Alaskans for Obama

Introduction!

Jesse — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:34:30 EDT

Hello, all, and welcome to my first OFA blog! My name is Jesse, and I work for the State of Alaska as an Office Assistant. I'm 26, a father, veteran, and a college student, now, as well! Very excited about that, getting my degree, finally, after being deployed twice.

But, enough about me. I've been following the health care debate intently, and it's annoying to listen to our elected (and recently resigned...ugh) officials at "health care town halls" where they do nothing but bash Obama. It's much easier than actually doing something to help those you represent, right, Sen. Murkowski? Easier than coming up with an alternative. If his plan is so awful, what have you got? Of course, they have nothing, which is why we only see negativity and attacks. If they ceased that, they would have nothing at all left to say. My hope is that we can organize here, and press them to cease this cynical "slash and burn" politics. If we let them continue, no one will win, because the only plan they've advanced is continuing the status quo (and their huge campaign contributions from corportate donors and interest groups).

So, my question is, readers, where are our efforts going? Do we have any efforts? I believe we should get a call operation going, a letter writing (handwritten, can't say that's astroturfed!) campaign, something! This issue is too important to cede to lie filled tv ads, politicans more concerned with their coffers than their constitutents, and insurance groups willing to do or say anything to preserve their profits. I feel awful just sitting here doing nothing, because "we're in a red state" or "They're Republicans, they won't listen to me about this." No excuse will hold up for me if I have to look in my son's eyes 10 years from now and explain why he can't be saved because Daddy isn't rich enough to afford his co-pay, or deductible, or premiums, or one of a hundred other things the insurance companies use to make sure they pay as little as possible for the care you supposedly "purchased" through them.

I know every single person that reads this either has some skin in this game, or has someone close to them who's been affected by our current for-profit system. I want to be able to say "Yes, I was there, fighting for what was right!" not "Well, it didn't look like we could do it, so I didn't try...sorry..." People have died because of our current system. More will die if we don't do something about it. We're closer now to real reform than ever before, to make a system where America leads in more than just costs. We have the most expensive care in the world, but 37th in overall health, 25th in wait time (except for that cash cow, cosmetic surgery) and this is just unacceptable! We've got insurance bureaucrats between us and our doctors, not to mention that they only make money when they make sure you DON'T GET CARE! Rationing for profit, and this is the "choice" that the other party wants us to have?

Bullshit. I won't be offered up by a cynical bought off party so some fat cat industry can continue making their 400% increases in profits at the expense of the sick and hurt. I won't stand by and listen to the lies about "rationing" while they deny 18 year olds cancer treatment until it's too late to save them.

What they don't want you to know is that we're winning. That's why the attacks have become so brazen, so filled with mis-information. The truth is on our side, and that scares them witless. We're closer to real, substantiative reform than ever before, and I want to be part of that final push to make this real. We can save lives, people. We can put money back into businesses, into Americans' wallets, instead of into the insurance industries coffers, where they'll happily spend 1.4 million dollars A DAY (yes, a day!) to kill reform, but not to save a person's life. We have the drive, we have the ability. LET'S SHOW THEM WHAT WE CAN DO!!!!

Bobby Enloe - We Need Answers!

MaryPickford — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:07:28 EDT

This Memorial Day please keep the family of Bobby Enloe in your thoughts & prayers. This family has been searching for answers about their loved one for too many years.

“Bobby's family is searching for information to put things to rest. In 1951 A plane went down off the coast of Alaska, in a chain of Islands. My brother was supose to be on that plane. It took almost two weeks to find the plane and it's passengers. At that time the Navy personel informed us that my brother was the Radio Man on that plane. That they had all deceased. At the same time the Alaskan Times News Paper Published a report that Two flares were seen, on two different occations, From that crash sight. Proving somebody was alive. The Navy denied that this was true. They sent the sealed casket with an honor guard, Inssisting that his body was in there. My father managed to pull strings to open this casket. Finding only a uniform layed out, and his cap: Absolutly no physical body to be seen. This has left us wondering if he had been the one too had sent the flares up, at the sight of the crash. Three months before this all had happened. He had been on leave. Visiting with the family. My father was in question of what was going on, due to his behavior. The morning he left, to return to duty. He told my mother he would not be back. Raising more concern about what was going on. At that time my father asked him about UFO'S , and what he knew. His responce was; I can't tell you, But if I could. It would curl your hair! If anyone has any information on these events or can lead me to the truth. It would change a great deal for my family. I have filed a Freedom of Information Act. And Was led to a dead end. His files no longer existed. As if he never were to exist.”

http://www.myspace.com/472680008

I am the wife of a Veteran who watched as her husband loose his VA Disability Pension & was forced to repay six months of benefits. I wrote too many unanswered letters to authorities. I found the story above heart wrenching and I have taken up their cause. They can be contacted through the website mentioned.

Thank You & God Bless You All For Fighting For Our Freedom!

Tomorrow is the Earth Day

Fire Is Born — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:49:01 EDT

Organizing For America (OFA) in Alaska

Jonathan Teeters — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:20:21 EDT

Good afternoon,

I just wanted to get active again with my blog, and I wanted to find out if anyone out there is interested in helping me to learn what is going on in Alaska with Organizing For America. I am pretty sure there are things happening...

I am eager to get involved here again continuing all the great work that we accomplished together.

What's going on where you are?

Please leave me a comment, or send me an email to get.at.jonathan@gmail.com.

Talk to you soon!

Jonathan

"President Obama's budget chief isn't sugarcoating his message to health insurance executives: the party is over"

Fire Is Born — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:05:41 EDT

Obama budget chief firm on Medicare Advantage cuts By MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Business Writer Matthew Perrone, Ap Business Writer 9 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Obama's budget chief isn't sugarcoating his message to health insurance executives: the party is over.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said Tuesday the government will no longer overpay companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run portion of the government health program for seniors.

For more than 10 years, companies like Humana Inc. and UnitedHealth have defended their plans, pointing out they offer lower premiums and extra benefits compared with government-run Medicare. More than 10 million of the 44 million seniors in Medicare receive care through the plans.

But Orszag reiterated what industry executives have long known: the government spends significantly more money on Medicare Advantage than its own plan. When private insurers first entered the Medicare program in the late 1990s, many lawmakers assumed companies would lower costs with their managed-care strategies.

More than a decade later, though, the government spends about $1.30 on Medicare Advantage patients for each dollar it spends on patients in traditional Medicare, Orszag said, speaking at the America's Health Insurance Plans' annual conference.

He added that the cost burden falls on taxpayers as well as patients in regular Medicare, who pay higher premiums.

"I believe in competition. I don't believe in paying $1.30 to get a dollar," Orszag told conference attendees, including representatives from Aetna Inc., WellPoint Inc. and Cigna Corp.

The group's president, Karen Ignagni, said insurers would offer alternative proposals for controlling Medicare costs and hoped the White House would consider them.

Orszag's address came less than a week after President Obama kicked off his health reform effort with a massive summit at the White House. In his remarks to more than 100 health care experts and stakeholders, Obama said he is willing to compromise on details to reach his overall goal of improving care and covering more people. As one of the interest groups that helped derail the Clinton health reform effort in the early '90s, gaining health insurers' cooperation is critical.

But Orszag showed little intention of compromising on the Medicare Advantage issue. In his previous job as director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Orszag frequently warned lawmakers that the ballooning cost of Medicare was among the greatest threats to the nation's long-term economic health.

Under President Obama's recent budget proposal, Medicare Advantage companies would have to compete to offer their services in different parts of the country. The government payment for each region would be based on the average bid submitted by companies, saving $177 billion over 10 years, according to the White House. Under the existing system, payments are calculated annually using a preset formula.

Worries about the plan have sent shares of health insurers nosediving over the past several weeks, as investors were concerned about the effect on the insurers' profitable Medicare Advantage business.

Orszag reiterated Tuesday that the best chance to solve the country's current health care predicament is to eliminate billions of dollars worth of wasteful spending. He pointed out that different regions of the country spend vastly different sums on seniors in Medicare, without showing much difference in health outcomes.

The budget director cited figures from researchers at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy, who for decades have documented unnecessary care in the U.S. Researchers there have estimated that about 30 percent of U.S. health care spending, or $700 billion, could be eliminated without hurting the quality of care.

Orszag assured executives that insurers are not the only group being asked to change how they do business. As part of his economic stimulus package, Obama provided $1.1 billion in funding for research comparing the effectiveness of various medical treatments. By rewarding physicians for using the most efficient practices, the administration hopes to reduce health care costs.

"We are pushing hard on changing incentives for providers so that we are rewarding better care and not more care," Orszag said.(...)"

Members of http://www.gather.com give their thoughts about President Barack Obama

BayAreaForBarackObama — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:52:05 EST

The President has a presence on http://www.gather.com. He may be found here:

http://www.barackobama.gather.com

Back in June, 2007, I joined Gather -- an adult social networking site to promote Barack. Recently, I asked the Gather members to share their thoughts about the Inauguaration, and about President Obama.

They link is here:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?memberId=364433&articleId=281474977569131&nav=Namespace

I have written a number of other posts about the President. Feel free to peruse them by looking at the posts here:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticles.jsp?memberId=364433&nav=Namespace

After November 4, 2008, I thought my work was done on this site. The President and Vice President has advised that we are just getting started, aren't we.

YES, WE CAN!

YES, WE DID!

YES, WE SHALL KEEP ON KEEPING ON!

Please sign! You will help limiting comercial fishing in the melting Arctic Sea.

Fire Is Born — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:43:49 EST

Take a minute to read it and sign. Tell three of your friends about it. I attached what's below in addition to purely environmental issues. fib

Dear Congresperson!

I have recently seen a very scary program on PBS on the melting of the ice in the North and I believe it is real.

Moreover, please note that fishing in these icy water is already an already risky and potentially deadly business. We all should know it.

I do not want to eat any fish that is gotten at such a high death rate of procuring. A person overboard dies there in a minute, and with all these new storms and climate changes, a small fishing boat is not a secure place.

I urge you to check the statistics about the death rates of fishing in those waters. We need to set some limits now. Just because we do not see the death when we buy the fish does not mean it is not there.

We should only consume food that is safe for EVERYBODY!.

I do not want the lobster from Nicaragua or Honduras because it is gotten with too high a price – the health and life of the Indigenous Miskite fishermen. “Red Lobster” raised the demand on our part, and this lobster diving in warm waters must stop.

The same with the dangers of fishing in ice cold waters. Why to even extend it?!

fib

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Save the Arctic's Marine Ecosystems Target: North Pacific Fishery Management Council

Sponsored by: Pew Environment Group (PEG)

The Arctic Ocean is facing changes unparalleled on the planet. Over the last 100 years, the Arctic has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Since the 1950s, an area of sea ice about half as big as the land area of the United States has been lost.

Species such as Polar Bears, Walrus, Spectacled Eiders, Bowhead whale, Steller sea lions and North Pacific Right Whale are facing population declines and most are already listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Currently, there are no commercial fisheries north of the Bering Strait. But the rapid loss of sea ice is creating the potential for commercial fisheries in the Arctic Ocean. If allowed, commercial fishing may harm important habitat and could directly harm marine mammals – not to mention compete with subsistence users who depend on the marine environment to survive.

The rapid reduction in the northern sea ice will not only bring enormous change to the Arctic marine ecosystem, retreating sea ice will also create vast new territory for unprecedented oil and gas drilling and industrial shipping and fishing.

It is important that we develop a careful science-based approach for this fragile environment. Please sign our petition urging the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to close the Arctic to commercial fishing – unless and until it can be shown that commercial fishing can occur without harming the health of the marine ecosystem.

Repost of YES WE DID, YES WE MUST by Carla Mays, Jan 23rd, 2009

Jill 4 Obama — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:55:02 EST

YES WE DID, YES WE MUST By Carla Mays - Jan 23rd, 2009 at 10:01 am EST Also listed in: 8 groups

YES WE DID! YES WE MUST:

Þ Protect him from harm both verbal & phyiscal

Þ Stay "FIRED UP" by staying active

Þ Work Bi-Partisan to bring "Change" together

Þ Don't just bitch, get active and stay engaged

Þ Start and join a local "Change" group

Þ Be philanthropic, serve your community, state and nation

Þ Stick by Obama, STOP smears on the Right & the Left!!!! Hold yourself responsible as you hold Barack!

Join the future of this movement!!

http://change.gov/joinus

http://www.communityorganize.com

http://www.ourpresidency.com

http://www.usaservice.org

http://www.whitehouse.gov

Barack's DNC 2004 Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWynt87PaJ0&feature=PlayList&p=B1939005B8A4D4ED&index=188

Barack's DNC 2008 Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ato7BtisXzE&feature=channel

Barack’s Election Acceptance Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wJ-2Zu_Iic&feature=channel

Barack’s Inauguration Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjnygQ02aW4

Thrilled, Disappointed Proud and Hopeful

Fred N — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:32:26 EST

I am THRILLED that Barack and Joe are our President and Vice President.

I am DISAPPOINTED that more of my fellow Alaskans did not support and not vote for Barack and Joe.

I am PROUD we replaced our corrupt, out of touch Senator.

I realize that no public servant can please all of the people all of the time.

I am HOPEFUL that more Alaskans will realize this and spend more time participating in government and less time complaining about it.

Julia Good Fox's Native insight into "the politics and culture of occupation, colonization and removal”: Palestine and Israel

Fire Is Born — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:38:56 EST

Israel's attack on Gaza in the recent weeks was often compared to Nazi extermination of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, only that in Gaza the roles where reversed, it was the Palestinian people who were in the Gaza ghetto, and the Israelis took upon the role of the Nazis. Sometimes yet another comparative figure was invoked, in which the Palestinian people indigenous to the land were like the American Indians, and the Israelis were like the America's white colonizers. In the “Indian Country Today” I have found an important opinion that elaborates on this second comparison. It is written by Julia Good Fox (Pawnee) who is on faculty in the Indigenous and American Indian Studies Program at Haskell Indian Nations University. In 2008, she was a member of the Third World Coalition delegation to Israel and the Occupied West Bank. fib

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Good Fox: Palestine: Stop the re-creation of ‘Indian country’ in the Holy Land By Julia Good Fox

Story Published: Jan 13, 2009

Story Updated: Jan 13, 2009

"During a meeting at Wi’am, a conflict resolution center in historic Bethlehem, a gentleman shared a moment of either resignation or despair with our delegation: “It’s not part of their mentality to let us live as Palestinians.” Their mentality was a reference to the collective actions of the U.S. and Israel – actions which clearly demonstrate more than a desire to destroy the spirit of self-determination among the Palestinians.

Bethlehem and other cities, towns and villages in the West Bank are enclosed by the notorious apartheid walls and barriers and are tightly controlled by the Israeli military. Furthermore, the West Bank itself is imprisoned by the apartheid barrier, as is its neighbor 25 miles away, the Gaza Strip. (The West Bank and the Gaza Strip also are known as the “Occupied Territories.”) This horrific nesting doll set of containment has its heart of darkness squarely embedded within the United States. When one replaces the misleading and tightly-controlled rhetoric that predominates mainstream U.S. media with the actual first-hand witnessing of the algebra of conditions that Israel, sponsored by the annual $2 billion in military assistance from the United States, imposes on a basically unarmed and defenseless Palestine, one cannot help but solve the equation: Israel’s objective, with U.S. backing, is not to destroy the Palestinian will to sovereignty and so to compel them to surrender to a life under occupation. Rather, the intent of the U.S. and Israel is to coerce and forcibly remove the Palestinians out of the region completely.

As indigenous peoples, we are not amateurs to this game. We have inherited the meme (albeit it lies dormant in some of us who still insist on protecting the fort) that provides insight into the politics and culture of occupation, colonization and removal – wherever it occurs.
The intent of the U.S. and Israel is to coerce and forcibly remove the Palestinians out of the region completely.
Contrary to widely-held beliefs, the crisis in Palestine is relatively recent in origin. As historians and scholars will remind us, Jewish people generally thrived and lived in respectful coexistence with Christians and Muslims in Palestine while they were subjected to prejudice (and far worse) in Europe and the United States. It was only during the mid-20th century that sustained violence began to occur between the populations – when the U.S. and Europe, out of their collective guilt for allowing the Shoah to happen, formed the state of Israel on top of Palestine.

This formation did not occur on empty land. Known as “Al-Nakba” (Arabic for “the Cataclysm”), this 1948 event involved the expulsion of an estimated one million Palestinians from cities and villages, massacres, torture and rape, and the destruction of nearly 500 Palestinian villages. Zionism, which activist Gabe Camacho has correctly described as synonymous with manifest destiny, is the hegemonic ideology of the colonizers in the Holy Land. And one of the ideas of Zionism/Manifest Destiny is the concept of “Indian country,” an anti-human rights activity that the U.S. exports internationally.

“Indian Country” is a U.S.-designated term for our remaining and secondary homelands; however, the term also is common in the U.S. military and colonization parlance such as when it was employed in the invasion of Vietnam or as seen in the ongoing occupation of Iraq. We see this term in action, too, in Palestine.

Although we and the Palestinians are at different places in the politics of colonization and decolonization, as survivors of manifest destiny (and often combatants against present-day cultural practices of anti-Indianism), we immediately – and viscerally – recognize the extraordinary historic and contemporary parallels between the Palestinians and our nations and tribes. Perhaps one of the most recognizable similarities that we encounter is the theft and fractionalization of Palestinian land, a process that we might know better as “removal” and “allotment.” A strengthened and stabilized land-base is the basis of self-determination, and the Palestinian struggle to liberate and protect their land certainly resonates with our people. We immediately – and viscerally – recognize the extraordinary historic and contemporary parallels between the Palestinians and our nations and tribes.

While in Palestine last summer, I saw billboards and other advertisements for new housing developments for Israelis (on land stolen from the Palestinians); Israelis are given financial incentives to move to these areas, much like how the settlers were provided for by the United States regarding our lands. Yet, land theft, no matter how it is sanitized or censored in the political, educational and cultural arenas, is an attack on human rights. Land theft also is in violation of the UN Genocide Convention which recognizes that such robbery is accompanied by an assault on the families, languages, religions and spirituality, and other cultural practices of a tribe or nation. The theft of a people’s land results in the fracturing of the community and families, directly interfering with social relationships, economies and languages. It brings intergenerational consequences for families, especially children. Indigenous peoples recognize the relationship between land and the well-being of a people, and are on an intimate basis with the damage that occurs when this relationship is severed by military force and ongoing colonization.

Thankfully, the U.S. and Israel’s land theft and other anti-human rights practices are monitored not only by Palestinian and United Nations agencies, but also by Israeli-based human rights groups, such as B’Tselem, and counter-recruitment organizations, including New Profile, which seek not only to document these atrocities but also to bring to a halt, using public pressure, these egregious practices.

Meanwhile, the current U.S.-Israel’s one-sided war in the Gaza has resulted, so far, in the death of more than 800 people, injury of thousands, and as yet undisclosed damage to the infrastructure and environment of the area. Apart from this invasion, Palestinians are punished by the Israelis for speaking Arabic. Palestinian families are forcibly separated and the Israelis are incarcerating the men at alarming rates. Palestinian land continues to be seized and there exists Palestinian villages that are officially “unrecognized” and thus shut off from resources such as water and electricity. Palestinians are portrayed as terrorists – modern day savages – in the mainstream media.

As indigenous peoples, we can supplement our local and tribal self-determination activity by setting aside just a few hours to locate and work through an international political or human rights organization that promotes informed solidarity and intelligent mutual support with the Palestinians. In doing so, we can bring to a halt the U.S. and Israel’s attempt to re-create “Indian country” in the Occupied Territories.

Julia Good Fox (Pawnee) is on faculty in the Indigenous and American Indian Studies Program at Haskell Indian Nations University. In 2008, she was a member of the Third World Coalition delegation to Israel and the Occupied West Bank."

What's left behind, AKA Bush's legacy - "Media Maters" investigates

Fire Is Born — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:23:59 EST

This article is long and pedantic. But when we are through we shall be even more entititled to forgetting him, and Cheney. (I did not say "forgiving"). fib

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"On Bush legacy tour, media often just along for the ride

Summary: In recent weeks, the media have repeatedly indulged President Bush and Vice President Cheney through various interview stops on their Bush legacy tour, utterly failing to push back against statements that were demonstrably false or highly disputable. Media Matters has reviewed interviews given by Bush and Cheney since the November 4 election and has identified numerous instances in which interviewers have failed to challenge false or debatable statements; these failures span a variety of issues, including Hurricane Katrina, prewar Iraq intelligence, national security, and the economy."

Sign Our Open Letter to President-Elect Obama . We Need a Change in Israel/Palestine Policy

Fire Is Born — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:41:54 EST

Sign Our Open Letter to President-Elect Obama

We Need a Change in Israel/Palestine Policy

Dear President-Elect Obama,

Congratulations on your historic election as the next President of the United States.

Last year, you pledged to “take an active role, and make a personal commitment to do all I can to advance the cause of [Israeli-Palestinian] peace from the start of my Administration.” We are eager to work with you to fulfill this goal.

To do so, your Administration should break with past policies of unconditional support for Israel's illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality.

We agree with Aaron David Miller, a 25-year State Department Middle East negotiator and adviser on Arab-Israeli affairs, who wrote that “For far too long, many American officials involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, myself included, have acted as Israel's attorney, catering and coordinating with the Israelis at the expense of successful peace negotiations.”

To become an honest and effective broker, your Administration should:

* Insist that Israel ends its siege of the Gaza Strip. Israel has deliberately impoverished the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip and caused a humanitarian catastrophe of dire proportions by prohibiting the delivery of food, medicine, fuel, and electricity. Your Administration should insist on the illegality of collective punishment and support the human rights of Palestinians such as freedom of movement as a first step towards ending Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip.

* Demand a freeze in the construction of settlements and Israel's Wall in the West Bank. Israel's West Bank settlements, including those in East Jerusalem, are all illegal under international law,and the International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that Israel's Wall is illegal and must be torn down. Halting this construction should be a first step toward completely dismantling the infrastructure of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and others have labeled “apartheid.”

* Hold Israel accountable for its misuse of U.S. weapons. In 2007, the United States and Israel agreed to increase military aid to Israel by 25% over the next decade, totaling $30 billion. During the Bush Administration, Israel killed more than 2,000 innocent Palestinian civilians who took no part in hostilities, oftentimes with U.S. weapons in violation of the Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts. Your Administration should hold Israel accountable for these violations of U.S. law and cut off military aid as required by law, rather than increase it.

* End the U.S. veto protecting Israel at the United Nations. The United States has used its veto power at the UN more than 40 times since 1972 to shield Israel from the consequences of its violations of human rights, UN resolutions, and international law. Your Administration should work with, not in opposition to, the international community so that human rights, UN resolutions, and international law are applied and enforced uniformly.

* Base a just peace on human rights, international law, and equality. Such a policy is the only way to ensure the legitimate security needs of all peoples and can only be achieved by engaging in dialog with all interested parties. A just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace includes the complete end of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip; a resolution to the Palestinian refugee issue consistent with international law and UN resolutions, including the right of return and/or compensation; and full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel. A policy denying Palestinians these internationally-guaranteed rights will only lead to yet another failed “peace process”.

Signed by,

National Organizations
1. African American Islamic Institute
2. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
3. American Jews for a Just Peace
4. Americans for a Just Peace in the Middle East
5. Black Voices for Peace
6. Code Pink: Women for Peace
7. Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
8. Council for the National Interest
9. Doctors for Global Health
10. Episcopal Peace Fellowship
11. Fellowship of Reconciliation
12. Friends of Sabeel North America
13. Global Exchange
14. Grassroots International
15. Interfaith Peace-Builders
16. Middle East Children’s Alliance
17. Middle East Peace Fellowship
18. Middle East Research and Information Project
19. Muslim Student Association West
20. National Hip Hop Political Convention
21. National Lawyers Guild
22. Nonviolence International
23. Peace Action
24. Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
25. Progressive Democrats of America
26. Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East
27. United for Peace and Justice
28. US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
29. Voters for Peace
30. War Resisters League
31. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—U.S. Section

Alabama
1. Birmingham Interfaith Human Rights Committee, Birmingham
2. North Alabama Peace Network, Huntsville

Alaska
1. Alaskans for Peace and Justice, Anchorage

Arizona
1. Islamic Reform, Tucson
2. Local to Global Justice, Phoenix
3. Peacemaking Committee, Faith Presbyterian Church, Sun City
4. Women in Black—Phoenix, Phoenix
5. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—Tucson Branch, Tucson

Arkansas
1. The Pagan Temple, Violet Hill

California
1. 14 Friends of Palestine, San Rafael
2. Academic Mentorship Program at UCLA, Los Angeles
3. Addicted to War, Culver City
4. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, San Diego Chapter, Encinitas
5. Americans for Democratic Action—Southern California Chapter, Studio City
6. Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Oakland
7. Bay Area Women in Black, Oakland
8. Beacon Presbyterian Fellowship, Oakland
9. Berkeley Institute of Biblical Archaeology and Literature (BIBAL), Rodeo
10. Coachella Valley Movement for a Democratic Society, Desert Hot Springs
11. Conversation with Connection, Los Angeles
12. Couples Center, Sebastopol
13. Crabgrass, San Francisco
14. Deep Hum Productions, Berkeley
15. Ecumenical Peace Institute, Berkeley
16. El Cerrito Green Party, Kensington
17. Friends of Deir Ibzi’a, Berkeley
18. Global Information Services, Greenbrae
19. Greenwood Earth Alliance, San Francisco
20. Holy Cross Melkite-Greek Orthodox Church, Placentia
21. International & Multicultural Education, University of San Francisco, San Francisco
22. International Imaging, Pasadena
23. Jews against Zionism, Sacramento
24. MAIZ -- Movimiento de Acion, Inspirando Servicio, San Jose
25. Middle East Needs Peace, San Jose
26. Middle East Policy Advisory Council, Oakland
27. Muslim Student Union, University of California Irvine, Corona
28. Nick Dibs for Congress, Long Beach
29. Northeast Los Angeles Radical Neighbors for Peace through Justice, Los Angeles
30. Northern California International Solidarity Movement, El Cerrito
31. Office of the Americas, Los Angeles
32. Pacifica Peace People, Pacifica
33. Parrot Software Services, Menlo Park
34. Peace Action of San Mateo County, San Mateo
35. Peace Political/Human Rights for All, Concord
36. Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, Palo Alto
37. Resource Center for Nonviolence, Santa Cruz
38. Sacred Music Events, Auburn
39. San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, San Francisco
40. San Jose Peace and Justice Center, San Jose
41. September 11 Action, Danville
42. Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Nonviolence, Berkeley
43. Some of All Parts, Oakland
44. Students for Justice in Palestine-University of California Santa Barbara, Goleta
45. Students for Justice in Palestine—University of Southern California, El Monte
46. The Added Edge, Inc., Vineburg
47. Timothy Crofton Real Estate, Fremont
48. Tri-City Peace and Justice, Fremont
49. Venturans for Justice in Palestine, Ventura
50. Vista Medical Group, Colton
51. Western Regional Advocacy Program, San Francisco
52. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—Berkeley/East Bay Branch, Oakland
53. Zionism Explained, Oakland

Colorado
1. Christian Peacemakers Teams of Colorado, Longmont
2. Colorado Jews for a Just Peace, Boulder
3. Colorado Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Denver
4. Friends of Sabeel—Colorado, Boulder
5. Longmont Citizens for Justice and Democracy, Longmont
6. Musical Missions of Peace, Longmont
7. Obamans for Change in the Americas, Glenwood Springs
8. Pax Christi Metro Denver, Wheat Ridge
9. Pax Christi of the Pikes Peak Region, Colorado Springs
10. Peace and Justice Task Force, Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church, Denver
11. Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Boulder
12. Strength through Peace, Fort Collins
13. Willow Way Wellness, Longmont

Connecticut
1. Bridgeport Islamic Community Center, Bridgeport
2. Greater New Haven Peace Council, New Haven
3. People of Faith CT, West Hartford
4. We Refuse to Be Enemies, New Britain

District of Columbia
1. Episcopal Peace Fellowship DC, Washington
2. House of Creative Writing, Washington
3. Malcolm X Day Committee, Washington
4. Sharing Jerusalem, USA, Washington

Florida
1. AGSPEC Enterprises Inc., Delray Beach
2. Brevard Patriots for Peace, Melbourne
3. Florida Palestine Solidarity Network, Bradenton
4. Florida Peace Action Network, Hudson
5. Hindus for Peace and Justice, West Melbourne
6. Humanists for Peace, West Palm Beach
7. Jiffi Print, Coconut Creek
8. Patriot Rebel, Santa Rosa Beach
9. Pax Christi Northeast Florida, St. Augustine
10. Society for a Just Peace in Palestine, Rollins College, Lake Mary
11. Stafford Farms, Ocala
12. Tallahassee Network for Justice and Peace, Tallahassee
13. We Are Wide Awake, Clermont
14. We Can Take It, St. Petersburg

Georgia
1. Athens for Justice in Palestine, Duluth
2. Foundation for Global Community, Atlanta
3. Free All with Truth, Decatur
4. Southern Energy Network, Athens

Hawaii
1. Center for Nonviolent Education and Action, Kurtistown
2. World Peace Society, Holualoa

Idaho
1. Alliance for Community Transformation, College of Idaho, Caldwell
2. Boise Brown Berets, Boise
3. Women in Black Boise, Boise

Illinois

1. A&H Engineering Services, Romeoville
2. Angel Power, Inc., Clarendon Hills
3. Arab Jewish Partnership for Peace and Justice in the Middle East, Oak Park
4. Club of Beitunia, Palestine of Greater Chicago, Orland Park
5. Friends of Irish Freedom, Chicago
6. Jewish Voice for Peace—Chicago Chapter, Chicago
7. Jill Brazel Photography, Evanston
8. MoraCo Imports, Chicago
9. Muslim Voters of America, Evanston
10. One Penny Consulting, Oak Park
11. Palestine Solidarity Group—Chicago, Chicago
12. Philologie, Evanston
13. Strategic Development Consulting, Chicago

Indiana
1. Christians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East, Indianapolis
2. Lafayette Area Peace Coalition, West Lafayette
3. Law Offices of Bryan K. Bullock, LLC, Merrillville

Iowa
1. Americans and Palestinians for Peace, Muscatine
2. Iowans for a Free Palestine, Cedar Falls
3. Methodist Federation for Social Action—Iowa Chapter, Des Moines
4. People for Justice in Palestine, Coralville
5. Sabeel Iowa, Muscatine
Kansas
1. Citizens for Justice in the Middle East, Fairway
2. Citizens for Peace and Justice in the Holy Land, Fairway
3. Fairmont United Church of Christ, Wichita
4. Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice, Lawrence
5. Kansans for a Just Peace in the Middle East, Lawrence

Kentucky
1. American Palestine Public Affairs Forum, Louisville
2. Frankfort Code Pink: Women for Peace, Frankfort
3. Louisville Committee for Peace in the Middle East, Louisville

Louisiana
1. Coalition against War and Injustice, Baton Rouge
2. New Orleans Palestine Solidarity, New Orleans
3. Patois: The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival, New Orleans
4. Pax Christi New Orleans, New Orleans

Maine
1. Radio Free Maine, Augusta
2. Peninsula Peace and Justice (Blue Hill Peninsula), Sedgwick

Maryland
1. Baltimore-Palestine Solidarity, Baltimore
2. Baltimore Tikkun, Baltimore
3. Carlisle Peace College, Sandy Spring
4. Free from Terror, Baltimore
5. Global Consciousness Press, Inc., College Park
6. Howard County Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Columbia
7. Lagrimas 4 Justice, Beltsville
8. Lanham United Methodist Church, Lanham
9. Peace Action Montgomery, Brookeville
10. Sojourner Truth Farm School, Poolesville
11. White House Protest Corps, Silver Spring

Massachusetts
1. Arlington/Lexington United for Justice with Peace, Lexington
2. Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Cambridge
3. Martha’s Vineyard Peace Council, Tisbury
4. Massachusetts Peace Action, Cambridge
5. Middle East Peace Coalition of Western Massachusetts, Northampton
6. Pax Christi Metrowest, Natick
7. Students for Justice in Palestine, Hampshire College, Amherst
8. Tawassul for Palestinian Arts and Culture, Cambridge
9. The Enviro Show, Florence
10. The Peace Abbey, Sherborne
11. The Peasants, Brighton
12. United for Justice with Peace, Cambridge

Michigan
1. American Jews for a Just Peace—Detroit Chapter, Detroit
2. Ann Arbor Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, Ann Arbor
3. Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Grace Episcopal Church, Traverse City
4. Jewish Voice for Peace—Detroit Chapter, Detroit
5. Justice and Peace Task Force, Edgewood United Church of Christ, East Lansing
6. Justice and Peace Task Force, Plymouth United Church of Christ, Grand Rapids
7. Kalamazoo Women in Black, Kalamazoo
8. Michigan Chapter, US Peace Council, Detroit
9. Michigan Peace Team, Lansing
10. Middle East Task Force, Ann Arbor
11. Mid East: Just Peace, Suttons Bay
12. Palestine Israel Action Group of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting, Ann Arbor
13. Pax Christi Michigan, Lansing
14. Responsible Community Network, Port Huron
15. We Want World Peace Organization, Alpena
16. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Branch, Ann Arbor

Minnesota
1. Burnsville Peace Vigil, Burnsville
2. Eagan Peace Vigil, Eagan
3. Import Peace, St. Paul
4. Northfielders for Justice in Israel/Palestine, Northfield
5. Oles for Justice in Palestine, St. Olaf College, Northfield
6. Women against Military Madness, Minneapolis Missouri
1. Boone Tikkun, Columbia
2. Citizens for Peace and Justice in the Holy Land, Raymore
3. Council on American-Islamic Relations—St. Louis Chapter, St. Louis
4. Peace Network of the Ozarks, Battlefield
5. The American Muslim, Bridgeton
6. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—St. Louis Branch, St. Louis

Nebraska
1. Pinch, Ltd., Omaha
2. Tucker Hill Farm, Norfolk

Nevada
1. Reno International Workers of the World Organizing Committee, Reno

New Hampshire

1. New Hampshire Veterans for Peace, Auburn
2. Policy Watch, Manchester Community Access Media, TV23, Manchester

New Jersey
1. Paterson Community Clinic, Paterson
2. Prizm Project: Global Human Rights Education for Women, Ewing
3. South Jersey Coalition for Peace and Justice, Southampton
New Mexico
1. Clay Kodesh Ceremonial Arts and Learning, Albuquerque
2. Code Pink Taos, Taos
3. Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance, Albuquerque
4. Women for a Better World, Santa Fe New York
1. Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, New York
2. Arab Muslim American Federation, Brooklyn
3. Book Source Magazine, Cazenovia
4. Brooklyn for Peace, Brooklyn
5. Center for Immigrant Families, New York
6. Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine, Wainscott
7. Hudson Valley Pax Christi, Highland
8. Lackowitz Engineering, Yorktown Heights
9. Middle East Committee, WESPAC Foundation, Pleasantville
10. Middle East Crisis Response, Woodstock
11. Palestine Action Union Square East (PAUSE), New York
12. Pax Christi Long Island, East Meadow
13. Pax Christi Metro New York, New York
14. Peace Boat, New York
15. Pro-Libertad Freedom Campaign, Bronx
16. Public Policy Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, Rochester
17. Resistance Cinema, Ozone Park
18. Sang-Froid, Ltd., New York
19. Western New York Peace Center, Buffalo
20. Women for Self-Learning, Ithaca
21. Women in Black—Union Square, New York
22. Women of a Certain Age, New York
23. Women’s Circles, Red Hook/Tivoli, Tivoli
North Carolina
1. Action Center for Justice, Charlotte
2. Green Resistance, Raleigh
3. Islamic Political Party of America, Charlotte
4. Jews for a Just Peace North Carolina, Durham
5. Piedmont Green Party, Pinnacel
6. P!: Post-Politics in Depth, Raleigh

Ohio
1. Cincinnati Palestinian Rights Meetup, Cincinnati
2. Congregation of St. Joseph Justice Committee, Cleveland
3. Interfaith Council for Peace in the Middle East, Lakewood
4. Oberlin College Students for a Free Palestine, Oberlin
5. Ohio Conference on Fair Trade, Columbus
6. People for Peace and Justice of Sandusky County, Ohio, Fremont
7. Tiffin Area Pax Christi, Upper Sandusky
8. Veterans for Peace, Chapter 923, Circleville
9. West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, Social Action Committee, Rocky River

Oregon
1. Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights, Portland
2. Collateral Repair Project, Medford
3. Corvallis-Albany Friends of Middle East Peace, Corvallis
4. Episcopal Peace Fellowship—Oregon Chapter, Portland
5. Eros Aromatics, Portland
6. Linn-Benton Chapter, Pacific Green Party, Corvallis
7. Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land—A Witness of Central Lutheran Church, Portland
8. Pacific Green Party of Oregon, Eugene
9. Pacifica Forum, Eugene
10. Portland Peaceful Response Coalition, Portland
11. Primal Digital, LLC, Portland
12. Re:Mediation, Portland
13. Vantage Point, Portland
14. Wallowa County Peace and Justice Network, Joseph
15. Writer on Call, Reedsport

Pennsylvania
1. Birthright Unplugged, Glenside
2. Bubbes and Zaydes (Grandparents) for Peace in the Middle East, Philadelphia
3. Ecumenical Working Group for Peace in the Middle East, Gladwyne
4. Fisher’s Tax Service, Philadelphia
5. Lorne Clarke Music, Meshoppen
6. Philadelphia Area Black Radical Congress, Philadelphia
7. Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace, Philadelphia
8. Philly Poetry, Philadelphia
9. Ramallah Online, Harrisburg
10. Students for Justice in Palestine-Penn State, University Park
11. Students for Justice in Palestine—University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh
12. Thomas Merton Center, Pittsburgh
13. Wharton Muslim Students Network, Philadelphia
14. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—Delaware County Branch, Brookhaven
15. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—Philadelphia Branch, Philadelphia
16. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—Pittsburgh Branch, Pittsburgh

Rhode Island
1. Justice First Foundation, West Kingston
2. Rhode Island South County Progressive Democrats of America, Charlestown

South Carolina
1. Afrikan American Institute of Policy Studies, Greenville
2. Carolina Peace Resource Center, Columbia
3. Harriet Tubman Freedom House Project, Columbia
4. Rock Hill for Action to Organize Resistance (RHFACTOR), Rock Hill

South Dakota
1. Pax Christi Southeastern South Dakota, Sioux Falls

Tennessee
1. Knoxville Area Women in Black, Knoxville

Texas
1. Analytical View, Houston
2. Both Sides Now, Tyler
3. Free Press Houston, Houston
4. Houston Peace News, Houston
5. Instruments for Peace, Austin
6. Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights, Austin
7. Jelani Designs & Associates, Austin
8. Justice for Palestinians, Houston
9. Law Office of Richard D. Warfield, Dallas
10. Palestinian American Federation, Allen
11. Peace Action Denton, Denton
12. Radio Raw Deen, Houston
13. University of Texas Palestine Solidarity Committee, Austin

Utah
1. Golden Rule Project, Salt Lake City
2. People for Peace and Justice of Utah, Taylorsville
3. Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land, Salt Lake City

Vermont
1. Editide, Marshfield
2. Educational Praxis, Putney
3. Kids4Peace—Vermont, Bridgport

Virginia
1. Ad Hoc Committee for Bethlehem, Vienna
2. Committee on Behalf of Palestinians Denied Entry, Chester
3. MY Estimator, Inc., Falls Church
4. Northern Virginians for Peace and Justice, Falls Church
5. The Wisdom Fund, Arlington
6. Write for Justice, Vienna

Washington
1. Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Tacoma
2. Code Pink, Vancouver
3. GeoSphere, LLC, Edmonds
4. International Trauma Treatment Program, Olympia
5. Media Island International, Olympia
6. Olympia Friends Meeting (Quaker), Olympia
7. Olympia-Rafah Mural Project, Olympia
8. Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project, Olympia
9. Palestine Solidarity Committee, Seattle
10. Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane, Spokane
11. Poets West, Seattle
12. Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, Olympia
13. Voices for Peace in the Middle East, Bellingham
14. Voices of Palestine, Seattle
15. Walters Landscape Architect, Renton

Wisconsin
1. Alees International, Franklin
2. Damascus Center for Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies, Appleton
3. Justice for Palestine, University of Wisconsin, Madison
4. Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, Madison
5. Peace Action Wisconsin, Milwaukee
6. Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice, Racine
7. Sura for Change, Milwaukee

Wyoming
1. Mountain Moving, LLC, Laramie

Abroad
1. American Expats in Jordan for Obama, Amman, Jordan
2. Americans against the War—France, Paris, France
3. Americans in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
4. Arab Center for Democracy and Peace Studies, Amman, Jordan
5. Australians for Palestine, Hawthorne, Australia
6. Danish Peace Watch, Copenhagen

Rice, Bush, and Gaza - a very long April 2008 overview by David Rosen

Fire Is Born — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:26:46 EST

The Middle East

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President George W. Bush, whose secret Palestinian intervention backfired in a big way. Photo illustration by Chris Mueller; left, by Debbie Hill/Sipa Press; right, by Issam Rimawi/ApaImages/Polaris; background by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters/Corbis.

The Gaza Bombshell

After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

by David Rose April 2008

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http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804?printable=true&currentPage=all

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by David Rose April 2008

The Al Deira Hotel, in Gaza City, is a haven of calm in a land beset by poverty, fear, and violence. In the middle of December 2007, I sit in the hotel’s airy restaurant, its windows open to the Mediterranean, and listen to a slight, bearded man named Mazen Asad abu Dan describe the suffering he endured 11 months before at the hands of his fellow Palestinians. Abu Dan, 28, is a member of Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist organization that has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, but I have a good reason for taking him at his word: I’ve seen the video.

To hear an interview with David Rose and to see documents he uncovered, click here.

It shows abu Dan kneeling, his hands bound behind his back, and screaming as his captors pummel him with a black iron rod. “I lost all the skin on my back from the beatings,” he says. “Instead of medicine, they poured perfume on my wounds. It felt as if they had taken a sword to my injuries.”

On January 26, 2007, abu Dan, a student at the Islamic University of Gaza, had gone to a local cemetery with his father and five others to erect a headstone for his grandmother. When they arrived, however, they found themselves surrounded by 30 armed men from Hamas’s rival, Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. “They took us to a house in north Gaza,” abu Dan says. “They covered our eyes and took us to a room on the sixth floor.”

The video reveals a bare room with white walls and a black-and-white tiled floor, where abu Dan’s father is forced to sit and listen to his son’s shrieks of pain. Afterward, abu Dan says, he and two of the others were driven to a market square. “They told us they were going to kill us. They made us sit on the ground.” He rolls up the legs of his trousers to display the circular scars that are evidence of what happened next: “They shot our knees and feet—five bullets each. I spent four months in a wheelchair.”

Abu Dan had no way of knowing it, but his tormentors had a secret ally: the administration of President George W. Bush.

A clue comes toward the end of the video, which was found in a Fatah security building by Hamas fighters last June. Still bound and blindfolded, the prisoners are made to echo a rhythmic chant yelled by one of their captors: “By blood, by soul, we sacrifice ourselves for Muhammad Dahlan! Long live Muhammad Dahlan!”

There is no one more hated among Hamas members than Muhammad Dahlan, long Fatah’s resident strongman in Gaza. Dahlan, who most recently served as Abbas’s national-security adviser, has spent more than a decade battling Hamas. Dahlan insists that abu Dan was tortured without his knowledge, but the video is proof that his followers’ methods can be brutal.

Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the White House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as “a good, solid leader.” In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S. president described him as “our guy.”

The United States has been involved in the affairs of the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel captured Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. With the 1993 Oslo accords, the territories acquired limited autonomy, under a president, who has executive powers, and an elected parliament. Israel retains a large military presence in the West Bank, but it withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

In recent months, President Bush has repeatedly stated that the last great ambition of his presidency is to broker a deal that would create a viable Palestinian state and bring peace to the Holy Land. “People say, ‘Do you think it’s possible, during your presidency?’ ” he told an audience in Jerusalem on January 9. “And the answer is: I’m very hopeful.”

The next day, in the West Bank capital of Ramallah, Bush acknowledged that there was a rather large obstacle standing in the way of this goal: Hamas’s complete control of Gaza, home to some 1.5 million Palestinians, where it seized power in a bloody coup d’état in June 2007. Almost every day, militants fire rockets from Gaza into neighboring Israeli towns, and President Abbas is powerless to stop them. His authority is limited to the West Bank.

It’s “a tough situation,” Bush admitted. “I don’t know whether you can solve it in a year or not.” What Bush neglected to mention was his own role in creating this mess.

According to Dahlan, it was Bush who had pushed legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, despite warnings that Fatah was not ready. After Hamas—whose 1988 charter committed it to the goal of driving Israel into the sea—won control of the parliament, Bush made another, deadlier miscalculation.

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.

Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.

Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says.

The botched plan has rendered the dream of Middle East peace more remote than ever, but what really galls neocons such as Wurmser is the hypocrisy it exposed. “There is a stunning disconnect between the president’s call for Middle East democracy and this policy,” he says. “It directly contradicts it.”

Preventive Security

Bush was not the first American president to form a relationship with Muhammad Dahlan. “Yes, I was close to Bill Clinton,” Dahlan says. “I met Clinton many times with [the late Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat.” In the wake of the 1993 Oslo accords, Clinton sponsored a series of diplomatic meetings aimed at reaching a permanent Middle East peace, and Dahlan became the Palestinians’ negotiator on security.

As I talk to Dahlan in a five-star Cairo hotel, it’s easy to see the qualities that might make him attractive to American presidents. His appearance is immaculate, his English is serviceable, and his manner is charming and forthright. Had he been born into privilege, these qualities might not mean much. But Dahlan was born—on September 29, 1961—in the teeming squalor of Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp, and his education came mostly from the street. In 1981 he helped found Fatah’s youth movement, and he later played a leading role in the first intifada—the five-year revolt that began in 1987 against the Israeli occupation. In all, Dahlan says, he spent five years in Israeli jails.

Muhammad Dahlan at his office in Ramallah, January 2008. Photograph by Karim Ben Khelifa.

From the time of its inception as the Palestinian branch of the international Muslim Brotherhood, in late 1987, Hamas had represented a threatening challenge to Arafat’s secular Fatah party. At Oslo, Fatah made a public commitment to the search for peace, but Hamas continued to practice armed resistance. At the same time, it built an impressive base of support through schooling and social programs.

The rising tensions between the two groups first turned violent in the early 1990s—with Muhammad Dahlan playing a central role. As director of the Palestinian Authority’s most feared paramilitary force, the Preventive Security Service, Dahlan arrested some 2,000 Hamas members in 1996 in the Gaza Strip after the group launched a wave of suicide bombings. “Arafat had decided to arrest Hamas military leaders, because they were working against his interests, against the peace process, against the Israeli withdrawal, against everything,” Dahlan says. “He asked the security services to do their job, and I have done that job.”

It was not, he admits, “popular work.” For many years Hamas has said that Dahlan’s forces routinely tortured detainees. One alleged method was to sodomize prisoners with soda bottles. Dahlan says these stories are exaggerated: “Definitely there were some mistakes here and there. But no one person died in Preventive Security. Prisoners got their rights. Bear in mind that I am an ex-detainee of the Israelis’. No one was personally humiliated, and I never killed anyone the way [Hamas is] killing people on a daily basis now.” Dahlan points out that Arafat maintained a labyrinth of security services—14 in all—and says the Preventive Security Service was blamed for abuses perpetrated by other units.

Dahlan worked closely with the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and he developed a warm relationship with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, a Clinton appointee who stayed on under Bush until July 2004. “He’s simply a great and fair man,” Dahlan says. “I’m still in touch with him from time to time.”

“Everyone Was Against the Elections”

In a speech in the White House Rose Garden on June 24, 2002, President Bush announced that American policy in the Middle East was turning in a fundamentally new direction.

Arafat was still in power at the time, and many in the U.S. and Israel blamed him for wrecking Clinton’s micro-managed peace efforts by launching the second intifada—a renewed revolt, begun in 2000, in which more than 1,000 Israelis and 4,500 Palestinians had died. Bush said he wanted to give Palestinians the chance to choose new leaders, ones who were not “compromised by terror.” In place of Arafat’s all-powerful presidency, Bush said, “the Palestinian parliament should have the full authority of a legislative body.”

Arafat died in November 2004, and Abbas, his replacement as Fatah leader, was elected president in January 2005. Elections for the Palestinian parliament, known officially as the Legislative Council, were originally set for July 2005, but later postponed by Abbas until January 2006.

Dahlan says he warned his friends in the Bush administration that Fatah still wasn’t ready for elections in January. Decades of self-preservationist rule by Arafat had turned the party into a symbol of corruption and inefficiency—a perception Hamas found it easy to exploit. Splits within Fatah weakened its position further: in many places, a single Hamas candidate ran against several from Fatah.

“Everyone was against the elections,” Dahlan says. Everyone except Bush. “Bush decided, ‘I need an election. I want elections in the Palestinian Authority.’ Everyone is following him in the American administration, and everyone is nagging Abbas, telling him, ‘The president wants elections.’ Fine. For what purpose?”

The elections went forward as scheduled. On January 25, Hamas won 56 percent of the seats in the Legislative Council.

Few inside the U.S. administration had predicted the result, and there was no contingency plan to deal with it. “I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming,” Condoleezza Rice told reporters. “I don’t know anyone who wasn’t caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing.”

“Everyone blamed everyone else,” says an official with the Department of Defense. “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?’ ”

In public, Rice tried to look on the bright side of the Hamas victory. “Unpredictability,” she said, is “the nature of big historic change.” Even as she spoke, however, the Bush administration was rapidly revising its attitude toward Palestinian democracy.

Some analysts argued that Hamas had a substantial moderate wing that could be strengthened if America coaxed it into the peace process. Notable Israelis—such as Ephraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad intelligence agency—shared this view. But if America paused to consider giving Hamas the benefit of the doubt, the moment was “milliseconds long,” says a senior State Department official. “The administration spoke with one voice: ‘We have to squeeze these guys.’ With Hamas’s election victory, the freedom agenda was dead.”

The first step, taken by the Middle East diplomatic “Quartet”—the U.S., the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations—was to demand that the new Hamas government renounce violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and accept the terms of all previous agreements. When Hamas refused, the Quartet shut off the faucet of aid to the Palestinian Authority, depriving it of the means to pay salaries and meet its annual budget of roughly $2 billion.

Israel clamped down on Palestinians’ freedom of movement, especially into and out of the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip. Israel also detained 64 Hamas officials, including Legislative Council members and ministers, and even launched a military campaign into Gaza after one of its soldiers was kidnapped. Through it all, Hamas and its new government, led by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, proved surprisingly resilient.

Washington reacted with dismay when Abbas began holding talks with Hamas in the hope of establishing a “unity government.” On October 4, 2006, Rice traveled to Ramallah to see Abbas. They met at the Muqata, the new presidential headquarters that rose from the ruins of Arafat’s compound, which Israel had destroyed in 2002.

America’s leverage in Palestinian affairs was much stronger than it had been in Arafat’s time. Abbas had never had a strong, independent base, and he desperately needed to restore the flow of foreign aid—and, with it, his power of patronage. He also knew that he could not stand up to Hamas without Washington’s help.

At their joint press conference, Rice smiled as she expressed her nation’s “great admiration” for Abbas’s leadership. Behind closed doors, however, Rice’s tone was sharper, say officials who witnessed their meeting. Isolating Hamas just wasn’t working, she reportedly told Abbas, and America expected him to dissolve the Haniyeh government as soon as possible and hold fresh elections.

Abbas, one official says, agreed to take action within two weeks. It happened to be Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast during daylight hours. With dusk approaching, Abbas asked Rice to join him for iftar—a snack to break the fast.

Afterward, according to the official, Rice underlined her position: “So we’re agreed? You’ll dissolve the government within two weeks?”

“Maybe not two weeks. Give me a month. Let’s wait until after the Eid,” he said, referring to the three-day celebration that marks the end of Ramadan. (Abbas’s spokesman said via e-mail: “According to our records, this is incorrect.”)

Rice got into her armored S.U.V., where, the official claims, she told an American colleague, “That damned iftar has cost us another two weeks of Hamas government.”

“We Will Be There to Support You”

Weeks passed with no sign that Abbas was ready to do America’s bidding. Finally, another official was sent to Ramallah. Jake Walles, the consul general in Jerusalem, is a career foreign-service officer with many years’ experience in the Middle East. His purpose was to deliver a barely varnished ultimatum to the Palestinian president.

We know what Walles said because a copy was left behind, apparently by accident, of the “talking points” memo prepared for him by the State Department. The document has been authenticated by U.S. and Palestinian officials.

“We need to understand your plans regarding a new [Palestinian Authority] government,” Walles’s script said. “You told Secretary Rice you would be prepared to move ahead within two to four weeks of your meeting. We believe that the time has come for you to move forward quickly and decisively.”

The “talking points” memo, left behind by a State Department envoy, urging Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to confront Hamas. Enlarge this. Page 2.

The memo left no doubt as to what kind of action the U.S. was seeking: “Hamas should be given a clear choice, with a clear deadline: … they either accept a new government that meets the Quartet principles, or they reject it The consequences of Hamas’ decision should also be clear: If Hamas does not agree within the prescribed time, you should make clear your intention to declare a state of emergency and form an emergency government explicitly committed to that platform.”

Walles and Abbas both knew what to expect from Hamas if these instructions were followed: rebellion and bloodshed. For that reason, the memo states, the U.S. was already working to strengthen Fatah’s security forces. “If you act along these lines, we will support you both materially and politically,” the script said. “We will be there to support you.”

Abbas was also encouraged to “strengthen [his] team” to include “credible figures of strong standing in the international community.” Among those the U.S. wanted brought in, says an official who knew of the policy, was Muhammad Dahlan.

On paper, the forces at Fatah’s disposal looked stronger than those of Hamas. There were some 70,000 men in the tangle of 14 Palestinian security services that Arafat had built up, at least half of those in Gaza. After the legislative elections, Hamas had expected to assume command of these forces, but Fatah maneuvered to keep them under its control. Hamas, which already had 6,000 or so irregulars in its militant al-Qassam Brigade, responded by forming the 6,000-troop Executive Force in Gaza, but that still left it with far fewer fighters than Fatah.

In reality, however, Hamas had several advantages. To begin with, Fatah’s security forces had never really recovered from Operation Defensive Shield, Israel’s massive 2002 re-invasion of the West Bank in response to the second intifada. “Most of the security apparatus had been destroyed,” says Youssef Issa, who led the Preventive Security Service under Abbas.

The irony of the blockade on foreign aid after Hamas’s legislative victory, meanwhile, was that it prevented only Fatah from paying its soldiers. “We are the ones who were not getting paid,” Issa says, “whereas they were not affected by the siege.” Ayman Daraghmeh, a Hamas Legislative Council member in the West Bank, agrees. He puts the amount of Iranian aid to Hamas in 2007 alone at $120 million. “This is only a fraction of what it should give,” he insists. In Gaza, another Hamas member tells me the number was closer to $200 million.

The result was becoming apparent: Fatah could not control Gaza’s streets—or even protect its own personnel.

At about 1:30 p.m. on September 15, 2006, Samira Tayeh sent a text message to her husband, Jad Tayeh, the director of foreign relations for the Palestinian intelligence service and a member of Fatah. “He didn’t reply,” she says. “I tried to call his mobile [phone], but it was switched off. So I called his deputy, Mahmoun, and he didn’t know where he was. That’s when I decided to go to the hospital.”

Samira, a slim, elegant 40-year-old dressed from head to toe in black, tells me the story in a Ramallah café in December 2007. Arriving at the Al Shifa hospital, “I went through the morgue door. Not for any reason—I just didn’t know the place. I saw there were all these intelligence guards there. There was one I knew. He saw me and he said, ‘Put her in the car.’ That’s when I knew something had happened to Jad.”

Tayeh had left his office in a car with four aides. Moments later, they found themselves being pursued by an S.U.V. full of armed, masked men. About 200 yards from the home of Prime Minister Haniyeh, the S.U.V. cornered the car. The masked men opened fire, killing Tayeh and all four of his colleagues.

Hamas said it had nothing to do with the murders, but Samira had reason to believe otherwise. At three a.m. on June 16, 2007, during the Gaza takeover, six Hamas gunmen forced their way into her home and fired bullets into every photo of Jad they could find. The next day, they returned and demanded the keys to the car in which he had died, claiming that it belonged to the Palestinian Authority.

Fearing for her life, she fled across the border and then into the West Bank, with only the clothes she was wearing and her passport, driver’s license, and credit card.

“Very Clever Warfare”

Fatah’s vulnerability was a source of grave concern to Dahlan. “I made a lot of activities to give Hamas the impression that we were still strong and we had the capacity to face them,” he says. “But I knew in my heart it wasn’t true.” He had no official security position at the time, but he belonged to parliament and retained the loyalty of Fatah members in Gaza. “I used my image, my power.” Dahlan says he told Abbas that “Gaza needs only a decision for Hamas to take over.” To prevent that from happening, Dahlan waged “very clever warfare” for many months.

According to several alleged victims, one of the tactics this “warfare” entailed was to kidnap and torture members of Hamas’s Executive Force. (Dahlan denies Fatah used such tactics, but admits “mistakes” were made.) Abdul Karim al-Jasser, a strapping man of 25, says he was the first such victim. “It was on October 16, still Ramadan,” he says. “I was on my way to my sister’s house for iftar. Four guys stopped me, two of them with guns. They forced me to accompany them to the home of Aman abu Jidyan,” a Fatah leader close to Dahlan. (Abu Jidyan would be killed in the June uprising.)

The first phase of torture was straightforward enough, al-Jasser says: he was stripped naked, bound, blindfolded, and beaten with wooden poles and plastic pipes. “They put a piece of cloth in my mouth to stop me screaming.” His interrogators forced him to answer contradictory accusations: one minute they said that he had collaborated with Israel, the next that he had fired Qassam rockets against it.

But the worst was yet to come. “They brought an iron bar,” al-Jasser says, his voice suddenly hesitant. We are speaking inside his home in Gaza, which is experiencing one of its frequent power outages. He points to the propane-gas lamp that lights the room. “They put the bar in the flame of a lamp like this. When it was red, they took the covering off my eyes. Then they pressed it against my skin. That was the last thing I remember.”

When he came to, he was still in the room where he had been tortured. A few hours later, the Fatah men handed him over to Hamas, and he was taken to the hospital. “I could see the shock in the eyes of the doctors who entered the room,” he says. He shows me photos of purple third-degree burns wrapped like towels around his thighs and much of his lower torso. “The doctors told me that if I had been thin, not chubby, I would have died. But I wasn’t alone. That same night that I was released, abu Jidyan’s men fired five bullets into the legs of one of my relatives. We were in the same ward in the hospital.”

Dahlan says he did not order al-Jasser’s torture: “The only order I gave was to defend ourselves. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t torture, some things that went wrong, but I did not know about this.”

The dirty war between Fatah and Hamas continued to gather momentum throughout the autumn, with both sides committing atrocities. By the end of 2006, dozens were dying each month. Some of the victims were noncombatants. In December, gunmen opened fire on the car of a Fatah intelligence official, killing his three young children and their driver.

There was still no sign that Abbas was ready to bring matters to a head by dissolving the Hamas government. Against this darkening background, the U.S. began direct security talks with Dahlan.

“He’s Our Guy”

In 2001, President Bush famously said that he had looked Russian president Vladimir Putin in the eye, gotten “a sense of his soul,” and found him to be “trustworthy.” According to three U.S. officials, Bush made a similar judgment about Dahlan when they first met, in 2003. All three officials recall hearing Bush say, “He’s our guy.”

They say this assessment was echoed by other key figures in the administration, including Rice and Assistant Secretary David Welch, the man in charge of Middle East policy at the State Department. “David Welch didn’t fundamentally care about Fatah,” one of his colleagues says. “He cared about results, and [he supported] whatever son of a bitch you had to support. Dahlan was the son of a bitch we happened to know best. He was a can-do kind of person. Dahlan was our guy.”

Avi Dichter, Israel’s internal-security minister and the former head of its Shin Bet security service, was taken aback when he heard senior American officials refer to Dahlan as “our guy.” “I thought to myself, The president of the United States is making a strange judgment here,” says Dichter.

Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, who had been appointed the U.S. security coordinator for the Palestinians in November 2005, was in no position to question the president’s judgment of Dahlan. His only prior experience with the Middle East was as director of the Iraq Survey Group, the body that looked for Saddam Hussein’s elusive weapons of mass destruction.

In November 2006, Dayton met Dahlan for the first of a long series of talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Both men were accompanied by aides. From the outset, says an official who took notes at the meeting, Dayton was pushing two overlapping agendas.

“We need to reform the Palestinian security apparatus,” Dayton said, according to the notes. “But we also need to build up your forces in order to take on Hamas.”

Dahlan replied that, in the long run, Hamas could be defeated only by political means. “But if I am going to confront them,” he added, “I need substantial resources. As things stand, we do not have the capability.”

The two men agreed that they would work toward a new Palestinian security plan. The idea was to simplify the confusing web of Palestinian security forces and have Dahlan assume responsibility for all of them in the newly created role of Palestinian national-security adviser. The Americans would help supply weapons and training.

As part of the reform program, according to the official who was present at the meetings, Dayton said he wanted to disband the Preventive Security Service, which was widely known to be engaged in kidnapping and torture. At a meeting in Dayton’s Jerusalem office in early December, Dahlan ridiculed the idea. “The only institution now protecting Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in Gaza is the one you want removed,” he said.

Dayton softened a little. “We want to help you,” he said. “What do you need?”

“Iran-Contra 2.0”

Under Bill Clinton, Dahlan says, commitments of security assistance “were always delivered, absolutely.” Under Bush, he was about to discover, things were different. At the end of 2006, Dayton promised an immediate package worth $86.4 million—money that, according to a U.S. document published by Reuters on January 5, 2007, would be used to “dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and establish law and order in the West Bank and Gaza.” U.S. officials even told reporters the money would be transferred “in the coming days.”

The cash never arrived. “Nothing was disbursed,” Dahlan says. “It was approved and it was in the news. But we received not a single penny.”

Any notion that the money could be transferred quickly and easily had died on Capitol Hill, where the payment was blocked by the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. Its members feared that military aid to the Palestinians might end up being turned against Israel.

Dahlan did not hesitate to voice his exasperation. “I spoke to Condoleezza Rice on several occasions,” he says. “I spoke to Dayton, to the consul general, to everyone in the administration I knew. They said, ‘You have a convincing argument.’ We were sitting in Abbas’s office in Ramallah, and I explained the whole thing to Condi. And she said, ‘Yes, we have to make an effort to do this. There’s no other way.’ ” At some of these meetings, Dahlan says, Assistant Secretary Welch and Deputy National-Security Adviser Abrams were also present.

The administration went back to Congress, and a reduced, $59 million package for nonlethal aid was approved in April 2007. But as Dahlan knew, the Bush team had already spent the past months exploring alternative, covert means of getting him the funds and weapons he wanted. The reluctance of Congress meant that “you had to look for different pots, different sources of money,” says a Pentagon official.

A State Department official adds, “Those in charge of implementing the policy were saying, ‘Do whatever it takes. We have to be in a position for Fatah to defeat Hamas militarily, and only Muhammad Dahlan has the guile and the muscle to do this.’ The expectation was that this was where it would end up—with a military showdown.” There were, this official says, two “parallel programs”—the overt one, which the administration took to Congress, “and a covert one, not only to buy arms but to pay the salaries of security personnel.”

Israel and the Palestinian territories. Map by Joyce Pendola.

In essence, the program was simple. According to State Department officials, beginning in the latter part of 2006, Rice initiated several rounds of phone calls and personal meetings with leaders of four Arab nations—Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. She asked them to bolster Fatah by providing military training and by pledging funds to buy its forces lethal weapons. The money was to be paid directly into accounts controlled by President Abbas.

The scheme bore some resemblance to the Iran-contra scandal, in which members of Ronald Reagan’s administration sold arms to Iran, an enemy of the U.S. The money was used to fund the contra rebels in Nicaragua, in violation of a congressional ban. Some of the money for the contras, like that for Fatah, was furnished by Arab allies as a result of U.S. lobbying.

But there are also important differences—starting with the fact that Congress never passed a measure expressly prohibiting the supply of aid to Fatah and Dahlan. “It was close to the margins,” says a former intelligence official with experience in covert programs. “But it probably wasn’t illegal.”

Legal or not, arms shipments soon began to take place. In late December 2006, four Egyptian trucks passed through an Israeli-controlled crossing into Gaza, where their contents were handed over to Fatah. These included 2,000 Egyptian-made automatic rifles, 20,000 ammunition clips, and two million bullets. News of the shipment leaked, and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, an Israeli Cabinet member, said on Israeli radio that the guns and ammunition would give Abbas “the ability to cope with those organizations which are trying to ruin everything”—namely, Hamas.

Avi Dichter points out that all weapons shipments had to be approved by Israel, which was understandably hesitant to allow state-of-the-art arms into Gaza. “One thing’s for sure, we weren’t talking about heavy weapons,” says a State Department official. “It was small arms, light machine guns, ammunition.”

Perhaps the Israelis held the Americans back. Perhaps Elliott Abrams himself held back, unwilling to run afoul of U.S. law for a second time. One of his associates says Abrams, who declined to comment for this article, felt conflicted over the policy—torn between the disdain he felt for Dahlan and his overriding loyalty to the administration. He wasn’t the only one: “There were severe fissures among neoconservatives over this,” says Cheney’s former adviser David Wurmser. “We were ripping each other to pieces.”

During a trip to the Middle East in January 2007, Rice found it difficult to get her partners to honor their pledges. “The Arabs felt the U.S. was not serious,” one official says. “They knew that if the Americans were serious they would put their own money where their mouth was. They didn’t have faith in America’s ability to raise a real force. There was no follow-through. Paying was different than pledging, and there was no plan.”

This official estimates that the program raised “a few payments of $30 million”—most of it, as other sources agree, from the United Arab Emirates. Dahlan himself says the total was only $20 million, and confirms that “the Arabs made many more pledges than they ever paid.” Whatever the exact amount, it was not enough.

Plan B

On February 1, 2007, Dahlan took his “very clever warfare” to a new level when Fatah forces under his control stormed the Islamic University of Gaza, a Hamas stronghold, and set several buildings on fire. Hamas retaliated the next day with a wave of attacks on police stations.

Unwilling to preside over a Palestinian civil war, Abbas blinked. For weeks, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had been trying to persuade him to meet with Hamas in Mecca and formally establish a national unity government. On February 6, Abbas went, taking Dahlan with him. Two days later, with Hamas no closer to recognizing Israel, a deal was struck.

Under its terms, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas would remain prime minister while allowing Fatah members to occupy several important posts. When the news hit the streets that the Saudis had promised to pay the Palestinian Authority’s salary bills, Fatah and Hamas members in Gaza celebrated together by firing their Kalashnikovs into the air.

Once again, the Bush administration had been taken by surprise. According to a State Department official, “Condi was apoplectic.” A remarkable documentary record, revealed here for the first time, shows that the U.S. responded by redoubling the pressure on its Palestinian allies.

The State Department quickly drew up an alternative to the new unity government. Known as “Plan B,” its objective, according to a State Department memo that has been authenticated by an official who knew of it at the time, was to “enable [Abbas] and his supporters to reach a defined endgame by the end of 2007 The endgame should produce a [Palestinian Authority] government through democratic means that accepts Quartet principles.”

Like the Walles ultimatum of late 2006, Plan B called for Abbas to “collapse the government” if Hamas refused to alter its attitude toward Israel. From there, Abbas could call early elections or impose an emergency government. It is unclear whether, as president, Abbas had the constitutional authority to dissolve an elected government led by a rival party, but the Americans swept that concern aside.

Security considerations were paramount, and Plan B had explicit prescriptions for dealing with them. For as long as the unity government remained in office, it was essential for Abbas to maintain “independent control of key security forces.” He must “avoid Hamas integration with these services, while eliminating the Executive Force or mitigating the challenges posed by its continued existence.”

In a clear reference to the covert aid expected from the Arabs, the memo made this recommendation for the next six to nine months: “Dahlan oversees effort in coordination with General Dayton and Arab [nations] to train and equip 15,000-man force under President Abbas’s control to establish internal law and order, stop terrorism and deter extralegal forces.”

The Bush administration’s goals for Plan B were elaborated in a document titled “An Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency.” This action plan went through several drafts and was developed by the U.S., the Palestinians, and the government of Jordan. Sources agree, however, that it originated in the State Department.

The early drafts stressed the need for bolstering Fatah’s forces in order to “deter” Hamas. The “desired outcome” was to give Abbas “the capability to take the required strategic political decisions … such as dismissing the cabinet, establishing an emergency cabinet.”

The drafts called for increasing the “level and capacity” of 15,000 of Fatah’s existing security personnel while adding 4,700 troops in seven new “highly trained battalions on strong policing.” The plan also promised to arrange “specialized training abroad,” in Jordan and Egypt, and pledged to “provide the security personnel with the necessary equipment and arms to carry out their missions.”

A detailed budget put the total cost for salaries, training, and “the needed security equipment, lethal and non-lethal,” at $1.27 billion over five years. The plan states: “The costs and overall budget were developed jointly with General Dayton’s team and the Palestinian technical team for reform”—a unit established by Dahlan and led by his friend and policy aide Bassil Jaber. Jaber confirms that the document is an accurate summary of the work he and his colleagues did with Dayton. “The plan was to create a security establishment that could protect and strengthen a peaceful Palestinian state living side by side with Israel,” he says.

The final draft of the Action Plan was drawn up in Ramallah by officials of the Palestinian Authority. This version was identical to the earlier drafts in all meaningful ways but one: it presented the plan as if it had been the Palestinians’ idea. It also said the security proposals had been “approved by President Mahmoud Abbas after being discussed and agreed [to] by General Dayton’s team.”

On April 30, 2007, a portion of one early draft was leaked to a Jordanian newspaper, Al-Majd. The secret was out. From Hamas’s perspective, the Action Plan could amount to only one thing: a blueprint for a U.S.-backed Fatah coup.

“We Are Late in the Ball Game Here”

The formation of the unity government had brought a measure of calm to the Palestinian territories, but violence erupted anew after Al-Majd published its story on the Action Plan. The timing was unkind to Fatah, which, to add to its usual disadvantages, was without its security chief. Ten days earlier, Dahlan had left Gaza for Berlin, where he’d had surgery on both knees. He was due to spend the next eight weeks convalescing.

In mid-May, with Dahlan still absent, a new element was added to Gaza’s toxic mix when 500 Fatah National Security Forces recruits arrived, fresh from training in Egypt and equipped with new weapons and vehicles. “They had been on a crash course for 45 days,” Dahlan says. “The idea was that we needed them to go in dressed well, equipped well, and that might create the impression of new authority.” Their presence was immediately noticed, not only by Hamas but by staff from Western aid agencies. “They had new rifles with telescopic sights, and they were wearing black flak jackets,” says a frequent visitor from Northern Europe. “They were quite a contrast to the usual scruffy lot.”

On May 23, none other than Lieutenant General Dayton discussed the new unit in testimony before the House Middle East subcommittee. Hamas had attacked the troops as they crossed into Gaza from Egypt, Dayton said, but “these 500 young people, fresh out of basic training, were organized. They knew how to work in a coordinated fashion. Training does pay off. And the Hamas attack in the area was, likewise, repulsed.”

The troops’ arrival, Dayton said, was one of several “hopeful signs” in Gaza. Another was Dahlan’s appointment as national-security adviser. Meanwhile, he said, Hamas’s Executive Force was becoming “extremely unpopular I would say that we are kind of late in the ball game here, and we are behind, there’s two out, but we have our best clutch hitter at the plate, and the pitcher is beginning to tire on the opposing team.”

The opposing team was stronger than Dayton realized. By the end of May 2007, Hamas was mounting regular attacks of unprecedented boldness and savagery.

At an apartment in Ramallah that Abbas has set aside for wounded refugees from Gaza, I meet a former Fatah communications officer named Tariq Rafiyeh. He lies paralyzed from a bullet he took to the spine during the June coup, but his suffering began two weeks earlier. On May 31, he was on his way home with a colleague when they were stopped at a roadblock, robbed of their money and cell phones, and taken to a mosque. There, despite the building’s holy status, Hamas Executive Force members were violently interrogating Fatah detainees. “Late that night one of them said we were going to be released,” Rafiyeh recalls. “He told the guards, ‘Be hospitable, keep them warm.’ I thought that meant kill us. Instead, before letting us go they beat us badly.”

On June 7, there was another damaging leak, when the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Abbas and Dayton had asked Israel to authorize the biggest Egyptian arms shipment yet—to include dozens of armored cars, hundreds of armor-piercing rockets, thousands of hand grenades, and millions of rounds of ammunition. A few days later, just before the next batch of Fatah recruits was due to leave for training in Egypt, the coup began in earnest.

Fatah’s Last Stand

The Hamas leadership in Gaza is adamant that the coup would not have happened if Fatah had not provoked it. Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas’s chief spokesman, says the leak in Al-Majd convinced the party that “there was a plan, approved by America, to destroy the political choice.” The arrival of the first Egyptian-trained fighters, he adds, was the “reason for the timing.” About 250 Hamas members had been killed in the first six months of 2007, Barhoum tells me. “Finally we decided to put an end to it. If we had let them stay loose in Gaza, there would have been more violence.”

“Everyone here recognizes that Dahlan was trying with American help to undermine the results of the elections,” says Mahmoud Zahar, the former foreign minister for the Haniyeh government, who now leads Hamas’s militant wing in Gaza. “He was the one planning a coup.”

Zahar and I speak inside his home in Gaza, which was rebuilt after a 2003 Israeli air strike destroyed it, killing one of his sons. He tells me that Hamas launched its operations in June with a limited objective: “The decision was only to get rid of the Preventive Security Service. They were the ones out on every crossroads, putting anyone suspected of Hamas involvement at risk of being tortured or killed.” But when Fatah fighters inside a surrounded Preventive Security office in Jabaliya began retreating from building to building, they set off a “domino effect” that emboldened Hamas to seek broader gains.

Many armed units that were nominally loyal to Fatah did not fight at all. Some stayed neutral because they feared that, with Dahlan absent, his forces were bound to lose. “I wanted to stop the cycle of killing,” says Ibrahim abu al-Nazar, a veteran party chief. “What did Dahlan expect? Did he think the U.S. Navy was going to come to Fatah’s rescue? They promised him everything, but what did they do? But he also deceived them. He told them he was the strongman of the region. Even the Americans may now feel sad and frustrated. Their friend lost the battle.”

Others who stayed out of the fight were extremists. “Fatah is a large movement, with many schools inside it,” says Khalid Jaberi, a commander with Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which continue to fire rockets into Israel from Gaza. “Dahlan’s school is funded by the Americans and believes in negotiations with Israel as a strategic choice. Dahlan tried to control everything in Fatah, but there are cadres who could do a much better job. Dahlan treated us dictatorially. There was no overall Fatah decision to confront Hamas, and that’s why our guns in al-Aqsa are the cleanest. They are not corrupted by the blood of our people.”

Jaberi pauses. He spent the night before our interview awake and in hiding, fearful of Israeli air strikes. “You know,” he says, “since the takeover, we’ve been trying to enter the brains of Bush and Rice, to figure out their mentality. We can only conclude that having Hamas in control serves their overall strategy, because their policy was so crazy otherwise.”

The fighting was over in less than five days. It began with attacks on Fatah security buildings, in and around Gaza City and in the southern town of Rafah. Fatah attempted to shell Prime Minister Haniyeh’s house, but by dusk on June 13 its forces were being routed.

Years of oppression by Dahlan and his forces were avenged as Hamas chased down stray Fatah fighters and subjected them to summary execution. At least one victim was reportedly thrown from the roof of a high-rise building. By June 16, Hamas had captured every Fatah building, as well as Abbas’s official Gaza residence. Much of Dahlan’s house, which doubled as his office, was reduced to rubble.

Fatah’s last stand, predictably enough, was made by the Preventive Security Service. The unit sustained heavy casualties, but a rump of about 100 surviving fighters eventually made it to the beach and escaped in the night by fishing boat.

At the apartment in Ramallah, the wounded struggle on. Unlike Fatah, Hamas fired exploding bullets, which are banned under the Geneva Conventions. Some of the men in the apartment were shot with these rounds 20 or 30 times, producing unimaginable injuries that required amputation. Several have lost both legs.

The coup has had other costs. Amjad Shawer, a local economist, tells me that Gaza had 400 functioning factories and workshops at the start of 2007. By December, the intensified Israeli blockade had caused 90 percent of them to close. Seventy percent of Gaza’s population is now living on less than $2 a day.

Israel, meanwhile, is no safer. The emergency pro-peace government called for in the secret Action Plan is now in office—but only in the West Bank. In Gaza, the exact thing both Israel and the U.S. Congress warned against came to pass when Hamas captured most of Fatah’s arms and ammunition—including the new Egyptian guns supplied under the covert U.S.-Arab aid program.

Now that it controls Gaza, Hamas has given free rein to militants intent on firing rockets into neighboring Israeli towns. “We are still developing our rockets; soon we shall hit the heart of Ashkelon at will,” says Jaberi, the al-Aqsa commander, referring to the Israeli city of 110,000 people 12 miles from Gaza’s border. “I assure you, the time is near when we will mount a big operation inside Israel, in Haifa or Tel Aviv.”

On January 23, Hamas blew up parts of the wall dividing Gaza from Egypt, and tens of thousands of Palestinians crossed the border. Militants had already been smuggling weapons through a network of underground tunnels, but the breach of the wall made their job much easier—and may have brought Jaberi’s threat closer to reality.

George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice continue to push the peace process, but Avi Dichter says Israel will never conclude a deal on Palestinian statehood until the Palestinians reform their entire law-enforcement system—what he calls “the chain of security.” With Hamas in control of Gaza, there appears to be no chance of that happening. “Just look at the situation,” says Dahlan. “They say there will be a final-status agreement in eight months? No way.”

“An Institutional Failure”

How could the U.S. have played Gaza so wrong? Neocon critics of the administration—who until last year were inside it—blame an old State Department vice: the rush to anoint a strongman instead of solving problems directly. This ploy has failed in places as diverse as Vietnam, the Philippines, Central America, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, during its war against Iran. To rely on proxies such as Muhammad Dahlan, says former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, is “an institutional failure, a failure of strategy.” Its author, he says, was Rice, “who, like others in the dying days of this administration, is looking for legacy. Having failed to heed the warning not to hold the elections, they tried to avoid the result through Dayton.”

With few good options left, the administration now appears to be rethinking its blanket refusal to engage with Hamas. Staffers at the National Security Council and the Pentagon recently put out discreet feelers to academic experts, asking them for papers describing Hamas and its principal protagonists. “They say they won’t talk to Hamas,” says one such expert, “but in the end they’re going to have to. It’s inevitable.”

It is impossible to say for sure whether the outcome in Gaza would have been any better—for the Palestinian people, for the Israelis, and for America’s allies in Fatah—if the Bush administration had pursued a different policy. One thing, however, seems certain: it could not be any worse.

David Rose is a Vanity Fair contributing editor.

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The Proof Is in the Paper Trail While reporting “The Gaza Bombshell,” David Rose acquired an extraordinary trove of documents showing how the U.S. pressured its Palestinian allies to take on Hamas—a strategy that proved disastrous when Hamas staged what appears to have been a pre-emptive coup in Gaza last June. Here are some of the key records he discovered. WEB EXCLUSIVE March 5, 2008 Web special: Michael Hogan interviews David Rose. var FO_hiddenPlayer = { movie:"/images/flash/media/HiddenPlayer.swf", width:"1", height:"1", majorversion:"7", build:"0", flashvars:"lcId="+MediaPlayer.getUid() }; UFO.create(FO_hiddenPlayer, "hiddenPlayer");

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1 These “talking points” were left behind in Ramallah by a State Department envoy. Palestinian and American officials say they formed the basis for State Department official Jake Walles’s discussions with Palestinian president and Fatah party leader Mahmoud Abbas in late October or early November 2006. According to the memo, Walles urged Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led government if Hamas refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, promising that the U.S. and its Arab allies would strengthen Fatah’s military forces to deal with the likely backlash from Hamas.

2 “Plan B” refers to a State Department strategy that was devised after Abbas made a deal in January 2007 to form a unity government with Fatah and Hamas—much to America’s dismay. This early, two-page draft, which has been authenticated by senior State Department officials who knew of its content at the time and by Palestinians who saw it in Abbas’s office, outlines possible scenarios for Abbas to expel Hamas from power and to boost his security forces to deal with the inevitable violent fallout.

3 Plan B evolved into this “action plan for the Palestinian Presidency”—a blueprint for a full-blown coup against Abbas’s own unity government. This was one of several drafts presented by a joint American-Jordanian team. Officials who were knowledgeable at the time say it originated with the State Department. Its security appendix reveals details of the secret talks between Palestinian strongman Muhammad Dahlan and Lieutenant General Keith Dayton.

4 The final draft of the action plan adopted large sections of the previous documents wholesale, but presented the plan as if it had been conceived from the beginning by Abbas and his staff. This draft has also been authenticated by officials knowledgeable at the time. Note especially the third section, on security.

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Read this open letter to President Elect Barack Obama and sign it. Check the organizations that sponsor the letter.

Fire Is Born — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:22:04 EST

Thank you!FireIs Born

Gaza - do something!

Fire Is Born — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:06:23 EST

Chambliss "happy to become the warm-up act at his own final rallies"

Fire Is Born — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:56:19 EST

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/01/palin.chambliss/

The Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential nominee was back on the campaign trail Monday, teaming up with Sen. Saxby Chambliss at four campaign events in Georgia, the last full day of campaigning before Tuesday's Senate runoff election in the state.

Chambliss, a freshman Republican senator from Georgia, is facing Jim Martin, a former Georgia state lawmaker.

Chambliss won a plurality of the vote three weeks ago on Election Day, but Georgia state law requires a majority -- 50 percent plus one vote.

Because of the inclusion of a third-party candidate, Chambliss fell just shy of that threshold, forcing the runoff.(...)"

Let's call Georgia, this week, before their Dec 2 run off Senate election! See the link on your page.

Fire Is Born — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:10:10 EST

SARAH PALIN PROMISSED TO BE THERE ON DEC 1.

LET'S BEAT HER TO IT!

"Former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin will make four campaign stops in Georgia just one day before the state’s voters head to the polls in a runoff election that could determine whether Democrats win unfettered control of Congress.

The campaign of GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss announced Tuesday morning that Alaska Gov. Palin and Chambliss will hit the campaign trail together on Dec. 1.(...)".

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/IrishMusiciansforObama/gGxXxQ/commentary#comments

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

DEMOCRATS NEED THIS SENATE SEAT!

NOMEN OMEN!

Fire Is Born — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:34:11 EST

“(...) The stranger arrived as the dry season began to harden the jungle paths, allowing armies to pass. Flanked by his warriors, he marched into the Maya city of Waka, past temples and markets and across broad plazas. Its citizens must have gaped, impressed not just by the show of force but also by the men's extravagant feathered headdresses, javelins, and mirrored shields—the regalia of a distant imperial city.

Ancient inscriptions give the date as January 8, 378, and the stranger's name as Fire Is Born. He arrived in Waka, in present-day Guatemala, as an envoy from a great power in the highlands of Mexico. In the coming decades, his name would appear on monuments all across the territory of the Maya, the jungle civilization of Mesoamerica. And in his wake, the Maya reached an apogee that lasted five centuries.

The Maya have always been an enigma. Decades ago the glories of their ruined cities and their beautiful but undeciphered script had many researchers imagining a gentle society of priests and scribes. As epigraphers finally learned to read the Maya glyphs, a darker picture emerged, of warring dynasties, court rivalries, and palaces put to the torch. Maya history became a tapestry of precise dates and vividly named personages.

But deep mysteries remained, among them what spurred the Maya's final leap toward greatness. Around the time Fire Is Born's fame was spreading, a wave of change swept the Maya world. What had been a collection of inward-looking city-states expanded their ties with their neighbors and other cultures and reached the heights of artistic achievement that define the Classic Maya period.(...)"

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

• An Obama push for Hillary as Majority Leader?

Fire Is Born — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:36:09 EST

The Hillary-Obama Drama: An Offer He'll Never Make, and She Would Never Accept?

by Scrivener

| November 21, 2008 at 07:48 am | 154 views | 1 comment | 0 recommendations

• Prediction: she will stay in the Senate as a Dem top dog

• An Obama push for Hillary as Majority Leader?

GET POLITICAL w/ VIC LIVINGSTON
The economy's going deeper into the tank. Thousands of Americans face the possibility of losing their jobs just as the holiday season begins. President-elect Obama becomes the target of hate speech and worse in incidents across the Old South.

And what's the headline story in Washington? Why, it's Hillary, of course, as the pundits once again ponder that old familiar question: "Will she or won't she?"

Read more here:
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/hillary-obama-drama-offer-hell-never-make-and-she-would-never-accept
QUICK LINK IN COMMENTS

O

Fire Is Born — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:59:35 EST

November 20, 2008, 9:30 pm The “O” in Obama

By Steven Heller

(Clockwise from left:

Aaron Daye/The Gainesville Sun; Monica Almeida/The New York Times;

Monica Almeida/The New York Times;

Zach Boyden-Holmes/The New York Times)

"At the end of 2006, Mode, a motion design studio in Chicago, approached Sol Sender, a graphic designer, to create a logo for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The resulting “O” became one of the most recognizable political logos in recent history. I spoke with Mr. Sender a few days after the election to discuss the evolution of his design.

Steven Heller: How did you get the job of designing the Obama logo?

Sol Sender: We got the job through Mode. Steve Juras, a classmate of mine from graduate school is the creative director there. They have a long-standing relationship with AKP&D Message and Media, a campaign consulting firm led by David Axelrod and David Plouffe among others.

Q: Have you done other political logos in the past?

A: No, we had not.

Q: I have to ask, since many agencies that do political campaigns are simply “doing a job,” did you have strong feelings one way or the other for the Obama candidacy?(...)"

PLEASE MAKE IT VIRAL! MESSAGE FROM JOHN PODESTA

Fire Is Born — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:11:18 EST

Dear Hanna,

62 days. That's how much time we have left to prepare for the Obama-Biden Administration that will bring the change Americans demanded so strongly in this past election.

President-elect Obama has set a high bar for the Transition team: to execute the most efficient, organized, and transparent transfer of power in American history. As a co-Chair for the Transition, I want to tell you about a few steps we've already taken to achieve this goal.

First, we adopted the strictest ethics guidelines ever applied to any transition team. President-elect Obama pledged to change the way Washington works, and that begins with shifting influence away from special interests and restoring it to the everyday Americans who are passionate about fixing the problems facing our country.

Opening up the Transition means listening to your ideas and stories and providing a window into how the process works.

To give you a look at how we're approaching some of the nation's most pressing issues, we filmed this meeting of our Energy and Environment Policy Transition Team and interviewed team member Heather Zichal.

Watch the video and submit your ideas on energy and the environment:

President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden have set an ambitious agenda, and we are going to make Change.gov a source of information, as well as a place to participate in the decisions being made about your government.

Since the decisions we're making affect all Americans, we're counting on citizens from every walk of life to get involved. You can help us right now by making sure your friends and neighbors know about Change.gov and give their input, too.

We're continuing to develop new ways to open up the process, and we'll keep you posted along the way.

Thanks,

John

John Podesta
Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team

Russians and Georgians are talking, but "as individuals without identifying the side they represent."

Fire Is Born — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:06:00 EST

Georgia, Russia Conclude Talks

By VOA News
19 November 2008

Russian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigori Karassine and members of delegation arrive for second round of talks at UN offices in Geneva, 19 Nov 2008Russia and Georgia have wrapped up a round of talks aimed at easing tensions after a five-day war in August over Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The United Nations and European Union sponsored Wednesday's eight-party talks in Geneva. Officials from South Ossetia and from the breakaway region of Abkhazia attended the meeting, along with a representative from the United States.

Officials did not say much about today's discussion. But Russia's deputy foreign minister confirmed that the parties are set to hold another round in Geneva next month.

Georgia has said it wants an international peacekeeping presence in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are now patrolled by Russian forces.

Russian forces swept into Georgia August 7, following Georgia's military effort to regain control of South Ossetia. Moscow subsequently recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Wednesday's meetings were held in two working groups, rather than in a formal plenary session. Delegates are meeting as individuals without identifying the side they represent.

Abkhazia's Deputy Foreign Minister Maxim Gvinjia was pessimistic ahead of the meeting. He said he expects results "many, many years" from now.

Georgian and Russian delegates walked out of inaugural talks in Geneva last month. Georgia objected to Russian demands that officials from South Ossetia and the other separatist region, Abkhazia, be seated at the talks.

Meanwhile, exchanges of gunfire are reported outside a Georgian village near the boundary of South Ossetia.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

Mark Begich, the Democratic mayor of Anchorage, has declared victory.

Fire Is Born — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:09:04 EST

November 19, 2008 Democrats Gain as Stevens Loses His Senate Race By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, convicted last month on federal ethics charges, lost his bid for a seventh term as final ballots were counted on Tuesday, giving Democrats at least 58 seats in the Senate for the first years of the Obama administration.

With an estimated 2,500 votes still outstanding and other election certification steps still to take place, Mark Begich, the Democratic mayor of Anchorage, had taken a lead of 3,724 votes out of more than 315,000 cast, and he declared victory.

“I am humbled and honored to serve Alaska in the United States Senate,” Mr. Begich said. “It’s been an incredible journey getting to this point, and I appreciate the support and commitment of the thousands of Alaskans who have brought us to this day. I can’t wait to get to work fighting for Alaskan families.”

Mr. Stevens did not immediately concede the race. He could request a recount, but he would have to pay for it if the current vote margins hold.

Mr. Begich’s victory will end the career of Mr. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator ever and a pivotal figure in the history of his state after it initially appeared that he would triumph despite his criminal conviction just days before the election.

The defeat came on Mr. Stevens’s 85th birthday, at the end of a day in which he avoided expulsion from the ranks of Senate Republicans as his colleagues awaited the final results.

“I wouldn’t wish what I am going through on anyone, my worst enemy,” Mr. Stevens said Tuesday morning in the Capitol. Mr. Stevens’s defeat will strengthen a majority that Democrats sought to bolster Tuesday by allowing Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, to retain his high-profile committee chairmanship.

Instead, Democrats dropped Mr. Lieberman from another panel, delivering a mild rebuke for his strong support of Senator John McCain and other Republicans in this month’s elections.

The decision was part of the postelection Congressional tableaux as senators of both parties re-elected their current leadership teams for the first two years of President-elect Barack Obama’s administration. House Democrats met to make Representative Nancy Pelosi of California their candidate for speaker and essentially kept their leadership intact as well, with Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland remaining majority leader.

Aware of the legislative battles ahead, Senate Democrats said they wanted to adhere to Mr. Obama’s call for reconciliation and leniency for Mr. Lieberman.

But a pragmatic dynamic was at work as well. Having added seven new senators to their side, Democrats want to avoid driving Mr. Lieberman into the Republican fold. Even though they remain short of the 60 needed to cut off filibusters, the Democrats are aiming to keep their majority as large as possible next year when, for the first time since 1994, they have control of Congress and the White House. Two other Senate seats, in Minnesota and Georgia, have yet to be decided.

“We have got some big issues here, and we need all hands on deck,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, who had pushed to keep the retribution against his home-state colleague to a minimum.

Democrats voted 42 to 13 to let Mr. Lieberman stay at the helm of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs while removing him from the Environment and Public Works Committee, where he led a subcommittee. The formal resolution before the Democrats, considered in what was described as an emotional meeting in the Old Senate Chamber of the Capitol, also declared that the Democratic caucus “rejects and disapproves of Senator Lieberman’s statements against Senator Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign.”

Lawmakers who attended the session said that Mr. Lieberman openly discussed the political and personal hurt he had experienced when many of his colleagues campaigned against him after he lost a Democratic Senate primary in 2006 before winning re-election as an independent. After the vote, he expressed some remorse for his campaign comments but noted that the resolution did not chastise him directly for backing Mr. McCain, who returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to resume life as a senator.

Mr. Lieberman, who only eight years ago was the party’s nominee for vice president, said he could have made some statements “more clearly.” He added: “And there are some that I made that I wish I had not made at all. And obviously in the heat of campaigns, that happens to all of us. But I regret that. And now it’s time to move on.”

Some Democrats remained angry that Mr. Lieberman had been so outspoken not only in his support of Mr. McCain, but also in his campaigning for Republicans like Senator Norm Coleman, who continued to hold a narrow lead in his re-election bid in Minnesota. They said that stripping the chairmanship was only fitting.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who aligns with Democrats, said allowing Mr. Lieberman to run the committee was a “slap in the face” to Americans who “worked day and night to get Barack Obama elected and to move our country in a very new direction.”

“Having said that, there is an enormous amount of work that is facing the Senate and we all have to move on and work together to address these issues,” Mr. Sanders said.

The reluctance to move forcefully against their colleagues illustrates again how cautious senators are when it comes to punishing their own. After being thwarted repeatedly by Republican resistance in the past two years, Senate Democrats were unwilling to lose the support of Mr. Lieberman on most domestic policy issues, particularly after Mr. Obama had urged that Mr. Lieberman be allowed to remain in the Democratic fold.

The resolution noted that Mr. Lieberman’s vote gave Democrats the majority in 2007 and that he voted almost 100 percent of the time with the party on important procedural issues.

“I would defy anyone to be more angry than I was,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who will remain majority leader, about Mr. Lieberman’s criticism of Mr. Obama. “But I also believe that if you look at the problems we face as a nation, is this a time we walk out of here saying, ‘Boy, did we get even’? I am very satisfied with what we did today.”

The decision touched off attacks on the Democrats by liberal and progressive groups and on the Internet, where critics accused Democrats of weakness in their posture against Mr. Lieberman, whom they have branded a traitor to Democrats.

But senators pointed to statements by the Obama campaign in support of Mr. Lieberman as justification for their decision. “The Senate Democratic Caucus has decided that if President-elect Barack Obama can forgive, so can we,” said Senator Thomas R. Carper, Democrat of Delaware.

Despite a second round of Republican losses, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was returned as Republican leader.

Senate Republicans also easily disposed of a call by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina to impose term limits on the Republican leader and members of the Appropriations Committee, overwhelmingly rejecting the proposals.

In the House, Democrats gathered for the leadership elections and bid farewell to Representative Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat who is relinquishing his No. 4 post in the party hierarchy to become chief of staff to Mr. Obama.

Those in the closed meeting said Mr. Emanuel became emotional and told his colleagues it was “not an easy decision for me” to give up his House seat.

“I want you to know, I’ve got your back,” Mr. Emanuel said, according to one account. “I’ll feel better knowing that you’ve got my back.”

William Yardley contributed reporting from Seattle.

Early voting for the runoff between Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Democrat Jim Martin began in most counties in Georgia on Monday.

Fire Is Born — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:52:38 EST

Kris Alingod - AHN Contributor

Atlanta, GA (AHN) - Early voting for the runoff between Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Democrat Jim Martin began in most counties in Georgia on Monday.

Turnout has been steady with long lines in some counties, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Richmond county began early voting last Friday, while Bleckley and Wilkinson counties began on Tuesday.

Advance voting, distinguished from early voting by casting one's ballot a week before the election, is scheduled throughout the state from Nov. 24-26.

While voting includes races such as the one for the Georgia State Appeals Court, interest is by far focused on the contest between the Chambliss and Martin.(...)"

"(...)A win for Martin will bring Democrats closer to the 60-vote filibuster-proof majority they are hoping to get in the Senate. Democrats were able to gain six seats this election cycle for a 57-seat majority, including the two independents who caucus with them, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT). The gains were made in Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia.

Results of two other races are still unknown: in Alaska where counting is still underway, and in Minnesota, where a manual, statewide manual recount is set to begin on Wednesday."

Call Georgia tomorrow - see link on your page

Fire Is Born — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:24:05 EST

(...) The race [in Alaska] is one of three in the Senate -- including Georgia and Minnesota -- still undecided two weeks after the election. If the Democrats win all three, they would secure the 60 votes required under Senate rules to overcome filibusters, a parliamentary procedure that can kill legislation.(...)

Begich Extends Lead Over Stevens in Alaska Election (Update1)

Fire Is Born — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:11:25 EST

Begich Extends Lead Over Stevens in Alaska Election (Update1)

By Tony Hopfinger and Christopher Stern

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic challenger Mark Begich extended his lead over Alaska Senator Ted Stevens with about 10,000 ballots still to be counted, according to the state's elections division.

Begich now leads by 2,374 votes as the remaining ballots are tallied from the Nov. 4 election, according to division Director Gail Fenumiai. Officials said they may complete counting about 7,700 absentee ballots today with another 2,500 ballots from military families overseas yet to arrive.

The race is one of three in the Senate -- including Georgia and Minnesota -- still undecided two weeks after the election. If the Democrats win all three, they would secure the 60 votes required under Senate rules to overcome filibusters, a parliamentary procedure that can kill legislation.

Stevens was convicted in federal court last month of failing to report $250,000 in gifts from an Alaska oil-services company. He is the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate.

Senate Republicans in Washington today delayed a proposed vote to strip Stevens of his committee assignments and expel him from the party caucus as they await the election outcome.

Stevens, 85, told reporters today, ``I still have faith I'm going to win.''

If Stevens wins, Republicans may meet again in two days to consider stripping him of his committee posts. Expulsion from the Senate would only occur after an Ethics Committee recommendation and a full vote of the Senate.

To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Stern in Washington at cstern3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 18, 2008 18:06 EST

Moderators, it is time for CHANGE!

Fire Is Born — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:02:54 EST

Moderators!

Are you for CHANGE?

Please remove this blogger now!

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/robhill

He is impostering for an Obama suporter. - the real Obama Guy, our Friend.

enough is enough!

We the people are asking.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Where to go from here?

akmk — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:02:30 EST

The question of the moment is where do we go from here? As Alaskans? As a nation? As my.barackobam.com participants?

For my part, I have updated my profile, dropped some groups, maintained some groups, and altered E-mail settings on some groups. Would like to continue to build alliances among Alaskans and others for a more healthy, just, peaceful, and sustainable planet, peoples, and all our relations.

We've built some invaluable alliances here and it will be interesting to see if this site remains active and influential in the future for building upon the movement of change and mutual support begun here.

What does everyone think about the best ways to move ahead from here? In Alaska and elsewhere?

The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a new campaign calling on President-elect Barack Obama to close the Guantánamo Bay prison and end the military commissions on Day One of his presidency"

Fire Is Born — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:56:35 EST

SUPPORT ACLU WITH YOU DONATION!

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

ACLU Calls On Obama To Close Guantánamo On Day One Of Presidency (11/10/2008)

Group Launches Campaign Urging New Administration To Restore Fundamental Rights And Reclaim America's Moral Leadership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union launched a new campaign today calling on President-elect Barack Obama to close the Guantánamo Bay prison and end the military commissions on Day One of his presidency.

Obama, as a candidate, pledged to "close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions." In a full page ad in the New York Times today, the ACLU urges Obama, as president, to fulfill those promises and immediately restore America's moral leadership in the world.

"There is no room for patience or delay in these areas. We have to hold President-elect Obama's feet to the fire if we're going to turn hope into reality," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "We hope that President-elect Obama, as soon as he is sworn in, will take bold action and sign an executive order closing Guantánamo and ending the sham military commissions there. It is time to restore American values of justice, due process and human rights."

In addition to ordering the closure of Guantánamo, the ACLU calls on President-elect Obama to sign Day One executive orders banning the use of torture and abuse and ending the practice of extraordinary rendition.

"We welcome the end to a Bush administration that is leaving behind a disastrous legacy of civil liberties violations, abuse of power and executive overreaching, yet there is no room for complacency," said Romero. "We are hopeful that President Obama will honor the U.S. Constitution and passionately promote all the rights for which it stands."

In addition to the ad in the New York Times, the ACLU launched a new Web site where it will premiere a series of short videos about Guantánamo produced in partnership with Brave New Foundation, a leading producer of online videos about today's most pressing issues. The videos will feature interviews with attorneys, former prison guards and released prisoners, some of whom will be speaking publicly for the first time.

"We've all seen the reports in the news about the tragedy that is Guantánamo Bay," said Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Foundation. "But Americans haven't yet heard it directly from those who were there. The ACLU is pioneering the use of new media in their work and we are so proud to be a part of it. They're planning to release these videos in full public view on the Internet, representing a major step forward in terms of transparency on this issue in particular and on government policy in general. The ACLU and Brave New Foundation are taking a first, big step out of the secrecy of the Bush era."

On November 13, the ACLU will hold a nationwide telephone town hall with supporters and activists from across the country to discuss the state of civil liberties transitioning from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. The call will be moderated by Romero and Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. A question and answer period will follow the discussion.

More information about the town hall is available online at: www.aclu.org/townhall

The new ACLU Web site goes live with the first video today at: www.closegitmo.com

Romero has posted a statement about the ACLU's campaign at: blog.aclu.org/2008/11/10/obama-close-gitmo-on-day-one-you-can-do-it-weve-got-your-back/

Obama and the Rogue Regime By RALPH NADER

Fire Is Born — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:50:09 EST

A Phenomenon of Systemic Criminality Obama and the Rogue Regime

By RALPH NADER

Barack Obama is receiving lots of advice from many people these days about the collapse of Wall Street, the sinking economy and the quagmire wars he will inherit from the Bush regime. However, there is one important matter that he alone can address with his legal training and the sworn oath he will take on January 20 to uphold the Constitution. That phenomenon is the systemic, chronic lawlessness and criminality of the Bush/Cheney regime which he must unravel and stop.

To handle this immense responsibility as President, he needs to bring together a volunteer task force of very knowledgeable persons plus wise, retired civil servants to inventory the outlaw workings of this rogue regime.

Much is already known and documented officially and by academic studies and media reporting. In the category of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, are (1) the criminal war—occupation of Iraq, (2) systemic torture as a White House policy, (3) arrests of thousands of Americans without charges or habeas corpus rights, (4) spying on large numbers of Americans without judicial warrants and (5) hundreds of signing statements by George W. Bush declaring that, he of the unitary presidency, will decide whether to obey the enacted bills or not.

To its everlasting credit, the conservative American Bar Association sent to President Bush three reports in 2005-2006 concluding that he has been engaged in continuing serious violations of the Constitution. This is no one-time Watergate obstruction of justice episode ala Nixon that led to his resignation just before his impeachment in the House of Representatives.(...)"

read the entire article here: (quick link in comments)

http://www.counterpunch.org/nader11132008.html

A Credit Crisis or a Collapsing Ponzi Scheme? The Two Trillion Dollar Black Hole By PAM MARTENS

Fire Is Born — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:40:04 EST

"A Credit Crisis or a Collapsing Ponzi Scheme? The Two Trillion Dollar Black Hole

By PAM MARTENS

Purge your mind for a moment about everything you've heard and read in the last decade about investing on Wall Street and think about the following business model:

You take your hard earned retirement savings to a Wall Street firm and they tell you that as long as you "stay invested for the long haul" you can expect double digit annual returns. You never really know what your money is invested in because it’s pooled with other investors and comes with incomprehensible but legal looking prospectuses. The heads of these Wall Street firms have been taking massive payouts for themselves, ranging from $160 million to $1 billion per CEO over a number of years. As long as new money keeps flooding in from newfangled accounts called 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, 529 plans for education savings, and hedge funds (each carrying ever greater restrictions for withdrawing your money and ever greater opacity) everything appears fine on the surface. And then, suddenly, you learn that many of these Wall Street firms don't have any assets that anybody wants to buy. Because these firms are both managing your money as well as having their own shares constitute a large percentage of your pooled investments, your funds begin to plummet as confidence drains from the scheme.

Now consider how Wikipedia describes a Ponzi scheme: (...)

read the entire story here (see also a quick link in comments)

http://www.counterpunch.org/

The Big Mystery Election in Alaska. By STEVE CONN

Fire Is Born — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:23:53 EST

"(...) Think of Alaska as a third world country where two hundred plus villages harbor the world’s last hunting and gathering cultures. Most urban Alaskans never visit the bush and know nothing of the rich cultures of Inuit, Yupik, Athabascan, Tsimshian or Tlingit or Haida, peoples who equal in population a percentage equal to Indians in New Mexico and actually outnumbered non-natives until World War Two. Rural Alaska started off in 1959 when Alaska became a state with enough elected representation to form an Ice Bloc (really) in the legislature. But the Supreme Court’s Baker v. Carr (one person, one vote) in 1964, and ever-increasing populations in the urban areas, wiped out that advantage. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1972 expunged pre-Alaska tribal hunting and fishing rights and the Alaska Native Corporations transformed their interests in the lands they once ruled into those of shareholders with damage to tribal sovereign governments, supposedly replaced with efficient state services delivered to these citizens of Alaska from afar. Alaska, the state, never kept its promises to these original inhabitants, now fellow citizens.

Gone now are the signs which explicitly barred Native Alaskans from restaurants, movie theaters and cafés. But the indifference to Alaska natives surfaces regularly. How else to explain that Alaska state troopers who police most of the bush could not be penetrated by the governor to extract a bad cop? Neither of the Troopergate reports motivated political leaders or the liberal media to deal with the larger question of why Alaska native villages are policed by an agency over which they have no control.

Racism is deeply institutionalized and taken for granted. The only institutions with numbers in representational excess to the Alaska Native population in the state, are the prisons. A generation of young Alaska native males is lost to their hunting cultures, to Alaska native women and to the ballot box.(...)"

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE:

http://www.counterpunch.org/conn11122008.html

US missiles in transition

Fire Is Born — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:13:27 EST

Obama denies Poland missile vow

"US President-elect Barack Obama has not given a commitment to go ahead with plans to build part of a US missile defence system in Poland, an aide says.

He was speaking after Polish President Lech Kaczynski's office said a pledge had been made during a phone conversation between the two men.

But Mr Obama's foreign policy adviser, Denis McDonough, denied this.

Russia opposes the US scheme and has announced plans to deploy missiles on Poland's border as a counter-measure.

On Friday, EU leaders said the decision would not contribute to creating a climate of confidence or to the improvement of security.

'No commitment'

In a statement published on his website on Saturday, Poland's president said Mr Obama had "emphasised the importance of the strategic partnership of Poland and the United States and expressed hope in the continuation of political and military co-operation between our countries."

His position is as it was throughout the campaign, that he supports deploying a missile defence system when the technology is proved to be workable
Denis McDonough
Foreign policy adviser to Mr Obama

"He also said that the missile defence project would continue," the statement added.

When asked about the declaration, McDonough said that the US president-elect had had "a good conversation" with Mr Kaczynski about the American-Polish alliance and discussed missile defence, but "made no commitment on it".

"His position is as it was throughout the campaign, that he supports deploying a missile defence system when the technology is proved to be workable," Mr McDonough told the Associated Press.

In the past, Mr Obama has said he wants to review the plans for a missile defence system in central Europe to ensure it would be effective and not target Russia.

But the BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw says the Russian government believes the plan to locate 10 interceptor missiles in northern Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic will do exactly that.

In his first state of the nation address on Wednesday, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said Moscow would neutralise the system by deploying short-range missiles in its western enclave of Kaliningrad on Poland's border.

The US military insists the shield is incapable of destroying Russian rockets and is designed solely to guard against missile attack by so-called "rogue states", such as Iran."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7717669.stm

Published: 2008/11/08 18:09:06 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Obama's Sister: An Email on Her Brother and Grandmother

Jill 4 Obama — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:12:42 EST

Obama's Sister: An Email on Her Brother and Grandmother By Dan Nakaso / Honolulu Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008 Senator Obama sheds tears while talking about his grandmother Madelyn Dunham. Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty

Barack Obama's sister has not emerged in public since the death of their grandmother two days before her brother's historic presidential election but in a post-election email to close friends Maya Soetoro-Ng said "I wept tears of joy for all of us on Tuesday. He may not be a perfect man. Certainly, he has often said that he'll likely be an imperfect president, but he is a good man, a smart man, a disciplined soul who balances temperance with determination and courage. We've made a great choice, I assure you."

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My Chance Encounter with Obama in Hawaii

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Their maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, died on the Sunday before the Tuesday Nov. 4 presidential election in the two-bedroom, 10-story apartment where Dunham raised Obama. The email was shared with this reporter (and with his newspaper, the daily Honolulu Advertiser).

In the final run-up to Election Day, Obama had abruptly changed his campaign schedule to fly back home and visit Dunham, who was dying of cancer at the age of 86. After her death was announced, on Election Day eve, he spoke movingly of her at a final campaign appearance, tears streaming down his face. Services for Dunham have not been announced and the Honolulu mortuary handling the arrangements, Borthwick Mortuary, has not returned phone calls. Obama's campaign, however, says he will return home to Honolulu sometime in December, prior to his Jan. 20 inauguration 5,100 miles away in the nation's capitol.

During a family vacation in August, then Sen. Obama brought his family to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, which overlooks the apartment where he grew up. Obama and his children left two leis at niche No. 440, where the ashes of his grandfather Stanley Dunham are in an urn behind a bronze plaque. Stanley Dunham was an Army sergeant in World War II and died of prostate cancer in 1992. Officials at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific have since been contacted by Borthwick Mortuary about holding a service for Madelyn Dunham, says Gene Castagnetti, the cemetery's director. Stanley Dunham's niche is large enough to hold another urn. If the family decides on that arrangement, Sgt. Dunham's bronze plaque covering the niche would be removed and replaced with another that would include his wife's name, birthday and date of death.

As it turned out, Dunham's koa wood urn arrived on Election Day, Soetoro-Ng wrote in her email. Soetoro-Ng surrounded the urn with pictures of Dunham's late daughter, Stanley Ann Dunham (the mother of Soetoro-Ng and the President-elect), Dunham's grandchildren and her great grandchildren, "all of us who benefited so much from her steady voice and hand," she wrote.

Soetoro-Ng could have accepted her brother's invitation to be by his side on Election Night in Chicago. But, as she had for much of the past eight years, she chose to stay in the apartment on Beretania Street where Dunham raised Obama as a boy and where Soetoro-Ng had later cared for her. In the post-election email, Soetoro-Ng writes of the sometimes-conflicting emotions surrounding both her grandmother's death and her brother's success — and of the need to then unplug for a while with her husband, Konrad, and their 4-year-old daughter, Suhaila, on Oahu's rural North Shore. She writes that she had been flooded with email messages "of both congratulation and condolence.... There's a wide swatch of emotion cutting through me, sometimes swirling, never simple... a briny mixture of elation, sadness, determination, regret, pride, hope, fatigue. You can imagine..."

Dunham, whom Obama called "Toot" after the Hawaiian word for grandparent, tutu, never showed self-pity or fear as she faced the end of her life, Soetoro-Ng writes. But Dunham could be wickedly funny. "When she saw the number of flowers that had been sent to her," Soetoro-Ng writes, 'she said, 'Oh my...with all of this hullabaloo, it's going to be embarrassing if I DON'T die.' I gave her a chuckle and of course told her that I wouldn't at all mind such an embarrassment, and then I invited her to stay and dance with me into the new year. She couldn't stay, but she certainly tried, and defied expectations again and again."

Click here for pictures of Obama's campaign.

Inviting Participation in Change

akmk — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:55:33 EST

Barack Obama, our President-elect is inviting your participation in change with your ideas through his new website:

http://change.gov

Sweet Celebration and Moving Forward

akmk — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:49:25 EST

Sweet celebration to all. Goal #1 (check). Onward.

Hope we can continue to network here to brainstorm, gather information, share information, set new goals, and implement new policies--for the good of all.

America We Did it!!!!

Citizen20854 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:06:40 EST

On November 4, 2008, the American people proved to themselves, our country and the world, that, Yes they can take back control of our great country. It took the energy and commitment of Americans across this great land, and many in far reaches of this planet coming together as one voice for one shared purpose, electing an American President who we can believe in and trust to steward this nation and our people. But, the challenge now is to keep this spirit of commitment, the job for all of us began last night, when President-Elect Barack Obama said, "The Victory belongs to us and the challenges we face are the greatest in our life time....the road ahead is long and the climb will be steep, but we as a people we will get there....each of us must pitch in.....We rise and fall as one nation...this is our moment....this is our time....and out of the many, we are one". And, as my friend Kate reminded me this morning, "One nation, under G-d, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

My message to all of you who believed along with me, when I sought early support for Obama, NOW WE HAVE TO KEEP THIS GREAT COUNTRY!!!! Each American needs to participate and give back. To get us back on track, Obama cannot do it alone. He couldn't win an election alone, he can't make the change we need alone.

A terrible plane crash in the middle of Mexico City last night, was a reminder of the violence that shakes our close neighbor and ally, Mexico. The life of a dedicated government officials were taken in a flash, with likely culprits, the devastating drug traffickers who have spread violence across the country. A war continues in Iraq and Afghanistan. We continue to lose sons and daughters. Jobs are being lost as we speak. The halls of our hospitals and emergency rooms are filled with people fighting for their lives, many uninsured, over worked healthcare workers, physicians doing the best they can. The schools of this great land have a lot of catching up to do. We need to give like we gave to win this election. We the people need to be put back on the agenda.

Yes we did, last night and now we can today.

Thank you very much for believing, hoping and contributing, now let's begin to make this country work again by the people. for the people and of the people.

This is the first day of a new beginning. Time to get to work.

McCain Calls for Unity

swimmer — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:30:48 EST

It is too bad that the Republican supporters of John McCain had to try and ruin his ending speech by yelling and booing the name of our next President, Barack Obama.

May G-d protect our new first family.

Our hearts are with you! Obama Family Album

Fire Is Born — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:14:30 EST

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

http://obamascrapbook.com/8.htm

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Count your vote Make it count

Duane Kuehn — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:00:44 EST

Hi All,

     Election Day is upon us, then we can go back to regular commercials on television.
     Congratulations, it appears that everyone's hard work will surely "pay-off".

    Unfortunately, one major problem remains unaddressed and appears to be worse this year, more widespread, than the 2004 election. Vote Fraud. Not, mind you, voter fraud, but computer dysfunction, hacking, and even built in "flip" voting.

     Do we remember the 2004 election? All the networks declared John Kerry the winner, except Fox News. As the very important Florida votes came in, Fox News declared George Bush the winner. The other networks checked their own figures and "gosh darn" George Bush was the winner. How did that happen, all the other networks somehow had the wrong figures, or more exactly, suddenly those figures "flipped".

     Later, December 2004, a man named Clint Curtis testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee on vote fraud.

      http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/465.html

     Mr. Curtis testified that he worked for Yang Enterprises Incorporated (which proudly proclaims on its site, "To provide high quality engineering and computer services for both the government and private industries"). Clint Curtis testified under oath that he was approached to create and did create a program that would “flip” a percentage of the votes to the other candidate. I hope you will click the link and watch the full video (from a movie insert but apparently the true testimony)

     The House Judiciary Committee did find vote "flipping" in the Presidential election of 2004. One "hint" of this happening is the flicker on the screen. The program which Curtis mentions, however, does not "flip" as the individual votes, a person flips a specific percentage of the votes after the voting is finished. Did the 2004 Florida vote “flip” at the last minute? We the People should be very worried.

     Already, some machines are showing flickers, many called “over or under sensitive screen problems etc. This is not some programmer or screen-maker error. This could easily be resolved in programming, why was it not done. We like to believe in honesty, especially in the election process, however, it is just no longer feasible to believe this.

     Like it or not, we need to take back our country, "change from the ground-upward" as we have been told. Our politicians will do nothing to address this problem but "We the People" will, in order to KEEP this more perfect Union more perfect!

     Election Day, Tuesday November 4, 2008, I plan to go to my appointed voting place, vote and stay there, all day if I must.

     I will take with me a large cardboard box having a hole cut in the top. I will take thousands of slips of scratch paper and a gang of pencils. Staying at least 25 feet from the building entrance, I will ask voters to please write "M" or "McCain or "O" or "Obama" on a slip and put it, unseen, into the box.

     Explaining that this is an anonymous gathering of the votes to check with the computer totals at this precinct to make sure there is no large difference between the ballots cast inside and the intended receiver of that individual vote. The ballot is the private business of the individual voter but the total of votes cast and for whom is important to keep the system honest.

     I will wear no campaign materials, this is not for campaigning, supporters are to take the day off, says Obama. You deserve that.

     This situation, however, demands our time. We are doing this for the honesty of this election and the protection of future elections in this country. If the other candidate wins in our individual districts, one need not be happy but we know that we are able to accept what comes.

     We are much stronger than to tamper with the paper trail we are creating in our individual districts. Tampering, with our own totals, will only do us harm and is out of the question. This is for the future voting rights of all Americans.

     I am inviting anyone to volunteer for this with me. Regardless of political affiliation, color, creed, etc. This is for the nation at large, not for our individual egos. Wherever you live, gather and do your individual precincts.

     I hope you will join me in this. Some may scoff at me but I do not care, this very Democracy deserves my time. Be it alone all day, I wholly plan to do this.
     I hope that you will do the same at your precincts. We have come too far to trust this election to others. Nobody will watch out for us, We must take action. If the results are true, then great. If the results are incorrect and we have done nothing, we get what we get, like it or not.

     For input or more information please contact me at   de-wah@usa.com
Loveya,
Duane Kuehn

MEET A FORMER US MARINE AND NAVY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN

Fire Is Born — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:45:43 EST

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/profile.html

One Nation Shifting Blue and This is Why

akmk — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:49:03 EST

If McCain and the Repubs picked SP for VP, (with the blessings of Bush and Cheney) who are they going to pick for: Department Heads, Supreme Court Justices, other judicial appointments, other government positions???

It’s not just SP becoming President that is terrifying, it’s the entire weight of reckless, irresponsible political appointments and catering to the CEO’s and lobbyists and bankers and insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and Big Oil.

It’s about corporate welfare and loss of privacy and about people for clean air being added to terror alert lists. And if you’re not for the Patriot Act and loss of your rights as citizens then you’re not a real American.

It’s about wanting to criminalize women and their doctors for making decisions that are best made by women and their doctors.

It’s about regressing back to the darkest of dark ages with intolerance being the rule of law.

Obama/Biden in '08 promises change:

**smarter energy policy and investment in jobs and workers
**national unity
**diplomacy skills and a more peaceful and safe world
**your health and the health of the planet
**a steady hand at the helm

Sarah talks with fake Sarkozy: doesn't she know that Sarkozy told Obama during his visit in Paris this Summer that he would much prefer Obama to win in November?

Fire Is Born — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:33:27 EDT

About This Blog | Meet Mary Ann Akers | RSS Feed (What's RSS?) Sarah Palin Pranked by Sarkozy Impersonator

Two well-known Canadian pranksters tricked Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin into thinking she was on the phone today with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The conversation, captured on a Montreal radio program, was, in a word, embarrassing. (Politico's Ben Smith was among the first to pick up on reports from The Canadian Press.)

The fake Sarkozy buttered Palin up by telling her he hoped she would president some day. "Haha, maybe in eight years," Palin replied. Then the conversation turned to helicopter hunting, with a mention of Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous bad shot.

"One of my favorite activities is to hunt, too," the fake Sarkozy said. "Oh, very good, we should go hunting together," Palin replied, adding, "I think we could have a lot of fun together as we're getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone that way."

"I just love killing those animals! Taking away life, that is so fun," the Sarkozy impersonator said.

Palin laughed.

"As long as we don't bring Vice President Cheney," the jokester said. "I'll be a very careful shot, don't worry," Palin said, laughing.

You can hear the entire prank call here.

At one point, the phony Sarkozy asks Palin if Joe the Plumber is her husband. "That's not my husband," Palin says, "he just works hard and doesn't want the government to take his money."

As a story on the Canadian news channel CTV.ca explains, the pranksters are two Quebec comedians who crank call famous politicians and celebrities for a living.

"Oh my God, seriously, it's probably the biggest we've ever done," Marc-Antoine Audette, a member of comedy duo The Masked Avengers, told CTV.ca.

The Sleuth pities the poor staffer who put Gov. Palin on the phone with the pranksters.

A full transcript of the crank call, provided by CTV, is available after the jump.

HANDLER: This is Betsy.

RADIO HOST: Hello, Betsy.

HANDLER: Hi

RADIO HOST: Hi, this is (French name), I am with president Sarkozy, on the line for Gov. Palin

HANDLER: Yes, one second please. Can you hold on one second, please?

RADIO HOST: Yeah, no problem.

HANDLER: Alright, thanks.

HANDLER 2: Hi, I'm gonna hand the phone over to her.

RADIO HOST: OK, thank you very much, I'm gonna put the president on the line

GOV. SARAH PALIN: This is Sarah.

RADIO HOST: Uh yeah, Gov. Palin?

GOV. PALIN: Hello.

RADIO HOST: Just hold on for President Sarkozy, one moment.

GOV. PALIN: Oh, it's not him yet. I always do that.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, hello, Gov. Palin.

GOV. PALIN: I'll just have people hand it to me right when it's him.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, hello, Mrs. Governor?

GOV. PALIN: Hello, this is Sarah. How are you?

FAKE SARKOZY: Fine, and you? This is Nikolas Sarkozy speaking. How are you?

GOV. PALIN: Oh, so good, it's so good to hear you. Thank you for calling us.

FAKE SARKOZY: Oh, it's a pleasure.

GOV. PALIN: Thank you sir. We have such great respect for you, John McCain and I. We love you, and thank you for taking a few minutes to talk to me.

FAKE SARKOZY: I followed your campaigns very closely with my special American advisor, Jean, the other day.

GOV. PALIN: Yes, good.

FAKE SARKOZY: Excellent, are you confident?

GOV. PALIN: Very confident, and we're thankful that polls are showing that the race is tightening.

FAKE SARKOZY: Well, I know very well that the campaign can be exhausting. How do you feel right now, my dear?

GOV. PALIN: I feel so good, I feel like we're in a marathon and at the very end of the marathon you get your second wind and you plow through the finish.

FAKE SARKOZY: You see, I got elected in France because I'm real, and you seem to be someone who's real as well.

GOV. PALIN: Yes, Nikolas we so appreciate this opportunity.

FAKE SARKOZY: You know, I see you as a president one day too.

GOV. PALIN: Haha, maybe in eight years.

FAKE SARKOZY: Well, I hope for you, you know we have a lot on common because personally, one of my favorite activities is to hunt, too.

GOV. PALIN: Oh, very good, we should go hunting together.

FAKE SARKOZY: Exactly, we could go try hunting by helicopter like you did. I never did that. Like we say in France, (says long French-sounding phrase).

GOV. PALIN: Well, I think we could have a lot of fun together as we're getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone that way.

FAKE SARKOZY: I just love killing those animals, mm mm, taking away life, that is so fun. I would really love to go as long as we don't bring vice president Cheney, haha.

GOV. PALIN: No, I'll be a careful shot, yes.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, you know we have a lot in common because from my house I can see Belgium. That's kind of less interesting than you.

GOV. PALIN: Well, see, we're right next door to other countries that we all need to be working with, yes.

FAKE SARKOZY: Some people said in the last days, and I thought that was mean, that you weren't experienced enough in foreign relations and you know, that's completely false. That's what I said to my great friend, Prime Minister of Canada, (says French-sounding name).

GOV. PALIN: Well, you know, he's doing fine too, when you come into a position underestimated, it gives you an opportunity to prove the pundits and the critics wrong. You work that much harder.

FAKE SARKOZY: I was wondering, because you are so next to him, one of my good friends the PM of Quebec, Mr. Richard Serroi. Have you met him recently? Has he come to one of your rallies?

GOV. PALIN: I haven't seen him at one of the rallies, but it's been great working with the Canadian officials in my role as governor. We have a great cooperative effort there, as we work on all of our resource development projects. You know, I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally and your beautiful wife, oh my goodness; you've added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours.

FAKE SARKOZY: Thank you very much, you know my wife Carla would love to meet you. You know, even though she was a bit jealous that I was supposed to speak to you today.

GOV. PALIN: Well give her a big hug for me.

FAKE SARKOZY: You know my wife if is a singer and a former hot top model. And she's so hot in bed, she even wrote a song for you.

GOV. PALIN: Oh my goodness, I didn't know that.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, in French it's called Rouge Alleve Serre Caution, or if you prefer in English "Joe the Plumber it is Life, Joe the Plumber".

GOV. PALIN: Maybe she understands the some of the unfair criticism, but I bet you she's such a hard worker too and she realizes you just plough through that criticism.

FAKE SARKOZY: I just want to be sure, I don't quite understand the phenomenon Joe the Plumber, that's not your husband, right?

GOV. PALIN: That's not my husband, but he's a normal American who just works hard and doesn't want government to take his money.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, yes, I understand. We have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France, it's called "Marselle the Guy with Bread Under his Armpit". Oui.

GOV. PALIN: Right, that's what it's all about, the middle class and government needing to work for them. You're a very good example for us here.

FAKE SARKOZY: I seen a bit, but NBC, even Fox News wasn't an ally, an ally, sorry about as much as usual.

GOV. PALIN: Yes, that's what we're up against.

FAKE SARKOZY: I must say, Gov. Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life - you know, Hustler's "Nailin' Palin".

GOV. PALIN: Oh good, thank you.

FAKE SARKOZY: That was really edgy.

GOV. PALIN: Well good.

FAKE SARKOZY: I really loved you. And I must say something else so governor, you've been pranked by the Masked Avengers, we're two comedians from Montreal.

GOV. PALIN: Oh, [sic] we've been pranked. What radio station is this?

FAKE SARKOZY: This is for CKOY in Montreal.

GOV. PALIN: In Montreal? tell me there radio station call letters.

FAKE SARKOZY: CK... Hello? If one voice can change the world for Obama, one Viagra can change the world for McCain.

PALIN AID: I'm sorry, I have to let you go, thank you.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yay! Woohoo!

By Mary Ann Akers | November 1, 2008; 5:03 PM ET
Previous: Rep. Boehner Calls Obama a Chicken... What? |

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/11/sarah_palin_pranked_by_sarkozy.html

Italy for Obama!

Fire Is Born — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:36:55 EDT

Fire is Born reposting for my friend Giacomo:

"Please watch and share our support video at http://www.youtube.com/watc...

...work on, we can

Guido Giacomo Gattai"

There's hardly any place in Europe that is not for Barack. The Europeans were here with us during the primaries. It is very American to be proud to be American and we will be again. Germany, and Poland, and Italy will love us again, as they did after the war. Now we Americans need to do our job: make the right choice and vote.

Obama/Biden '08

In Memory of Paul Wilson

akmk — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:46:21 EDT

A beloved Tlingit elder in our rural community passed away this weekend. Paul Wilson, Kadashaan, embodied love, kindness, and compassion. He practiced his cultural traditions and always put his wife and family first.

Paul was a member of our Obama family. He came to the caucus on a cold, snowy evening last winter where with 77 folks (100 total) cast his primary vote for Obama and stated with a bit of awe. "All these people for Obama, I can't believe it."

There is a photo of Paul (that he gave me permission to post) illustrating the "Rural Alaskans for Obama" group on the my.barackobama.com site. In the photo, Paul is in his backyard stringing hooligan for the smokehouse. Hooligan (eulachon) are small smelt-like fish rich in healthy oil that return to many Alaskan rivers from their mostly ocean life for a few days each spring to renew their life cycles.

I chatted with Paul on the street just a week ago or so. He was still an Obama supporter, though his family and the local tribal community are not united in this. He also spoke of the place he loved above else, a beautiful valley above Skagway where he used to hunt goats. "When I win the lottery, we'll fly over there and get a picture of that place so I can look at it when my mind starts drifting away," he told me.

To have a look at Paul's photo and to join the "Rural Alaskans for Obama" group (rural Alaskans and anyone anywhere), here is the link.

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

Paul, I hope your spirit can feel the love surrounding your spirit coming back to ya.

Obama's Family album

Fire Is Born — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:06:51 EDT

TO Suzanne from Mesquite (and others there still "interested"), TX - Oct 29th, 2008 at 1:36 pm EDT

I want to remind you that John McCain was born in Panama which is a country in Central America, North of Columbia, and you get to Panama by driving South through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Panama is not our state or territory, nor had it been when senator was born, in 1937 I believe.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, which is a state of the Union, just as California or Ohio, and had been a state when Obama was born, in 1964, August 4. It is a group of islands and you get there by plane or boat. This is Obama Family album:

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
http://obamascrapbook.com/6.htm
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Share it with family and friends! What strikes me always when I watch this album is how much Barack resembles his Irish grandfather, see that picture on the beach in Hawaii.

REAL AMERICANS READ PAPERBACKS

Fire Is Born — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:29:38 EDT

NATIONAL BESTSELLERS, OCTOBER 26, 2008

PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1.(1)Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert

2.(2)Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

3.(3)The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama

4.(4)Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama

5.(5)90 Minutes in Heaven, by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey

(BTW, it is real funny this order of titles reads!! It will be more then 90 minutes, folks! fib)

Barack Morning Buzz-10-24-08

Barack Daily Buzz - Victory2008.net — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:51:51 EDT

Barack Morning Buzz-10-24-08
On to Victory on November 4th

(1) Obama Says Grandmother May Not See Election Day
Christopher Wills-Associated Press
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3m4YaeYwDHXS6hHdZJi8pm6cZdAD940R8B81

(2) Obama Explains Why His Campaign Will Wait for "Toot"
Mark Mooney-ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Vote2008/story?id=6100765&page=1

(3) Obama Arrives in Hawaii to Visit Ill Grandmother
Dan Glaister-Guardian-UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/24/uselections2008-barackobama

(4) Early Vote for Change Rally with Obama in Albuquerque, New Mexico with Special Guest George Lopez-10-25-08
University of New Mexico-Johnson Field-Corner of Girard Boulevard and Central Avenue-Doors open at 7:00 PM
Event is free and open to public-Tickets not required-RSVP strongly encouraged
No bags, signs or banners permitted for security reasons
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/nmboalbuquerque

(5) Obama Campaigns in Indiana-McCain Focuses on Florida
Los Angeles Times
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscamp245895506oct24,0,1119998.story

(6) Chicago Park to Host Obama's Election Day Rally
Associated Press
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFmbOMRRFNE&eurl=http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=Barack+Obama&um=1&ie=UTF-8&resnum=4&nolr=1&sa=N&start=20

(7) Obama Election Night Rally in Chicago will Cost $2 Million
James Janega-Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-obama-rally-24-oct24,0,2328335.story

(8) Battle for Working Class Male
Steve Schifferes-BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7681979.stm

(9) Ex-Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan Endorses Obama
Kate Linthicum-Los Angeles Times-Top of the Ticket
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/mcclellan-obama.html

(10) Obama and McCain Both Target President Bush
Mark Z. Barabak and Bob Drogin-Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-campaign24-2008oct24,0,4025465.story

(11) Today on the Presidential Campaign Trail
Associated Press
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iNxTApa2sQRu0Xx99P3jt2bEXw7gD940NA503

(12) A Brief History of Robo Calls
M.J. Stephey-TIME
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1853436,00.html

(13) Does GOP Ad Presume Obama Victory?
Alexander Mooney-CNN Politics
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/does-gop-ad-presume-obama-victory/224325?icid=100214839x1211608982x1200751859
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idpOmFzh5Vc&eurl=http://news.aol.com/elections/article/does-gop-ad-presume-obama-victory/224325?icid=100214839x1211608982x1200751859

(14) Blame Game-GOP Forms Circular Firing Squad
Politico
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14891.html

(15) New Polls Bring Bad News for McCain Campaign
Vancouver Sun
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=fe1dd892-41f8-4666-8019-8666d8a3ed9e

(16) McCain Seeks to Portray Obama as an Extreme Liberal
Janet Hook-Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-liberal24-2008oct24,0,1269386.story

(17) GOP Argument-Don't Give President Obama a Blank Check
Alexander Mooney-CNN Politics
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/23/obama.check/?iref=mpstoryview

(18) McCain Soldiers on in Colorado Despite Ad Cutbacks
Glen Johnson-Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081024/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_116

OBAMA ~ Leadership for the 21st Century Now Available as a Free Download

Victoria DePaul, Author — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:51:11 EDT

Obama ~ Leadership for the 21st Century, written by best-selling author Victoria C. DePaul, is now available for a limited time as an Ebook download at no charge. This book will be available as a pdf download or readers can view it online via Scribd.

The book is available at www.ebookobama.com .

This book details how Barack Obama has succeeded in establishing a culture of ingenuity, enthusiasm, passion and collaboration– unlocking new levels of personal power and control. Leaders such as Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King know the secret to unleashing the human potential. His unique leadership style has been the catalyst of one of the greatest grassroots movements in history– and it is the spirit, the fuel, on which we will ride into the third millennium. Pass this information to your distribution lists and ask everyone you know to do the same. If you have a website, please post the link and ask others to do the same. Visit Scribd and view the book there. The more people that view it, the higher the internet ranking for this book. Post the site and this information on blogs and contact your local newspapers– whatever you can do.

After viewing the book please add your testimonial to the site. Following is a sample letter that you can edit as appropriate to send to your lists. Thanks for your assistance and energy to this project, now let's get this done. On to the White House.

Sample:So just how did Barack Obama, a junior senator, become the nominee of the Democratic Party? How has Barack Obama amassed two million financial donors, raising over 400 million dollars? What is it that Barack Obama knows, that the Republicans have yet to discover? What is it that will make Barack Obama one of the greatest leaders in history? Barack Obama understands that while the negativity of smear and fear has its initial impact, what really moves most of us is a desire to feel good about and to be in control of our circumstances, our futures, our communities, and most importantly, ourselves. He understands the difference between inspiration and motivation. Understanding this difference is what moves ordinary people from complacency to positive action. Positive action, originating in positive energy is what yields positive results.

In the future, Obama will be studied as one of the greatest leaders of modern times. Obama doesn't call forth volunteers– he calls forth the leader that resides in all of us. He demands personal accountability—and gets it. He has created an army of grassroots volunteers that is not only contributing financial resources but hours of service in any number of tasks. He has tapped into the spirit of first-time voters and re-kindled the spirits of baby boomers, long searching for a return of the days of JFK, MLK and Bobby. There are still so many undecided voters out there, weighing both sides as they determine which candidate will best serve the presidency as we move further into the 21st century.

Until November 5th, "Obama ~ Leadership for the 21st Century" will be available at no charge to assist voters in making their decision. This book details how Barack Obama has succeeded in establishing a culture of ingenuity, enthusiasm, passion and collaboration– unlocking new levels of personal power and control. Leaders such as Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King know the secret to unleashing the human potential. These leaders understand that the power of the human spirit is the fuel on which we will ride into the third millennium. This book is more than a book on human energy leadership principles, however. It is a compilation of the voices of America with contributions by leadership experts, authors and citizens from all corners of the globe. Please take some time to read this book and especially take the time to pass this on to everyone you know. Please post on your blogs, send to your distribution lists and include the website in your email signature until election day.

Our future and the future of the generations that will follow depend on it.Website to access this book: www.ebookobama.comThe book is available for pdf download or you can read it online at Scribd. Links are provided at the website. We are moving onward to a new era in our history. Be a part of this movement for change and spread the word!

McCain Hangs Out with ACORN- Watch Video

Working Mom For Obama — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:31:04 EDT

This video has popped up on the internets exposing that McCain palls around with terrorists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ9wy2MI1NI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_y2KwbhBJo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Z2t7DTVKA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEFTO_2RcgQ&feature=related

Win the Battle for NORTH DAKOTA's Editorial Pages with this Amazing "Live" List of Newspapers

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:13:43 EDT

There's still time to win the battle for NORTH DAKOTA's Editorial Pages: Please use this list at usnpl.com; OpEdNews Compendium of Major Endorsements Thus Far

Taken from this "LIVE URL":

http://www.usnpl.com/ndnews.php

Newspapers
Click ( A ) for Newspaper address
Click ( C ) for County summary

Ashley Ashley Tribune (A) (C)
Beulah Beulah Beacon (A) (C)
Bismarck Bismarck Tribune (A) (C)
Bismarck Farm & Ranch Guide (A) (C)
Center Center Republican (A) (C)
Crosby The Journal (A) (C)
Devils Lake The Daily Journal (A) (C)
Dickinson The Dickinson Press (A) (C)
Edgeley Edgeley Mail (A) (C)
Fargo The Forum (A) (C)
Finley Steele County Press (A) (C)
Grand Forks Grand Forks Herald (A) (C)
Harvey The Herald-Press (A) (C)
Hazen Hazen Star (A) (C)
Hebron Hebron Herald (A) (C)
Jamestown The Jamestown Sun (A) (C)
Kenmare Kenmare News (A) (C)
Lisbon Ransom County Gazette (A) (C)
Minot Minot Daily News (A) (C)
Napoleon Napoleon Homestead (A) (C)
New Town New Town News (A) (C)
Parshall Mountrail County Record (A) (C)
Underwood Underwood News (A) (C)
Valley City Times-Record (A) (C)
Wahpeton Wahpeton Daily News (A) (C)
Washburn Leader News (A) (C)
Watford City McKenzie County Farmer (A) (C)
West Fargo West Fargo Pioneer (A) (C)
Williston Williston Daily Herald (A) (C)

College Newspapers
North Dakota State NDSU Spectrum
Univ ND Grand Forks The Digital Student

Editorial Page Victories clarify: Obama will win 2-1 in Electoral College! 4 part compendium---

Endorsements at OpEdNews: Washington Post, Houston, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Salt Lake, Philadelphia, Portland, Bangor, Sacramento, Kansas City (4 former Red States)

OpEdNews has been the site of choice to post the growing list of major and minor newspaper endorsements for Obama. The Editorials are quoted generally in full, with interspliced commentaries from major editors and commentators, explaining what is behind the Editorials.

Part I Obama's Editorial Endorsements: including Washington Post, Fidel Castro, Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, & more!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-s-Endorsements-The-by-Stephen-Fox-081016-633.html

*******

Part II Editorial Page Endorsements of Obama Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francsico Chronicle, Los Angeles Times

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Editorial-Page-Endorsement-by-Stephen-Fox-081017-544.html

********

Part III New Endorsements: Salt Lake City Tribune, Bangor and Brunswick, Maine, Philadelphia, Miami, Portland, Kansas City

http://www.opednews.com/articles/EndorspLements-Salt-Lake-Ci-by-Stephen-Fox-081018-476.html

********

More Obama Endorsements IV: Sacramento, Katie Couric, Malaysia, Houston Chronicle, Detroit, Waco Tx (sort of)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/More-Obama-Endorsements-IV-by-Stephen-Fox-081019-492.html

TAKE THE TIME TO COMMENT AND SHARE YOUR INSIGHTS, which become a vital part of a larger on-going dialogue.

Thank you, Stephen Fox Founder, New Millennium Fine Art Contributing Editor New Millennium Fine Art Santa Fe, NM

Osiyo, Fellow Obamacans

Phoenix Rising 4 Obama — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:12:21 EDT

Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. and Obama meet in August. Photo by NNC Meeting with Presidential candidate Barack Obama in New Mexico on Sept. 19, the Navajo Nation and several Southwest councils have endorsed the Democratic team along with some 100 other national tribal leaders.
The All Indian Pueblo Council, the Mescalero Apache and the leader of the Navajo Nation have thrown their support behind Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama according to reports by The Associated Press, in addition to over 100 other tribal leaders around the country according to the Obama campaign.
The endorsement adds to a growing list of important tribal leaders who are advocating for the Obama candidacy despite John McCain's long history of working with tribal leaders while he sat on the United States Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs.
Obama's campaign noted the endorsements represent a majority of New Mexico's Indian leadership. The council represents 19 pueblos, and the Navajo Nation spans parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah and has the second largest population of any tribe in the United States.

Unethical Match Made in Heaven

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:42:02 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/11/mccain-palin-first-ever-t_n_133878.html

A HISTORIC TICKET.... Now that Sarah Palin has been found to have abused her powers, violated state ethics, and lied about it, I did a little digging and found an interesting historical footnote.

The McCain/Palin ticket is the first in American history in which both candidates were found to have violated ethics standards before a national election.

McCain, of course, was admonished by Senate Ethics Committee "for exercising 'poor judgment' for intervening" with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, as part of the infamous Keating Five scandal.

And now McCain's running mate has also been found to have violated state ethics laws and abused the powers of her office, as part of the "Troopergate" scandal.

The nation has had 102 major-party tickets covering 51 presidential elections over more than two centuries. And we've never had a ticket in which both candidates on the same ticket were responsible for ethics violations before a national election. McCain/Palin is the first.

It makes the whole "reform" pitch a little more difficult, doesn't it?

McCain-Palin Guilt by Association

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:14:58 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/guilt-by-associations_b_133758.html

As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in key states across the country continue to erode, we've seen his campaign tactics change. They have gone into 100 percent negative attack mode - literally 100 percent as far as I can tell - as that is currently the percentage of their ads that are negative. They are aimed at tearing down Obama personally and betting on the fact that they can raise doubts in enough swing voters minds' in key states like Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Colorado that they can tip the electorate over the next couple weeks. They are doing this through "guilt by association" politics. They don't want this final phase of the campaign to be about the economy or the other issues, that much is clear from their own strategists quotes in the press. They want it to be about Obama's relationships with people like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

First, let me say that this is nothing new in politics. For as long as Presidential campaigns have been waged, both sides of always tried to accused their opponents of "sleeping with the enemy" or having connections to people who are not upstanding folks. As I'm sure many of you remember, we spent a lot of time defending Clinton against these types of attacks during the 1992 race. However, John McCain and Sarah Palin are going far further, and far nastier, with this tactic than any campaign in memory.

Our side should not let the McCain campaign drive this debate without pointing out their hypocrisy, and we should hold the traditional media accountable when they cover McCain's wild accusations without exploring any of the associations in McCain and Palin's careers. So I decided to put together a list of people with frightening beliefs and/or criminal backgrounds that McCain and Palin are tied to. My criterion is that I looked for people that are or were in fact closer to McCain or Palin than Ayers. I think we should all push to make the traditional media really dig into these relationships.

12. Pastor John Hagee. You all remember when the Pastor Hagee scandal broke a couple months ago. Since then, McCain has distanced himself from the Pastor, but it's still important to remember this relationship and to note that while Obama has also distanced himself from Rev. Wright, the McCain campaign, along with GOP operatives continue to tie the two to each other and it's expected that Wright's name will make a return to the debate during next week's debate in New York.

In February of 2008, Hagee endorsed McCain's candidacy, calling him a, "man of principle, [who] does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue." For his part, McCain said that he was "very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement." Unfortunately, Hagee has a litany of statements in the public record that are not only troubling, they are downright offensive and radical. ThinkProgress has more on Hagee's past comments. For starters, Hagee once referred to Catholicism as "The Great Whore," and in talking about U.S. foreign policy he said, "The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West... a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."

McCain has denounced some of these more radical statements, but the mere fact that he actively sought Hagee's endorsement for a year means that he should be held to account for Hagee's radical views - if Wright remains on the political table, Hagee should be there right next to him.

11. Thomas Muthee. Sarah and Todd Palin have another Pastor problem. His name is Thomas Muthee and he is an evangelist and witchdoctor, who Sarah Palin has credited with helping her to win her governorship in 2006. Hannah Strange from the Times Online has more on the Muthee-Palin relationship.

At a speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God on June 8 this year, Mrs Palin described how Thomas Muthee had laid his hands on her when he visited the church as a guest preacher in late 2005, prior to her successful gubernatorial bid.
In video footage of the speech, she is seen saying: "As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he's so bold. And he was praying "Lord make a way, Lord make a way."
"And I'm thinking, this guy's really bold, he doesn't even know what I'm going to do, he doesn't know what my plans are. And he's praying not "oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor," no, he just prayed for it. He said "Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that's exactly what happened."

Just like the Wright sermons, there are tons of YouTube clips that highlight this guy's sermons. The Palins' association with this guy really brings into question some serious issues - for example -does she believe that Muthee's spiritual hand helped seal her election in Alaska? Had this guy preached in front of Obama or his congregation, can you imagine what the outrage from the Right would be? Moreover, Muthee has made anti Catholic statements. He was once quoted as saying, "Brazil is occupied by Catholics... but people are being saved anyway!"

10. Mustafa Abu Naba'a. A while back, McCain also had another fundraising scandal involving one of his big bundlers from Florida, who also has close ties to Gov. Charlie Crist. This man is Mustafa Abu Naba'a, who is a dual citizen of Jordan and the Dominican Republic. He was tasked with collecting checks for McCain bundler Harry Sargeant III. His contribution to McCain was returned because the donations were solicited by a foreign national and may have been collected in violation of federal election laws. Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post has more on this fundraising scandal and it's implications - needless to say, this bundler wasn't doing things above-board and the fallout should be scrutinized - this is not the kind of person a presidential campaign or a potential President of the United States wants to have hanging around.

9. Ali Jawad. As the McCain campaign and RNC research team comb through the Obama campaigns donation history looking for ties to foreign donors and those presumably with Arab sounding names trying to draw some connection, it's important to remember that John McCain has had some issues in the recent past receiving donations from shady people that he later had to return.

One of those people was Ali Jawad, a member of McCain's Michigan Finance Committee. Jawad is president of Armada Oil & Gas Company and founder of the Lebanese American Heritage Club. According to Jake Tapper at ABC News:

In this 2002 story, Jawad is quoted saying he "rejects talk that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that should be shunned by the United States and other governments. 'Killing innocent people -- we reject that,' he said. 'Hezbollah does not fit this category. It has protected its people."

The article goes on to say:

In 1997 he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor insurance fraud. Prosecutors accused him of submitting names of non-employees to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to receive health insurance benefits and claims. He received two years of probation and he paid approximately $6,000 in fines and restitution.

8. Oliver North, John Singlaub and U.S. Council for World Freedom. A couple days ago, the Associated Press detailed the relationship between John McCain and The U.S. Council for World Freedom. AP:

The U.S. Council for World Freedom aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked the charitable organization's tax exemption.
The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league's chairman.

What's more?

In two interviews with The Associated Press in August and September, Singlaub said McCain became associated with the organization in the early 1980s as McCain launched his political career. McCain was elected to the U.S. House in 1982.

Launched his political career? Sound familiar?

The Council was notorious for its affiliation with white supremacists, etc. Also, remember that Oliver North played a large role during the Iran-Contra and was convicted in 1989 of shredding documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress. On February 12, 2008, the McCain campaign circulated a column that North wrote in the Washington Times touting, "extolling the senator's virtues, under the heading "In Case You Missed It: Oliver North on John McCain."

Sam Stein at the Huffington Post has a great piece about McCain's connections with the U.S. Council for World Freedom. You can read it here.

7. Charles Keating. For many younger voters, the name Charles Keating might not have meant anything until early this week. However, for those of us who have been around for a while and have been deeply involved in politics, the Keating Five Scandal is still very much in our memories. This week, the Obama campaign hit McCain hard on the Keating issue - producing a 13-minute documentary on the scandal and tying McCain's actions back then to the crisis we face today in our economy. They hit him on judgment and they want to re-introduce Charles Keating to the American people, and rightly so. Keating was a close friend of the McCain's. McCain and his family vacationed with Keating, on Keating's buck and the favors that McCain helped to curry for Keating during the 1980's helped to bring about the fall of the Savings and Loan industry, one of the largest economic calamities of the 20th century. Just this past week, ThinkProgress dug up a letter correspondence between McCain and Keating - which punctuates their friendship and loyalty.

The Washington Times reports that in 1986, John McCain wrote a note on House stationery to Charles Keating, chairman of a failed savings and loan association who went to prison in the late 1980s. In the letter, McCain apologized for listing Keating as part of his Senate campaign finance committee. Keating wrote in response: "You can call me anything, write anything or do anything. I'm yours till death do us part."

If public service is about watching who you keep as company, then Charles Keating is still very much on the table. For years since the scandal, McCain has written and talked about how the Keating Five Scandal changed his life and how he would be forever transformed by the incident. However, in a conference call with reporters last week, John Dowd, the lawyer who represented McCain during the Senate Ethics Committee investigation spoke of the investigation as a "classic political smear job" and professed that "John had not done anything wrong." This alone re-opens the entire incident and the press should now be asking John McCain if he too believes the investigation was a "smear job" and that he had "done nothing wrong." Keating is a classic example of the company you keep coming back to haunt you.

6. G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy has been a name in national politics for many years. However, many piece of his biography have been forgotten. If a candidate for President of the United States is presumed guilty for the company that he keeps, then McCain's relationship, both financial and personal, with G. Gordon Liddy is very troublesome. Oliver Willis has more in a recent Media Matters report that lays out this relationship:

As Media Matters for America has noted, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain's campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy's radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07? includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

5. Kemper Marley. Kemper Marley was a wealthy liquor distributor and Arizona rancher who had close ties to the Hensley family, namely Cindy McCain's father. He was long suspected of being involved in the bombing and murder of Don Bolles, an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic who specialized in crime reporting. According to Marley's 1990 obituary in the New York Times, "John Harvey Adamson, the only person whose conviction in the slaying has been upheld, said in court documents that he had been hired by Max Dunlap, a wealthy contractor who had been reared by Mr. Marley, to kill Mr. Bolles for writing articles damaging to Mr. Marley."

A Phoenix-area newspaper did a story during McCain's 2000 Presidential bid about the Hensley family history and their associations with shady characters. According to the Phoenix News Times, "The Hensley saga, meanwhile, swirls with bygone accounts of illicit booze, gambling, horse racing, deceit and crime. James Hensley embarked on his road to riches as a bootlegger."

Kemper's money, along with the Hensley family, helped John McCain get where he is today. It's important that questions are asked about McCain's knowledge of Kemper Marley and what involvement and impact he had on McCain's early political career.

4. Don Diamond. Then, there is Don Diamond. In April, 2008, the New York Times did a detailed story on Diamond's relationship with McCain and the favors that McCain curried for Diamond, who wanted to develop land in California on the site of a closed Army base.. In their lede, they write, "For Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican who has staked two presidential campaigns on pledges to avoid even the appearance of dispensing an official favor for a donor, Mr. Diamond is the kind of friend who can pose a test."

Here's more from the Times:

Donald R. Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer, was racing to snap up a stretch of virgin California coast freed by the closing of an Army base a decade ago when he turned to an old friend, Senator John McCain.
When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain's endorsement as "a close personal friend."
Writing to officials in the city, Seaside, Calif., the senator said, "You will find him as honorable and committed as I have."
Courting local officials and potential partners, Mr. Diamond's team promised that he could "help get through some of the red tape in dealing with the Department of the Army" because Mr. Diamond "has been very active with Senator McCain," a partner said in a deposition.
A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain's current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. At home, Mr. Diamond is sometimes referred to as "The Donald," Arizona's answer to Donald Trump -- an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds), specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.

3. Marylin Shannon. Over the past couple days you've heard the line about Obama "palling around with terrorists" come out of Sarah Palin's mouth on numerous occasions and with relative ease. Well, it's important to note that John McCain's friend, Marilyn Shannon, a Republican official from Oregon, once praised a woman who was convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of an abortion clinic doctor. According to Raw Story:

McCain and Shannon appeared together at a fundraiser for the Oregon Citizens Alliance in 1993, a gathering of Christian right extremists that even fellow Republicans advised McCain not to attend because the group was so far outside the mainstream.
Speaking before McCain, Shannon offered some kind words for Shelley Shannon, who was accused and later convicted of shooting an abortion doctor: "I'm not related to Shelly Shannon, but I think she's a fine lady," the vice chairwoman of the state Republican Party said. McCain apparently said nothing to contradict that judgment, and less than three months later he voted against a bill that would make abortion clinic bombings a federal crime.
Author and journalist Frederick Clarkson has written extensively about the Army of God, the radical Christian organization that trained Shelley Shannon and others like her to bomb abortion clinics and attack abortion providers. He provides some more details on Shannon. She was eventually convicted of the attempted murder of a Wichita, Kan., doctor and of committing a spree of abortion clinic arsons across the west.

Keep in mind that Shannon was a delegate for McCain to this year's Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. The McCain campaign showed no oversight in allowing her to attend. Moreover, as ThinkProgress points out - when asked by the CBS Early Show to respond to an article where accusations were made that McCain had palled around with someone who held these radical and dangerous views, McCain-Palin campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer said, "The article also concluded is that if Senator McCain had hung out with somebody who had bombed abortion clinics, no one would consider [raising the issue] illegitimate.

So, what Pfotenhauer is saying is that this issue is legitimate and that McCain should have to respond. Let's see if he does.

2. Alaska Independence Party - Joe Vogler, Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll. As the GOP continues to parse and amplify the words of Jeremiah Wright, mind you, not his words on peace and spiritual matters, but rather the passages where he was critical of America on racial and foreign policy issues, it's important that we make sure Americans know about Joe Vogler, the founder of AIP. In some cases, his words are nearly identical to Rev. Wright's, and in many cases they are worse. Vogler has been quoted as saying, "the fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government" and "I won't be buried under their damn flag..."I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Vogler even went so far as to renounce his allegiance to the United States, which is far more extreme than anything that came out of Rev. Wright's mouth. In the course of denouncing Federal regulation over land, he said, "And then you get mad. And you say, the hell with them. And you renounce allegiance, and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life to Alaska." TPM has a great piece with all of these quotes, along with audio of Vogler's interview.

There's also Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll, both AIP members and close political associates of Sarah Palin. Here's Salon's write-up on these two and their association with Palin's run for Mayor of Wasilla.

Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory. Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring.

The Salon piece that I quote from above has some really ripe, detailed information on the AIP, as well as its more shady members. Palin has not renounced these men or to the best of my knowledge, even addressed their associations with them.

1. Todd Palin. The "first dude" has gotten pretty much a free ride from the traditional press over the past six weeks. He's done a couple softball interviews on FOX News and has pretty much sat in the background as his wife has been introduced on the national stage. Not much attention has been paid to the fact that Todd Palin was a member, for eight years, of the Alaska Independence Party, a radical group that advocates for Alaskan secession from the United States of America and is linked with radical secessionist groups, militias, and white supremacists groups from all over the country. We don't know the full extent of Todd Palin's beliefs when it comes to AIP and their radical views, but the problem is - no one is really asking. As Ambinder puts it in a post he did on October 4:

Todd Palin, a former member of the Alaska Independence Party, might well have seen America unlike his wife did -- that is, an America that one can secede from. He was comfortable belonging to and being associated with a political party whose founder seemed to delight in denouncing the principles that hold our union together.

If there is even a remote chance that this guy is going to be living in the Vice President's house or White House for the next 4 or 8 years, we deserve to know the truth about his radical views of America, especially given how much Gov. Palin has clearly relied on him for policy-making help while Governor of Alaska.

Over John McCain's long political career, he has made many "friends." It's evident in the short time that the country has known Sarah and Todd Palin that they also had a bunch of friends - all who should be causing trouble for them in the closing weeks of this campaign. If the McCain-Palin ticket wants to constantly remind voters about Obama's "friends," it's imperative that we do the same.

I offer this list to reporters, bloggers and muckrakers of all kinds. To be fair in this campaign, if we're going to be hearing a lot about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, we should be hearing about all of these people as well. In fact, all of them are far closer to McCain or Palin than Ayers ever was to Obama. And while Obama has denounced the actions of Ayers and the words or Wright, most of the people on this list have never been denounced by John McCain or Sarah Palin. As McCain and company go more and more negative and trumpet Obama's past associations, it's important that we push these stories and make sure the American people know that this "guilt by associations" politics cuts both ways.

Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in... Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in...

This is Barack's video on Ayers and McCain video on Domestic terrorism..Watch

LuAnn in Indiana — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:09:57 EDT

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5989582

This video is from Barack and explains the Bill Ayers issue. It is clear that McCain, Palin and the RNC are planning to paint Ayers as a terrorist and try to link him tightly with Barack.These are the facts. Barack was 8 when Ayers was participating in some deplorable acts during the Vietnam Era which was a time when there were a lot of radical movements and things happening. I am not defending Bill Ayers but this happened during a terrible time in our history and it was 40 years ago.Barack served on a board with Ayers which was appointed by a Republican. There is nothing here but we know they are going to try and make this look bad.On the other hand, McCain voted twice against stopping DOMESTIC TERRORISM. Watch this terrible video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDlpWfLyYss
I guess he feels it was okay to BOMB medical clinics and kill doctors and patients! TERRORISM is terrorism and if the McCain camp wants to go there then I think we should bring this up.
Just because McCain does not approve of a Women's Right to Choose does not mean it is OKAY to BOMB clinics and KILL doctors and patients.
So, does the McCain camp really want to go here? They will and they will get away with it unless We all say ENOUGH and let him know WE know about his votes to stop actual terrorism HERE in the US.
Come on Obama supporters. Barack and Joe need our help and full support in these final days! Both of them have the integrity and intelligence to lead us through this Crisis facing all of us.
We have the power to stop this nonsense and we have the TRUTH and the FACTS on our side. Let's use them!
Thanks,LuAnn in Indiana

McCain's rage makes him unfit to be President!

LuAnn in Indiana — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:35:33 EDT

Watch this and think if this man could talk to foreign leaders or make rational cool headed decisions. This is so scary. He could blow up and not work with anyone he did not like. OMG he even shoved a woman in the hall way and has called his wife the c word in public!You have watched how hateful and condescending he has been towards Barack and even the media now. He is out and out lying and will do anything to win.We need this out there viral and let people see the REAL McCain.......not the kind of PRESIDENT we need in this time of crisis!Watch the video and send it to friends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAyK-enrF1g

LuAnn

Tell everyone including the media!

Enough of the hate and smears! Palin has her own skeletons!

LuAnn in Indiana — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:11:15 EDT

McCain, Palin and the GOP want to talk about Bill Ayers and terrorists.......well it looks like they a Major problem. Please get this out there.

If Palin gets VP talk about anti American! She is stirring up hate wherever she goes. We have to say Enough!

This is not acceptable!

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/07/palins_unamerican/index.html

We don't not need hate and partisanship stirred up. Palin is stirring it and McCain is letting her run free with whatever she wants to say. This country needs to work together to get us out of this mess we are in. Barack is the only one who has the intelligence, knowledge, temperament and vision for that great future.Let's all help Barack and make sure all the slurs and hate stops!

Enough!

LuAnn

Enough of this hate and smearing! Palin has her skeletons!

LuAnn in Indiana — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:06:39 EDT

McCain, Palin and the GOP want to talk about Bill Ayers and terrorists.......well it looks like they a Major problem. Please get this out there.

If Palin gets VP talk about anti American! She is stirring up hate wherever she goes. We have to say Enough!

This is not acceptable!

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/07/palins_unamerican/index.html

Enough!

LuAnn

Gallup "Drills Down" To Younger Voters; A Generational Shift

Elstun — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:54:56 EDT

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- America's youngest voters are mindful of history and the impact on their own lives as they prepare to cast ballots on Nov. 4. Among 18- to 29-year-old registered voters surveyed for a USA Today/MTV/Gallup poll, 61% support the Obama-Biden ticket, versus 32% who prefer the McCain-Palin ticket, with Obama's voters being far more likely to be certain about their vote than McCain's.

Obama's strong appeal to younger voters is apparent in that he outperforms McCain by double digits on every single character dimension tested in the poll of more than 900 18-29 year olds nationwide, conducted by Gallup for USA Today and MTV Sept. 18-28, 2008. The 47-year-old Obama swamps 72-year-old McCain, 71% to 12%, on understanding the "problems of people your age" and even wins on what is a McCain strength among the broader electorate, being a "strong and decisive leader," 46% to 36%.

While only a minority (37%) of young adults have qualms about McCain's age, a majority (55%) do have concerns about his running mate Sarah Palin's qualifications to step in as president if necessary. In contrast, a majority are satisfied with both Obama's experience and running mate Joe Biden's qualifications. (The poll was conducted before the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate.)

Obama also beats McCain on several lighter dimensions tested in the poll. A majority of 18- to 29-year-olds would choose Obama over McCain as a teacher, boss, drinking buddy, or advisor. McCain's only appeal on this level with young adults appears to be his personal life story as young adults are more likely to be interested in reading McCain's private diary than Obama's. While such items may seem trivial, basic likeability can be a key indicator of a presidential candidate's ability to win votes.

When asked in an open-ended fashion to name the single most important issue affecting their vote for president this year, 18- to 29-year-old registered voters most often cite the economy (30%), followed by the war in Iraq (13%), healthcare (5%), energy and gas prices (4%), and international issues (4%). These issues are, in a broad sense, little different from those listed by all voters, regardless of age. Asked which candidate they think would do a better job on their top-priority issue, 58% say Obama versus 27% who say McCain, again echoing their basic candidate choice.

On the Outcome

The poll results make it clear that young Americans perceive that the outcome of the election really does matter, both to the country and to their own lives. Nearly-two thirds (64%) of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed say they have already given the election a lot of thought. Nearly half (44%) consider this election to be the most important of the last 50 years, and another 37% consider it more important than other elections.

When asked about the consequences of the two possible election outcomes, 84% say an Obama victory would have a great deal (47%) or moderate amount (37%) of impact on their lives and 72% say the same about McCain (36% great deal, 36% moderate amount).

Going a step further, the survey asked those who said an Obama or McCain victory would impact them "a great deal" or "not at all" to explain in their own words why they feel that way. In Obama's case, nearly one in four (24%) volunteered that good or positive changes would take place, while in McCain's case, the most common responses were negative or pertained to the War in Iraq.

Asked in a separate question how a McCain administration might compare to the Bush administration, 55% said they would view a McCain victory as "four more years of the Bush administration" versus 37% who said they would view it as "real change from the Bush administration."

The two tickets this year also carry the distinction of the first major party black nominee in U.S. history, and only the second major party female vice presidential nominee. In the eyes of young voters, victory for the Obama-Biden ticket would be much more of an historical event than victory for the McCain-Palin ticket. A majority (53%) agree that if Barack Obama is elected president, it would be one of the most important advances in racial equality over the past 100 years. By contrast, only one-third (32%) agree that if Sarah Palin becomes vice president, it will be one of the most important advances in gender equality in the past 100 years.

Bottom Line

A majority of 18- to 29-year-olds are registered to vote in this election and have given it a lot of thought. They prefer Barack Obama, both as an alternative to John McCain, but also as the candidate who is the most likely to understand their problems and to bring positive change to their own lives. Casting a ballot for Obama also carries the excitement of making history. Nearly 8 in 10 consider this election to be more important than other elections, if not the most important in the past 50 years. What remains to be seen is how many of this highly sought-after demographic will in fact turn out and vote on Election Day, and thus help to determine the winner.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews conducted September 18-28, 2008, with 903 U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 29, 633 respondents of whom were randomly selected from a national sample of landline and cellular telephone numbers, and 270 respondents of whom had participated in earlier national Gallup polls and agreed to be re-interviewed for a future poll. For results based on the total sample, which is weighted for demographic information to be representative of 18- to 29-year-olds nationwide, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points. For results based on the sample of 742 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

First Gallup 3-Day Running Average Incorporating Palin Attacks: Obama Up By 9!

Elstun — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:21:54 EDT

>Note. This 3 day running average goes back to the start of Sarah Palin's "heels on, gloves off" campaign. While it appeals to the 18% of the electorate that constitute her die-hard base, it appears to be turning off the independents. This is the first time any candidate has gotten a 51% posting on the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll.

PRINCETON, NJ -- The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking poll shows registered voters preferring Barack Obama to John McCain for president by 51% to 42%.

The nine percentage point lead in Oct. 4-6 tracking matches Obama's highest to date for the campaign, and the highest for either candidate. Obama led McCain by 49% to 40% near the tail end of his international trip in late July. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)

Obama has now held a statistically significant lead since Sept. 24-26 polling and has not trailed McCain since Sept. 13-15, roughly coinciding with the intensification of the financial crisis.

McCain has an opportunity to try to reverse Obama's momentum at tonight's town hall style debate in Nashville. -- Jeff Jones

These facts about John McCain need shared ASAP!

LuAnn in Indiana — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:51:21 EDT

These are facts about McCain, his family, his life and all the mistruths that he likes to brag about. Please take the time to watch these and you may be shocked.People everywhere have the right to know these things about John McCain.He is no maverick. He would be a disaster as President. He is strictly out for John McCain and has proven he will say or do anything to get elected.Please help Barack and share these facts. McCain’s campaign is getting nastier.

Thanks, LuAnn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06zsn5BuL3Y

http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/jnail/blog/&blogId=4588

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain/page/1

"Lipstick on the pigskin"

Bobby — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:35:51 EDT

That's my new term for McCain/Pali's Hail Mary passes. Y'all like it?

Fox News Delivers For McCain-Palin's Scorched Earth Politcs

Elstun — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:13:57 EDT

Fox news has launched its all out assault on Barack Obama, just in time (Probably in close coordination with) the RNC and an army of 527 groups.

I got a sample of it over the last couple of days of watching Fox.

My first peek came on Fox and Friends with anti-Obama hatchetman Stanley Kurtz, from a right-wing opnion-factory named The Ethics and Public Policy Center. Kurtz was given several minutes of free air time to paint a picture of Barack Obama and William Ayers' relationship implying two things: that they were frequently in the same room together, along with scores of other people, and that Barack Obama "funneled" (Kurtz's term) money to one of Ayers' project. Obama was, in fact, on a board that recieved grants and Ayers' project was one of the grant recipients. That is what Kurtz meant by 'funneling' money. Kurtz is obviously confused. "Funneling Money" is what happens when Right-Wing millionaires want to discredit Barack Obama and they make a donation to a 501 (c)(3) called...oh, I don't know, say...The Ethics and Public Policy Center so a slack-jawed bottom-feeder like Stanley Kurtz can provide 'unbiased' information to its viewers. Anyway...By the end of the piece, if one was an uncritical viewer of Fox and Friends, one would certainly have the impression that the so-called "Main Stream Media" was trying to 'cover up' something.

Comes now Sean Hannity. A special entitled "Obama and Friends: A History of Radicalism" was launched today. In this so-called documentary, Hannity spends several minutes created dark sounds about Saul Alinsky, a widely read and much beloved community organizer of the 1950s and 1960s. By the end of the Alinsky discussion, he is characterized as a communist who launched the 'community organizing' movement as a means to manipulate well-meaning people; whatever that means. And Fox News certainly knows something about manipulation. Hannity then draws a line connecting a horrible patch-up inlcuding grainy newsreels of radical islamists leading to Barack Obama and an extreme subculture of Chicago.The racist subtext is undeniable, inspersing images of Jerimiah Wright and Malcolm X and other black nationalists and Barack Obama, they are saying in essence--this guy is black, folks and so are these radicals.

Then Fox has also dredged up one of the police officers wounded by the Weather Underground when Barack Obama was all of 8 years old and we can expect to see his recollections of pain to be used by Fox to attack Obama.

Expect the worst kind of McCarthyesque attacks and distortions that have EVER been seen in an American election over the next 30 days. The decision by the RNC-Fox-McCain camp is a political scorched earth policy. If they can't win this election, they will so poison the well of American Opinion so as to make it ungovernable.

McPalin is just like Bush and Cheney

Working Mom For Obama — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:49:19 EDT

http://www.light-to-dark.com/sarah_cheney.html

The only problem the McCain/Palin Campaign have is thinking Americans are dumb and stupid. In their own abnoxious heads, they think People will buy their repeated Bush analogy. Palin is still not a smart woman , she just repeats speeches written by former Bush advisers, to the extent that she gets so sidetracked by lines that has been taught. to the level of not answering the question being asked. She can not think on her own. She gives answers to the questions that run in her head, and not the questions she is asked.

It is frightening.

To support my claim, Watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GMww19uz4Y

And they plan to go negative on Obama, in the remaining 30 days? Well all I can say is bring it on. I am sure McCain and his puppets still does not get the point. This election is not about Obama. It is about every American that has felt the pinch from this administration.

So if I was McCain, I would go in the mirror and rethink my strategy. McCain and Palin have so much crap around them. This push to win the white house by McPalin is frightening sad. I wonder how many American people will be bullied by the McCain/Palin Camp, other than the mainstream media that has been attacked by the McCain Camp, simply because they spoke the truth and by bringing out the facts about Sarah Palin.

Rally on October 4th

Russ — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:50:07 EDT

I understand that there will be a rally in Faibanks beginning at the Veterans Memorial. I know some Vietnam veterans who have become angry in the past when the Veterans Memorial had been used for non-veteran events.

Why not start the rally at the Visitors Center or courthouse? Why alienate people in our small community?

The current administration has demostrated just how horrid its economic polices have turned out in our country. We are bailing out Wall Street. Your tax dollars will buy all the bad mortgage debt from insurance companies, banks, and corporations. John McCain actually wants to cut taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. So corporations get their taxes cut with McCain, and you get to pay for their bad mortgage debt. Doesn't that sound fair?

By using common sense, we should be able to get most of the population to see through the failed economic polices of this administration that McCain vows to continue. Let's not turn voters away from us by thoughtless actions.

One percent

Mike from Lansing, MI — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:37:46 EDT

1%, or 1 vote out of 100

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

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

From ABC News:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Mike Sheppard

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

swimmer — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:02:53 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!

LET'S GET FIRED UP AND READY TO WIN!!!!

Sarah Palin Doesn't Know Much About Russia Either

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:27:09 EDT

CNN did a fact check on palin's Russia claim...turns out, it isn't true...AT ALL...go figure

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/cnn-sarah-palin-has-never_n_130752.html#postComment

Suggestion for Obama $$$ internet donors

Bobby — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:12:59 EDT

Please donate as early as possibile and as much as possible in October. The sooner we make our donations in October the better he'll be able to plan and budget his advertising,travel schedule and other campaign activities for the month of October. The more we give the less time he'll have to spend at fundraisers too. Just heard that he'll be at a Billy Joel/Bruce Springsteen fundraising concert in NYC on 10/16. I hate to hear that. He needs to be in Colorado,VA,Ohio,NM,NV,NH or Indiana etc. on 10/16,not in NYC.

Palin Pity Party ? Raise That Bar !

Phoenix Rising 4 Obama — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:36:03 EDT

The Sarah Palin pity partyEveryone seems to be oozing sympathy for the fumbling vice-presidential nominee. Please. Cry me a freaking river.

By Rebecca Traister

Sep. 30, 2008 | Is this the week that Democrats and Republicans join hands -- to heap pity on poor Sarah Palin?

At the moment, all signs point to yes, as some strange bedfellows reveal that they have been

Obama on Hunting and Fishing

akmk — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:52:34 EDT

“Hunting and fishing are not just recreational pursuits, they are part of our national heritage. America’s hunters and anglers uphold a tradition that connects generations and brings families and friends together across our great nation. Today, we celebrate this tradition and the conservation legacy of hunters and anglers. “National Hunting and Fishing Day is a time to reaffirm our commitment to America’s sportsmen. As President, I will protect the right to bear arms, increase access to places to hunt and fish, take on polluters and clean up our streams and lakes, and protect our nation’s important wildlife habitat and wetlands. I will enhance programs that encourage young people to hunt and fish and respect and protect the outdoors. “Our nation’s sportsmen have made sure that this and future generations can enjoy our natural resources and wildlife. As President, I will stand with them and ensure that America’s hunting and fishing heritage endures.”

How war hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life

John From Cape Cod. Ma — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:28:48 EDT

LINK:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-542277/How-war-hero-John-McCain-betrayed-Vietnamese-peasant-saved-life.html

hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life

Last updated at 01:10 23 March 2008

In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.

On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.

In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.

Scroll down for more...

Reunited: Senator McCain and his Vietnamese rescuer Mai Van On in Hanoi in 1996

And when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr On drove them back.

Nearly three decades later, a Vietnamese government commission confirmed he was indeed the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi, McCain embraced and thanked Mr On and presented him with a Senate memento.

From that brief encounter to his death at the age of 88 two years ago, Mr On never heard from the senator again, and three years after their meeting, McCain published an autobiography that makes no mention of his apparent debt to Mr On.

It is a snub Mr On took to his death.

His widow, Bui Thi Lien, 71, said: ?In his last years, my husband was very sad sometimes.

He would say, 'Mr McCain has forgotten me.'

?Mr McCain would be dead if it weren't for my husband. He would never have returned to his family and he wouldn't be in the presidential race today.?

Last week on a visit to Britain to meet Gordon Brown, McCain paid tribute to the role played by British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan - comments that carried extra weight in the light of McCain's own wartime exploits.

In his 1999 autobiography, Faith Of My Fathers, which laid the ground for his first, unsuccessful run for president in 2000, McCain wrote a Boy's Own-style narrative of his rescue: ?When I came to, I was being hauled ashore on two bamboo poles.

Scroll down for more...

To the rescue: John McCain, lying on his back across a bamboo log, is saved by villagers - including Mai Van On - after his jet was shot down in 1967

?A crowd of several hundred Vietnamese gathered around me as I lay dazed before them, shouting wildly at me, stripping my clothes off, spitting on me, kicking and striking me repeatedly.?

What followed, according to McCain, was five-and-a-half years of torture and brutal beatings as a prisoner of war - an account that has given a steely edge to his candidacy by establishing him as a true American war hero.

But the story is at odds with the version uncovered by Vietnam veteran Chuck Searcy, who lives in Hanoi and is in charge of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund.

?In 1995, Mr On gave me a letter he wanted me to deliver to McCain,? said Searcy.

?'It said, 'I am the guy who pulled you out of the lake and I have followed your progress over the years. I wish the best for you and your family and I hope some day you will be president of the United States.'

?I thought it was endearing. I sent the letter to McCain's office and I got back a sniffy response from some assistant saying, 'Mr McCain isn't interested in these fanciful stories.'?

Scroll down for more...

Republican candidate John McCain met French President Nicholas Sarkozy this week

Indeed, claiming to have saved McCain had by then become something of a cottage industry in Hanoi.

Searcy, 63, recalled: ?There had been a lot of preposterous claims, but I asked the neighbours around the lake if it was true and they said that was exactly how it happened.?

The story was also confirmed by the Vietnamese government.

Later in 1995, Searcy met McCain at a veterans' reunion in Washington.

He said: ?I mentioned the story of Mr On to him, and told him it was true. He said, 'Hell, I would like to meet this guy - I'll set it up.'?

McCain, then a senator closely involved in rebuilding US-Vietnam relations, visited Hanoi in 1996, and a meeting was arranged with Searcy and Mr On.

Searcy said: ?Mr On was a wiry little guy. He looked as if he had only ever shaved once or twice and he had his old uniform on.

?He raced up to McCain and kept repeating his name as he embraced him.?

Then, through an interpreter, Mr On recounted the events of that day as McCain listened.

?He launched into a very emotional description,? said Searcy.

?Suddenly they saw this parachute coming down into their small lake.

?Everybody was afraid because they knew it was an American pilot and they didn't know what to do.

?He said he just instinctively grabbed this big bamboo log and threw it into the water and jumped in after it.

?One of his neighbours joined him and the two of them swam out to the parachute.

?Apparently McCain had broken both arms and one leg, and had sunk to the bottom, but they pulled him out of the lake.

?When they got to the bank, a couple of men attacked McCain, breaking his shoulder with a rifle butt and stabbing his leg, before Mr On stopped them.

?That day, he saved McCain from drowning and then from maybe being killed by the mob.

?McCain listened but there was no dramatic response. He just nodded, said, 'Thank you very much,' and gave Mr On a little Senate seal.

?It was the kind of thing you buy in the souvenir shop in the Senate basement.

?But Mr On, to the day he died, treated it as if it were a Congressional Medal of Honour.?

But although McCain appeared to believe the story, it was one he would later seem to ignore in his autobiography and there was no more contact between the two men.

When Mr On died in 2006, an email was apparently sent to McCain's office requesting a message of condolence for the family. There was no response.

Whether or not McCain believed Mr On is unclear.

But his refusal to acknowledge his heroism is likely to fuel other, more damaging allegations that McCain exaggerated elements of his PoW ordeal in Hoa Lo prison.

Phung Van Chung, 70, who was a Communist Party official at the time, claims McCain was quickly singled out for softer treatment, adding: ?I found out he was the son of an American admiral, so the top people wanted to keep him as a live witness so they could use him for negotiations.?

Mr On's son-in-law, Nguyen Ngoc Toan, said: ?Before he died, he told us not to sell the medal McCain gave him.

He said, 'If any of the grandchildren ever go to America, having it might help them.'?

In 2000, McCain, by then a presidential candidate, visited the lake that almost claimed his life.

?His entourage was outside our house but Mr McCain just passed by,? said Mr On's widow, who insists she bears no grudge.

Behind her calm words, however, lies an anxiety to right the injustice she feels her husband suffered.

As we prepared to leave she clutched my hand and said: ?Please help us to remind Mr McCain what my husband did.

?Just a few words will be enough to let the family know that he is grateful.?

Additional reporting: William Lowther, in Washington

DRAFT

John From Cape Cod. Ma — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:54:09 EDT

LINK: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deanie-mills/from-a-marine-mom-the-one_b_128959.html

Deanie MillsPosted September 24, 2008 | 02:13 PM (EST) BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index From A Marine Mom: The One Question They Never Ask The War-MongersMccain Military Draft, Off The Bus News

During the foreign policy debate coming up this Friday night, there will be one group of constituents who will be eagerly awaiting the one question I never see asked of the war-mongers.

I'm talking about Blue Star Families for Obama, an energetic group of active-duty military families who, although they respect the military service and sacrifice of John McCain, nonetheless believe passionately that Barack Obama is a far better choice for commander-in-chief.

The decision to support Obama for president by many military families is not an emotional one. It is based on careful study of his long history of supporting legislation that provides the best care and opportunities for our nation's veterans and those still in service. A comparison of Obama's senate voting record with John McCain's by major veteran's groups is not even close. He has voted in favor of veteran's benefits and attention to the troops something like 80% of the time in comparison to McCain's 20%. A case in point, as we all know by now, is the recently passed updated version of the G.I. Bill.

I would also like to point out here, for those who may not know, that Michelle Obama has adopted the needs of military families as one of her central causes. She has visited numerous military bases -- not to stick soldiers or their families up on stage as photo-op props -- but to sit down at roundtables with them and discuss, one-on-one, their biggest concerns. She says she takes all those concerns to her husband, and in her convention speech, she made a point of acknowledging their sacrifices and the strains they face daily.

I'll be liveblogging with the Blue Star Families during the upcoming debate, and will put together a blog of their impressions later for OffTheBus.

But as a Marine mom who has sent a son to Iraq to fight twice, and three nephews four other times, I know the question I would like to see asked of John McCain, because I never see anybody else ask it of him.

But then, why should they?

Less than one-half of one percent of our nation's population has been asked to fight two wars over the past seven years. And they've been asked to fight it over and over again.

They've been dragged out of physical rehab from war wounds and sent to fight it again. They've been pulled away from suicide-watch and shipped off to fight again. They've been sent to fight it, spent a year or more there risking their lives daily, and then, while in line to catch the plane for glorious home at last--been pulled away and told to remain in-country another month or two, during which time, more than a few of those who'd been ready to catch the plane home wind up doing so in a flag-draped casket.

This army has been abused in ways I've never seen in my lifetime, and their families have paid a crippling price. Divorce, spousal abuse, child abuse, suicide, cases of PTSD--every single measure of extremely high levels of stress available shows dangerously high levels of it in the military. Junior officers and non-commissioned officers, those lieutenants and sergeants who tend to be combat platoon and squad leaders and absorb some of the worst horrors of war when they not only risk their own lives, but feel responsible for the lives of everyone under them--are fleeing the service in such large numbers that a serious shortage has resulted.

Even the Joint Chiefs of Staff have expressed grave worries of the strains on our nation's military to their commander-in-chief.

Not that he cares or has listened.

And now, we've got a new election under way. I've been following the candidates closely for well over a year now, and I keep waiting for this question to be asked of the war-mongerers.

John McCain loves stories of heroism in battle. He is widely known as a war-hero in his own right, and often chokes up when mentioning the bravery of our troops.

And yet, again and again, when faced with questions about how to handle aggressive regimes overseas, he falls back on a war-like tone, in which he repeatedly offers the use of force as a solution to those problems. He seems to like the idea of himself--as valiant war-president--facing off against world leaders like Vladimir Putin. In that case, after the conflict between Russia and Georgia (in which complex analysis reveals that both countries were aggressive and share responsibility for the bloodshed), he mouthed off that the G-8 ought to kick Russia out and that, furthermore, Georgia ought to be made a member of NATO, which would guarantee this country's responsibility to possibly defend it militarily.

His hapless choice for vice-president, Sarah Palin, told Charlie Gibson that "perhaps" it would be necessary to go to war with Russia.

McCain has stated that he thinks we should remain in force in Iraq indefinitely (140,000 troops)--or at least until the next election (he said, "2013" when pressed), and that we should send an additional 12,000 troops to Afghanistan.

(Obama has promised to end the war in Iraq and has said he would then send 3500 more troops to Afghanistan.)

Also, both McCain and Palin seem to feel that military options against Iran should be the first line of defense against that country's nuclear ambitions.

McCain himself has stated repeatedly that "more wars will be necessary."

So:

Here's my question.

I hope very much that Jim Lehrer asks this question Friday night. If he does, it will be a first that anybody has ever framed it in this context:

If it is true that "more wars will be necessary," maybe even in a possible upcoming McCain/Palin administration, with a lengthening of the Iraq war and an escalation of the Afghanistan war for certain, with possibly some sort of military action against at least Iran...then...

This military mom wants to know:

WHERE YA GONNA GET THE TROOPS?

There just aren't enough troops in the current armed forces to fight all these wars, even if we're just talking about Iraq and Afghanistan. The troop escalation ordered by Bush last year damn near broke the military, with National Guard and Reserve troops being called into action--leaving our nation undefended if another major crises were to have erupted worldwide--and those troops already deployed having their deployments extended, and those scheduled to ship out being sent early, before their training was complete.

Our troops were shipping back out to war, sometimes twice in the course of one year. (My son returned from Iraq the first time in May 2005, and re-deployed to the war on January 1 of 2006, just months later.) In the army, other troops spend 15 months in Iraq, come home for maybe nine months, then get re-deployed for at least another year.

We--meaning the military overall--can't keep this up indefinitely. We're barely holding on by our fingernails now. Troops sent for multiple deployments are returning with increasingly serious physical and emotional problems with each return to war--provided they come home at all. Alive, anyway.

The idea that we can just yank troops out of Iraq and ship 'em straight to Afghanistan reveals a great ignorance about the two different wars. One is urban combat in a desert environment. Another is guerilla warfare in a rugged, mountainous, remote geographical area.

Folks, you gotta train for that stuff.

Many troops, returning from Iraq in one deployment, have been shipped off to Afghanistan before receiving that crucial mountain-guerilla training they need, and this is one of many reasons casualties have been so bloody high there.

WHERE ARE YA GONNA GET THE TROOPS FOR ALL YOUR WARS?

Nobody ever mentions the "D" word.

But I'm telling you. The army is having a tough enough time now, recruiting an all-volunteer force. They're letting in people with criminal records, those who score very low on IQ tests, those who are high-school drop-outs. They keep lowering standards because it's getting so hard to find anybody who will step up to volunteer for this madness.

Lately, they've been offering huge signing bonuses and putting pressure on these kids to sign before losing it.

It's not a mercenary force, but it is bribery, paid to those to whom a few thousand dollars is a fortune. Recruiters often lie, and promise them that they will not be sent to war.

Please don't get me wrong here. Many fine young men and women sign up to volunteer to serve their country because, like my son, they love their country.

As Dustin said when he enlisted, shortly after receiving his college degree:

"I don't feel comfortable being one of the ones who needs protecting. I'd feel better, being one of the protectors."

They sign up to fight terrorists. They sign up because they come from proud military families and want to make their own marks.

All the same, that number of volunteers is dwindling, because the strains are just so hard right now, maintaining two wars.

That only leaves one remaining way to fill up the forces:

DRAFT.

So, I just want all those pundits and pontificators and opinionists and bloggers and op-eders and editorializers who keep talking about "strong national defense" and about the need to confront aggression with equally strong aggression, to realize that

OUR TROOPS ARE NOT CHESS PAWNS ON A BOARD.

You can't just sit down in your book-lined study and move them around like some sort of intellectual game.

These are living, breathing, bleeding human beings, with families and friends and hearts and souls.

And there aren't enough of them to go around.

ANSWER THAT.

Youth Vote Rally Tomorrow-Sept. 23rd at 5pm- NJ

Working Mom For Obama — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:08:36 EDT

See attached NJEA flyer for more Details and Directions:

Dear Family and Friends,

As you all know, we are in the midst of an exciting Presidential Election Contest. The stakes are extremely high this year and every eligible voter should be encouraged to learn about the candidates' positions and to vote on election day. Attached, please find a flyer containing information on a non-partisan, youth voter registration mobilization event sponsored by the African American Heritage Parade Committee, the NJEA, and several other organizations. Our goal is to ensure that eligible voters in Abbott and Abbott like districts who will be 18 years of age become registered to vote. If you are an educator, or know of an active or retired teacher who may be interested in registering high school students during the school day please pass on this information. Please read the flyer and plan on attending the rally with 3 youths whom are interested in helping to register people to vote. We will train people to assist in completing voter registration forms and absentee ballots . Food will be served, so please RSVP as instructed on the flyer. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at (908) 687-8033. ITS TIME TO WALK THE TALK. RObin =

Principles First, Plans Second...

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:12:40 EDT

Principles First, Plans Second by: Texas Gray WolfSun Sep 21, 2008 at 23:48:03 PM EDT

Obama did exactly the right thing in proposing principles for a plan to bail out the financial industry rather than a plan, both politically and Presidentially. Presidents set agendas and principles and have staffs to draw up the nuts and bolts (or: you don't think FDR crafted all that legislation personally, do you?). Obama's not going to take the lead on crafting a plan in the Senate, can't, and shouldn't. That's a job that's going to require the full attention of the people involved. It's also not what you expect a president to do either. Presidents set principles, goals, objectives, criteria, agendas, that sort of thing. Presidents should be overseers, not wonks (a bit of wonkiness, good; too much, bad). Presidents are not Senators. Acting as a Senator now is a necessary but not sufficient part of Obama's campaign for the Presidency; being Presidential is much more valuable.

I don't think that voters want a specific plan from Obama right now. They don't want to (and won't) read through legislation. Voters want leadership. This is step one of leadership (step two is standing by it and using his position to promote his principles and hold Congress, or at minimum Democrats, to them). McCain (and anyone else Obama didn't mention, in laying out the principles) is now in the "follower" position, unless they start from a different set of principles and win the fight over whose principles are better (and even in that case, Obama's still taken the leadership position by switching the debate from plans to principles).

Texas Gray Wolf :: Principles First, Plans Second Had Obama just proposed a concrete, specific, here's-the-nuts-and-bolts plan, voters would tune out or listen to a soundbite analysis of the plan. But they'll look carefully at a set of principles. They want whatever plan is proposed to conform to a set of principles that protects them and works for them. That's what Obama's proposed. Voters want to know what the plan will do for them*. They don't want to know the nuts and bolts of how it will do it for them. They do want to know that there are nuts and bolts and that those nuts and bolts are the right ones (i.e. there needs to be credibility in the resulting plan). This is the framework for deciding if the nuts and bolts are the right ones.

Each principle is concise and easily explained and defended. Together they provide an enormous amount of justification to Democrats (and Republicans too) who want to oppose the current bailout plan, and tools with which to attack those who do not oppose the current plan. I'm just waiting for Obama, for instance, to respond to an attack by saying "so, you're opposed to protecting the American taxpayer?", "so, you want to kick taxpayers out of their homes even after we've spent government money covering their mortgage?", "so, you're still opposed to regulation, even after the lack of regulation has brought us to this point", etc.

These are very hard principles to attack openly. A plan can be attacked; any detailed plan is going to contain one or two things you can attack on. It's inevitable; no one writes perfect laws and there really is no bailout that will be universally accepted. But it's very hard to attack the principles Obama's proposing; they're all intuitively the right thing to do even for conservatives. If you propose plan first and back-fill your principles you look weak. Proposing principles first is a position of strength.

What Obama's proposed lays out a framework: what will the plan do for people? What will it not do? Without that, you wind up with "Obama's Wonky Plan" vs "McCain's Wonky Plan" and voters go to sleep or decide based on soundbite analysis of the plan. There's no context for making a decision. The details of this stuff is way, way over the heads of most voters -- heck, it's way over the heads of most National Merit Scholars. On the other hand, everyone gets "protect the taxpayers". It's obvious. It gives Obama grounds to attack the current plan and any bad McCain plan. It puts McCain in the position where he either has to attack Obama's principles or look like a complete follower.

If you're worried about the "indecisiveness" ploy (which I think is going nowhere fast, despite Palin harping on it), pretty much what Obama needs to do to counter that is to say firmly that YES we need a bailout but YES it must follow these principles. That's not indecisiveness and it's not voting 'present'. It also allows Obama to hit back: do you support the administration plan? If not, what's your plan? Does it meet the Obama principles? If not, why not? Proposing a plan doesn't allow you to criticize their plan directly -- you'd have to go to a wonky point-by-point comparison.

If any of the principles is going to be attacked, my money is on the one about keeping taxpayers in their homes. But I think opposing that is a losing position -- I just can't see the American public as a whole saying "hell yeah, corporations deserve billions but taxpayers should get nothing even though the government has covered their bad debt" in such a transparently obvious manner.

Plus there's an enormous economic plus to letting homeowners stay in their homes. If you take the home and sell it in foreclosure, you drive prices down. That creates a continuing spiral of collapses and (possibly) leads to the everyone-moves-one-house-over effect (where people who were bottom-up on a $500,000 house can now afford to buy the $200,000 house that used to be the same $500,000 house). You can make the counterargument that it lets people with means buy houses at fire-sale prices and clean up, but that's saying it rewards the rich -- it's a non-starter. In fact, if you oppose that principle, that's one of the pivots -- that you're directly hurting people who are already hurting and rewarding the rich.

Principles set the ground rules for discussion. They're extremely powerful. McCain's immediately in a box; he either needs to oppose Obama's principles (each of which is fairly hard to oppose) or he has to look like he's following Obama's leadership on the issue. It's a no-win situation unless he can build traction around one of Obama's principles being wrong.

What he has proposed is infinitely more valuable than a plan. He's used his position -- his leadership -- to frame the debate in a way that will tend to force a good plan or force the other side to be honest about pushing a bad plan. It's hard (not impossible, give the bad guys credit, but really hard) to craft a bad plan that conforms to all of Obama's principles. It's also hard to craft a good plan that violates any of them. And articulating principles first gives Congressional Democrats a very straightforward touchstone to reject the administration plan, even prior to proposing their own, and not look like a bunch of obstructionists.

Politically it's brilliant, and it's also the right thing to do for a President.

ABC Attacks McCain

Kayti Coonjohn — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:37:48 EDT

ABC's 'This Week' Panel Tears Into John McCain (Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzc0re_3hQw

Need material for letters? Feel free to use my blog.

Daniel Cornwall — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:41:01 EDT

If you're sitting down to write a letter to the editor somewhere and weren't sure where to start, I'd like to suggest that you check out my personal blog where I've been giving a reason a week to vote for Barack Obama as President. Aside from the text itself, which you may or may not want to adapt, each entry has links to issue pages and other materials you might find helpful.

To see the "Why Vote Obama" entries, visit:

http://alaskanlibrarian.wordpress.com/category/whyvoteobama/

If you're writing about some issue where you need a particular fact or quote, feel free to e-mail/message me and I'll see if I can find it for you.

Please vote Here Urgent Poll

Working Mom For Obama — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:44:16 EDT

Here is a small thing you can do in two clicks SECONDS! Check this out please and fast.

The Right is having people vote that Palin is qualified Let's turn this around!!!

PBS has a poll that asks: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be VP? Let's turn
this around..... You don't have to give your name or email address in order
to vote. It's very simple.

Here's the link: http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

Just click & vote NOW.

10 Things You Should Know of John McCain

Kayti Coonjohn — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:53:37 EDT

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1
According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."2
His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3
McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."4
The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.5
He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.6
Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."7
McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8
McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."9
He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10

Univ. of Iowa Students Interrupt McCain-Palin Rally

John From Cape Cod. Ma — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:34:58 EDT

LINK:http://www.opednews.com/articles/University-of-Iowa-Student-by-Stephen-Fox-080920-773.html

Univ. of Iowa Students Interrupt McCain-Palin Rally

by Stephen Fox Page 1 of 2 page(s)

www.opednews.com

This just in, via Obama Rapid Response Team, the work of several writers:

Dozens of students from the University of Iowa were kicked-out of the McCain-Palin rally for speaking out for peace and justice and against four more years of the same unacceptable policies of George Bush.

Activists from the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and the University of Iowa Anti-war Committee engaged in a steady stream of "rolling disruptions" to advocate for peace and justice and highlight their discontent with McSame's pro-Bush policies.

It should be noted that heckling is a constitutionally protected form of free speech. During Palin's rally a group of UI female students (including Megan Felt, Hannah Rounds, Laura Kacere, and Marni Steadham) advocated for women's rights, which are being seriously threatened by the outdated policies of McCain and Palin.

They chanted "our body, our choice", "equal pay for equal work", and "Palin, Palin get off our back, women's rights are under attack!" They also held up a large banner reading "War is menstruation envy!" Following this protest these women were escorted out by the local law enforcement. Shortly after, a second group of protesters (including UI students Robin Berman, Dan Rathjen, and David Goodner) called Palin and McCain out when they blatantly lied to the crowd about the current economic crisis.

In particular, Palin and McCain promised to reform our economy, even though their economic policies are no different than the current administration. These protesters were also escorted out. Toward the end of the speech McCain talked about his pro-war viewpoint. At the same time, UI graduate student, Justin Feinstein, screamed out, "John McCain, you never learn! We lost in 'Nam! We lost in Iraq! You can never win in war!"

The third wave of students (including Feinstein, Brooke Bachelder, Lara Elborno, Naomi Prager, and Anthony Carter) began loudly chanting, "Bring 'em back, from Iraq", "No justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East", "Wars, wars, that's his name, 100 more years with John McCain", and "All we are saying, is give peace a chance."

All protesters were escorted out peacefully and their demonstration isa testament to the 1st amendment rights given to every US citizen. The protesters encourage all people to exercise their right to freedomof speech.

----------------------

Note from Stephen Fox: I think these students (Megan Felt, Hannah Rounds, Laura Kacere, Marni Steadham, Robin Berman, Dan Rathjen, David Goodner, Justin Feinstein, Brooke Bachelder, Lara Elborno, Naomi Prager, and Anthony Carter) deserve our commendation for their Gandhian courage and their intelligence to do what they did.

This could be in the form of letters to the editor of

1. Daily Iowan, the University Paper (diopletters@gmail.com)

2. Iowa City Press Citizen (opinion@press-citizen.com)

3. Des Moines Register (letters@dmreg.com)

4. Cedar Rapids Gazette (news@gazettecommunications.com)

plus five more listed at: http://www.usnpl.com/ianews.php (this is a "Live Blue" list of Newspapers in Iowa)

Sarah Palin To Be Dropped From McCain Ticket

Ruth Calabria — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:20:09 EDT

Dear Friends,

The guns on the conviction of the sinner, Senator Barack Obama, are about to be silenced. Sarah Palin has done her job of connecting with the everyday people who will make the difference in the election. She has managed to make the Republicans, the party of, by and for the ruling class, the hope of the people in the margin, the smarter evangelicals who might have voted for Obama, the moms who struggle so hard to raise their kids in this mom unfriendly environment, the moose hunters and those Hillary women who can’t distinguish their bras from their pocketbooks.

Palin has also managed to distract us all from the consequences of the hundred billion dollar bank bailout necessitated by the blind greed of Republican mortgage scammers, a grand heist on all who work for a living whose paychecks will be cut in half by the stupendous inflation this will bring about. Stocks, mostly owned by the rich, go up; and the real income of the workers and middle class goes down. This effective transfer of wealth from worker to ruling class is a continuation of the broader capitalist Republican manipulations that have caused worker incomes to drop by 2% in the last decade while those in the top tier went up by 200%.

McCain’s conservative handlers have planned from the beginning to have Sarah leave the scene, once her job was finished, along with the baggage of her Trooper-gate conniving and her obvious lack of qualifications for the presidency. We suspect her coming exit to have been intelligently designed from the start in its reeking of our situation down here in Texas where my fundamentalist mother still tries to control me, a 67 year old woman, from the grave by having left me an inheritance totally controlled by my castrated conservative brother, a lawyer who made it clear immediately after my mother’s death that there’s no way I would ever see a penny of the money left me unless I left my evolutionist professor husband of 35 years who rescued me from this moron, child abusing, family I had the misfortune to be born into. And if I know these scheming conservative game players correctly, Palin’s exit will be blamed on something Michelle Obama said about Christmas or some equally absurd and vicious zinger.

The communists used to say that the capitalists would sell them the rope they needed to hang them. This has proved to be unnecessary. Instead we have seen our greedy pig ruling class hang themselves with their mortgage scam that backfired, and hang all of us in the process. To highlight their lunatic decadence and stupidity, we note the dribbling remarks of an upper class jerk by the name of Wayne Angel, a retired Fed Board member who owns his own seven homes and blames the economic meltdown on unions demanding more money for the workers! Did we really hear him say that!? Such callousness and the fact that he truly believes it (!) borders on a criminality that calls for the forced feeding of cake to Marie Antoinette’s severed head. This bailout grand theft, soft peddled and hidden by media shills whose employment is at the discretion of said ruling class, the same crew of peppy liars who helped sell the War in Iraq that has been used as an excuse for the taking away of our freedom, fairness and justice in America, must be reversed. The upper class must go!

But rather than have the rerun of the French Revolution that these rich pigs so richly deserve, it is much easier to throw them out of power by electing Barack Obama, who, whatever his shortcomings, is a hell of a lot smarter and a hell of a lot more caring than these ruling class wolves and their loathsome surrogate in sheep’s clothing, the truly dippy, smiling lunatic, John McCain, who however he may come off in well edited sound bites on TV, looks in person like he would have trouble finding his way to the men’s room.

Don’t be fooled by kindly Uncle John. Be scared on Election Day, scared enough to make sure you go out and vote. Hidden in briefly appearing stories on the net are the new rules for domestic spying and for FBI surveillance and harassment without due cause, also known as, welcome to the police state. The Republicans are as treacherous in their plans for the coming Inquisition as they are in consistently making black out to be white in presidential campaigning.

And while we are at it, let’s put the blame for the personal unhappiness and heartache of young people where it belongs to make sure they get out and vote. It’s not hard to understand. First turn off Dr. Phil, a castrated propagandist who has enough money to buy a trophy wife to cover up the fact that his fast talking is as cross wired as his face is goofy. The problem of the breakdown of love and happiness in America is not a mental problem.

Rule #1: The ruling class has the power to do whatever they want to do.

Rule #2: What they and their managers want to do is screw all the women, which they do in the workplace and in the schools in various ways.

Rule #3: If you want to keep your job or get an A on that term paper, honey, pull up your skirt, as happens as often as folks drink coffee in the morning.

Rule #4: Every woman comes to know these rules.

Rule #5: No woman talks about them.

Today’s women are a harem for the ruling class. The owners and bosses and the worst teachers and priests get to toy with the women (and with the kids) while the men who fall in love with the women are DENIED ACCESS, crowded out by the creepy lechers whose taking advantage insults the women and destroys the self respect and emotional integrity necessary for successful courtship and love, with the problem made all the worse with the cockeyed morality spouted on corporate run TV. And men being made obedient fools out of by bosses, also as common as morning coffee, doesn’t improve their attractiveness to women. It’s time for a revolution and electing Obama is the first step. We make the case for what we say, as taboo as these truths are in an America where lies rule by swift condemnation of truth tellers as evil or crazy, on www.matrix-evolutions.com where we use a compelling scientific argument based on a mathematical understanding of evolution and information.

Mrs. Ruth and Dr. Peter V. Calabria

Call Ohio Voters

Dawn — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:19:06 EDT

For those of you interested in calling Ohio voters please get involved. Here is the link on our site to do so. We also have many other states that need your involvement. Keep up the great work!

Also, we are still needing huge amounts of funds to counteract the GOP lies and reach the undecided voters in the swing states. Please donate even $1 if you can. It really does make a difference!!! I try to donate a minimum of $1 when one of our network friends asks for help or the campaign makes a plea for a goal. HOWEVER...if you cannot please make 10 calls, knock on 10 doors, hand out 10 flyers, register 10 voters, or send out postcards on one of the events. IT DOES MATTER!!! YOUR WORK MATTERS!!!

http://oh.barackobama.com/callohio

Why Him? Why Now?

Jen who is a proud member of the "Angry Left" — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:12:09 EDT

Admittidly, I've never been interested in politics. I've always taken for granted that those in power were supposed to do what's best for you. Starting young, you are reassured by your parents that they are looking out for your best interest. They did it because they wanted you to grow. Later, your teachers filled your head with knowlege and wisdom, were doing so because they wanted you to explore. Your government did things because they wanted to "...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."

Because of my own naivete', I never thought things would get this bad.

I saw Barack Obama for the first time during some sound bite from the DNC in 2004. I was in the hospital, after the man child was born. So, I'll attribute the ample tears that flowed during that speech to the hormones. I was of course still raw after the stolen election of 2000 and really had no intention of voting in 2004. After all, Ks is a red state. It didn't matter if I voted or not, our votes wouldn't count in today's Electoral College world. So as tears are streaming down my face, and my husband thinks I've gone over the edge, I'm clapping wildly exclaiming... "That man has got to run for PRESIDENT!"

Well, here he is right here, right now, sooooo close. So why him? Why now? Because as my now 4 year old proudly says, "Because he's the right man for the right job mom!" The events of the past week are just surreal. The failure of Wall Street giants, gas, tragedy, homes, the loss of jobs... just a single one of these things is bad but the combination of all is catastrophic. And, it appears, the people in the Republican party are acting like Stepford Politicians. I just want to shake the American public and scream "DONT YOU SEE WHAT THEY ARE DOING!", "CAN'T YOU SEE HOW WRONG THEY ARE!", "DON'T YOU KNOW VOTING FOR THESE PEOPLE IS A MISTAKE!" Does anyone else feel like they we are living a really bad nightmare and just CAN'T wake up! But I digress...

I work in a small local hospital, having given up the stress and pace of the biggest hospital in the state of Ks. We are a great facility, I work with the best nurses and we've got the best patient population! So, what of the small town hospital in today's economy? Our hospital previously subsidized the employee daycare center. It was originally opened to bring young nurses back into the workforce. With cuts in reimbursement, they had to make a choice between essential health care oriented expenses and benefits to their employees. In addition to cutting out the daycare subsidy, insurance costs went up, education reimbursement went down, time off allowed was redistributed.

I am angry that their hand was forced into making these decisions. I am angry that health care costs are skyrocketing (by the way, I've not seen any increase in my pay because of it). I am angry that there are so many who have to put off care until it's an emergency because they are afraid to spend the money. I am angry that there are so many uninsured. I am angry that people have to use the emergency room as their primary care physician. With the system now, I can imagine at some point all small hospitals closing. Reimbursement continues to shrink, which affects the quality of service, and number of services offered. It affects the ability to maintain adequately trained staff. It affects the ability to take care of patients with up to date equipment and monitoring. Each of these things are slowly dwindling as hospitals take in less and less. A healthy nation is a strong nation, and we are really weak right now.

With Barack Obama's health care plan, the cost of insurance will go down. By serving more INSURED patients, hospitals and doctors will see their reimbursements increase. With increased reimbursements, hospitals will be able to offer competative benefits to KEEP nurses in the workforce (afterall, we are the BACKBONE of the hospital), expand and improve facilities and offer better services. Small hospitals will be able to attract qualified physicians and exceptionally trained nurses. Acute admissions for chronic diseases will be reduced with a better emphasis on preventative care. We can be strong, again.

Finally I have the feeling that someone is looking out for us again. Finally I believe in the process. Finally I think that someone is actually going to do what's best for US, for our children, for our country.

Thank you Barack Obama!

Whats Going On !!!!

april — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:26:21 EDT

I LISTENED TO AN OLD SONG TODAY....MAYBE SOME OF YOU REMEMBER IT....WHATS GOING ON BY THE FOUR NON BLONDES.......MAN DID IT BRING BACK MEMORIES. IT ALSO GOT ME FIRED UP A BIT TO KEEP REALLY PUSHING FORWARD WITH GETTING THE WORD OUT TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS I CAN TO VOTE FOR BARACK AND WHY......I HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS POLITICAL EVER....MY FAMILY THINKS I AM CRAZY.....HAHA...J/K.... THEY ARE SUPRISED THOUGH TO SEE HOW INVOLVED I AM. IF ANY OF YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE OR HAVEN'T HEARD IT IN A WHILE I SUGGEST YOU DOWNLOAD IT......IT REALLY MAKES SENSE TO WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW WITH THE WAR, THE ECONOMY ETC.....AND AFTER LISTENING TO IT IT MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WANT TO GET UP AND DO SOMETHING!!!!!

ANYHOW, MY HOPE FOR EVERYONE THAT HAS BEEN FOLLOWING BARACK IS..... PLEASE DON'T LOSE STEAM NOW....KEEP PUSHING FORWARD BARACK'S VICTORY OUR VICTORY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER!!!!!!!

LOVE AND PEACE TO ALL!!!!

APRIL

In 1999, McCain supported comprehensive legislation deregulating the financial-services industry

Fire Is Born — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 01:24:42 EDT

AN EXCERPT FROM BLOOMBERG:

"(...) Deregulating Industry

In 1999, McCain supported comprehensive legislation deregulating the financial-services industry, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking and was one of the hallmarks of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal economic program. While that allowed banks and securities firms to compete more directly, critics say it led to excesses because it wasn't replaced by a new law reflecting changes in financial markets.

McCain also supported a law that deregulated derivatives trading and exempted energy trading from oversight. And he backed a federal law that preempts state laws, some of which are stringent, against anti-predatory lending.

In recent years, McCain supported 2005 bankruptcy-overhaul legislation, an industry-backed bill that made it harder for some people to discharge their debt. Obama voted against it.

Obama has been in the Senate since just 2005, so he wasn't around for many of the pivotal debates over financial deregulation throughout the years.

He touts Senate legislation he introduced in 2006 to clamp down on fraudulent or risky mortgages as evidence that he pushed regulations aimed at preventing ``this turmoil from occurring in the first place.''

Power to Fed

In a March speech, he called for giving the Federal Reserve greater supervisory authority when it acts as a lender of last resort, strengthening the capital requirements for financial companies, and streamlining the collection of overlapping regulatory agencies that oversee Wall Street.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement after Obama's speech that the Illinois senator is endorsing the ``failed liberal policies of the past.''

In the current environment, though, those policies are looking more appealing, even to McCain who also called for streamlining regulation and appointing a central oversight agency.

``If you're in favor of stronger regulation, you're likely to want to favor Mr. Obama,'' said Edwin Truman, a former assistant U.S. Treasury secretary."

To contact the reporters on this story: Alison Fitzgerald in Washington at Afitzgerald2@bloomberg.net Christopher Stern in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 1966 or cstern3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 17, 2008 00:20 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aqwxDPvmIvDc&refer=politics

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/

NEW OBAMA AD: WATCH, DIGG, COMMENT!

Fire Is Born — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:39:49 EDT

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/New_Obama_ad_on_the_economy THANK YOU!

Watch live webcast event with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton:

Fire Is Born — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:47:39 EDT

Are you watching the webcast event with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton:

oooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/wfovideoforum

ooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

DONATE! FIGHT FOR WOMEN RIGHTS – THEY ARE IN DANGER!

THIS DANGER HAS A NAME: MCCAIN/PALIN, ESPECIALLY PALIN WITH HER PENETCOSTAL CHURCH values SHE WANTS TO IMPOSE ON ALL OF US! NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!! NEVER PALIN!!! NEVER MCACAIN!

obama/biden 'o8

Thank God McCain-Palin Were Not In Charge of Social Security!

Elstun — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:10:24 EDT

> note, we can all be grateful that McCain's 'private accounts/private management' scheme for Social Security was not in place before this latest tanking on Wall Street. Point THIS out to McCain-leaning Seniors when you have an opportunity to do so....

John Neffinger

Hello? If McCain Had His Way, That'd Be Our Social Security Money Wall Street is Losing

What do we democrats have to say about the mess on Wall Street?

Today Obama said it proves that the Republican economic philosophy has failed, and I heard him mock McCain for calling for a commission because "we know how we got into this mess." Now some people think about things like "economic philosophy" a lot, and many have at least a general notion of how we got into this mess. But even though everybody cares about how much money ends up in their pockets, most people are understandably a little fuzzy about all the policies and philosophies and market forces behind our very complex economy.

And to further confuse the issue, McCain is also saying something about reform, and taking on "fat cats," and accusing Obama of being just as cozy with these Wall Streeters as anyone else. The upshot so far is that slightly more voters trust John McCain to handle the economy than trust Barack Obama.

As it happens, though, not that long ago we had a rare political moment in this country, a moment where the public sat up and took notice of economic policy -- and spoke out and made its voice heard too. When George W. Bush made it to term #2, he decided to try to privatize social security to reward his supporters on Wall Street with a new source of capital, customers, and fees. (Those would be the same people whose firms are now cratering under the weight of the bad debt they recklessly took on while Republican regulators looked the other way).

But as it turned out, we Americans were not about to let our elected representatives turn over our social security taxes to Wall Street financiers to gamble with if it meant losing the guaranteed income that has allowed millions upon millions of American seniors to live out their sunset years with at least a basic measure of dignity.

But while ordinary Americans spoke out, John McCain stood with Bush (hugged him awkwardly in public, even), against the American people. In fact, just six months ago, McCain again let slip his fondness for privatization.

I have been scratching my head why this has not been talked about more, especially since Obama has been having trouble winning votes among seniors. There may well be some good reason I'm missing why it hasn't been a top argument thus far.

But now that you can't look at a newspaper or TV screen without seeing the mayhem on Wall Street, it's time to remind Americans what the world would look like if John McCain was in charge of our economic policy. Plenty of people are losing plenty of their retirement savings as it is.

But if we had let Bush and McCain privatize social security, some of those people would be losing a lot more. And a lot of other people with less retirement savings would be hurting even more, because they depend on social security to cover basic needs.

This is something Americans understand: social security is secure, and the stock market is anything but. There are few more personal or dramatic ways to illustrate McCain's terrible judgment than to imagine the nightmare scenario so many Americans would face if McCain and Bush had gotten their way on this -- or if McCain were to get his way as President.

A Native American from Alaska Shares His Views

akmk — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:50:50 EDT

Shared with permission: An Alaska Native’s take on his Governor

Hello. My name is Matt Gilbert. I am originally from Arctic Village, Alaska. I am Alaska Native: Gwich’in Athabascan. I visited Sarah’s campaign office and spoke with her before she became Governor. We talked about the hunting & fishing rights of Alaska Natives. We didn’t get anywhere.

In general, I believe Sarah Palin is another version of Bush, just as inexperienced, but more impulsive. She is very dangerous and scary.

Wake up America ! Send her back to Alaska. She has plenty of un-finished work here. She hasn’t even gotten funding to move the town of Shishmeraf. It’s falling into the ocean from an eroding coast due to Global Warming, which she wants to fuel more by encourage more coal and oil development. She fuels the fire, and now they want her to do it on a national level.

Palin has done a lot of irrational things up here as Governor. She supports drilling Off-Shore which would utterly destroy the livelihood of the Inupiaq people on the North Slope . They rely on Whale. She supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. My people, the Gwich’in have kept this area closed from development for 30 years. We rely on the Porcupine Caribou Herd and if drilling takes place in the Arctic Refuge, our caribou goes and so does our culture. We are the last stand for Indian Country. The prior chapters were bad, so make this last chapter a good one and vote for Obama.

It’s crucial we have food off our land because the western foods, processed foods, give us diabetes if we eat them alone. The subsistence foods not only feed our bodies, but our culture, spirit, social lives, and minds. Our way of life off the land is everything to us. Sarah Palin doesn’t care about this. She wouldn’t care if our culture eroded before her eyes. She’s like Nero, sitting in Juneau putting on lip-gloss as Alaskan villages suffer.

Her hometown Wasillia, has been a hot-bed for racist and Anti-Native attitudes.

Our hurricanes and disasters are getting worse due to Global Warming, our Stock Market is dangerously shaky, our healthcare is getting so bad it may cause a revolution soon, and the War in Iraq is draining our resources and working families to depression-levels. We need a Change! We need Barack Obama.

Alaskanomics

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:44:58 EDT

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1839724,00.html

Sarah Palin's AlaskonomicsBy Michael Kinsley

Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and has never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars. So maybe Governor Palin does represent everything that is good and fine about America, as she herself maintains. But spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.

Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said "No, thanks" to the famous "bridge to nowhere" (McCain's favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said "Yes, please" until the project became a symbol and political albatross.

Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.

Alaska is, in essence, an adjunct member of OPEC. It has four different taxes on oil, which produce more than 89% of the state's unrestricted revenue. On average, three-quarters of the value of a barrel of oil is taken by the state government before that oil is permitted to leave the state. Alaska residents each get a yearly check for about $2,000 from oil revenues, plus an additional $1,200 pushed through by Palin last year to take advantage of rising oil prices. Any sympathy the governor of Alaska expresses for folks in the lower 48 who are suffering from high gas prices or can't afford to heat their homes is strictly crocodile tears.

As if it couldn't support itself, Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.

Under the state constitution, the governor of Alaska has unusually strong powers to shape the state budget. At the Republican National Convention, Palin bragged that she had vetoed "nearly $500 million" in state spending during her two years as governor. This amounts to less than 2% of the proposed budget. That's how much this warrior for you (the people) against it (the government) could find in wasteful spending under her control.

One thing Barack Obama and McCain disagree on is an oil windfall–profits tax. McCain is against it, on the theory that it is a tax and therefore bad, and also that it would discourage domestic production. Obama is for it, on the theory that if oil companies can make a nice profit when oil sells for $50 per bbl., they can still make a nice profit when it sells for more than $100, even if the government takes a bit and spreads the money around to those who are hurting from higher oil prices.

Although Palin's words side with McCain in this dispute, her actions side with Obama. Her major legislative accomplishment has been to revamp Alaska's windfall-profits tax in order to increase the state's take. Alaska calls it a "clear and equitable share" tax. The state assumes that extracting oil from the tundra costs about $25 per bbl. and takes as much as 75% of the difference between that and the sale price.

Why is a windfall-profits tax good for Alaska but not for the U.S.? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? People in Alaska are better than people in the rest of the U.S. They're more American. Although there are small towns and farms and high school hockey teams in the lower 48, there are fewer down here, per capita, than in Alaska. And there are many more journalists and pollsters and city dwellers and other undesirables who might benefit if every American had the same right to leech off the government as do the good citizens of Sarah Palin's Alaska.

Support Obama/Biden and Wolves in Alaska

akmk — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:31:46 EDT

Please donate to my fundraising page to support Obama/Biden and wolves in Alaska http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/dashboard/main/AlaskanWolves

National Organization of Women Endorses Obama

akmk — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:37:35 EDT

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The National Organization for Women (NOW) said Tuesday it had been pushed by the Republicans pick of Sarah Palin as vice presidential nominee to back Democrat Barack Obama for the White House.

"NOW is going to be endorsing the Obama-Biden ticket," NOW head Kim Gandy told National Public Radio (NPR), referring to Obama and his running mate Joseph Biden.

The 500,000-strong women's movement, which "very, very rarely endorses in a general election", broke with its tradition of neutrality after "the addition of Sarah Palin gave us a new sense of urgency," said Gandy.

"She is being portrayed as a supporter of women's rights ... as a feminist when in fact her positions on so many of the issues are really anathema to ours," Gandy said.

Obama family Album - easy on the eye, easy on the mind - send to friends who still think Hawai'i is in Africa

Fire Is Born — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:20:29 EDT

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
http://obamascrapbook.com/6.htm
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I JUST LOVE THIS SCRAP BOOK. ENJOY IT YOURSELF. A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. IT'S ALL THERE. THIS ALBUM MAY INSPIRE PEOPLE TO READ THE "DREAMS FROM MY FATHER", WHICH I WOULD RECOMMEND TO MEN OF ALL AGES.

Good night to the Obama East Coast!

Fire Is Born — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:06:14 EDT

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fyeCpQtN4h8
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

NEXT CHANGE

simonebars — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:24:12 EDT

Dear Friends,
You know more than me :

NEW YORK (Sept. 15) - A stunning makeover of the Wall Street landscape sent stocks falling precipitously Monday, with the Dow Jones industrials sliding 500 points in their worst point drop since the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Investors reacted badly to a shakeup of the financial industry that took out two storied names: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. (Aol report)

Now is the time for the Campaign to move closer to Us citizen !

Economy is real, not only stocks falling !

Your supporter,
Simone

Dupped by Gallup?! Yes indeed!

Fire Is Born — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:23:15 EDT

DIGG it!

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

Gallup admits to using Likely Voters when it helps McCain

dailykos.com — Frank Newport, head of Gallup, admits that they temporarily changed to a likely-voter model for a poll that showed a large jump and lead for McCain, in the same breath that he admitted that the likely-voter model is less accurate than the registered-voter model, and that the likely-voter model was temporarily skewed Republican.

Share BuryOptionalDuplicate Story Spam Wrong Topic Inaccurate OK, This is Lame Favorite? itswhatson 7 hr 36 min ago, made popular 1 hr 4 min ago

1198 diggs
dugg!

Governor Palin's Reading List, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:59:14 EDT

Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."

It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.

Comments from AK Dem Chair, Patti Higgins

akmk — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:51:13 EDT

The following comments from AK Dem Chair, Patti Higgins, are worthy of consideration:

"While we can appreciate the attention to Alaska, Governor Palin is not the reformer that McCain claims she is. When she was Mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbying firm to secure federal earmarks. As Governor she has continued to seek and accept federal earmarks, the very practice that McCain has fought, despite her claims that she now opposes them. Palin is under investigation for abuse of power, and now it appears she is stonewalling the Legislature's investigation of Troopergate, after she previously said she would cooperate. In Alaska, and in the nation, it is Democrats who have led the way to reform and change. Ultimately, the national race is about the choice between McCain and Obama, about who will be the better leader for our country, and what direction our country will go in. Will we have change or more of the same? Barack Obama will focus on the needs of middle class and working people, not special interests and the wealthy. Obama has empathy with the thousands of Alaskans are struggling to get by, because he has been there himself. John McCain can't remember how many houses he owns. At the Republican convention this week, McCain and Palin didn't offer any solutions to help families meet the challenges of high prices and rising costs of everything. They didn't offer any solutions for jump-starting the economy, making health care more affordable, or keeping good jobs here in America. The Bush/McCain agenda has brought us an endless war in Iraq, the highest gas prices in the country, and companies getting big tax breaks to move American jobs overseas. John McCain thinks we've made great economic progress. Sarah Palin fully supports his agenda. Alaskans, and the country as a whole, are ready for change. John McCain won't give us the change we need. We can't afford four more years of the same failed policies of George Bush. For these reasons, I hope you will join me in voting for Democrats at every level."

'Throw the bums out!' -- say the bums

John From Cape Cod. Ma — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:36:37 EDT

'Throw the bums out!' -- say the bums

By Garrison Keillor

September 11, 2008

So the Republicans have decided to run against themselves. The bums have tiptoed out the back door and circled around to the front and started yelling, "Throw the bums out!" They've been running Washington like a well-oiled machine to the point of inviting lobbyists into the back rooms to write the legislation, and now they are anti-establishment reformers dedicated to delivering us from themselves. And Mayor Giuliani is an advocate for small-town America. Bravo.

They are coming out for Small Efficient Government the very week that the feds are taking over Fannie and Freddie, those old cash cows, and in the course of a weekend 20 or 50 or (pick a number) billion go floating out the Treasury door. Hello? Do you see us out here? We are not fruit flies, we are voters, we can read and write, we didn't just fall off the coal truck.

It is a bold move on the Republicans' part -- forget about the past, it's only history, so write a new narrative and be who you want to be -- and if they succeed, I think I might declare myself a 24-year-old virgin named Lance and see what that might lead to. Paste a new face on my Facebook page, maybe become the Dauphin Louie the Thirty-Second, the rightful heir to the Throne of France, put on silk tights and pantaloons and a plumed hat and go on the sawdust circuit and sell souvenir hankies imprinted with the royal fleur-de-lis. They will cure neuralgia and gout and restore marital vigor.

Mr. McCain has decided to run as a former POW and a maverick, a maverick's maverick, rather than Mr. Bush's best friend, and that's understandable, but how can he not address the $3 trillion that got burned up in Iraq so far? It's real money, it could've paid for a lot of windmills, a high-speed rail line in Ohio, some serious R&D. The Chinese, who have avoided foreign wars for 50 years, are taking enormous leaps forward, investing in their economy, and we are falling behind. We're wasting our chances. The Republican culture of corruption in Washington hasn't helped.

And a former mayor of a town of 7,000 who hired a lobbyist to get $26 million in federal earmarks is now running against the old-boy network in Washington who gave her that money to build the teen rec center and other good things so she could keep taxes low in Wasilla. Stunning. And if you question her qualifications to be the leader of the free world, you are an elitist.

This is a beautiful maneuver. I wish I had thought of it back in school when I was forced to subject myself to a final exam in higher algebra. I could have told Miss Mortenson, "I am a Christian and when you gave me a D, you only showed your contempt for the Lord and for the godly hard-working people from whom I have sprung, you elitist battleaxe you."

In school, you couldn't get away with that garbage because the taxpayers know that if we don't uphold scholastic standards, we will wind up driving on badly designed bridges and go in for a tonsillectomy and come out missing our left lung, so we flunk the losers lest they gain power and hurt us, but in politics we bring forth phonies and love them to death.

I must say, it was fun having the Republicans in St. Paul and to see it all up close and firsthand. Security was, as one might expect, thin-lipped and gimlet-eyed, but once you got through it, you found the folks you went to high school with -- farm kids, jocks, the townies who ran the student council, the cheerleaders, some of the bullies -- and they are as cohesive now as they were back then, dedicated to school spirit, intolerant of outsiders, able to jump up and down and holler for something they don't actually believe.

But oh Lord, what they brought forth this year. When you check the actuarial tables on a 72-year-old guy who's had three bouts with cancer, you guess you may be looking at the first woman president, a hustling evangelical with ethics issues and a chip on her shoulder who, not counting Canada, has set foot outside the country once -- a trip to Germany, Iraq and Kuwait in 2007 to visit Alaskans in the armed service. And who listed a refueling stop in Ireland as a fourth country visited. She's like the Current Occupant but with big hair. If you want inexperience, there were better choices.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.keillor11sep11,0,4084302,print.story

Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.

Former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in tribe from Arctic Village, Alaska and the current Executive Director of Native Movement speaks about Palin

Fire Is Born — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:53:13 EDT

Former Alaska Native chief speaks out on Palin, oil and his state Page 1 of 2oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/tundra-talk/1-talk-of-the-tundra/110-alaska-native-speaks-out-on-palin-oil-and-alaska.html

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By Evon Peter

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

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

Ever since the Russian claim to Alaska and the subsequent sale to the United States through the Treaty of Cession in 1867, the attitude and treatment towards Alaska Native peoples has been fairly consistent. We were initially referred to as less than human “uncivilized tribes”, so we were excluded from any dialogues and decisions regarding our lands, lives, and status. The dominating attitude within the Unites States at the time was called Manifest Destiny; that God had given Americans this great land to take from the Indians because they were non-Christian and incapable of self-government. Over the years since that time, this framework for relating to Alaska Native peoples has become entrenched in the United States legislative and legal systems in an ongoing direct violation of our human rights.

What does this mean? Allow me to share an analogy. If a group of people were to arrive in your city and tell you their people had made laws, among which were:

1. What were once your home and land now belong to them (although you could live in the garage or backyard)

2. Forced you to send your children to boarding schools to learn their language and be acculturated into their ways with leaders who touted “Kill the American, save the man” (based on the original statement made by US Captain Richard H. Pratt in regards to Native American education “Kill the Indian, save the man.”)

3. Supported missionaries and government agents to forcefully (for example, with poisons placed on the tongues of your children and withheld vaccines) convince you that your Jesus, Buddha, Torah, or Mohammed was actually an agent of evil and that salvation in the afterlife could only be found through believing otherwise

4. Made it illegal for you to continue to do your job to support your family, except under strict oversight and through extensive regulation

5. Made it illegal for you to own any land or run a business as an individual and did not allow you to participate in any form of their government, which controlled your life (voting or otherwise)

How would this make you feel? What if you also knew that if you were to retaliate, that you would be swiftly killed or incarcerated? How long do you think it would take for you to forget or would you be sure to share this history with your children with the hope that justice could one day prevail for your descendents? And most importantly to our conversation, how American does this sound to you?

To put this into perspective, my grandfather who helped to raise me in Arctic Village was born in 1904, just thirty-seven years after the United States laid claim to Alaska. If my grandfather had unjustly stolen your grandfathers home and I was still living in the house and watching you live outdoors, would you feel a change was in order? Congress unilaterally passed most of the major US legislation that affect our people in my grandfathers’ lifetime. There has never been a Treaty between Alaska Native Peoples and the United States over these injustices. Each time that Alaska Native people stand up for our rights, the US responds with token shifts in its laws and policies to appease the building discontent, yet avoiding the underlying injustice that I believe can be resolved if leadership in the United States would be willing to acknowledge the underlying injustice of its control over Alaska Native peoples, our lands, and our ways of life.

United States legal history in relation to Alaska Natives has been based on one major platform - minimize the potential for Alaska Native people to regain control of their lives, lands, and resources and maximize benefit to the Unites States government and its corporations. While the rest of the world, following World War II, was seeking to return African and European Nations to their rightful owners, the United States pushed in the opposite direction by pulling the then Territory of Alaska out of the United Nations dialogues and pushing for Statehood into the Union. Why is it that Alaska Native Nations are still perceived as being incapable of governing our own lands, lives, and resources differently than African, Asian, and European nations?