesome, beautiful people live here!

To all you beautiful people out there, Thank You for being! Thank You for believing! Thank You for being an inspiration! We will build this Nation, we will REbuild this Nation, and when we're all old and gray, we can look back on this time as the time when WE repaired our world, hand in hand, and heart to heart.

Bless.

Take care and take hope!

Change is on its way, can you feel it?

LET THE RACE BEGIN EVENT/FUNDRAISER

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:15:18 EDT

Let The Race Begin!!!! (Fundraising)As a family we did a Fantastic job raising money for Barack Obamas' birthday. Congratulations to all. But let's keep the engine running on the O-Train to the White house. From August 28Th through August 31st Donate! Donate! Donate! Let's make this the BIGGEST FINANCIAL MONTH YET! Let's show our support for The Democratic Nominee Barack Obama in a HUGE way! All you need to do is get out the credit cards and check books. All ABOARD!!!!!http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/44qb3PLEASE JOIN THIS EVENT/FUNDRAISER TO LET JOHN McCAIN AND THE 527'S WE ARE HERE TO WIN!OBAMA THE NEXT POTUS 2008-20116CHANGE IS NOT CHEAP!!!!http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/44qb3We have to fight the lies with the TRUTH!YES WE CAN!ALL ABOARD!!!!!http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/44qb3

The Right To Vote...News you can use to inform...

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:06:59 EDT

The Right to Vote Published: August 8, 2008

Much about the presidential election is up in the air, but one thing is certain: voters will have trouble casting ballots on Election Day. In a perfect world, states and localities would handle voting so well that the public could relax and worry about other things. But elections are so mismanaged — and so many eligible voters are disenfranchised — that ordinary citizens have to get involved.

Since the meltdown in Florida in 2000, a large, nonpartisan coalition called Election Protection — made up of civil rights groups, good-government organizations and major law firms — has been doing critical work in standing up for voters. It is an effort that anyone who cares about democracy should get behind.

The civic books say that any eligible voter who registers in time can cast a ballot on Election Day. The reality is not so simple. People file registration forms that are not properly processed, or their names are wrongly purged from the voter rolls. They are required to present photo ID even when the law does not require it. They arrive at polling places and find machines that do not work properly or lines that take hours to get through.

A major reason for these problems is that states and localities are stingy about paying for elections, so election officials do not have enough workers, training, computers and voting machines. Frequently, though, the driving force is partisanship. Some political interests benefit from low turnout, particularly among minorities, the poor, students and the elderly.

Campaigns and parties often use dirty tricks to suppress the vote, such as circulating leaflets in particular areas giving the wrong date for the election. In other cases, the obstacles come from election officials. In 2004 in Ohio, the Republican secretary of state made so many anti-voter rulings — including an infamous one disqualifying registrations filed on less than 80-pound paper — that it seemed as if his goal was to keep turnout low.

Groups that are committed to the right to vote have begun to fight back. Election Protection did invaluable work in 2004. It was a powerful advocate for voters when it counted the most — while the polls were still open.

This year, Election Protection is already working with election officials trying to eliminate obstacles to voting. In November, it plans to have 10,000 lawyers, law students and other volunteers working around the country to help voters whose names are not on the rolls when they should be, to get polls to stay open late when there are long lines and generally to see that everyone gets to cast a ballot who is entitled to.

Jonah Goldman, a lawyer with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law who works on Election Protection, notes that “if there were the investment in voting infrastructure that there should be, we would be totally unnecessary.” Until that happens — and until elections are run entirely by people who want every eligible voter to be able to cast a ballot — smart, well-coordinated volunteer efforts are crucial.

Republicans and Military Personnel

Renee - It's A New Day — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:21:38 EDT

A must watch!

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Republicans_and_miltary_men_on_John_McCain

Subtle Attacks

Mac Guy for Obama — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:31:56 EDT

The McCain campaign's strategy (well, it's just a bunch of random acts that look like someone spent 2 mins thinking about it), is to use subtle hints to various right-wing constituents. His ad - "The One" paints Obama as the Antichrist. Read about it on The Swamp - http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/ .

The sneaky Republicans will try anything to get elected. We just need to stay on message and Obama will be the next president.

thanks...

Lee

My Story

Connie Russell — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:11:21 EDT

For all of my adult life, I have been a lifelong "closet" democrat. Oh, I voted, but that was the extent of my involvement. I never made a financial contribution or volunteered with a campaign until now. Since I have become a volunteer, working from the grassroots level, I have been consumed with the reality that we are about to embarked upon one of the greatest moments in our Nation's history. I awake from my sleep thinking of ways that. I can make a significant impact in the Obama campaign…so far, so good. I have been a grassroots community organizer for 15 years, working with low-income communities in various counties in North Carolina. My involvement in the community was temporarily interrupted because of illness. I sincerely believe that, "True leaders illuminate the path to success believing that the best way to predict the future is to create it."

I live in a small "purple" rural town in North Carolina, and I will not stop reaching out to potential supporters, until we turn our county blue and get Senator Obama elected for president. "Change is not change, until it's changed."

Fired Up…Ready to Go!

Connie

Questions around McCains' Donors

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:05:41 EDT

Family’s Donations to McCain Raise Questions

By MICHAEL LUO

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Jordanian business partner of a prominent Florida businessman, who has raised more than $500,000 for Senator John McCain, appears to be at the center of a cluster of questionable donations to his presidential campaign.

Campaign finance records show Mr. McCain collected a little more than $50,000 in March from members of a single extended family, the Abdullahs, in California and several of their friends.

Amid a sea of contributions to the McCain campaign, the Abdullahs stand out. The checks come not from the usual exclusive coastal addresses, but from relatively hardscrabble inland towns like Downey and Colton. The donations are also startling because of their size: several donors initially wrote checks of $9,200, exceeding the $2,300 limit for an individual gift.

Making matters murkier, some couples in the family who contributed more than $9,000 to Mr. McCain also gave the maximum in December to either Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or Rudolph W. Giuliani, or both, totaling in the case of at least one family more than $18,000.

On Wednesday, an article in The Washington Post said the donations were collected by Harry Sargeant III, a Florida businessman who has also raised money for Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani.

It appears, however, that Mr. Sargeant, the finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party and the part-owner of a major oil trading firm, International Oil Trading Company, did not actually solicit the donations from the Abdullahs and their friends.

That task fell to a longtime business partner, Mustafa Abu Naba’a. Mr. Sargeant said in an interview that he has known Mr. Abu Naba’a for more than a decade and has worked with him on commercial ventures, including a contract with the Pentagon to supply fuel to the military in Iraq.

Through Mr. Abu Naba’a’s connections, Mr. Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 in contributions from several dozen Arab Americans in California, including the Abdullahs, for four candidates: Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Giuliani, Mr. McCain and Charlie Crist in his successful campaign for Florida governor in 2006. Mr. Crist is a close friend and college fraternity brother of Mr. Sargeant.

Several of the donors were emphatic in interviews that they had made the contributions on their own and had not been reimbursed. Indeed, while the donors do not fit the typical profile of people who often make large political donations, it appears many have made relatively successful livings, toiling away at small businesses they own: an auto repair shop, a discount stereo warehouse, a realty company.

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for Mr. McCain, said the campaign strictly followed campaign finance laws and as a general rule would look into a matter if flags were raised, but he declined to say whether it would look into the contributions tied to Mr. Sargeant.

Mr. Sargeant is a former Marine fighter pilot who has business interests around the world. He hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. McCain at his lavish home in Delray Beach, Fla., this year. Mr. Sargeant estimated he had raised more than $200,000 for Mr. Giuliani and helped a business associate raise a similar amount for Mrs. Clinton.

But Mr. Sargeant’s business dealings have caused controversy. Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, opened an investigation last month into whether his company has been overcharging the military for its contract in Iraq, although Mr. Sargeant said Mr. Waxman’s office had an erroneous understanding of what the company was billing.

As for his political fund-raising, Mr. Sargeant said he often turned to his business associates and asked them to solicit their extended families, although Mr. Sargeant said he was unclear exactly how Mr. Abu Naba’a knew the Abdullahs in California.

Mr. Sargeant said Mr. Abu Naba’a, who has a home in Florida, was unavailable for an interview because he was abroad.

Faisal Abdullah, a Palestinian immigrant who works as a director of operations of a window treatment company, identified himself in an interview as the driver behind the McCain donations from his relatives and friends. He sent them to Mr. Abu Naba’a, whom Mr. Abdullah described as an acquaintance.

Mr. Abdullah is an unlikely McCain fund-raiser, admitting he had soured on the Republican Party as a result of President Bush.

Nevertheless, he said that he harbored vague designs on a political career and that a discussion with Mr. Abu Naba’a gave him the idea that fund-raising was a way to get started. He said he initially collected numerous $500 checks for Mr. Crist from relatives and friends, and late last year, set out to raise money for the presidential campaign.

Mr. Abdullah said he cajoled a few relatives into giving the maximum donations to Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani, the early front-runners last year.

But when Mr. McCain claimed the mantle of presumed Republican nominee in March, Mr. Abdullah decided to support him.

“This is the horse I’m betting on for the future,” Mr. Abdullah said.

He told his friends and relatives that the contributions were tax-deductible, something he later seemed surprised to learn from a reporter was not true. Many in his circle appear to have little affection for Mr. McCain but said they gave mostly as a favor to Mr. Abdullah.

Abdullah Makhlouf, the owner of a discount stereo store who is one of Mr. Abdullah’s closest friends, and his wife contributed $9,200.

“He’s like a worse copy than Bush,” Mr. Makhlouf said of Mr. McCain.

When a reporter initially contacted Mr. Makhlouf, he denied giving to the McCain campaign.

After eventually admitting to the donation, Mr. Makhlouf added, “I’m still not going to vote for him.”

Michael Luo was in Riverside and added later reporting from New York. Carolyn Wilder contributed research from New York.

Disheartened

Renee - It's A New Day — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:35:08 EDT

I am very disheartened at all the Clinton bashing today. I do not pretend for one minute that the recorded comments by Mrs. Clinton seem to indicate she might want some recognition at the DNC. I also have read the article by cbsnews showing the ABC didn't fully quote President Clinton.

I worry about the ability for people to unite behind Obama. We saw an article yesterday where people had gone through this blog and found lots of negative posts about Jews and Israel. The same could be said for Clinton

In the last election, 53 million people voted. If Clinton and Obama primary voters voted, that's about 36 million. We would win handily.

I have supported Obama from the start and got angry many different times at Clinton and her campaign. However, I know we have to unite and win.

I urge all to come together and use all this energy focusing on beating John McCain!

PEACE

swimmer — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:49:31 EDT

Peace Prayer

by Richard Burley

I see no point just now, in dreams.
Or vow the sun may shine tomorrow.
Who’s to thank for why it beams?
Who now fills the moon with sorrow?

I cannot see beyond that day’s
sacrifice, our dreams dismay.
Lives we thought we’d never lose,
forever lost...in sky so blue.

The river of terror now overflows.
Jobes’ levy nearly breached.
God’s cold wind of change now blows.
What ancient lesson will He re-teach?

So ask me not of dreams and plans.
They matter not, somehow.
Along with peace, in other lands,
pray for an end, to all wars now.

David Gergen: McCain Using Code Words To Attack Obama As "Uppity"

William — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:50:00 EDT

David Gergen says, "I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a southern background. We all understand that. When McCain comes out and starts talking about affirmative action, 'I'm against quotas,' we get what that's about."

Obama's response

William — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:24:55 EDT

Obama's response to the John McCain's dismissal of NASCAR's recommended method of improving your gas mileage by 3 to 5%.

Fake Straight Talk Express

Renee - It's A New Day — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:01:43 EDT

Enjoy this video:

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/John_Sidney_McCain_s_Fake_Talk_Express_The_Video

Is a Nationwide Boycott of Wal-Mart in Order?

! A Scandinavian-American Nicknamed Hussein — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:59:06 EDT

In my opinion, corporations who even hint at influencing the vote of their employees ought to subject to sanctions by the public. The mere suggestion that supporting a piece of labor related legislation would hurt the jobs of employees is, at its core, yet another example of corporate America putting profit ahead of the well-being of its employees. Frankly, this corporation showed its true stripes years ago when it put small stores owned by families out of business by moving into medium sized towns without regard to their impact on the community. Entire malls were shut down because they could not compete with the volume pricing muscle of Wal Mart, which takes pride at the fact that its earnings are larger than the GNP of many countries.

I think corporations who abuse their power ought to be sent a message that sticks in their minds. A one day boycott of Wal-Mart would not put them out of business, but it would send them a message, which would be registered in the minds of other corporations: Don't try the strategies of fear and intimidation used by the Republican party.

Please make sure that everyone you know is aware of Wal-Mart's actions.

See the Wall Street Journal article about this here.

The most effective form of persuasion to a corporation is an assault on their revenue stream.You may also want to write a letter to your local paper to protest this inappropriate action and demand accountability.

The Wall Street Journal says that Barack Obama is too fit to be president. Is WSJ the new way to spell NONSENSE?

William — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:02:08 EDT

The Wall Street Journal says that Barack Obama is too fit to be president. Let's see: the McCain Campaign says that he's too popular and now the Wall Street Journal says he's in too good of shape to be president. What's next? Fox News say that Obama is too tall at 6'-1 1/2" and that a president needs to 5' - 7" like John McCain and Napolean! ;-)

Is John McCain's approach too angry?

William — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:49:49 EDT

Is John McCain's approach too angry?

That's what this AP article is asking. McCain is comparing Obama, a law Professor for 12 years at the incredibly rigorous and conservative University of Chicago Law School, to Britney Spears. That's small minded and laughable. The article says:

But in striking an aggressive pose, McCain is in danger of letting the caricature of an angry, petulant candidate take seed — not so much because he is one, but because it stands in stark contrast to Obama’s carefully cultivated, well, celebrity, and McCain’s own promises to run a respectful campaign.

Obama on Offense: New Website Called the Low Road Express

William — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:19:06 EDT

Barack Obama launches a new web site to combat the bizarre barrage of petty smears levied at him by John McCain. McCain's stock has really sunk. He has gone from a maverick to playing a sheep following the George Bush playbook of divisive, dishonest politics.

Washington Post debunks McCain ad

Renee - It's A New Day — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:38:27 EDT

This is a great read.

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/McCain_Charge_Against_Obama_Lacks_Evidence

DIGG IT

New viral video of McCain

Renee - It's A New Day — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:24:24 EDT

Hilarious. A must watch:

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Hilarious_new_viral_video_on_McCain_absolutely_brilliant

DIGG

A new AD from moveon.org

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:41:34 EDT

This November, millions of young people are expected to flood to the polls—enough new voters to elect Barack Obama and a wave of other progressive candidates—all driven by the fragile hope that maybe, this year, things can be different.

The Republican game plan is simple: kill that hope. In fact, they just started running ads Friday on MTV saying that Obama's "worse than a flip-flopper" and no longer against the war.1

Let's fight back right away with an ad of our own that's funny, positive and all about hope. It won "funniest ad" in our Obama in 30 Seconds contest, and it's made by TV actor (and MoveOn member) Rider Strong. Plus, we've just found out that we can air it as the first political ad ever on Comedy Central.
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/brainonhope.html?id=13343-9497382-q2NTEvx&t=4

Needed States

swimmer — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:48:13 EDT

ABC news is reporting that Barack is losing ground in three key states: Colorado, Minnesota, and MIchigan. We have to hit these states, and others where it is close, with hard core canvassing and education.

I am encouraged that some people will make up their minds or switch to Barack after there are some debates.

A great cartoon and the politics of fear

! A Scandinavian-American Nicknamed Hussein — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:26:18 EDT

An editorial cartoon by Tom Toles in the Washington Post this morning (Friday, July 25) got me thinking about the politics of fear. The cartoon shows George Bush watching an image of Barack speaking before an admiring crowd in Berlin. An advisor standing next to the president comments that "He [Barack] is drying up our supply of enemies." At the bottom, Bush's comment is "I guess we still have him (referring to Barack)."

The outcome of this election will reveal much about how badly the population is under the spell cast by the neocons, convincing many that if we don't act in a certain way, something bad will happen to us. The manipulation of minds in this way dates back to the early days of Sigmund Freud.

If you step back, you see it repeatedly in the messages of the Republican party. Consider the drumbeat of themes: "Losing the war, not having petroleum, having taxes raised, having an inexperienced president make a mistake, etc., etc. What is ironic is that the very fears that are put forward by the Republicans are the very conditions that their administration and president have created! They exist now! That they are able to stimulate fear and cloud rational thinking so easily must partly explain how George W. Bush got re-elected in 2004. Republicans do this because they know that their own policies and solutions will not withstand close scrutiny when compared to those offered by Senator Obama.

We cannot let the politics of fear manipulate the majority of voters in 2008. Each one of us must do something different this year, something more, to liberate the country from fear and begin working together to solve the major challenges facing us.

August 4 BIRTHDAY MONEY BOMB

joe ruwe — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:33:26 EDT

Start saving your money, friends. August 4th - Barack's birthday - we are going to have an incredible donating blitz to show him how much we appreciate what he is doing. I'm hoping to raise 25 million dollars on this day.

Please join me and fellow bloggers on the 4th - and donate whatever you can afford.

Take a moment to email and call all of your friends and let them know about our birthday plan.

Let's give Barack and his campaign 25 million dollars on his birthday.

I think he'll get the hint.

Obama '08

Who Wouldn't be Proud of How Obama, in Berlin, Represented Thinking Americans?

! A Scandinavian-American Nicknamed Hussein — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:16:19 EDT

Regardless of political affiliation, those who care deeply about this country and its future cannot help but be proud of the things that Senator Obama said today in Berlin and the eloquent way he said them. Obviously, the Germans were very impressed also!

Finally, we have an American poliician (no, statesman!) who recognizes that the U.S. is part of a larger world, and we must behave not as a bully and know-it-all, but as a nation among nations, willing to roll up our sleeves and work with others to address real and present dangers, such as terrorism, global warming, the energy crisis, and the growing divide between rich nations and poor nations.

We have a chance to get it right in November. Those in the nation who fail to see that this is the right leader at the right time and in the right place are either sleepwalking through life or selfish and unwilling to grasp the essential realities of the world in the 21st Century.

And while this magnificent event was taking place, during which Obama spent time building global bridges, repairing damage to our international relations and identifying issues we can work to solve with the Europeans and others, McCain was busy claiming that Obama is interested in losing the war in Iraq! Someone needs to wake up Senator McCain and remind him that there is no war in Iraq, only an illegal occupation by U.S. Forces. McCain's imagined "war" will not be won by any strategy that, in the end, depends on American forces. The deciding factor will be whether or not the Iraqi's can bring their divided groups together and form a workable government that provides a stable way to the future despite differences between groups.Today, Senator Obama cited several examples of places around the globe where this has happened. I hope that Senator McCain and his followers were paying attention. The rest of the world certainly was.

John McCain's, "Reality" Part 3

Bryan in Miami — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:40:07 EDT

At this rate I'll be writing anew installment everyday. Keep it up Grampy!

After getting the timeline in Iraq completely wrong with regards to the surge and the Anbar Awakening, John McCain's campaign attempted to re-shape reality yet again, in a way that perhaps was too much of a stretch even for the likes of the republican Empire.

Even after the timeline error had been documented by several progressive news site and programs, the McCain campaign pushed their version of reality as if nothing had gone wrong. Citing Colonel Sean Mac Farland's work with Sunni Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha in encouraging the Anbar Awakening, McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds was quoted by CNN:

"Democrats can debate whether the Awakening would have survived without the surge, or whether the Shiite militias would have unilaterally disarmed without US troops and our Iraqi allies disarming them by force, but that is a transparent effort to minimize the role of our commanders and our troops in defeating the enemy, because to credit them would be to disparage the judgment of Barack Obama and praise the leadership of John McCain. If Barack Obama had had his way, the Sheiks who started the Awakening would have been murdered at the hands of al Qaeda, and US forces would have already left Iraq in defeat."

The biggest problem with this statement? The Sheik in question . . . IS dead and HAS BEEN dead since September 2007.

So, if (as some of my more sober friends have begun to suggest) there is no conspiracy empire-like attempt by the republican party to completely re-write history for their own benefit. . . how many more free passes is John McCain expecting to get before someone taps him on the shoulder and asks him to go home?

New Interest Group Created for Advocates of Student Loan Reform

! A Scandinavian-American Nicknamed Hussein — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:37:16 EDT

My last blog was about student loans. I received some interesting messages that convinced me that there are many parents and students out there who share my concerns about legislative and regulatory conditions that allow the financial industry to suck the life out of higher education access by treating student loans like mortgages.

I intend to continue pursuing this issue because I think it has significant implications for the future of our country.

I invite you to join the group at:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/StudentLoanReformAdvocatesforObama

I welcome your participation in the group through personal stories, hints, and tips on avoiding pitfalls in student loans. The Department of Education is now seeking comment on proposed new regulations. Also, legislation enacted in 2005 has provisions with a graduated implementation schedule that could have implications for current loan holders. There are also generous paycheck garnishment provisions for lenders who pursue those who default.

It is noteworthy that demand for more loans has been spurred by significant increases in tuition and fees. These increases, in turn, have been necessitated by dwindling support for colleges and universities by legislatures, many controlled by Republicans seeking to cut taxes and "reduce the size of government."

Thanks for being part of the process to take back the country from corporate greed and public indifference. I especially welcome educators and student financial aid professionals.

Journalists?

Curtis — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:32:12 EDT

Mike Scarborough?

Sean Hannity?

Lou Dobbs?

The real true journalist of them all was and will be for TIM the man RUSSERT!

John McCain flubs a fundamental fact about the Anbar Awakening. . .

Bryan in Miami — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:03:54 EDT

And CBS covers for him!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#25805843

Frankly, this isn't a shock to me, as it has been my perception that Katie Couric has been less than friendly toward Obama and more than courteous towards John McCain.

Katie Couric's contributions to the coverage of the presidential campaign have included the following:

1) puff pieces about John McCain and his mommy

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/09/eveningnews/main4246539.shtml

http://svmomblog.typepad.com/nyc_moms/2008/05/post-1.html

2) carrying water for the idea that Obama is a muslim

http://www.insightmag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=5D3B38F8A2584DB5A77BA05660C6045C&nm=Free+Access&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=3B028AAAA0664EC4BA9D22D2592F3046

3) accusing the media of biased, misogynistic coverage against Hillary Clinton without also acknowledging how racial biases also had a role in the democratic primary.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/12/keith-olbermann-names-kat_n_106689.html

But it should only shock if you ever thought that Katie Couric had anything resembling credibility as an anchor. That she earns $15 million per year to peddle this garbage is quite disturbing.

George Bush Presidential Library

Renee - It's A New Day — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:35:56 EDT

*The George W Bush Presidential Library *is now in the planning stages.

The Library will include:

The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.

The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you will not be able to remember anything.

The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you do not even have to show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they do not let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they do not let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.

The National Debt room, which is huge and has no ceiling.

The 'Tax Cut' Room with entry only to the wealthy.

The 'Economy Room’, which is in the toilet.

The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you to

go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.

The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with

shotgun gallery.

The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.

The Supremes Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.

The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite

Republican Senators.

The 'Decider Room' complete with dartboard, magic 8-ball, Ouija board,

Student Loans - A national scandal

! A Scandinavian-American Nicknamed Hussein — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:27:32 EDT

In recent months, the uncontrolled greed and lack of regulation within the U.S. financial system has revealed itself painfully, and of course, the big losers are everyday taxpayers. From stem to stern, the financial industry needs review and a house cleaning, with stiffer regulations to protect the country and those of us who pay the bill.

Many readers in the millenial generation and some gen x'ers will appreciate that earlier in the Bush debacle, the Congress approved changes in the rates that financial institutions holding student loans could charge students. What had been a regulated, predictable and appropriate system became a trough for financial institutions to profit at the expense of unwary students. In some cases, loan interest rates doubled overnight, and with todays higher tuitions, loans are larger than they have ever been. What results is a debt burden equivalent to a first mortgage in some cases. Indeed, some loan rates are higher than the prevailing thirty year rate (fixed) for mortgages!

This situation is not only a national disgrace, it is also contrary to the long term interests of the country. Why would we want to make it such a great financial burden for someone to enter the workforce as an educated, employable, tax paying citizen? In most successful industrialized countries, the government recognizes that in order for the country to succeed in the new global economy, it must have an educated workforce. Those governments do everything possible to assist students to complete their education. In Austraila, for example, students get government backed loans within the tax structure and pay them back later as their income increases.

But in a Republican America, the long term interest of the country matters less than profit for the financial industry. Given this burden, it is little wonder that some students question whether or not they will ever be able to afford a home and pursue the American dream. This must change.

If you have a story about student loans you'd like to share, please comment below. Please also indicate if you'd be interested in joining a group on student loan reform. We can change this appalling situation, and bring our country back from the narrow minded greed of the financial industry.

Also, if you are concerned about student debt and the growing burden this imposes on individuals and the country, please join the reform effort by going to the link below and submitting a comment for the Department of Education.

http://projectonstudentdebt.org/letter_view.php?idx=13

John McCain's, "Reality" Part 2

Bryan in Miami — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:31:23 EDT

On this link is the John McCain Op-Ed not published by the New York Times:

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/21/the-mccain-op-ed-the-new-york-times-wouldnt-publish/

Some highlights, and some commentary from those of us in the reality-based community:

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington.

What is never mentioned by the surge proponents is that while the surge was going on, there was also substantial ethnic cleansing in Iraq. When Saddam Hussein was in power, there were churches and synagogues in the heart of Baghdad. Those are gone. Due to this violence there are over 5 million Iraqis displaced- some within more homogenous areas of the country, and some in neighboring countries- and another million-plus dead. With that many fewer people in the area to manage, the job is undoubtedly easier. Never mind for now that the purpose of the surge was not simply to calm violence, but we’ll get back to that.

Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on January 10, 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Given that the Pentagon has had to bribe multiple factions in Iraq (including Muqtada Al Sadr’s Militia), and that a fierce internal battle between the Militia and the Iraqi Army was negotiated into a cease-fire by IRAN, one could conclude that Obama was correct; there was indeed a surge in violence before things calmed back down to the threshold level of misery that was present before the surge in troops.

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence." But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Anyone who thinks Obama doesn’t think our troops have fulfilled their responsibilities beautifully can feel free to read the introduction of the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2006.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress." Even more heartening has been progress that's not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City--actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

Anyone out there that believes any genuine political reconciliation has ocurred (READ: clearing of benchmarks) can feel free to read the latest report by the Center for American Progress, Here:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/04/hazy_benchmarks.html

The reality is that McCain’s glowing declaration of cleared benchmarks is exactly backwards, and everything he "knows" about Iraq is pretty much wrong. The reality of the Republicans and Iraq is this: They wanted a war in Iraq, because they wanted permanent bases in Iraq, which could be used to launch attacks on any oil-producing country that doesn't do as we say. This is the agenda of Project for the New American Century, of which John McCain was an ideological founder through the New Citizenship Project.

But then, McCain is the representative of an empire, complete with its own media mouthpiece. And as we know, empires determine what the facts are and write the past, present and future.

Until of course we ordinary people in the reality-based community decide we’re fed up and decide not to tolerate the garbage. Kudos to the New York Times for not publishing this garbage, and kudos to all of you out there for continuing to support an America worth fighting for.

McCain is sinking slowly!

Curtis — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:07:17 EDT

Everything looks good so far for Obama's world tour. After visiting Afghanistan and Iraq, I would say the trip so far has been great! Now let's see what's in store when he gives one of his great speeches! If I see a foreigner moved to tears by something he says, I'm going to lose it! Today was a great day for me. I live for this stuff! Did you hear the mistake McCain made earlier today? Awww what a great day for Obama!

John McCain's, "Reality"

Bryan in Miami — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:31:01 EDT

Ron Suskind once wrote in the New York Times about an interview he had with a Senior Bush Adviser soon after he wrote a harsh but factual piece on Bush Communications Director Karen Hughes. In this piece, the aide gave him a piece of information that basically described the paradigm from which all Bush policies emerge:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

So if we follow this logic, when you become rich enough and powerful enough, you gain the god-given right to recreate facts and history to suit your present needs. So, if you want to invade an oil producing country that didn’t attack you, you can accuse them of having Weapons of ass Destruction, attack them while outside, “reality-based” people continue to look for those weapons, and then site a different reason for why you did what you did when the reality-based community starts to scratch its head over the original reason.

A little hard to follow when you put it on paper, isn’t it? But apparently it works strikingly well when the masses are in the right state, by which I mean a state of fear. The American people were afraid to the point of jumping at the sight of their own shadows during the buildup to the Iraq war. The strategy is being employed now by conservatives to hype up the case for off-shore drilling. The cheerleaders for this cause have promised energy independence and cheap gas for everybody if we allow the government to hand more public lands to oil companies. Never mind that our energy usage far outperforms our ability to produce energy, and opening every last inch of land to drilling wont change that. The cheerleaders repeatedly claim that our drilling operations are so advanced that we lost no oil rigs during the Hurricanes of 2005, nor was a drop of oil spill. Both, of course, are a lie, but we deal in the reality-based community, so our perspective might need some re-calibration.

And so it goes with the presidential campaign of John McCain. John McCain is attempting to re-draw the lines of the world and the opinions of foreign leaders. He has repeated multiple times (without anyone correcting him) that its important to protect the interests of Czechoslovakia (which hasn’t existed in about 15 years). He has insisted today on Good Morning America that we have a lot of work to do on the border of Iraq and Pakistan (the two nations don’t share a border). He also recently dismissed Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Maliki’s support for Senator Obama’s troop withdrawal plan by denying the Iraqi government has made any such statement, and then by saying that HE knows what the Iraqi people want, which is to win (whatever THAT means). He has tried to build up a case for war with Iran by asserting (falsely) that the Shiite nation of Iran is training members of the Sunni extremist group Al Qaeda. Not even having Joe Leiberman correct him on this issue in front of news reporters would stop McCain from repeating the claim several more times. The Main Stream Corporate Media could have corrected this, but a reality-based community’s only appropriate response to the actions of an empire’s new figurehead is sort out the new reality from the old one and study what the empire does.

Aside from reinventing foreign policy, John McCain has tried his hand at altering the reality-based community’s perception of Barack Obama’s candidacy. He’s attempted to paint Obama as an appeaser on par with Neville Chamberlain without providing evidence. When it politically expedient, he and the MSCM asserted (falsely) that Obama was calling for an attack of Pakistan while attempting to, “embrace” Iranian president Ahmedinejad, when what Obama has actually proposed regarding each country are policies that have been validated over the last few months. John McCain has painted Obama as a politician who would raise taxes across the board for all americans, when the reality is that anyone making less than $250k per year would do better under Obama’s plan. He’s painted Obama as one who wants to, “lose” in Iraq, when our president declared victory there several years ago. The list goes on.

It’s worth pointing out that a few media outlets in the MSCM have done a good job of pointing out different pieces of McCain’s disconnect between his perceptions and those of the reality-based community, albeit in a manner that is so disjointed and piecemeal that it makes it very difficult for anyone to gather the information in a way that makes sense. Unfortunately when the MSCM is part of the conservative empire, the situation is to be expected.

John McCain and his disdain for the reality-based community; just one more reason that John McCain would be Bush's third term.

An Inside Look - Obama Organizing Fellows Meeting

Lawrence — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:49:33 EDT

By Thomas Kelley - Jul 17th, 2008 at 6:18 pm EDT

Obama Headquarters, Atlanta, GA. - They meet every Monday at 7pm. They come from diverse backgrounds and different parts of the country as well as Georgia. They put their careers, family, friends and their lives on hold. They work not for money but for the movement that has compelled them to give up six weeks of their summer. They are Obama Organizing Fellows from team 3 out of Atlanta, GA.

A glimpse inside an Obama Organizing Fellows meeting is a segmented view of the campaign as a whole. While their individual stories of who they are are unique, the reasons for why they came are distinctly similar; to be a part of something bigger than themselves. While we do not choose history, history does choose us and these Fellows from team 3 are a clear example of carpe diem.

Each week they meet they go through the agenda that is carefully planned to align with their goals of the week. After a brief welcome and introduction, two selected fellows from the team of twelve share "My Story", a two minute background of why and how they came to the campaign. Compelling moments such as these do not happen on a regular basis in life but they do happen once a week in this Fellows meeting.

After sharing the challenges of their choice to give up their lives to affect some change in an adopted community, it is time to get down to business. Discussing strategies to register voters and empowering them with a voice, these fellows also create a volunteer plan. Their goal, to recruit supporters of Senator Obama to help take back their country and build a local grassroots campaign from the bottom up.

Like every great family they don't agree on everything. However, what they do agree on is implementing platform meetings on policy, house parties to recruit volunteers, and the need to work hard to register the some 850, 000 people who are not registered to vote in Georgia.

Their efforts can best be summed up in the words of one Fellow that spoke towards the end of their meeting. "If we can register as many voters as possible we can turn Georgia Blue and that will go a long way to making sure Barack Obama is the next President of The United States."

The Iraq War

AL — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:25:13 EDT

We are in a crippling economy and this war in Iraq must come to an end. How can one vote for John McCain or even think about it? He voted for a war that is costing American People some $9 billion per month. The nonpartison Congression Budget Office has estimated the cost of the Iraq War $9 billion per month. My mind con't make sense of a figer like this. The Democratic Party - says that with what we have spent for the Iraq War, we could have funded: Now, hold on to your seat! One day in Iraq, we could provide 780 fire trucks for local emergency - We could employ 4,901 fire fighters, 4,222 police patrol officers - Could pay for 1,101 additional border patrol agents - Could cover the full cost of attendance for one year at a public college for more than17,100 students - Could provide more than 79,000 needed college students with a Pell Grant - Could employ 4,260 elementary school teaches or 4,029 secondary school teachers for one year - Could buy 71,55 million gallons of unleaded regular gasoline - Could build 5,571 AIDS Clinics in Africa.

When I learned what this War in Iraq is costing the American People, it boggled my mind. How can one vote for a person who is a PARTAKER in all of this?

Nader and The Maverick sittin' in a tree. . .

Bryan in Miami — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:32:07 EDT

You don't need to do much research to determine that the Main Stream Corporate Media (MSCM) has a crush on McCain. After months where he confused Sunni and Shia, joked about killing Iranians with cigarettes, bashed the very premise of Social Security (while still cashing his SS check), had his financial advisor deny the looming economic crisis and called us a nation of whiners, and was caught with his pants down in a simple question about birth control and health insurance, McCain is still neck and neck with Senator Obama in the National Polls. It bears to remind people that a disturbing number of democratic candidates in the past 6 years have been destroyed by the MSCM for much less, like a scream that was magnified over a special mic for example.

For all that help from the MSCM though, it certainly helps to have friends in a variety of places. For John McCain, one of his most useful and powerful allies is ironically one of the most, "liberal" figures in modern American politics; Ralph Nader. A cruise through his current campaign website features a litany of attacks against democrats in general and Barack Obama specifically, with hardly a mention of the Republican Party or John McCain. Some of the taglines that can I found on his website include, "Swap the Donkey for a Weasel," "Nader responds to Obama," "Nader Challenges Obama on AIPAC," "Obama Steers Clear of Michigan Muslims," "Old Obama, New Obama," "Hillary Won" and a pair of Blogs trying to draw Obama supporters to their side over the FISA vote.

John McCain, relatively speaking, is virtually absent from the campaign site's news & analysis.

One might consider this a coincidence until you do some research. In May 2006 TIME Magazine published a special called, "Leaders and Revolutionaries" and featured a wide variety of significant public figures from around the world. In this special was an essay about John McCain, written by Ralph Nader.

some highlights:

"As the clear and active frontrunner for 2008, McCain is not just a conservative. Otherwise why would he be so controversial among the party's base?" -never mind Ralph that he has been a rank-and-file republican for his entire senate career, reaching across party lines only when the issue was publicly popular and politically expedient, and has only become more pro-Bush as November draws closer.

"He favors . . . campaign-finance reform" and has survived in this primary season by skirting those rules, as well as possibly breaking them.

"He passed an anti-torture bill widely seen as a rebuke to George W. Bush." - and then promptly flipped by voting against an anti-torture amendment to a recent intelligence authorization bill.

"McCain opposed the Bush Tax Cuts in 2001 and '02 as unfairly tilted to the wealthy and reckless at a time of large deficits." - and is now running on a platform of making those tax cuts 100% permanent, along with granting even more tax cuts to the top 2-3%

I must admit that I was once a big fan of Ralph Nader. This man was the first person I ever voted for in a presidential campaign. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the man who was once a champion of the public interest is now a slave to both personal and Republican interests. His attacks on Obama- his assertions that Obama is abandoning his black side, accusing Obama of being a slave to corporations, etc- do little to help his campaign; his polling numbers are even lower now than they were in 2000. His behavior does however create more cynicism in the electorate and prompts people to either stay home or vote McCain. It’s time that Obama supporters and democrats stop being afraid to engage Nader supporters on issues, and especially on the motives.

The Republicans Missed the Message of Forrest Gump

! A Scandinavian-American Nicknamed Hussein — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:52:06 EDT

Remember Forrest Gump? There was a lot of wisdom in that movie about a man with below average IQ who lived in an authentic way guided by the wisdom of his mother. One piece of wisdom from his mother was: "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get." Another was "Stupid is as stupid does."

The essential message of Forrest Gump was one of love, authenticity and hard work. It taught that a low IQ does not equate with stupid behavior. The story of Forrest Gump was not intended to make make low intellect fashionable. It showed that what really matters is how we behave toward others, and that working hard, and being true to ourselves are not bad principles to guide a life.

Enter the republicans and George Bush, who have demonstrated how stupid actions can cripple a nation. George may not be the brightest bulb in the lamp store; but, if he had followed Forrest Gump, he could have done better. Instead, his actions have been stupid, but not because of his intellect They have been stupid because they have been guided by the wrong principles, along with stubbornness, a lack of humility and poor advice from those with selfish and arrogant interests.

Forrest Gump never used his IQ as an excuse, nor attempted to bring attention to it. He believed that what mattered most was what he did. What astounds is that George Bush brags about his substandard performance.

Check out the YouTube video linked below for confirmation. And please note that John McCain is taking a play out of Bush's playbook. Maybe there is some truth to the McSame nickname.

What kind of a party promotes a leader who is proud of his low perfomance?? For that matter, what kind of nation ignores intellect as a factor in selecting a leader? Stupid is as stupid does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsiADdmoh3E

Yes We Can... Raise More Money Than McCain

Lynda Woolard - New Orleans — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:02:03 EDT

Per MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25715558/)

June Numbers:
Obama: $52 mil
McCain: $22 Mil
RNC: $26 Mil
DNC: $22.4 Mil

Cash on Hand:
Obama + DNC: $92.3 Mil
McCain + RNC: $95 Mil

We’re catching up!

$52 million in June!

Bryan in Miami — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:04:50 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/17/obama-aides-ecstatic-over_n_113239.html

Congratulations Everyone!

There is a sense of elation in the Obama campaign as it was announced that their candidate raised $52 million in June. It's a massive haul for the presumptive Democratic nominee -- $3 million short of the historic mark he hit earlier in the cycle but much larger than the $22 million that John McCain brought in this past month.

The majority of donations, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe wrote in an email to supporters, were of the small variety, with the average amount being $68.

An aide to the Senator was ecstatic when asked about the June numbers and said of an earlierWall Street Journal report that Obama had raised "only" around $30 million: the paper is "embarrassed."

Greg Sargent at Talking Points Memo noted that the June haul puts Obama on track to achieve his goal of raising $300 million during the entirety of the general election - a total needed to match the likely loot of McCain and the RNC. And yet, Obama and his allies at the DNC still lag behind their counterparts. The Democrats have $72 million on hand, compared to the roughly $100 million brought in by the GOP.

"We remain at a massive disadvantage to our opponents," Plouffe wrote in an email before asking for additional $25 donations. "As I mentioned in my video message earlier in the week, the McCain Campaign and the Republican National Committee finished June with nearly $100 million in the bank.

We can't stop now. It's going to take everything we've got to defeat John McCain and his allies in November."

Fundraising Update From the Joe Ruwe Fundraising Team

joe ruwe — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:26:36 EDT

I have increased my goal one more time. $15,000 ought to do it. I'm also going to get 500 donors on my page before the November election.

In between, I will continue dropping money bombs on our faithful fundraising friends around the O-blog. So far, since I hit 10K, we have initiated 10 money bombs for ten special Obama fundraisers. 5 of them have helped reach the fundraising goals. 4 helped pump some serious bucks into 4 other individual fundraisers, and only one was a complete failure without a single donation. All in all, though - a big success!!!

We will continue our fundraising work as we shift back into investigative reporting mode. There are so many high-level crimes being committed in our government - I cannot sit back and simply watch. My writing will continue and my focus will remain on making our country great again.

Also, the Great Streak stands at 58 days today. 58 days in a row to the J.R.F.T. - that's a lot of donations! And we won't stop until the November election or the end of the Streak, whichever comes first.

So, the Team thanks you and thanks all of our donors, and most of all we thank Obama for giving us hope!

Yes We Can.

Obama '08

Keep the Streak Alive!!!!

joe ruwe — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:22:56 EDT

Friends, I'm sorry to say that my computer is down. Keeping the Streak alive is my highest priority, so I'm sending out an urgent request for help.

I still try to check in when I see a computer, but I will be at reduced power for several days, by the looks of it.

Please help me keep the Streak alive while I'm offline - we're counting on you!!!!

If you can, just toss in a few bucks if you get the sense that the Streak is in limbo..... better safe than sorry!!!!

We are at 55 days in a row right now, and it would be a shame to see it end so early.

Besides, we're going for 222 days altogether!!!

Keep the Streak alive for ole Joe!

here's the link:

http://www.mybarackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/Joecool

Many thanks and praises!

joe ruwe

McCain and RNC Cash

Ryan Mueller - Lincoln, NE — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:03:30 EDT

John McCain recently announced that he, along with the RNC, has nearly $100 million cash on hand. This is a huge amount of money and a formidable force for the Obama campaign.

Because of this, I created my own fundraising campaign today. If you click the link below you can contribute directly to the Obama campaign.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/mulehog

Any donation at all you can give will help to elect Barack as our next president.

Thanks for your time and your efforts. YES WE CAN!

-Ryan

WTF?? Rule of LAW, anybody? 4th Amendment??

DC Brown — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:18:04 EDT

I wrote to the campaign to tell them I am cancelling my participation in automatically scheduled donations, as a direct consequence of the FISA vote. I will always oppose the right-wing extemism, gay-bashing, fiscal insanity, & other offenses of the Republicans, and ultimately the good outweighs the bad in voting for Obama over McCain, but this is an outrage and there HAVE to be consequences, so I'm withholding my money for now.

Barack Obama (keeping the blog HOPEFUL!)

swimmer — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:10:48 EDT

Why do I support Barack? Easy!

HOPE
 INTEGRITY
INTELLIGENCE
JUDGMENT
CHANGE
BELIEVE
INSPIRE
ELOQUENT
CHARISMA
PRESIDENTIAL
FAIR
PASSION 
HUMANITY
 HONEST
 EMPATHY
 CHARACTER

Can You please help!!! 40 donations to go!!

Carole@www.Americans-Away-From-Home.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:39:51 EDT

Help Obama reach his 150,000 goal by July 4.

Just a little time left.

Please help!

Donate - any amount.

www.my.barackobama.com/inlondon

Thank you!!

Carole working hard for Obama

Is Obama Opening Door to Mind Change on Iraq?

Carole@www.Americans-Away-From-Home.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:38:06 EDT

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/obama-open-to-refine-iraq-withdrawal-timeline/index.html?hp

Artists Lend Voices to Obama Campaign The Democratic nominee inspires acts from Dylan to Lil Wayne BRIAN HIATTPosted Jul 10, 2008 1:48 PM

Prosy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:20:45 EDT

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/21472095/artists_lend_voices_to_obama_campaign

The night Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination for president, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong found himself experiencing an unfamiliar emotion: hope. "After his acceptance speech, I have to admit, it took me an hour to get the lump out of my throat," says Armstrong, whose band's American Idiot was the defining protest album of the Bush years. "Obama inspires people, and this country needs inspiration. People are jaded, pissed off and embarrassed." Much as the Bush administration generated more protest songs and political action from musicians than any time since the Sixties, the Obama campaign has ignited an unprecedented level of support from a broad spectrum of artists.

"The biggest difference between 2004 and now," says Conor Oberst, who toured in support of John Kerry along with Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty and Dave Matthews on Vote for Change, "is that then we were campaigning and voting against something. Now we are campaigning and voting for something, which is a completely different dynamic." Adds another Vote for Change vet, David Crosby, "I worked for Kerry but with large reservations because I thought he was kind of a wooden Indian. You look at Barack, and you can't help feeling hopeful." The passion crosses generations and genres: Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Arcade Fire, Usher, Springsteen, John Legend, Jay-Z, R.E.M. and many others are on board. Michael Stipe made his own Obama T-shirts and wore them onstage; the Decemberists opened for Obama at a Portland, Oregon, rally; Jay-Z has endorsed him from arena stages; and even Dylan, who rarely makes direct political statements of any kind, said that Obama is "redefining the nature of politics from the ground up." "What Dylan said was mind-blowing," says Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz. "It's like, I don't really need to talk about Obama anymore if Bob Dylan's talking about him."

More than a dozen acts — from the Dixie Chicks to Death Cab for Cutie — joined together in 2004 for the Vote for Change Tour. Despite Bush's victory that year, many artists say they'd be up for a replay — and MoveOn .org, which helped put together the tour, has begun speaking to artist managers about some sort of reprise. MoveOn creative director Laura Dawn wouldn't reveal specifics but did say, "We're talking with a lot of artists about a whole bunch of hopefully good ideas about how to increase awareness and activism." But will musicians' advocacy help Obama's candidacy — or hurt it? "The danger for Obama is if one of these musicians says something stupid," says Republican pollster Frank Luntz. "Like Whoopi Goldberg did four years ago when she used foul language at a fundraiser for John Kerry." Kerry's many Hollywood fans helped him get tagged as an elitist, but Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who worked with Howard Dean and John Edwards, is convinced that charge won't stick on Obama. "They've got to do better than that," he says, adding that it's the Republicans who should be worried.

"They've got the opposite problem. I really don't know even one pop-culture-type artist who's for McCain." In the primaries, young people voted in record numbers — 6.5 million voters under age 30 turned up, an eight percent increase from 2000 — and the Democrats among them overwhelmingly chose Obama. The campaign is counting on a similar turnout in November, which musicians' activism could help deliver. "They may be preaching to the converted, but they're continuing to energize these voters," says Luntz. "This is going to be the greatest generation-gap election of modern times." The pop-cultural groundswell for Obama began in February, with Will.i.am's viral video "Yes We Can," which set one of Obama's speeches to music. "I don't think we have seen anything like that video before — it helped change the environment for Obama, blunted the attacks from the Clintons and bonded him to a lot of young voters," says Trippi. "That speech inspired me," Will.i.am says. "Obama connects — that's the difference between a leader and a politician." The clip has been viewed 16 million times on YouTube. Will.i.am is hardly the only African-American artist to take notice of the first black candidate for a major party. "America has finally come to this point where you can pick a man of color," Chuck Berry told Reuters. "In the Fifties, there were certain places we couldn't ride on the bus, and now there is a possibility of a black man being in the White House."

And a much younger artist, Lil Wayne, expressed a similar sentiment: "It means a whole lot to me," he says, "being African-American and being 25 years of age, to live in this day and time, and see history being made." Like Obama, the rapper Common lives in Chicago, and he was an early supporter, dropping his name into his 2007 single "The People": "My raps ignite the people like Obama." "He's for the people, not just for one select group," says Common. Jay-Z, meanwhile, displayed Obama's picture on his video screens on various stops of his last tour, asking crowds, "Are we ready for change?" Jay-Z also took pains to make clear that his message was not officially endorsed by the candidate, half-joking that he didn't want to harm Obama's campaign the way the candidate's former preacher, Jeremiah Wright, has.

But to a certain extent, the campaign has welcomed musicians' support — Obama has mentioned having Jay-Z on his iPod, discussed meeting with him and Kanye West to push positive messages in hip-hop, and shared his stage at rallies with acts ranging from Usher to Will.i.am. And the campaign keeps close tabs on some famous supporters: When Wilco played Saturday Night Live on an episode also featuring Hillary Clinton, his team supplied Obama pins for the band members to wear during their set. Like many baby boomers, Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir sees something familiar in Obama's candidacy. "The Kennedys put out a message of hope, and John Kennedy was able to bring the country together," he says. "I have a feeling Obama might be able to do that as well."

But for Michael Stipe, the Obama phenomenon seems like something entirely new. "We are a country of ideas that have been squandered," he says. "With Obama, we have the possibility to have someone who represents what we are in the 21st century. My generation blew it, and for the first time in my life, I can vote for someone younger than me. Artists Lend Voices to Obama Campaign In Their Own Words: Artists Speak Out For Obama Conor Oberst "He's just the real deal. The first time I saw him speak, it was just shivers down my spine the whole time. When you see old footage of Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King, I always assumed it was the gloss of nostalgia that made those speeches so powerful. But Obama has the same thing." Jeff Tweedy "I came to Barack Obama with a lot of baggage and cynicism and reluctance to embrace any politician. And I think that's one of the things that's pretty magical about him: He's been able to melt the hearts of a lot of people like myself."

Dave Matthews "We are in the very worst position that the U.S. has been in the eyes of the world in its entire history. And we have to actively take control of it and turn it around, or the consequences are unimaginable in the end. It's so important that we have someone who can begin to help us heal the damage that has been done — and I think that's Obama." Ludacris "I met him, and he's an extremely humble, down-to-earth guy. I mean, his energy is great, which is extremely important. He just seems like an honest person. And I really feel like that's what we need right now." In Their Own Words: Artists Speak Out For Obama Death Cab for Cutie's Chris Walla "It was so easy on the Vote for Change Tour to believe that there was no way that John Kerry wouldn't win. But Obama is a better candidate. As we drive around the country right now, it's so incredible just how visible his campaign is and just how committed people seem to be to it." Bob Weir

"The contagion of hope is real. I think that Americans have the ability to rediscover what democracy feels like, and that's a good feeling." Billie Joe Armstrong "I don't want it to turn into a cult of personality. He's not Magic Man. The great thing would be if he could lead by example and inspire people to get their own shit together." Pete Wentz "This is the first time that I've had a chance to vote in a presidential race where there hasn't been a Bush or a Clinton running. From touring the world, the issue that draws me most to Obama is the idea of diplomacy and of repairing the U.S.'s image abroad." Michael Stipe "With every passing day, every time I see him speak, I'm more impressed by his capabilities and sure-footedness. He represents something different."

THE STREAK - 3rd update.

joe ruwe — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:29:38 EDT

The great Streak is truly becoming legendary. Today, June 27th, we hit 41 days in a row of donations. That's 41 consecutive days of donations to my fundraising page. Truly remarkable yet just the beginning...

I am trying my best to log on and keep it alive every day, nomatter where I am or what I am doing. Amazingly, I am having such a busy day today, I thought I wouldn't even be able to log on to keep the Streak going - and wouldn't you know it? My grandmother had kept it going for me! Whew! Thanks, Gram!!!

The Joe Ruwe Obama fundraising team is attempting the impossible - collecting at least one donation to the Obama campaign every single day until he wins the election in November. That will bring it close to 222 days in a row!!!

Think I'm crazy? Well, you're probably right, but so far so good. 41 days today.

I try to post a link to my fundraiser as often as possible, or you can simply click on my name to go to the fundraising Streak. I also post a daily update on the Streak's status daily.

If in doubt, make a small donation to keep the Streak alive!!!!!!!!

Also, now that I have reached my fundraising goal, I have started to raise money for my fellow Obama supporters. We have helped 2 people reach their goals in 2 days. We are working on a 3rd person today on this third day and she is almost there!!!!

Keep the Streak alive, then sit back as watch other fundraising thermometers shatter all over the Obamablogosphere!!!

Yes We Can.

Obama '08

KEEP THE STREAK ALIVE!

Barack on live .....

MarkkraM — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:46:29 EDT

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog

Howard Dean in London Today

Carole@www.Americans-Away-From-Home.com — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:16:30 EDT

Governor Howard Dean will be in London today. Dean is the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

While in London on a private visit, Governor Dean will speak privately to a few hundred people who are interested in the U.S. election.

The UK Obama Meetup, the UK's largest Obama group, will be holding a Meetup after Dean's talk to discuss Dean's talk and the election. You can see how warm and friendly members are, and read about the Meetup today here.
(UK Obama Meetup here). Please check back later for a first-hand report.

Carole

Obama Grassroots Gospel-Singers Inaugural Glee Club

Sharon McSweeney — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:11:11 EDT

Hello you, now over 423 Obama singers!

The BEST is YET to COME, and D.C. 'ain't seen nothin' yet........

Just returned from Obama Virginia Fellows Training. Wonderful people working for the VA "swing-vote" and many even from other states.

Obama Inaugural Glee details being worked out--never fear. Looks like the Press takes us, AND OBAMA, seriously. Check out the following that came out June 17!

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JohnMcCaslin/2008/06/17/obama_glee

And thank you for your patience. --Sharon McSweeney --

sharonmcsweeney@gmail.com

HAPPY TO SUPPORT THE CAUSE

Mary — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:31:21 EDT

Barack should win because the time is right. There may exist many others who are just as, or even more capable than, he is to effect this change; however, he is the one that has been lifted up for such a time as this. I am simply happy to support the cause.

Check out this video!

Renee - It's A New Day — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:34:34 EDT

http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/

The Streak

joe ruwe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:50:34 EDT

As of today, June 11th, 2008. the Streak stands at 26 days in a row. This is beginning to become epic.

For 26 days in a row, generous donors have supported Obama by contributing through my fundraising page. Today, it was Desert Dove Dan - one of the true legends of the blog.

Tomorrow - who knows? It could be you!

Read the first story of the Streak here:

The Streak

Keep it alive. Tomorrow will be Day 27. Our goal is 222 days total. I know it sounds crazy, but trust me...... it will happen.

Joe Ruwe's fundraising team stands ready to process your donation and keep faithful vigil over this historic Streak.

fundraising page

Obama '08