Montana for Obama

Open Letter to Denny Rehberg (and all his Republican Cronies)

Michael J. Kello — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:05:54 EST

7 November 2009

Dear Congressman Rehberg:

I am writing in support of the current health care bill being debated in The House today. As a member of a life-long Montana family, I am concerned about this nation’s broken health care system, and the high percentage (more than 34%) of Montanans without health insurance. I encourage you to break from the partisan politics being played by the Republican party, think about those uninsured in the state you represent and VOTE FOR THIS BILL!

There is no reason this great country should have such a high number of uninsured. No one should be forced to choose between paying their rent or buying food and going to the doctor or getting their prescriptions. Allowing this to continue is un-American.

Do the right thing for Montana and vote YES for H.R. 3962.

Sincerely,

Michael J. Kello

President Obama's Remarks On Healthcare

EsquireUK — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:29:11 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

President Obama spoke to a special joint session of Congress and the American people to outline his plan for health insurance reform. The core of his plan: provide more security and stability for people who have insurance, provide quality, affordable care to those who don’t, and rein in skyrocketing costs that are crushing American families, businesses and the government itself.

If You Have Health Insurance More Stability and Security
Ends discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
Limits premium discrimination based on gender and age.
Prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage when people are sick and need it most.
Caps out-of-pocket expenses so people don’t go broke when they get sick.
Eliminates extra charges for preventive care like mammograms, flu shots and diabetes tests to improve health and save money.
Protects Medicare for seniors.
Eliminates the "donut-hole" gap in coverage for prescription drugs.
If You Don't Have Insurance Quality, Affordable Choices for All Americans
Creates a new insurance marketplace – the Exchange – that allows people without insurance and small businesses to compare plans and buy insurance at competitive prices.
Provides new tax credits to help people buy insurance.
Provides small businesses tax credits and affordable options for covering employees.
Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice.
Immediately offers new, low-cost coverage through a national "high risk" pool to protect people with preexisting conditions from financial ruin until the new Exchange is created.
For All Americans Reins In the Cost of Health Care for Our Families, Our Businesses, and Our Government
Won’t add a dime to the deficit and is paid for upfront.
Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized.
Implements a number of delivery system reforms that begin to rein in health care costs and align incentives for hospitals, physicians, and others to improve quality.
Creates an independent commission of doctors and medical experts to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system.
Orders immediate medical malpractice reform projects that could help doctors focus on putting their patients first, not on practicing defensive medicine.
Requires large employers to cover their employees and individuals who can afford it to buy insurance so everyone shares in the responsibility of reform.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

Special Presidential Address To Congress

EsquireUK — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:30:57 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

Highlights from online commentary:

Andrew Sullivan: "This passage brings the bipartisan peroration to a real close: 'That large-heartedness – that concern and regard for the plight of others – is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people’s shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.' This is a liberalism most centrists can live with."
Open Left: "[H]e hit the jackpot tonight. I have been listening closely to Presidential speeches for about 35 years now, have watched quite a few oldies but goodies from the past, have even contributed ideas to a fair share of speeches in the Clinton years, and I am sitting here thinking that was one of the very best Presidential speeches I have ever heard. JFK's inaugural and a couple of FDR's best are the only ones I can think of that moved me so much. More importantly, though, he did everything he needed to do: Lay out clearly what he strongly believes in; make a powerful argument for why we need to get this done; answer the phony scare tactics; [and] fire up the people around the country who want to get this done to keep working to make it happen."
Washington Monthly: "Obama went big, sold the plan, and actually explained how this would work. It was as strong as I've seen him on health care — which means he came through with the right speech at the right time … And if someone at the DNC and/or White House political operation can just take the last five minutes or so of that speech, and keep airing it in a constant loop, I'd appreciate it. Brilliant stuff."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

President Obama Debunks The Myths

EsquireUK — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:52:10 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/08/21/Weekly-Address-The-Moral-Case-for-Health-Insurance-Reform/

President Obama debunks the myths around health insurance reform, and discusses the public option proposal in which many of them are rooted -- but he focuses his address on the stark moral and historical turning point at which we find ourselves: "This is our chance to march forward. I cannot promise you that the reforms we seek will be perfect or make a difference overnight. But I can promise you this: if we pass health insurance reform, we will look back many years from now and say, this was the moment we summoned what’s best in each of us to make life better for all of us. This was the moment we built a health care system worthy of the nation and the people we love. This was the moment we earned our place alongside the greatest generations. And that is what our generation of Americans is called to do right now."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/08/21/Weekly-Address-The-Moral-Case-for-Health-Insurance-Reform/

President Obama's Weekly Address

EsquireUK — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:32:55 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Real-Conversations-about-Health-Insurance-Reform/

The President talks about how the chatter and ruckus around health insurance reform on television obscures the reality of what's happening in America. He discusses how in most towns people and Members of Congress are having constructive conversations, and how people are learning how reform will help them and their families with the real problems they have faced with the insurance system.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Real-Conversations-about-Health-Insurance-Reform/

Health Care For America Now

EsquireUK — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:31:32 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Taking-Questions-on-Health-Reform-in-New-Hampshire/

The President hosted a town hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on health insurance reform, telling the crowd, "I don't think government bureaucrats should be meddling, but I also don't think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling. That's the health care system I believe in." The President was introduced by Lori, a woman who can’t find coverage because of her medical condition. We all know someone like Lori who has been discriminated against because of pre-existing conditions, and can't receive the care they need. This is a personal issue for the President, who recounted his mother's battle with insurance companies as she battled with cancer in the last months of her life.

The President outlined how his plan will end these unfair, and often deadly, practices:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Taking-Questions-on-Health-Reform-in-New-Hampshire/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cqQl3lZzzE

We launched www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck this week to knock down the rumors and lies that are floating around the internet. You can find the information below, and much more, there. For example, we've just added a video of Nancy-Ann DeParle from our Health Reform Office tackling a viral email head on.

Bozeman

Starla Gade — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:26:09 EDT

The White House has confirmed that Obama will be in Bozeman on Friday August 14th. I feel we should do what ever is needed to make a strong stand behind President Obama and Health Care Reform.

Is anyone interested in helping?

WhiteHouse.gov/live: Joining The Discussion

EsquireUK — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:20:44 EDT

Joining the discussion at Whitehouse.gov/live

Posted by Nathan Sterken

The White House live stream broadcasts all kinds of White House events, from press conferences with the President to concerts in the East Room. As you may have seen, it’s also home to a new, interactive feature—Open for Questions. During what we call "Open for Questions" sessions, which are hosted about once a week, administration officials answer questions from the public in a live, online video chat. To participate in a future session, stay tuned to the White House blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed for announcements, and then head to the White House Live application on Facebook during the event to submit a question.

By looking at the percentage of people from each state who tuned in, we can see that the popularity of Open for Questions and other White House events varies from state to state with each event. The map below, for example, shows this Wednesday’s Open for Questions session with the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors was most popular in the Midwest and Virginia:

The President’s primetime press conference in the midst of the H1N1 outbreak, though, was popular in California—home to the first confirmed case of H1N1:

And when President Obama weclomed Alison Krauss and Union Station, Brad Paisley, and Charley Pride to the White House, the event was most popular in Tennessee, the nation’s country music capital:

Stay tuned to the White House blog to hear about future Open for Questions sessions and other White House events. To participate in future Open for Questions segments, visit the White House Live application on Facebook.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Joining-the-discussion-at-Whitehousegov-live/

Why nobody paid any attention to this February 15, 09 BLOG of mine about stray DOGS in Iraq and BOMB SNIFFING K9 Training?! Since then, hundreds of innocent people have been killed by terrorist suicide bombings.

ARK — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 07:07:50 EDT

Baghdad PUPS & K9- Bomb Sniffing Training

Since stray dogs in Iraq, Pakistan & Afghanistan are being killed every day, then there might be a solution to save these DOGS & many people as well in those countries. Perhaps we could ask the US and local Armies to train quite a few of them to become trained K9 Bomb sniffing. Then they could be freed every morning and evening on two different shifts and sent to crowded places, watched by under cover personnel, and asked to come back to their special kennels after every shift and then the evening shift would take over. These K9 dogs would have a collar to show they are army dogs so nobody should harm them...If some one would want to harm them then that person (he/she) would be mal intentioned and would be arrested. These K9 Bomb Detecting/Sniffing Dogs (K9BD2) would every day & night roam about in crowds and pick would be suicide bombers and bark at them to alert the security personnel as well as potential targets. Under the Islamic Law guard dogs such as sheep dogs are permitted.

"This Is An Outrage!"

Bigskygirl — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:04:12 EDT

If I lived closer to Arizona, I would start a protest to this? Utter disrespect, and I am surprised, because didn't we "WIN" Arizona? Anyway, I wish I could ask our current administration, to use their contact list, and ask that every single resident, voter, student, donor, anyone remotely associated with the State Of Arizona, to write to your Managing Editors, of local News Papers, contact Orgs, that donate money, send out E-Mails to other Obama supporters about this.

Whatever your heart tell you to do.

My understanding is that it is not O.K. to trash the standing President, especially in times of War, because you will also be disrespecting our troops. I didn't care for Bush, but never went on a rampage, because of this little understood proticol. Why has everything changed, in regarding RESPECT, when it comes to our new Prez.

Please read, and do what you wish, with this info.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=83121442645&h=frt3O&u=1MNMr&ref=mf

N.Mc.

Pledge Drive

Starla Gade — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:00:20 EDT

This weekend we have a great opportunity to support President Obama by going out and collecting Pledge Promises in support of his priorities for our country. As you are aware we elected President Obama with the promise of changing our country. In order to do that we have to help him push our top three priorities in improving our Economy & Creating Jobs; Health Care, Clean Energy, Education/Schools.

This is a great way for us to build and reenergize the folks that support President Obama, creating a database of volunteers and supporters.

The purpose of the Pledge Promise is to have supporters do the big ASK and talk to your representative asking them to pass President Obama's Budget. We can do this. This is why we elected President Obama...we are the change we've been waiting for!

Give our President a chance!

Randy — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:28:17 EST

THERE IS A METHOD TO HIS MADNESS. OUR PRESIDENT B. OBAMA HAS DONE MORE FOR OUR COUNTRY IN ONE MONTH THEN ANY OTHER PRESIDENT. SO I'M GONNA TAKE ONE MINUTE OF MY TIME TO THANK HIM AND SUPPORT HIM ALL THE WAY. SO HERE IT IS (THANKYOU PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA!!!) AND YOU CAN COUNT ON MY SUPPORT. DOING SOMETHING RATHER THEN NOTHING IS WHAT SEPERATES US FROM THE ANIMALS. AMERICA IS EXPERIENCING A VERY HUMBLING TIME IN ITS HISTORY BUT WEV'VE HAD IT TO GOOD FOR TO LONG AND MAYBE SOMETHING GOOD WILL COME OUT OF THIS. MAYBE THIS WILL BRING FAMILIES TOGETHER WE HAVE BECOME A CULTURE OF EVERYONE FOR HIMSELF AND THATS JUST NOT RIGHT. WE NEED TO GATHER OUR MORALS BACK UP AND JOIN THE ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE CLUB CALLED THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!

RANDY OF MI.....

One add to: Media - Friend or Foe? - Arm yourself against lies! (6)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:30:41 EST

Let's use the member of campaign of change to help Obama and get the change.

Cable news and right wing blogs are swarming with the revisionist history on the New Deal. Arm yourself against lies, spin and propaganda by reading info from a number of sources.

Here down a article about this topic. [Media Matters is a progressive media watchdog and fact checking organization which has received accolades from numerous sources (except the right wing media which often gets debunked by Media Matters).]

The link to digg it and for article: Conservatives Cherry-Pick 1930s Unemployment Figures

Conservatives cherry-pick 1930s unemployment figures in continued assault on New Deal

Summary: Columnists Mona Charen and George Will continued a trend among conservative media of responding to comparisons between the current economic situation and that of the 1930s and between Barack Obama and FDR by attacking the New Deal. In separate columns, both Charen and Will cherry-picked unemployment figures to assert that the New Deal did not reduce unemployment. But historians and progressive economists have noted that unemployment fell every year of the New Deal except during the 1937-38 recession; further, Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman has said it was a reversal of New Deal policies, not a continuance of them, that contributed to rising unemployment in 1937 and 1938.

Yes we can! Best wishes, Steffen

http://changeforbetterworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-way-to-say-goodbye-to-neocons-bush.html

Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.

ITS TIME WE FOUGHT BACK!!!!!

Raul — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:21:17 EST

I have sat back and watched the opposition to President Obama command the dialogue in the media regarding his plans. Whether it is about the stimulus plan or foreign policy (think the former VP!), the administration has been pushed around for the last week! The grass roots movement that helped push President Obama into the White House needs to rise up and fight on his behalf!!! We need to follow up and not just expect him to fight all our battles. WE WANTED A VOICE IN GOVERNMENT, SO LET'S USE IT!!!!

We need to write our congressmen and women, our local newspapers, and the television news media outlets and tell them that we want President Obama's plan to have a chance!!!! We had tax cuts and other policies from the Republicans for the last 8 years and it didn't work out. In fact, it has contributed to our debt, hurt job creation, and reduced services that are needed now. Changes are needed in the stimulus and senators appear willing to take some spending out, and that's great. We need to focus on strong job creation that will be around now and in the future.

President Obama HAS compromised and tried to find some conservative policy to use in the stimulus, but Republicans are just ignoring the outreach and simply biting the President's hand. It's time we bite back!!!!

Write your elected officials and tell them we are watching and will hold them accountable in the coming near term election if basic compromise is not found! We will hold accountable those people who played politics when Americans were losing their jobs. We will fight in the next election to get rid of old politicians who are not living up to the Change this country voted for in 2008!!!!

Spread the word to your family and friends to start writing as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Raul Dominguez

Obama Supporter

Torrance, CA

GRIDLOCK NEEDS TO BE BROKEN!!!!

Raul — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:48:42 EST

The grassroots movement that helped elect Barack Obama President needs to start writing letters to the editor of their papers, their local elected officials and members of the Senate to stop the gridlock in passing a stimulus package. When Republicans simply vote no on a bill because they want to stop some part of it, means that nothing gets accomplished. When Rush Limbaugh says he just wants "Obama's policies to fail", he's still advocating the country to fail because the administration is Obama's. I don't care if policies are conservative or liberal, if they help get Americans working, improve our economy, and stimulate the beginning of a global financial rally, then that's fine!!!

We need to work together. If Judd Gregg (R) comes over as Commerce Secretary, I hope a Republican is put in his Senate seat so pundits don't say the move was simply to get the Dems a full majority. We need serious people now to solve serious problems.

Please comment and send your thoughts to your contacts. Thanks, Raul

Home

Bill Johnson — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:05:41 EST

By morning the wind had stopped and cold had set in. We got an early start and headed north to the Twin Cities. We stopped in Fargo for lunch with friends.

North Dakota was cold, but the roads were clear and we made good time. Dixie and I lived for 5 years in North Dakota and still feel at home in the Big Empty. Warmest people in the country.

We spent the night in Miles City, Montana, having driven 800 miles.

Early start this morning, as snow has moved in. Fought a light snow for 400 miles, across the passes and along the rivers, but made it home this afternoon.

Good trip. President Obama made it all worth the effort.

Somewhere in northern Iowa

Bill Johnson — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:13:23 EST

We got out of Wheeling late. Dixie loves the casinos. I enjoy reading while she plays.

As we got a late start, we did not get very far and spent last night in Danforth, IL.

Today in Iowa we hit ground blizzards and thought we would try and get north of it. Didn't happen. We are stranded in Northern Iowa for the night.

Wheeling

Bill Johnson — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:44:35 EST

We arose early yesterday and did a tour of Arlington Cemetray. What a place. Emma felt we had to visit since we were so close. This visit did delay our leaving DC by a couple of hours. Emma wanted to see Baltimore, home of Hair Spray, so we drove there first. And we drove there very slowly. The only heavy traffic we have had for the whole trip.

Then we stopped at Gettysburg to view the battle sight. Here we found out that we were probably too far from Pittsburgh for the Kids to catch their flights home and to college. I drove as fast as I dared, but we just missed their flights. We got them rescheduled for the 22nd and set up in a hotel at the airport (pricey, aren't they?) and drove to Wheeling, WV.

For those I have promised photos, I can not download them to this computer, so everyone will have to wait. Sorry.

The ObamaCart made the NY Times yesterday, so I guess we have arrived.

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! ( 6)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:26:10 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

A picture from me to say goodbye from most bad president of US and all neocons.
We can only hope many people will long enough remember. Bush had a lot bad gifts for the change! Let's take care the poor and normal people will not have to pay now too much after the rich made profit in good time!
And what's with impeachment now?! What's with hidden knowledge of Sept. 11 2001?
[ Maybe an explanation of picture: it's made like an "egg laying wool milk sow" a metaphorical-idiomatic term in Germany]

Yeah, and here you can see something new about neocons were bringing to us - for me to say: don't forgive Bush and neocons and there is still a lot to work of. We will and can do this too - Yes we can!
I got now message too like "If anybody can clean up the mess bush left, it's President Obama." - Yes and Obama likes people helping still to do the work - help him! We were a big and strong movement and so people got knowledge back how strong people can be together!
Whistleblower: Bush's NSA spied on EVERYONE
(already 4255 Diggs) The NSA had access to ALL YOUR COMMUNICATIONS, regardless of who you were or whether or not you were communicating internationally.

DC

Bill Johnson — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:39:57 EST

Sunday Jeff and Emma flew into Pittsburgh and Jeff's baggage was lost so we had to spend the night. Monday we got out late and drove to DC. We swung south and came in from the south east to avoid traffic. Missed our motel and wound up down town. Parked and spent a few hours on the mall. Then back to the motel. Very light traffic.

Then to the MYBO Grassroots Soical. Cheryl had given a power point on the Obamacart, so when we arrived with my wheel, we got a warm reception. Had a great time and returned to the motle around midnight.

This morning up before 5 and got a cab down to the mall. I wanted to watch the show from the Lincoln Memorial, but was over ruled so we moved. To the WWII Memoial where Emma and I found good seats. But, that was not to be either. Dixie and Jeff went to the Washington Monument and called us, so we joined them.

So, we watched our dreams come true from the cold, wind swept hill top which surrounds the Washington Monument. The crowd was so thinck you could hardly move, but not heavy enough to create enogh body heat to warm the place.

What a wonderful experience! It was everything I wished it would be.

Afterwards, we worked our way back out of the mall, across the river to Arlington Cemetary and caught the Metro then a cab back to the room. Tonight we are going out again, but nothing will ever top today.

The Inauguration of President Obama is the Evolution of the American Revolution

ARK — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:37:35 EST

Not too many countries have been able to overcome their past prejudices and CHANGE course for the better when needed. Perhaps globally a few countries have been able to do so! And now the good old USA is certainly one of those countries.

President Obama is not only a very popular US president with 80% approval rating nationwide, but he is the most popular leader worldwide. With this kind of intercontinental popularity under the grace of GOD there is responsibility as well. Thankfully President Obama is a very knowledgeable and responsible leader. I am sure that if he keeps his campaign promises, then history will judge him as another President Lincoln God Bless his soul. After eight years of division, distance and resentment, people of the world are looking up to the USA again and their hopes for a better life are running high. Let us NOT disappoint them and help the Honest and Objective Peace and Economic (H.O.P.E.) leader President Obama succeed. All of us in the world could help the HOPE leader succeed in bringing peace and prosperity to the US and the rest of the world by:

1- Not calling others names;

2- Listening to the other side;

3- Putting ourselves in the other side’s shoes;

4- Analyzing what the other side’s legitimate needs and concerns are and being compromising;

5- Working actively towards peace and prosperity NOT only for ourselves but for the rest of the world as well. This is best described in a UN poem: “Children of Adam are members of the same family, and partners of each other. Why some would wonder? Because each one of us is created exactly with the same soul as the other! If one is in pain, then others should also complain.”

Pittsburgh

Bill Johnson — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:09:15 EST

I really do not know if anyone is reading these posts, but it will be a record if the aliens capture us.

This morning the roads were the pits. 30 miles an hour. Car is rotten in the snow or ice.

Made Pittsburgh. Jeff's luggage is lost, so we have a room in Pittsburgh for tonight. Staying at the Doubletree Hilton. Nice place

Tomorrow DC

Still have an extra room, it ayone cares.

if you need a place to crash let me know.

To Indiana

Bill Johnson — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:59:46 EST

Another 620 miles done. Tough roads today. Right outside of Sioux City was a wreck. A truck pulling a trailer rolled. Truck went end over end. Trailer looked like a horse trailer to me, but I saw no horses. Four ambulances passed us going to the scene. Iowa was icy for 150 miles so we went slow. Didn't make Indianapolis, but came close.

Thanks to Laura, we stayed with her in Iowa when we were on our Obamacart tour, she is driving about one day ahead of us and keeps us up to date on weather.

Wind turbines in Iowa are impressive. Dixie and I like their looks, but I know some folks think they are ugly. Energy of the future.

hardin to souix city

Bill Johnson — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:48:50 EST

Made it from Hardin< Montana to souix City Iowa today. Good roads. We are just following the storm. Folks tell us today is the first nice day in a week. The weather is sort of "Obalmy"

See you in DC

On the road again

Bill Johnson — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:27:56 EST

We are on the road again. Heading to Washington, only without the Obamacart. I do have a wheel which I am having people sign. We left Anaconda at 4:30 and are spending the night in Hardin, near the Little Bighorn Battlefield.

We still have a hotel room to get rid of, if anyone wants it.

Mr Obama's Date With Destiny

John Hay - An Australian for Barack — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:51:40 EST

Mr Obama's Date With Destiny

A Pre Inaugural Special Article & Video ... http://www.tellingthoughts.com/us-politics/mr-obamas-date-with-destiny

Latest Post from John Hay @ Telling Thoughts ... www.tellingthoughts.com

Civil War!!!!

Randy — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:43:05 EST

Here we go again North against the South!!! Yep believe it or not all of the Senators that voted against loaning the big three any money to help them get past this recesssion, (which the BANKS started) are all from states from the south. When I look at these Senators they remind me of the plantation owners that believed in slavery and if we don't watch out we will be right back there again or we might as well be. Your wages will start droping and droping. All the Republicans are doing is trying to break the unions and if they do were all in trouble. The company owners will start treating people more and more like dogs. And it's already taking place all over the country in sweat shops where these people hire illegals to do the work. These Senators are not stupid they are getting all kinds of kick backs from the foriegn auto dealers that have plants in there states. This just another straw on the camels back. Bush and his people are slowly taking every penny they can. The honest people can't take anymore people all across our country are starting to eat less and less. They keep trying to tell us that we have to start working in the service sector or in the medical field but what they are not telling you is that those fields are not necessary people won't go out to eat because they won't have the money and they will just start staying home instead of going to the doctor. They are treating us like we are dum and the worst part is we are falling for it. Sometimes when i'm watch these news casters talk I wonder If they even know what they are talking about do they even know what the service sector is and does it even pay enough to take care of your family. And don't let them fool you the people that work in these shops don't make no where near 70 dollars an hour thats a bunch of crap. Well I hope you all have a Merry Christmas.

RANDY M.

Check out change.gov!

Montana for Obama — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:29:52 EST

I've been on change.gov lately, and am very impressed with it for
several reasons:

1. First, all Americans are being invited to make suggestions to
Barack's policy plans in all the various categories. He wants to
hear from us! That's an invitation to continue to be involved in
helping to steer our country forward;

2. There is also a survey that most of us have been invited to fill
out which asks us to identify the policy areas of greatest interest
to each individual person and whether we would be willing to invite
others in our communities to participate in by both making
suggestions and also by being willing to contact our elected
representatives to make our voices heard.

It's refreshing to see how he is using a grassroots approach to
organize and focus our creativity and energy in the service of a
better country. It's just what we were expecting and hoping to d!o!

Be sure to check this site out and to continue to help Barack in
governing our great country. We accomplished step one...and now on
to step two!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm in Beaverton, Oregon today to be
with our kids and grandkids at this special time.

Frank

'Drill, Baby, Drill'?

Hussein The Hope Monger — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:50:45 EST

(Green River runs through Desolation Canyon above)

"The Bureau of Land Management cynically chose November 4 to announce a last-minute plan to lease huge swaths of majestic wilderness in eastern Utah for oil and gas extraction one month before President-elect Obama takes office.

"As its clock runs out, the Bush administration also is trying to open-up drilling all over the Rockies and Alaska, to green-light oil shale leasing, and to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Though sad, it's no surprise, coming as it does from the same crowd that designed a misguided national energy policy in secret meetings with the oil, gas and coal industries.

"The BLM didn't just try to slip the audacious Utah lease maneuver past the American people on an historic election day, it actually hid the ball from its sister agency, the National Park Service, and then rejected the Service's request for more time to review the scheme.

"Among the 360,000 acres to be auctioned for industrial development is pristine land near Canyonlands National Park, adjacent to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument. This Christmas gift to the dirty fuel industry includes parts of Desolation Canyon, named in 1869 by the explorer John Wesley Powell, which has been proposed for national park status. In fact, the BLM itself described Desolation Canyon nine years ago as "a place where a visitor can experience true solitude -- where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape."

"Words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of these places, but they do capture the absurdity of the Bush plan. Oil and gas drilling in Desolation Canyon? Industrial development along the meandering Green River?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-redford/americans-rejected-drill_b_144499.html?page=3

OBAMA FOR MONTANA

WEBMASTER — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:49:49 EST

Absarokee * Alberton * Alder * Alzada * Amsterdam * Anaconda * Angela * Antelope * Arlee * Ashland * Augusta * Avon * Babb * Bainville * Baker * Ballantine * Basin * Bearcreek * Belfry * Belgrade * Belt * Biddle * Big Arm * Big Fork * Big Sandy * Big Sky * Big Timber * Bighorn * Billings * Birney * Black Eagle * Bloomfield * Bonner * Boulder * Box Elder * Boyd * Boyes * Bozeman * Brady * Bridger * Broadus * Broadview * Brockton * Brockway * Browning * Brusett * Buffalo * Busby * Butte * Bynum * Cameron * Canyon * Capitol * Cardwell * Carter * Cascade * Charlo * Chester * Chinook * Choteau * Circle * City * Clancy * Clinton * Clyde Park * Coffee * Cohagen * Colstrip * Columbia Falls * Columbus * Condon * Conner * Conrad * Cooke * Coram * Corvallis * Crane * Creek * Creston * Crow Agency * Culbertson * Custer * Cut Bank * Dagmar * Darby * Dayton * De Borgia * Decker * Deer Lodge * Dell * Denton * Dillon * Divide * Dixon * Dodson * Drummond * Dupuyer * Dutton * East Glacier Park * East Helena * Edgar * Ekalaka * Elliston * Elmo * Emigrant * Ennis * Essex * Ethridge * Eureka * Evergreen * Fairfield * Fairview * Fallon * Fishtail * Flaxville * Florence * Floweree * Forestgrove * Forsyth * Fort Benton * Fort Harrison * Fort Peck * Fort Shaw * Fort Smith * Fortine * Frazer * Frenchtown * Froid * Fromberg * Galata * Gallatin * Gardiner * Garneill * Garrison * Garryowen * Gateway * Geraldine * Geyser * Gildford * Glasgow * Glen * Glendive * Glentana * Gold Creek * Grantsdale * Grass Range * Great Falls * Greenough * Greycliff * Hall * Hamilton * Hammond * Hardin * Harlem * Harlowton * Harrison * Haugan * Havre * Hays * Heart Butte * Helena * Helmville * Heron * Highwood * Hilger * Hingham * Hinsdale * Hobson * Hogeland * Horse * Hot Springs * Hungry * Huntley * Huson

Step one and the next one is coming up!

Montana for Obama — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:57:35 EST

I've been thinking about this momentous thing that we accomplished,
all of us working together across America. No one gave Barack Obama
much of a chance when he first announced he was running for
president. Lana and I sat transfixed in front of the TV as he made
his announcement. It was a cold day in Chicago, and a pretty cool
day here in Missoula too! But there was an excitement in the air.
It was the hope of a new day, a new era in American history. A time
of renewal and rededication to the principles of equality, justice,
opportunity and fairness. As we listened to Barack that day, we saw
two bald eagles circling overhead here on the Bitterroot River. We
laughed and said, "Give us a sign!" And honestly, as all this was
happening, we felt that we indeed were witnessing a sign of new hope
and possibilities. And all this from a skinny guy with big ears and a
funny name as he has said many times. Wow.

The movement that lifted Barack up was based on the love we all have
for our wonderful country. We grew strong dispite all the bitterness
and division that existed between Americans who felt that we were
just stuck where we were. And step by step throughout this long
campaign season, people joined the voices for change. And wonders of
all wonders, we elected Barack as our President! Yes, we did!

Well, if we can do that, just think of what we will accomplish next!
For sure, Barack will need us all to stay engaged in transforming our
country. We all have our different talents and interests. Won't it
be amazing to see how we will use them for ourselves, our families,
our state, our country and the world? I'm really excited about our
prospects aren't you? In the midst of the many challanges we face,
we can do so much more than we ever thought we could do before this
election happened.

And it has been so exciting to see the reaction to the prospects of
President Obama around the world! This change for the better is
catching isn't it? What a time to be alive!

Frank

Submissions Needed for Obama Book

Adele Nicols — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:31:40 EST

I am writing a book on Obama volunteers’ experiences. This text will focus on meaningful and inspiring stories from your phonebanking, canvassing or other campaign journeys. If you have pictures or stories of volunteering that were significant to you and you think would have meaning for others, please send submissions to:

AdeleNicols@yahoo.com or
P.O.Box 494, Waitsfield, VT 05673

I have a particular interest in the "phonebankers". Making cold calls throughtout the United States was a unique opportunity to get to know the diverse pockets of individuals and communities that exist within our nation. I personally had some amazing discussions that I know must have been echoed by other volunteers. I am better off from the experience...and am eager to showcase your personal experiences.
Chosen submissions will be notified by January 10, 2008 and full acknowledgement will be given in the publication.

I am looking for stories that will exemplify the broad scope of voters that were either for or against Obama. My primary interest is to showcase the heart of the Obama campaign by revealing personal and transformational stories and images that were at the core of this successful campaign.

Thank you in advance for your participation. Feel free to contact me with any additional questions you may have.

Sincerely,
We did it!
Adele

Obama Wins

Consultant — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:19:04 EST

Thanks to everyone!

Let's win this Senate race in Georgia. Vote on Dec. 2nd for Jim Martin.

Thanks,

"My Videos"

Bigskygirl — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:43:23 EST

I wanted to share my Videos, of my travels with Obama. It will be fun for me, to have them, to look back to, when the memory of this amazing, exciting, election, may try to fade. It will be awhile!

Enjoy. Leave comments, if you'd like, and rate them too!

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos

BSG ;-)

The change - Obama Acceptance Speech - Change is come to America (6)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:21:14 EST

next post in my main blog about "Change for better world" - here i collected some movies from this day and shortly before.

(And i saved it to hard disc too. If some original will not be longer responsible in YouTube i will bring it new.)

Please, ckick this link to see the movies:

The change - Obama Acceptance Speech - Change is come to America

[But of course - it's just beginning with the change, there is a lot to do. Please stay in touch, however we do that, through these groups or some other way. ]

President-Elect Barack Obama!

Montana for Obama — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:01:50 EST

First, I'm so happy that Barack is going to be our President!

And this morning, we saw that we were unable to overcome the party
bias of our state, even though in a number of counties we had solid
Obama wins. Where we organized and worked hard, we did very well
indeed. I think we can take heart in those counties and in our
efforts.

And I think we can learn from this experience for the future.

Did we make person to person contacts, building our relationships
more widely in our state? Or, did we hope, as we have done in times
past, that we could overwhelm conservatives with our numbers as we
were able to do so in the case of Jon Tester? Certainly
circumstances are different now, but I think in the future that we
need to reach out earlier and reach out more, and organize more
effectively in outlying areas to have a better chance of achieving
our goals. What do you think you learned that might help us in the
future? I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

And finally, remember that Barack is going to need our support in the
coming months and beyond. We will be ready to give it!

Congratulations on what we were able to achieve! It is a new day in
our America!

Frank

Congrats!!

Daryl — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:07:46 EST

President Obama! It has a nice ring to it!

What a great country we live in!

Vote on results to get results!!

Thanks to everyone who worked so hard!!

GOTV!! Whatever It Takes - Republicans Do Know How To Win Elections..

Hussein The Hope Monger — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:47:54 EST

Call 3 friends to each take 3 friends, neighbors, strangers to the polls today.

Let's WIN this thing!!

GOTV!!

Hussein The Hope Monger — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:40:00 EST

Fired UP!

You betcha!!

Canvass, call, get out the vote. It's not hard, and it helps.

LynnW — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:42:00 EDT

Just got back from walking the suburbs and downtown Livingston and I have to say I am glad I did it. I am shy about these things, but I did it because I believe that in doing it I am helping to preserve our democracy.

It is way beyond party lines, or "I hope my candidate wins". We are fighting to keep our country alive.

Wherever you are in America, take it from me, it is worthwhile (and not that hard) to do something to help get out the vote for Obama-Biden. A few hours do help, and you will find if you visit your local campaign office you will get tons of support and knowledge from the campaign workers and your neighbors–millions of ordinary citizens of all ages and walks of life–who are giving up hours and days to do this wonderful and rewarding work.

I've also changed my answering machine message to a voting and volunteering reminder and I am stopping to chat with everyone I se, be it a neighbor, acquantance, or friend, to be sure that they keep the spirit of Change We Need alive, right up until the polls close. I also just dug deep to make another modest donation to Obama-Biden.

And a special shout out to my sister in Pennsylvania who has been so generous with her time and money in this campaign to save our country.

Sunrise or Sunset in America?

Consultant — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:41:49 EDT

Sunrise or Sunset In America?
Okay, here’s my prediction, and I’ve been saying this for the last few months: If Obama wins, he’ll win either small (3 to 4 points) or large (10 or more points).

In recent presidential elections, 10 or more points would be considered a landslide. If that happens, a lot of down ticket Democrats are going to win too. Recent polls indicate we’re heading in that direction. We’ll see.

If Obama wins, I hope he appoints a veteran Prosecutor as Attorney General. This totally preventable financial meltdown is hurting a lot people, and it’s going to hurt a lot more. As we descend into some very hard economic times, people are going to be mad as hell and looking for some justice. It would serve Obama and the American people if his administration goes after the tens of thousands of people who created and benefited from this vast, epic Ponzi scheme. Let’s see some perp walks!

And speaking of justice, it's not going to be served up by our mainstream press. If Obama wins, I'm thinking on November 5th the media (led by Fox), is going to back up a dump truck with all of the Bush Administration failures, and dump it on Barack. Then the media shouting will begin. Obama, fix all of this stuff. Now!! There will be no mention of Bush or Cheney. The running theme will be, if the Obama Administration doesn't cure cancer, then it's a failure.

The other thing I’d like to see from an Obama win is a national plan to rebuild passenger rail between cities, commuter rail in our top 25 metro areas along with electric powered light rail, trolleys and buses for the top 50 cities. This would be a massive undertaking that would have many benefits. It would also get us out in front of the declining oil resources that have essentially stabilized in many oil fields and are rapidly declining in most others.

We’d better try to build this transportation system soon, or one day in the not too distant future, most of us are not going to be able to get from here to there.

If McCain/Palin wins (steals this one), head for the hills (or the streets)! The unmistakeable signal to the world is that America has quit our experiment in self government. Democracy on the run.

Don't Expect The GOP To Just Walk Away from The White House- VOTE EARLY!!

Hussein The Hope Monger — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:15:36 EDT

Fired UP!!

Really Important! Missoula Needs Your Help!

Montana for Obama — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:15:22 EDT

We are now in the final few days, and Barack is essentially tied here in Montana. We can win if we get folks to vote and if we sign up new voters. I'm going to be out knocking on doors and there are lots of other things that need doing here in Missoula. WE NEED YOU!

Laura Warren (laura.jo.warren@gmail.com) is doing a great job of helping to organize our effort in these final days and she tells me that there is a need for volunteers to help Barack NOW. Please contact her for a list of opportunities in Missoula. Here telephone number is 274-2647.

Remember, we got er done for Jon Tester and we can do it again if we stay focused and work hard. So, join me, Laura and other Missoulians to deliver the vote for Barack! Don't put it off. Contact her right now, OK?

Thanks,

Frank

Palin Sets Sights On 2012

Hussein The Hope Monger — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:09:23 EDT

Is this 'Obamacan' fired up?

You betcha.

Let's WIN this thing!

ObamaCart to Butte

Bill Johnson — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:14:38 EDT

The Obama Cart will be in Butte this Saturday, attending a fundraiser at the War Bonnet. Drop by and sign it and say "How she goin.'"

Election night it will probably be at the Elks Club here in Anaconda, unless we get a better offer.

After 7000 miles and 24 states and Washington D.C. its journey is almost over.

Life Issues - Resources and Viewpoints

Ken from Frederick, MD — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:25:56 EDT

This is a thorough list of reference material on life / reproductive rights issues

(I will continue to update this list as new info is released so you may want to bookmark it)

http://theenlightenedpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/10/are-you-concerned-about-issue-of.html

Veterans' Issues - Resources, Records, and Opinions

Ken from Frederick, MD — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:24:12 EDT

A thorough list of reference material on vets’ issues

(I will continue to update this list as new info is released so you may want to bookmark it)

http://theenlightenedpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/10/veterans-issues-resources-records-and.html

Our Jewish Friends for Obama

Montana for Obama — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:37:28 EDT

I found this very moving indeed and thought you would enjoy it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2VFRt5W4FM It was my "little shot of hope today." Frank

Albuquerque Journal North reproduces yesterday's Sun News Cover, full size; "OBAMA WINS!"

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:43:12 EDT

The Albuquerque Journal North devoted almost half a page to reproduce life-sizeon Saturday's edition our NEW MEXICO SUN NEWS cover with the Headline, "Obama Wins!"

Caption: Going out on a limb, the left-leaning New Mexico Sun News---a free twice-monthly paper published in Santa Fe---proclaimed "Obama Wins!" on the cover of its Firday edition. The headline is "kind of a journalistic stunt," and the paper's way of endorsing Barack Obama for Presidents, Contributing Editor Stephen Fox said. With the Chicago Daily Tribune's infamous "Dewey Defeats Truman" 1948 headline in mind, is the Sun News worried about jinxing obama? "No, said Editor Jerry Greenker. "I'm not a very superstitious guy."

"OBAMA WINS!" First American Newspaper with this Headline, 11 days before Election Day: Our Endorsement for the New Mexico Sun News

ALSO AT: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stephenfox/gGgfHy

This was the front cover of Friday's edition of the New Mexico Sun News, circulation 11,000, Northern and Central New Mexico.

This was the idea of the Managing Editor, Jerry Greenker, kind of as a declaration of our own support, our own way of endorsing OBAMA, kind of as an affirmation, kind of a doctoral thesis in Political Journalism, kind of a journalistic stunt, and kind of the reason that people are driven to write science fiction, to see which of their predictions actually come true!

Since I had been scrutinizing through some of the best reading in my life, the newspaper endorsements for Obama from all over the United States, I had a plan to publish as much as would be allowed in a 32 page twice monthly local and alternative newspaper. This fit in well with Jerry's Idea, so we went for it, and are happy to share this with mybarackobama.com
readers.

Respectfully,

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News
Founder, New Millennium Fine Art
stephen@santafefineart.com
505 983-2002

What You're For

Montana for Obama — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:51:56 EDT

Toni Rehhein sent me this great Amy Martin song and youtube video. I really appreciate it Toni! Give a listen to Montana's own Amy Martin and I think you will too. Thanks so much for your creative and always thoughtful presence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJGJsfIXGt4&feature=email

Frank

Barack's Legislative Record...talking points for you

Montana for Obama — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:09:58 EDT

I thought you might find this a useful article as a talking point as you register people to vote and to vote early.FrankRobert J. ElisbergPosted October 21, 2008 | 11:21 AM (EST) The Little Known Truth of Barack Obama's Legislative Record As we all know, Barack Obama hasn't passed any major legislation. He's inexperienced, never done anything. We know this. We know it because John McCain and Sarah Palin, bless her accomplished heart, have said so. And so, we know.Far be it from me not to take their word for it, but I decided to check things out. And shockingly... it doesn't turn out to be true! Really. So, take a guess on how much legislation Barack Obama has sponsored in the United States Senate, which has become law.C'mon, take a guess. Nope, sorry, take another guess.Barack Obama has authored or co-sponsored 579 bills in Washington. And as a state senator, he sponsored 820 laws for Illinois.That's 1,399 bills in all. Not bad for someone who apparently had done zero -- okay, according to his opponents.I know, I know. Those 820 are just for a "state," so they don't really count. Except... well, wait, a "state" is what Sarah Palin is governor of. (At least for 21 months.) So if sponsoring pesky "state" laws doesn't count, what in the world does she have on her resume then? Other than ethics violations.Besides, y'know, Illinois is an awfully big state. If someone passes a law there, it does affect the lives of 13 million people.And, yipes, it turns out that there is a wide-ranging record of bipartisan laws he's co-sponsored, as well, working across the aisles with Republicans. Go figure, who knew?!Okay, first, let's look at Barack Obama's 579 Senate bills. (To be fair, some of these are pending -- the U.S. Senate works slooowly...) But here are just a few highlights of the ones that have passed.With Russ Feingold, Sen. Obama helped put together and co-sponsor the Obama/Feingold 2007 Ethics Reform Law, which curbed lobbying abuses. The bill was perhaps the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate.Mr. Obama joined forces with Republican Richard Lugar as original co-sponsors of the landmark bill that improved the government's ability to detect and destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction, keeping them from terrorists. Working across the aisle again, this time, with Republican Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama authored a provision to secure vulnerable nuclear weapons and nuclear material around the world, protecting them from terrorists. Sen. Obama also wrote the legislation for his Homes for Heroes Act and SAVE Act, that increased services for homeless veterans. Shockingly, it turns out that John McCain is also wrong about Barack Obama not being willing to go against his party. You see, Mr. Obama sponsored an amendment that required lobbyist disclosures. And as the NY Times wrote, "The disclosure idea's lead sponsor, Senator Barack Obama... 'has not been the most popular person in our caucus in the last couple of weeks,' said a Democratic aide involved in deliberations over the bill." Gee. Apparently, it seems, Barack Obama has been willing to buck his own party. And work across the aisle. And sponsor and pass important legislation. And there are 574 other bills -- some large, some smaller, but all can be found on State Surge.Meanwhile, his record as a senator in Illinois has an impressive 820 bills that impacted the lives of countless millions, as well. By the way, for fact buffs: the 13th District he represented was alone comprised of 653,457 people -- the same as the entire state of Alaska.In Illinois, with its 13 million citizens, Barack Obama co-sponsored bipartisan campaign finance reforms, that the Chicago Tribune referred to as "the most sweeping good-government legislation in decades." He co-sponsored a bipartisan, groundbreaking ethics reform law and was the main sponsor of the Health Care Justice Act. As co-chairman of a bipartisan committee, Sen. Obama also helped pass predatory mortgage lending reforms, which prevent foreclosures. (Hmm, that was forward thinking. Ya think? But, tosh, it was just a "state" law...) He sponsored laws that raised tax credits for low-income workers, that improved childcare subsidies for the KidCare Program (bringing health care to 70,000 uncovered children), and that reformed welfare. And he co-sponsored the Equal Pay Act for women.Further, Mr. Obama sponsored bipartisan legislation that made Illinois the first state to require videotaping of capital cases, and bipartisan laws for monitoring racial profiling. This list goes endlessly on. A total of 820 laws in all. FactCheck.org has detailed descriptions. None of this is to place a value judgment on the 579 federal laws Barack Obama authored or co-sponsored. Nor is it to equate state laws with federal. It's merely to address the false impression that the McCain campaign has tried to put forth that Sen. Obama has sponsored no important legislation in the U.S. Senate, never been able to work across the aisle and largely sat in the Illinois Senate voting "present."Put whatever value you wish on the 1,399 laws Barack Obama has helped sponsor. Decide for yourself what is a "major" law. From ethics reform to safeguarding WMD to child health care to home foreclosure protection, and much more, you have a great many laws to choose from.It's up to you to decide if passing laws in a state of 13 million people shows a person's interests, initiative and abilities and helps set precedents. In truth, Illinois state laws do not cover a nation - they just cover 4% of the nation's population. In the end, there is only one simple point to this. Honesty. That anyone who suggests that Barack Obama has been ineffectual in his 12-year career as an elected representative, sponsoring no important legislation, unable to work across party lines, unwilling to go against his party, and avoiding taking stances by voting "present" -- then that person doesn't know what they are talking about. Or is lying

The view from a small town in the real America

Jerod Poore — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:42:24 EDT

I live on the outskirts of a small town. A population of around 400 (not counting horses or cattle) isn't all that small by Montana standards, but it's less than a twentieth the size of Wasilla. The county I live in is just a little smaller in area than Rhode Island, but no more than 4,000 people live here. That's still smaller than Wasilla by over 5,000 people. The only chain businesses in the entire county are the gas stations, the auto parts store, the hardware stores (although Ace and Tru-Value are franchises), one of the motels and the recently opened Subway. That last one was to take advantage of all the tourists who stop for tourist / traveler information and other "travel plaza" facilities. That was a bit of bad timing. The primary industry here is logging, and around 80% of the land is publicly owned, with the US Forest Service managing the majority of it. Open hunting season just started (by "open" it's that time of year when guns can be used on all of the popular critters, and not just bow hunting for the popular ones or using guns for the more obscure critters), which is the biggest thing around. Between fishing earlier in the year and winter sports later.

According to the complex formula Jon Stewart presented last night the score here is pretty low. I can't remember the whole thing now, but regular coffee is around 75 cents (although a few of the towns will have an expresso [sic] shack), the number of people wearing trucker hats is about the same as the number of truckers, there isn't an arthouse theatre within 80 miles (65 miles from the county seat, which has the county's only movie theater. One screen and the movies are two to three weeks behind the "big cities."), one piece of ID is needed to buy Sudafed if the pharmacist doesn't know you - and that just means you don't live here, the bar to church ratio depends on which town in the county you live in, and there are plenty of American flags around. So that qualifies us as being as 'real' as the 'real' America gets.

There's a rodeo every year. On the Fourth of July we have a parade, a lumberjack competition and fireworks. Each Memorial weekend the largest flea market in the Inland Northwest happens. On those two days the local grocery and hardware stores don't use them as an excuse for sales, they instead publish full page thanks to those in the service.

So I think we meet the definition of the "real America" that Gov. Palin, Ms. Pfotenhauer, Representatives Hayes, Martinez and Bachmann, and their ilk have been spreading around. A small town full of small town values.

There are lots of political yard signs up, and have been since the primary. Signs in the windows of businesses and homes, large signs up at interstate onramps. And while one of the owner-operators of a trucking company who lives here was a candidate in the six-way Republican primary for the federal senate seat held by Max Baucus, most of the signs are for Democratic candidates. An overwhelming majority it seems. Local, national, you name it. Except for the federal congressional seat. How the dip who promised not to campaign and to even vote for Rehberg won the Democratic primary is beyond me. The presence of an American flag has no bearing on the political affiliation of the candidates being promoted.

Now it probably helps that Gov. Schweitzer is endorsed by the NRA and one of his ads features him shooting clay pigeons with "federal IDs" attached to them and any Republican who runs an ad questioning any Democrat in the state on gun rights usually gets truthsquadded to hell and back. While I'm sure there are people in Montana who couldn't vote for Sen. Obama because of the color of his skin, few, if any, live around here. It won't be a landslide by any means in this neighborhood, but it is looking pretty good for Obama taking this county, and that's how states are won: town by town, county by county.

Sorry to disappoint you Gov. Palin, Ms. Pfotenhauer, and all you congresscritters looking for unAmerican activities to investigate, but the values from the real small towns in the 'real' America may not be what you hoped for after all.

Lessons from William Ayers

Doug Robinson — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:32:35 EDT

Now more than ever we need tolerance for those among us who offer a different approach than what we consider normal. Tolerance for differing views and experiences can help each of us to expand personal horizons, thus promoting individual growth and enrichment. Without the influence of differing ideas we all will only become increasingly narrow in our views over time, growing correspondingly limited in our ability to respond to the wonder of life around us. Above all, peace requires tolerance, conflict denies tolerance. While there are certainly things no democratic society should condone, we must also be judicious in where we place these restrictions lest we harm our own freedom and ultimate humanity in the process.

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

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:00:50 EDT

There's still time to win Montana'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/mtnews.phphttp://www.usnpl.com/mtnews.php

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

Belgrade Belgrade News (A) (C)
Bigfork Bigfork Eagle (A) (C)
Billings Billings Gazette (A) (C)
Billings The Billings Outpost (A) (C)
Bozeman Bozeman Daily Chronicle (A) (C)
Browning Glacier Reporter (A) (C)
Butte The Montana Standard (A) (C)
Chester Liberty County Times (A) (C)
Choteau Choteau Acantha (A) (C)
Columbia Falls Hungry Horse News (A) (C)
Conrad The Independent-Observer (A) (C)
Cut Bank Cut Bank Pioneer Press (A) (C)
Eureka Tobacco Valley News (A) (C)
Glasgow Glasgow Courier (A) (C)
Great Falls Great Falls Tribune (A) (C)
Hamilton Ravalli Republic (A) (C)
Havre Havre Daily News (A) (C)
Helena Helena Independent (A) (C)
Helena Queen City News (A) (C)
Huson Clark Fork Chronicle (A) (C)
Kalispell Flathead Beacon (A) (C)
Kalispell The Daily Inter Lake (A) (C)
Laurel Laurel Outlook (A) (C)
Lewistown Lewistown News-Argus (A) (C)
Libby The Western News (A) (C)
Livingston Livingston Enterprise (A) (C)
Miles City Miles City Star (A) (C)
Missoula Missoula Independent (A) (C)
Missoula Missoulian (A) (C)
Pablo Char-Koosta News (A) (C)
Plains The Veterans Voice of MT (A) (C)
Red Lodge Carbon County News Online (A) (C)
Shelby The Shelby Promoter (A) (C)
Sidney Sidney Herald-Leader (A) (C)
Stevensville The Bitterroot Star (A) (C)
Townsend Townsend Star (A) (C)
West Yellowstone West Yellowstone News (A) (C)
Whitefish Whitefish Pilot (A) (C)
Wolf Point The Herald-News (A) (C)

College Newspapers
Univ of Montana Montana Kaimin

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

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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

OBAMA ENDORSEMENTS, CHAPTER 5 Cleveland Plain Dealer, Austin American Statesman, Illinois (Rockford and Arlington Heights), New York Daily News, Orlando Sentinel, Raleigh Observer, St.Petersburg Times, Gainesville Sun, Tuscaloosa News

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:25:34 EDT

CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER:

Plain Dealer endorses Obama for president
Posted by The editors October 18, 2008

Members of The Plain Dealer's editorial board voted on this endorsement. They are Publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger, Editor Susan Goldberg, Editorial Page Director Brent W. Larkin, Deputy Editorial Page Director Kevin O'Brien and Associate Editors Sharon Broussard, Christopher Evans, Joe Frolik and Elizabeth Sullivan.

After eight years of George W. Bush, America needs a change in direction and a change in tone.

It needs a president who understands that, yes, the world can be dangerous, but it is also complex. That the United States cannot defend its freedom by abandoning its principles. That it cannot ignore its allies one day and demand their help the next.

It needs a president who knows that optimism, not fear, defines America. That tax cuts and deregulation alone are not an economic strategy. That Washington cannot sit idle when a great city is devastated by nature or when millions of hardworking Americans are devastated by losing their homes, their jobs, their health care.

It needs a president who will listen and learn, and not confuse loyalty with competence. Who will ask Americans to sacrifice in the service of their country, not their party or self-interest. Who will be the leader Bush promised eight years ago -- a unifier, not a divider.

Barack Obama can be that leader. He is young and obviously cannot match the government experience of his Republican opponent, John McCain. But from the moment he electrified the 2004 Democratic Convention by declaring that America's shared values must trump its racial, religious and ideological divisions, Obama has demonstrated uncommon grace, confidence and intelligence.

Obama has challenged Americans to dream and to hope, to be realistic in the face of great problems and to trust in one another. To minorities and other Americans on the margins, he offers living proof that this nation can fulfill its ideals. To the world, he offers quite literally a different face, one that embodies America's diversity and boundless opportunity.

That is a recipe for the fresh leadership this nation desperately needs. And it is why we urge his election as the 44th president of the United States.

Like you, we have watched this presidential campaign unfold for almost two full years. We have listened to the candidates, read their position papers, studied their backgrounds. We have watched them debate. We have seen them react when things were going well and when they were not. We have seen them choose running mates who could be asked to lead this nation on a moment's notice.

We find much to admire about both Obama and McCain. Obama's background is an only-in-America amalgam of Kansas and Kenya, Hawaii and Indonesia, Harvard Yard and Hyde Park. McCain is every bit as much a biographer's dream: a son and grandson of admirals who embraced their tradition of service, then forged his own through war, the Hanoi Hilton and 26 years in Congress. Traveling very different paths, each man has come to know and to benefit from the best of this country.

Having endorsed McCain and Obama in their respective party primaries, we have little doubt that either could serve capably as president. Certainly, either would be a huge improvement over the incumbent.

We also believe that either would govern more effectively and lead more inclusively than they have campaigned these last two months. They had better, because this fall has degenerated into a disappointing cacophony of attack ads and banality.

McCain has shamelessly exaggerated Obama's supposedly radical ties and tried to place him far outside the political mainstream. Obama has twisted McCain's record beyond recognition and attempted to tie him to Republican ideologues he has fought his whole career.

Such campaigning insults the American people and degrades those who engage in it. Voters who hunger for straight talk about the most frightening economy in 70 years, or who long for hope in the face of two grinding wars, deserve better.

We endorse Obama, knowing full well that doing so involves some risk.

If he is elected on Nov. 4, he will govern with a Congress dominated by fellow Democrats. That should help him fulfill his promises to reform health care, invest in green energy and raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. But if a President Obama believes he can simply impose his will -- or even worse, must buckle to the will of doctrinaire congressional barons -- he may fall prey to the one-party hubris that so damaged both the Bush presidency and the GOP brand. Obama will have to be tough enough to push back if Democrats on Capitol Hill try to draw him into the mindless partisanship he has often and rightly renounced. Polarization is a bad way to campaign; it's a worse way to govern.

Those who have known Obama the longest say he instinctively seeks win-win solutions and understands that there usually is more than one way to reach a worthy goal. Let's hope so. He has an ambitious agenda, but will inherit a federal deficit approaching $1 trillion, as well as long-term financial obligations that could cripple future generations. He'll have to make harder choices than he has been willing to acknowledge in this campaign.

If they had not become bitter rivals, Obama might have found a useful ally and role model in McCain, who has spent a lifetime marching to the beat of a different drum. In the Senate, McCain has challenged his party on immigration, taxes and torture, campaign finance and pork-barrel spending. He supported Bush's ill-informed decision to invade Iraq, then quickly became a loud critic of the president's equally flawed strategy to win the peace.

We salute McCain as an exemplary citizen and a Washington rebel. But as a presidential nominee, McCain has been a disappointment. He was late to understand the primacy of economic pain. He has failed even to define a rationale for a McCain presidency. Experience is useful, but it's not vision.

In their first debate, McCain haughtily said that Obama did not understand the difference between strategy and tactics. His campaign suggests that he doesn't, either.

Take his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. McCain seemed too caught up in the game-changing possibilities of teaming with a woman reformer to scratch the smiling surface. Had he, McCain might have realized that Palin is utterly unprepared for the job he offered -- let alone the one that might fall to her. His trust in her undermines our trust in him.

Trust is essential to the presidency. Americans want to believe that the chief executive understands their lives, will protect their interests and will not compromise their safety. They want a president who represents what America can be, not what it has been.

Electing any president involves a leap of faith -- a risk. Such is the power of the office.

For a country in need of a new direction and a new tone, Barack Obama is a risk worth taking.
______________________________________________

ROCKFORD REGISTER (ILLINOIS) STAR:

Our pick for president: Obama
Posted Oct 18, 2008 @ 03:43 PM

With nothing on a firm footing -- not the economy, not the war, not health care -- the leader of the free world should be just that: a leader.

In endorsing Obama over Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain, we're choosing a man who we've come to know as an earnest, smart and, yes, charismatic politician who has visited this Editorial Board several times.

We know the Obama who doesn't just give you his opinion but leads you through his thought process. He's confident but deliberative. He's certain but deferential. If those qualities seem to be in conflict, you don't know Obama.

We know the Obama whose grace under pressure is a tonic for the my-way-or-the-highway style of governing that isn't just getting old. It's getting dangerous. We are in a global economic crisis that demands cooperation.

We know the Obama whose allure doesn't rest in the size of his crowds or the color of his skin, but in his superb judgment, his careful reasoning, his measured temperament. He redefines dignity, both the dignity he possesses and the dignity he allows other people -- even when (especially when) he disagrees with them.

For the past eight years, we've seen the government spend money it didn't have, manipulate intelligence to wage a war with unclear goals, trample on privacy and leave pirates to raid our financial institutions.

When Obama says he can change that, we believe it's more than campaign rhetoric. We believe he can make it happen because Obama is the kind of man who wants the same things that mainstream Americans want: affordable and accessible health care, a phased withdrawal for our soldiers in Iraq, a foreign policy that repairs damage to our international reputation and restores confidence in our ability to lead the world.

On the economy, we need someone suited to take us through unchartered territory. We are in scary times. Economists predict a recession deeper than any in recent memory. The government has taken extraordinary steps to stop the free fall on Wall Street. We need a steady hand to guide us.

Unfortunately, steady is not an adjective that can be applied to Sen. McCain. The McCain we have seen in this campaign is not the man -- not the politician -- we have admired all these years. He's not a maverick; he's the puppet of reckless political advisers.

The McCain we have idolized for his heroism and his willingness to speak unpopular truths has become a desperate politician who is erratic, angry and unpredictable.

By choosing an unqualified and inexperienced running mate in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain has reinforced the belief he is not to be trusted. In a McCain presidency, the chances would be good the vice president could assume the presidency. McCain would be older than any man elected to a first term as president. Although he has proved resilient, he has been treated repeatedly for melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.

We applaud him for releasing nearly 1,500 pages of medical records, but we still wonder where his head's at -- and we pine for the politician we thought we knew.

However, we do have some concerns, which were reflected in the 7-2 endorsement vote.

We wish Barack Obama had more experience. We wish he didn't seem so smitten with government solutions. We wish he could have waited to run for president so that his record spoke more forcefully for him.

Even so, he has had nearly 12 years in elected office, four years in the U.S. Senate and eight in the Illinois Senate. Comparing Palin's lack of experience to Obama's is just not fair. Nor is it fair to begrudge his background as a community organizer. That work gave him great faith in the ability of people to solve their own problems, if only given the resources.

Not much seems fair or decent this election. Both campaigns have waged assault on the truth; the recent presidential debate was remarkably personal and down and dirty. While McCain's campaign has been more negative, Obama has told some half truths about McCain's positions. And Obama disappointed when he backed away from federal financing of his campaign and a promise he made to accept the limitations that come with that financing.

Missteps are not characteristic for Obama. He strikes us mostly as a man who doesn't just mouth the rhetoric on renewal and change; it's in his DNA. Before he went to Capitol Hill, he was well-liked in Springfield because of his knack for seeking common ground. He knows how to listen and he knows how to disagree. "If I'm clear on my principles," he said in 2004, "then I have the luxury of being courteous."

If there's any quality this country is hungering for, it's courtesy. That's also a hallmark of Obama's running mate, the seasoned and capable Sen. Joe Biden. If anything should happen to Obama, Biden -- unlike Sarah Palin -- is ready to be president.

We ask readers the same thing Obama asked delegates at the Democratic National Convention in 2004: "Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?"

In America, hope has no ceiling for deposit or withdrawal. It's our ultimate insurance policy and our only safe investment. In this election, Barack Obama is the candidate who understands a simple calculus -- hope equals change.

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ARLINGTON HEIGHTS DAILY HERALD CHICAGO'S LARGEST SUBURBAN DAILY

For president: Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois
Daily Herald Editorial Board
Published: 10/19/2008 12:02 AM
In almost every political campaign, as the candidates go before the voters, they describe the election as one of the most important in history. Usually, that overused description is little more than hyperbole, flattering rhetoric meant to engage the voters.

This election, it is actually true.

This year, our foreign policy is in disarray, our country is polarized, our politics is unduly partisan and out of touch, and our economy is on the brink of the worst financial calamity since the Great Depression.

To respond to those challenges, the nation needs a confident change in direction. We believe Sen. Barack Obama is best suited by temperament, judgment and vision to bring about that change, and we strongly endorse Illinois' favorite son for the presidency.

We don't oppose Sen. John McCain of Arizona. We endorsed him in the Republican primary, and we believe he is a true war hero who possesses many good attributes.

But Obama has the potential to offer more. He can be, as we said in January, a transcendent figure on the landscape of history.

He has, we believe, two great talents: A talent to inspire great masses of people, to stir the imagination and provide a call to action. And a talent for partnership rather than polarization, a genuine respect for disparate views that helps him see the country more as a whole than as a collection of interest groups.

His experience is limited, it's true. But his judgment, insight and calm stand him ready to lead the country and ready to manage the government. He, better than McCain, saw the engagement in Iraq for the mistake it was to become. He, better than McCain, provided reassurance when the financial crisis dawned.

This is a unique public servant, our Sen. Obama. He is practical, common sensed, inclusive and solutions-oriented.

He has a chance to be a great president. Not just the country's first black president, a notable achievement for him and for the nation. But also a great president.

He offers a new kind of politics. A politics that breaks down the old partisan walls. A politics that strives to bring people together. A politics of hope.

And we all need hope these days.

The legacy of George Bush, abetted by an enabling Congress during his first six years, will cast a heavy shadow over the next presidency.

An unnecessary war in Iraq. A so-far bungled effort to deprive al-Qaida of its base in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A failure to secure our ports and our borders. Shameful acquiescence to torture and prisoner abuse abroad. Dangerous violations of civil protections at home. A breathtaking national debt. Unaddressed challenges with energy and climate change. Deteriorating infrastructure across America. Health care that's out of reach to millions and sorely expensive to those who touch it. Threats to baby boomer retirements. So many mortgages in default that the banks can't foreclose on them all. The list goes on.

The ineptitude, corruption and wrongheadedness that have poisoned America's ability to address these challenges are not the work of one man, but they do add up to one disastrous presidency.

No wonder McCain spends half his energy running against the record of his own party.

Unfortunately, he can't run fast enough. He was an early cheerleader to go to war in Iraq. He proposes to continue the spend-and-borrow policies of Bush. Despite his age and history of serious health issues, he selected as his backup a person who is disastrously ignorant of national and international issues.

McCain's campaign does not offer the promise or hope this country needs.

Barack Obama's does.

_____________________________________

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Daily News endorses Obama for President:

He has the promise to renew America at home and abroad
Updated Sunday, October 19th 2008, 2:22 AM

The need for a fresh start in America has grown markedly in the two years of this presidential campaign, and became imperative as the crippled financial system punishes workers, families and retirees in the country.

The U.S. is in want of leadership that repairs a damaged economy, restores faith in government as an engine for the common good and returns competence to the White House after the spectacular failures of the Bush administration.

Barack Obama holds the greater promise of accomplishing the mission than does John McCain. The Daily News endorses the 47-year-old Democrat, the first black American to win a major party nomination, for President.

Even his detractors agree Obama is an extraordinary politician. His campaign elevated a freshman senator to preeminence with a message that he represents a chance to make fundamental change in Washington.

Gifted in oratory and gracefully bearing the mantle of history, Obama stood as the repudiation of the record of George W. Bush. No one capitalized on the blunders of the last eight years more skillfully than he did, while aligning a liberal Democratic agenda with the country's decided shift away from the status quo.

Obama has been called audacious, and he certainly is. But his confidence is supported by both a high intelligence and a clear-eyed pragmatism, qualities that enabled him to best more established competitors - now to stand within reach of breaking America's ultimate racial barrier.

A brilliant mind combined with practicality would well serve any President, and the reserves shown by Obama suggest he would bring nimbleness and judgment to the Oval Office. So does his crucial vow to reach across the aisle for solutions frozen in partisan gridlock.

Obama has the potential to reinvigorate a nation fed up with the dysfunctional behavior of its leaders. But he would face tests - deciding, not speaking; governing, not campaigning - that dwarf any he encountered in his slim 12 years in the Illinois Legislature and the U.S. Senate.

The challenges are of historic proportions and growing.

The American standard of living is threatened with severe erosion from the global financial crisis. There's a war in Iraq to wind responsibly down, and there's a war in Afghanistan that demands smart new strategies. Iran is defiantly acquiring nuclear capability; Russia is flexing its muscles. Energy independence and global warming demand action.

And, never forget, the home shores must be protected.

The times call for boldness backed by expertise, not by ideology. We support Obama in the expectation that he would tap the brightest minds, regardless of political affiliation. He would need seasoned advice on every front, not least in adjusting from the rhetoric of a hasty Iraq withdrawal to the facts-on-the-ground duty of commander in chief.

We also expect that Obama would fulfill that oft-stated pledge to bring bipartisanship to the White House in forging solutions that work. That spirit will be essential to engaging the gears of government on issues that cannot wait. What Obama gives up - and some of his ideas must be tossed or refocused - would strengthen a presidency dedicated to the welcome notion of advancing the interests of the average Joe and Jane.

John McCain is an outstanding U.S. senator and a man of character. His courage in the face of torture and imprisonment as a Navy flier in North Vietnam met the highest standards of honor.

Typical for McCain, he fought his way to winning the nomination of a resistant party, and the Republicans are the better for it. In what was often predicted to be a Democratic blowout, McCain has kept the contest competitive.

His strongest suits are foreign affairs and the military. Tough-minded on both, he was dead-on regarding Iraq. From the start, he advocated more boots on the ground so the military could provide security to the Iraqi people, not just topple Saddam Hussein. Then, in the war's darkest hours, he held fast against overwhelming opposition to urge a bigger troop deployment.

Thus was born the surge that opened the way for Iraqis to begin building a civil society and pointed America toward withdrawal by the next President - perhaps, ironically, Obama.

McCain's insistence on persevering in Iraq - and on getting it right - reflects a core belief in promoting U.S. interests with a wise use of America's assets, from ideals to arsenal.

He has complemented global savvy with walk-the-walk bipartisanship. Among the highlights were battles for immigration and campaign finance reform, as well as a readiness to attack pork-barrel spending by both parties.

McCain's misfortune is that he is the standard-bearer of a party whose leadership, starting at the top, ran the U.S. onto the rocks.

There is no question he would bring change - but not as much as is needed after a presidency that enriched the wealthy over the working and middle classes with excessive tax cuts; gorged on spending; failed to address America's energy needs and global warming; undermined the credibility of U.S. military power, and got blindsided by the Wall Street meltdown, thanks in part to deregulatory zeal.

With the latest poll showing that fully 90% of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, the Republican Party has precious little credibility in laying claim to continued leadership. And the necessity of making a sharp break became all the more pressing with the sudden arrival of financial distress.

Unfortunately, a centerpiece of McCain's economic plan is an extension of Bush tax policy - a bad idea anytime, but horrible in these newly dire circumstances.

As the fates would have it, now is simply not the moment for this fine public servant.

Millions of Americans vest great hope in Barack Obama - and there is good reason why. It has been a long time since many have felt the government was in their corner. And here came an accomplished, fresh figure - a black man, at that - with plans for restoring the faith.

The agenda is sweeping, but the theme is clear. Whether on tax fairness or health care or the cost of college, Obama pushes the balance toward the working and middle classes and those farther down the ladder.

Still, reservations persist about specifics of his proposals.

On the international front, Obama faces tough calls regarding the war in Iraq. When he visited the country in July, Sunni leaders pleaded with him to drop the thought of pulling out before they and Shiite chiefs had forged working political relationships.

The Sunnis were right, because bringing the troops home prematurely could well unleash an upsurge in violence with disastrous consequences. Among them: an opening for Iran to play a dominant role in Iraq, the alienation of Sunni-led countries in the Mideast and a dramatic loss of credibility in Afghanistan.

Obama would have to recognize that combat troops must stay in Iraq at appropriate levels until the situation is resolved.

Domestically, Obama would have to shift to some more effective approaches while trimming sails to match fiscal realities.

It's a solid idea to raise the low tax rates enjoyed by the wealthy, but it would be counterproductive to increase capital gains levies. The first would boost revenue and fairness; the second would crimp investment.

Providing tax breaks to those at the low end is attractive, but Obama would achieve greater economic stimulus with aggressive spending on infrastructure projects, such as roads, bridges and, especially, mass transit.

Enabling homeowners to get relief from mortgage debt in bankruptcy court, as Obama proposes, would further disrupt housing finance. But directing the government to buy up troubled mortgages would help stabilize housing prices and bail out families, not just Wall Street.

In sum, we are banking on practicality trumping political dogma in an Obama White House. The fantasy that the U.S. can move toward energy independence without fully committing to domestic drilling and nuclear power must be banished. The reality that America can't make strides toward universal health care without fiscal discipline elsewhere must sink in.

At this critical juncture, the nation must elect a President who will renew bipartisanship and hard-headed pragmatism to rescue America's standard of living, secure the country from global threats, whether of arms or of climate, and lay a foundation to meet 21st century challenges.

That is our hope for Barack Obama.

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The Orlando Sentinel

Oct. 19:

As the primary season began, the candidate who seemed best qualified to be that leader was Republican John McCain. But Mr. McCain then was a different candidate from the one before us now. He has abandoned positions we admired. He has reacted inconsistently, even haphazardly, to events. In making the most important decision of his campaign, he showed shockingly poor judgment.

In contrast to Mr. McCain, Democrat Barack Obama has exceeded our expectations during this campaign. He has demonstrated sound judgment and grace under pressure. Because we are now more confident in his ability to steer America through the rough waters ahead, the Orlando Sentinel is endorsing Barack Obama for president.

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The (Raleigh) News & Observer

Obama on Oct. 19:

There is a crisis of spirit, and Barack Obama knows it. He has spoken to it with a call for change. His vision is not obscure, and not out of reach. And there is meaning in his words, from his pledge to realize universal health care to his promise to get the United States out of the mire of Iraq honorably, to his plan to restore economic stability and opportunity. His would be a government of thought before deed and of strength given by the people, not just exercised from above.

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AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN:

President: Obama answers call for change, hope, leadership

On taxes, on foreign policy, on questions of energy, Sen. Barack Obama shows a firm grasp on the problems and a solid grip on solutions
Sunday, October 19, 2008

Each of the two major presidential candidates fill the air with different words that all say "change," but only Sen. Barack Obama defines change clearly and positively.

It is a time of peril, both at home and abroad, and the nation needs the focused, energetic leadership Obama has projected and delivered since he announced his presidential candidacy in early 2007.

It's true that Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, is a relative newcomer. In making the national acquaintance, however, he not only has offered solid ideas but also rallied a mix of discipline and organization to propel him from long shot to the top of the ticket.

In the third and final debate last week, John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, tried to bait him into the gutter, but Obama refused to get down there. Political wisdom dictates that candidates who are attacked return double the fire directed at them. Obama responded calmly, defending himself but declining to respond in kind.

Now that's change.

A vote for Obama would be a vote for change on an array of fronts. Obviously, he would become the first U.S. citizen of color to hold the nation's highest office. But more important than his biracial bloodline are his ideas.

On taxes, on foreign policy, on energy and on health care, Obama shows a firm grasp on the problems and a solid grip on solutions.

Obama would not isolate our nation's enemies but talk to them. There is no dishonor in diplomacy, as President Nixon demonstrated when he went to China.

Obama, an opponent of the long, expensive war in Iraq, wants to withdraw troops from that country -- not a retreat but a phased withdrawal over 16 months. Iraqis want us out, and we should accommodate them as quickly as is practical. That would free up resources to confront the growing dangers in Afghanistan.

On energy production, McCain spotlights a false promise of cheap gasoline. He mentions renewable resources, but almost in passing. Obama concentrates his discussion of energy on moving the country beyond the talking stages of diversifying its energy sources and making that talk reality. Offshore drilling alone won't lower the price of gasoline immediately -- and maybe not ever.

We can't wait any longer to diversify the nation's energy production, and we can't base our energy future on pining for the long lost days of cheap gasoline.

On the economy, McCain offers warmed-over tax cuts and an economic policy that is contributing to the credit crisis that is rocking Wall Street and putting stress fissures on Main Street.

While McCain would continue tax cuts for the affluent, Obama's tax plan makes the much larger middle class -- the people on whose spending the economy relies -- the beneficiaries of tax cuts.

Now that's change.

Beyond the wonkism, however, is a fundamental question of who is best equipped to lead.

Truth be told, neither McCain nor Obama could be expected to deliver 100 percent of his agenda. What economic reality won't limit, the vagaries of getting legislation through Congress will.

McCain, whose heroic military service to the nation we enthusiastically salute, is a fellow who built a political career saying "no." He served two terms in the U.S. House before being elected to the Senate in 1986. His accomplishments are mixed, but the Washington he vilifies rubbed off on him. For example, his effort to bring about comprehensive immigration reform was truly a bold, bipartisan move. But it died. So he turned his back on it because a comprehensive approach is politically incorrect with his party's right wing?

McCain might have made a fine president once, but he is not what the country needs now.

What the country needs now is the bold energy of Obama, who is not saddled with Washington cynicism -- a leader who sees not roadblocks but highways.

Obama represents what we all profess to love about our country: an intelligent youngster who grew beyond his family's modest circumstances to earn an Ivy League education and eventually win a seat in the U.S. Senate and from there launch a bid for the presidency.

That experience makes him best suited to show the world that the United States is still the shining city on the hill that President Reagan envisioned.

Should he win office, Obama will need that sense of hope tempered by his calm resolve to restore confidence in the U.S. economy -- here and abroad -- as well as instill confidence in the nation's ability to conduct its foreign affairs with honor.

He will also need that strength to restrain fellow Democrats -- who have the potential to widen their majorities in both the House and Senate -- from drinking excessively from the fountain of power.

The country doesn't need another show of leadership staggering around drunk on authority.

Obama has demonstrated his toughness, his determination and his focus through the primaries and through a very personal general election campaign. The country will be in very capable hands in an Obama presidency.

___________________________________

St. Petersburg Times:

In Clinton, we see the past; in Obama, we see a fresh start. Clinton is a divisive political figure; Obama's appeal transcends racial and party lines. She exudes competence; he radiates optimism. She came to the campaign with a sense of entitlement; he came to it with a sense of possibilities. She can be evasive, even misleading; he can be refreshingly candid about his own shortcomings and his political mistakes. She represents business as usual in politics; he at least offers the hope of something better.

The Gainesville Sun:

As much as any candidate in either party, Obama has electrified audiences, engaged those who normally disdain politics and captured the imagination of younger Americans who need to be more engaged. The biracial candidate who rarely talks about race, he resonates the politics of hope and personifies the politics of change.

The Tuscaloosa News:

[H]e has leadership qualities beyond his years. He is a brilliant and persuasive speaker. He is a unifier who honestly hopes to break the capital's partisan gridlock. And while some of his rivals for the nomination have more years of experience, Obama has quickly learned the territory in his relatively short time in Washington.

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, Sacram

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:56:46 EDT

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

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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

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

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

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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

Spreading the Wealth

Doug Robinson — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:01:49 EDT

John McCain recently ridiculed Barack Obama for telling “Joe the Plumber” – in reality “Sam the contractor,” behind on paying his taxes – he wanted to “spread the wealth.” McCain said he wanted “Joe” to keep his wealth – actually much less than reported – to himself. McCain insisted that Obama’s tax plan would hurt Joe’s plan of buying his employer’s plumbing business when all indications are that Sam would actually benefit from Obama’s plan. Such is the continued misrepresentation that has become a hallmark of the McCain campaign. Obama’s desire to “spread the wealth” deserves more consideration.

Editorial Page Endorsements of Obama Part II Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francsico Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Cincinnati City Beat; Please put these to good use!

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:57:35 EDT

[For months, I have been urging and coaching and doing free editing to help Obama supporters write letters to the Editor, and always recommended to them that they consult EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, a guide to newspapers in America which lists the name of the Editorial Page Editor, to call ahead and discuss op/ed lengths rather than just letter to the editor lengths.

To see this latest blast of endorsements reaffirms my faith both in independent and discerning American Editorial Pages and the strength of my tactical approach to Presidential Politics, but above all, faith in the intelligence, compassion, and coolness of our best candidate, Obama, who has rightly convinced hundreds of millions of American he is the right choice!---note from Stephen Fox]

__________________________

How we decided: Denver Post

By Dan Haley
Up until late this week, our editorial board was torn over our
presidential endorsement.

Just like Colorado, we were divided neatly between Barack Obama and John McCain.

We had many of the same conversations in our board room that many of you have had over your own kitchen tables or in coffee shops or at cocktail parties.

Obama is too inexperienced. McCain's health care plan is a disaster.

Neither man has articulated a clear plan for the economy. Obama won't say what programs he'll cut given the economic crisis, while McCain still thinks he can balance the budget through tax cuts and lucky charms.

Sarah Palin isn't qualified to be president. Joe Biden is a blooper waiting to happen.

Of course, we even had a few nice things to say about the candidates, but being skeptics, we often gravitated back to the negatives.

That seems to be where we are as a nation, too: the negatives. Maybe Obama can change that. I have my doubts. But wouldn't it be nice?

Anyway, as you can see, we eventually found ourselves at Barack Obama.

"Typical left-wing Denver Post," many of you will mutter. Others may be surprised. Since we endorsed George W. Bush in 2004, many readers have assumed, according to the e-mails we still receive, that we're in the pocket of Republicans. (They forget, or just don't know, that we actually endorsed Al Gore in 2000.)

The Post is an independent newspaper that doesn't care what's good for Republicans or what's good for Democrats. We owe nothing to either party.

Today, with our endorsement of Obama, we lean further to the left than my own personal compass. But it's where the majority of our board is, and that's OK.

We know our endorsement is likely to anger about, oh, 47 percent of the people in Colorado. And that's OK, too.

Endorsements are meant to stoke a public dialogue.

Since 1946, when Palmer Hoyt re-established the editorial page, we've endorsed a candidate in 14 presidential races. Until today, we had endorsed seven Democrats and seven Republicans.

In 1974, in an editorial written after Hoyt's retirement, The Post wrote:

"An editorial endorsement of a candidate is nothing more nor nothing less than an opinion intended to stimulate public discussion and to give the newspaper's best judgment for its readers to ponder and weigh as they see fit. Our endorsement system is not beyond criticism. We are seeking improved government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and so far we have not found a better way to express election opinion than the endorsement system."

And since "lively disagreement is the lifeblood of opinion pages," as the late Sue O'Brien once wrote, one of our board members, Chuck Plunkett, has penned a dissent column, also found on this page.

The endorsement process often isn't pretty. It can be a fierce debate, fueled by high emotions. But it tells you where we stand today as a newspaper.

After all the debates, YouTube videos, and the endless loop of campaign ads, our hope is to give you something else of substance to chew on as you mull the election.

Editorial page editor Dan Haley can be reached at dhaley@denverpost.com.

_________________________________

LOS ANGELES TIMES

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-endorse19-
2008oct19,0,5198206.story

>From the Los Angeles Times
Endorsement: Barack Obama for president
He is the competent, confident leader who represents the aspirations of the United States.

11:01 AM PDT, October 17, 2008

It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That's where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence.

We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.

The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.

Our nation has never before had a candidate like Obama, a man born in the 1960s, of black African and white heritage, raised and educated abroad as well as in the United States, and bringing with him a personal narrative that encompasses much of the American story but that, until now, has been reflected in little of its elected leadership. The excitement of Obama's early campaign was amplified by that newness. But as the presidential race draws to its conclusion, it is Obama's character and temperament that come to the fore. It is his steadiness. His maturity.

These are qualities American leadership has sorely lacked for close to a decade. The U.S. Constitution, more than two centuries old, now offers the world one of its more mature and certainly most stable governments, but our political culture is still struggling to shake off a brash and unseemly adolescence. In George W. Bush, the executive branch turned its back on an adult role in the nation and the world and retreated into self-absorbed unilateralism.

John McCain distinguished himself through much of the Bush presidency by speaking out against reckless and self-defeating policies. He earned The Times' respect, and our endorsement in the California Republican primary, for his denunciation of torture, his readiness to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and his willingness to buck his party on issues such as immigration reform. But the man known for his sense of honor and consistency has since announced that he wouldn't vote for his own immigration bill, and he redefined "torture" in such a disingenuous way as to nearly embrace what he once abhorred.

Indeed, the presidential campaign has rendered McCain nearly unrecognizable. His selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was, as a short-term political tactic, brilliant. It was also irresponsible, as Palin is the most unqualified vice presidential nominee of a major party in living memory. The decision calls into question just what kind of thinking -- if that's the appropriate word -- would drive the White House in a McCain presidency.
Fortunately, the public has shown more discernment, and the early enthusiasm for Palin has given way to national ridicule of her candidacy and McCain's judgment.

Obama's selection also was telling. He might have scored a steeper bump in the polls by making a more dramatic choice than the capable and experienced Joe Biden. But for all the excitement of his own candidacy, Obama has offered more competence than drama.

He is no lone rider. He is a consensus builder, a leader. As a
constitutional scholar, he has articulated a respect for the rule of law and the limited power of the executive that make him the best hope of restoring balance and process to the Justice Department. He is a Democrat, leaning further left than right, and that should be reflected in his nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a good thing; the court operates best when it is ideologically balanced. With its present alignment at seven justices named by Republicans and two by Democrats, it is due for a tug from the left.

We are not sanguine about Obama's economic policies. He speaks with populist sweep about taxing oil companies to give middle-class families rebates that of course they would welcome, but would be far too small to stimulate the economy. His ideas on taxation do not stray far from those put forward by Democrats over the last several decades. His response to the most recent, and drastic, fallout of the sub- prime mortgage meltdown has been appropriately cautious; this is uncharted territory, and Obama is not a master of economic theory or practice.

And that's fine. Obama inspires confidence not so much in his grasp of Wall Street finance, but in his acknowledgment of and comfort with his lack of expertise. He will not be one to forge far-reaching economic policy without sounding out the best thinkers and practitioners, and he has many at his disposal. He has won the backing of some on Wall Street not because he's one of them, but because they recognize his talent for extracting from a broad range of proposals a coherent and workable program.

On paper, McCain presents the type of economic program The Times has
repeatedly backed: One that would ease the tax burden on business and other high earners most likely to invest in the economy and hire new workers. But he has been disturbingly unfocused in his response to the current financial situation, rushing to "suspend" his campaign and take action (although just what action never became clear). Having little to contribute, he instead chose to exploit the crisis.

We may one day look back on this presidential campaign in wonder. We may marvel that Obama's critics called him an elitist, as if an Ivy League education were a source of embarrassment, and belittled his eloquence, as if a gift with words were suddenly a defect. In fact, Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.

________________________________________________

CHICAGO TRIBUNE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ITS 161 YEAR HISTORY ENDORSES
DEMOCRAT: OBAMA!

However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America's slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln's extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.

In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven't experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It's a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn't forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.

On Nov. 4 we're going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.

____________________________________________

NOTES FROM WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT:

[It's no surprise that the liberal media would support its favorite son. However, as the Tribune notes in its editorial, this marks the first time in the newspaper's history that it has endorsed a Democrat for the nation's highest office. The Los Angeles Times has not endorsed a candidate in the presidential race since 1972, and it has never supported a Democrat before either.

The four newspapers all pointed to Sen. John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, as a key reason for endorsing Obama. McCain has largely ignored or brushed aside questions about Palin's lack of experience -- and by extension, his judgment. The Los Angeles Times was the most scathing:

Indeed, the presidential campaign has rendered McCain nearly unrecognizable. His selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was, as a short-term political tactic, brilliant. It was also irresponsible, as Palin is the most unqualified vice presidential nominee of a major party in living memory. The decision calls into question just what kind of thinking -- if that's the appropriate word -- would drive the White House in a McCain presidency.
Fortunately, the public has shown more discernment, and the early enthusiasm for Palin has given way to national ridicule of her candidacy and McCain's judgment.

_______________________________________

THE CHRONICLE RECOMMENDS: Barack Obama for president
Why Obama is the choice
The Illinois senator has shown beyond a doubt that he is the one to lead the nation in troubled times.

Friday, October 17, 2008

The stakes were extraordinarily high even before our economy began to spasm and hurtle toward the abyss.

From the start of the campaign, Americans were confronted with profound policy choices about how and when to extricate this nation from a war it initiated, how to temper a looming recession, and whether to continue Bush administration policies that had widened the gap between rich and poor, eroded individual liberties, strengthened presidential power, shifted the Supreme Court to the right, weakened relations with our allies, and delayed action necessary to slow the warming of the planet.

Then, suddenly, the emergence of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression gave Americans an opportunity to see the two major-party candidates under heightened stress. It was a rare chance to see the two senators encounter the type of pressure that comes with the job description of president of the United States.

Even though each ultimately voted for the same solution - the $700 billion bailout-their demeanors could not have been more different. Sen. John McCain magnified the aura of crisis, "suspending" his campaign to return to Washington, where his role in negotiations was at best tangential. Sen. Barack Obama was a portrait of calmness and deliberation, reminding Americans that it is possible for a leader to juggle more than one task at a time.

Obama showed steadiness in a moment of anxiety, with Americans' portfolios withering and policymakers scrambling to do something - anything - to staunch the panic. The Illinois senator was similarly deliberative - in contrast with McCain's quick-draw provocation - when Russia invaded Georgia in August.

In those crises, and in the hot lights of three debates, Obama demonstrated a presidential depth and temperament. His performance under the unrelenting scrutiny of the past 20 months has helped quell the "experience issue" for a 47-year-old senator who was elected in 2004.

Still, the breadth of the job of the presidency is such that even the most capable and experienced leader must rely on the advice and judgment of seasoned and specialized appointees. A president's success is determined not only by his aptitude, instincts and communication skills - which Obama demonstrated throughout the campaign - but also by the quality of the advisers around him. Do they have the mettle to challenge a president? Does he have the self-confidence, and the trust in them, to encourage such challenges?

Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate suggests that he would encourage vigorous input in his administration. Biden, 65 and a senator since 1972, has established himself as one of Washington's pre-eminent authorities on foreign policy - and a man who is famously unafraid to volunteer his opinion.

McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has been largely sequestered from the news media since her selection in late August. She has yet to have anything resembling a traditional news conference, where the full range of her knowledge and views can be explored. Her avoidance of questions and reliance on cue-card talking points in the one vice presidential debate did
nothing to allay doubts about whether the 44-year-old governor of two years is capable of assuming the reins of the presidency. Her selection was but an act of political calculation by McCain.

The erstwhile appeal of "maverick" McCain, 72, has been further undercut by his tack to the right on the Bush tax cuts (which he initially resisted), his newfound allegiance to the religious right (in 2000, he called its leaders "agents of intolerance") and the low tone of his campaign in recent weeks (with attempts to portray Obama as a "pal of terrorists").

While both candidates speak of "change," on the issue that matters most to Americans at this moment - the economy - there is no question about which candidate's policies represents a distinct departure from the approach of the last eight years. McCain's agenda largely reflects the orthodoxy of deregulation and top-weighted tax cuts that defined Republican politics for almost 30 years. McCain has poured forth more proposals to stimulate the economy with cuts on capital gains taxes and allowing certain early withdrawals on retirement accounts. He also has floated a plan to purchase troubled mortgages to help homeowners avoid foreclosure and stay in their
homes.

Obama draws on some of the traditional Democratic themes: a more active government role in regulating businesses and trade agreements, more tax relief for the middle class, and stimulating the economy with public-works projects.

Both candidates have been less than forthcoming about how their tax-cut and spending plans might be derailed if the economy continues to tank or the bailout proves less effective and more expensive than anticipated.

At the start of the year, it looked as if the war in Iraq might be the defining issue of 2008. The United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars - and lost more than 4,100 troops - since President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq more than five years ago. McCain's stubborn insistence on "victory" before withdrawal runs the danger of extending the quagmire.

Meanwhile, the threat of terrorism has not gone away. As Obama has noted, the invasion of Iraq diverted resources and attention from what should be the main front on terrorism: the rugged terrain along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where al Qaeda and, presumably, its leader, Osama bin Laden, retreated after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Beyond Iraq, the president who walks into the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2009, will need to rebuild alliances that have been frayed by the unilateralist approach of the Bush White House. McCain has mocked Obama for his willingness to open dialogue with Iran and other rogue nations, but, again, the go-it-alone, world-opinion-be-damned approach of the past eight years has not made us safer. The challenges of our times - curbing global warming, addressing the global economic crisis, combatting terrorism - require international cooperation.

Throughout a campaign that has been intense - and at some points ugly - Obama has kept his composure and maintained a vision of optimism that has drawn an unparalleled wave of young people into the political process. His policies and his persona have offered hope to a nation that is deeply polarized, swimming in debt, mired in war and ridden with anxiety. He taps into that treasured American reservoir - patriotism - with his calls for sacrifice and national service.

Barack Obama is the right president for these troubled times.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/17/EDLP13H6V9.DTL

____________________________

BY GREG MITCHELL EDITOR AND PUBLISHER:

NEW YORK The Obama-Biden ticket maintains its strong lead in the race fornewspaper endorsements, picking up 12 more papers in the past day, including the giant Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune on Friday afternoon. This brings his lead over McCain-Palin by this measure to over 3-1 so far, at 51-16, including most of the major papers that have decided so far. In contrast, John Kerry barely edged George W. Bush in endorsements in 2004, by about 220 to 205.

The readership of the 51 newspapers backing Obama now stands at 6,299,363 daily circulation. He gained two biggies yesterday in The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle, and today picked up the Modesto Bee in addition to the L.A. Times, plus el Diario La Prensa and La Opinion.

The Columbian in Washington was an unexpected win for Obama, since the newspaper endorsed President Bush in the 2004 election. Obama has now picked up at least seven "flip-flops" of this type.

The Mountain Valley News in Colorado adds to McCain's endorsement list, bringing his total to 16 newspapers. The daily circulation of hisnewspapers now stands at 1,502,163.

________________________________________

SKY NEWS:

In Pennsylvania, Conservative radio host Michael Smerconish said he was also throwing his support behind Mr Obama.

"John McCain is an honorable man who has served his country well. But he will not get my vote. For the first time since registering as a Republican 28 years ago, I'm voting for a Democrat for president."

And there are reports that former Secretary of State Colin Powell - who served the last three Republican presidents including George W Bush - may come out in support of the Democrat too.

Sky News political analyst Jon-Christopher Bua said: "Although no one endorsement can turn the tide for a candidate, each one helps push some segment of the undecided voters closer to their choice.

He added: None of this is very good news for John Mc Cain."

The latest endorsements come after the Republican failed to land a knock-out blow in the third and final presidential debate in New York and as voters swing behind Mr Obama in states which have previously been Republican strongholds.

The Illinois Senator now has an eight point lead in Virginia which hasn't backed a Democrat since 1964. He is also challenging Mr McCain in Indiana. The state has only backed a Democrat once since 1940.

-----------------------------------------

Cincinnati CityBeat:

As Election Day creeps ever closer, it's time for CityBeat to start
publishing election endorsements and help those remaining undecided voters get their act together. Given our niche in Greater Cincinnati as a voice for progressive causes, we've recommended candidates and ballot issue positions since our founding in 1994 and take that role seriously.

Let's begin with the big enchilada this fall, the presidential race. It should come as no shock that CityBeat endorses Sen. Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States.

There's no shock in our choice because Obama is truly the only candidate on the presidential ballot who can turn this country around. And the country needs turned around in a big way and in a hurry.

The litany of Bush administration failures and scandals is too long to list here, but we can boil down the past eight years to these truths: Bush and his cronies have abused the power of the federal government (torture of accused terrorists and others, domestic spying of U.S. citizens, politicization of U.S. Attorneys, etc.) while failing to make the government effective where it should be (poor Iraq War planning and reconstruction, poor oversight of the financial markets, poor management of disaster aid, etc.).

In short, they've overstepped government boundaries when restraint was required and blew off responsibilities when they felt like it. An Obama presidency will move 180 degrees from Bush's cynical, disinterested, manipulative approach.

Obama has run a serious, focused, organized and inspirational campaign for president and at every step of the long, long process has emerged both victorious and humble. His management of the big picture atop a two-year-long 50-state campaign organization bodes very well for his ability to lead the Democratic Party, Congress and the country over the next four to eight years.

Much of the excitement around Obama flows from his compelling personal story, starting (and in some cases ending) with his standing as the first African-American major party presidential nominee and soon to be the country's first black president.

It's difficult to overstate the significance of this accomplishment, as his election would impact the country and world in so many ways, but it would also be wrong to reduce Obama simply to a symbol.

As with anyone, who Obama is and how he behaves tie directly back to how he was raised and the decisions he made along the way as an adult. Brought up by a single white mother, white grandparents and an Asian stepfather in exotic Hawaii and Indonesia, dealing with abandonment by his own father, trying to find a path in both the black and white worlds while assimilating with the establishment at Ivy League universities, Obama faced and overcame challenges before age 30 that few of us can relate to.

He learned his politics fighting against and later collaborating with the Daley Machine in Chicago, and he caught some breaks along the way.

Would Obama have been elected to the U.S. Senate in Illinois if his better-known Republican rival hadn't flamed out in a sex scandal? Would he have beaten Hillary Clinton if she hadn't made so many tactical mistakes
throughout the early Democratic primary season? Would he be on the verge of becoming president if John McCain were running even a halfway decent campaign? Who knows?

Ultimately, the most impressive thing about Obama's run for the presidency is that his campaign has come across as planned out, strategic and thoughtful. Imagine a president who plans, strategizes and thinks. A crazy concept, we know, but that sort of leader is desperately needed right now.

Obama will enjoy about a two-year honeymoon as president. Both houses of Congress will have more Democrats, and the Senate might even feature a filibuster-proof 60-40 Democratic advantage.

Obama will have the necessary support in Congress to enact his reform plans for health care, financial markets, taxes, the wars in the Middle East and just about everything else. Given how the polls look these days, he should beat McCain so decisively that he'll be able to claim a "mandate" from voters for fundamental change.

He'll also inherit two of the most daunting problems of modern times: the threat of Middle Easternbred terrorism against the West and the global financial meltdown. Both situations continue to drain attention and money that could be used to improve everyday life for most of us via better schools, fairer health care, better retirement plans, cleaner environment, better transportation and better planning.

If Obama isn't able to get his team focused on accomplishing his stated goals and if world events interfere with his plans, the public will be ready to punish him and the Democrats in the mid-term Congressional elections in two years -- much like they punished President Clinton in 1994. So he has two years to get something done.

Obama reminds us of the two most popular Democratic presidents since World War II, John Kennedy and Bill Clinton. Like them, he's youthful, optimistic and oozes personal charm and warmth. He represents the "best and brightest" of his generation.

The warning for Obama, of course, is that both Kennedy and Clinton are often remembered more for their personal foibles than for their breakthroughs and accomplishments. Still, they remain revered presidents in many American households.

Will Obama be able to join the ranks of the revered? Will he fulfill his promises? Will he really be different?

One thing is for sure: When Barack Obama takes the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2009, the world changes and everything becomes possible. That sounds like a future we can all believe in.

Editorial Page Endorsements of Obama>>> Part I >>>The Best of the Best, from the Editorial Pages of America

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:22:44 EDT

Recent newspaper endorsements of the presidential candidates, selected for the quality of their writing and the depths of their insights

___

Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times endorsed Democrat Barack Obama on Oct. 5:

We now face a future fraught with difficulty. It is no time to fear, but rather to change directions and unite behind a dynamic, thoughtful and progressive leader, Democrat Barack Obama.

He has stirred hope among millions of Americans, many of whom were alienated from politics or marginalized in society. He has restored a sense of idealism and promise that American values will again be our respected guide in the world, that the American dream is still very much alive in our nation, and that what is wrong can be fixed.

Sen. Obama's opponent, Republican John McCain, has long served his country, and as a young man, at great personal sacrifice. But he is not ready to lead America in the 21st century. His view of the world is outdated and unduly restricted by a military lens.

___

The Durango (Colo.) Herald endorsed Obama on Oct. 12:

The United States faces a pivotal choice in this presidential election, and
the alternatives are clear. What is needed in that decision, as in our markets and our dealings with the world, is to act like Americans and approach the future with optimism. Voters should reject the politics of fear and elect Barack Obama.

Obama offers what America now needs: Confidence without swagger,
intelligence without condescension, a mind unencumbered with the baggage of the '60s, and an optimistic outlook eloquently expressed.

After the feckless leadership of the last eight years, the offer of hope is
beyond appealing. It is essential. We need to restore this country's
position as a bastion of human rights and re-establish respect for the
United States government at home and abroad. We must reinvigorate and
restructure our economy, revive the idea that children will be better off
than their parents, and face the 21st century with confidence.

John McCain cannot do that. He is intellectually and emotionally trapped in
a bygone era. And since his 2000 run, the maverick McCain has been replaced by one with a wet finger in the wind.

Obama, however, offers a clear and certain break with the past. And that is
absolutely necessary. It is taking a chance, of course, but that risk is
less than that of continuing Bush's work.

___

The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., endorsed Obama on Oct. 16:

American adults are asking a terrible question as Nov. 4 approaches: Will my children have the opportunities that I was afforded in my youth?

The times call for a steady hand, a confident voice and a messenger who
delivers hope rather than fear.

While the country negotiates some of the most treacherous waters in the last 50 years, (Obama) is the candidate most capable of leading it to a safer shore.

-----------

COLUMBIAN, WASHINGTON STATE
In Our View: Obama for President
As voters consider unprecedented change, this race hinges on leadership and judgment
Thursday, October 16 | 1:00 a.m.

Americans face what is arguably the nation's most historically significant presidential election ever. Either the first black president or the first
female vice president will be elected Nov. 4.

But this election also is a milestone for a reason unrelated to race or
gender. For the first time in 20 years, the next president will not be a
Bush or a Clinton. Never have just two families occupied the White House for so long. Today's typical college freshman has never lived under a president by any other name. It's time for a change.

So it's no surprise that John McCain and Barack Obama are campaigning as
agents of change. All the more reason for voters to participate. In Clark
County, ballots were mailed yesterday.

Any successful reformer must excel in leadership and judgment. In the past
several months, Obama has distanced himself as the superior candidate in
those two areas, and today he receives The Columbian�s endorsement for president. Two quick reminders:

Our opinion is only that, refuted by many, carrying no distinguishable
impact. Our opinion is offered more to stimulate conversation than to change minds.

No candidate is perfect, as evidenced by our 2004 endorsement: Bush,
Reluctantly

Obama carries baggage we consider unsightly, such as the unfair advantages he would grant labor unions. We also are wary of a few past relationships he's had with controversial figures. McCain carries that same baggage, to a lesser degree.

But as we examined leadership qualities of both men, we saw Obama's massive strides in uniting his own Democratic party, even reaching beyond his party to speak to all Americans. McCain, in stark contrast, continues to slog through a fractious Republican Party that often is his worst enemy.

It takes strong leadership skills to enlist record numbers of volunteers and
to continually explore new heights in the polls, as Obama methodically
demonstrates.

As for judgment, Obama chose a running mate who neither hurt him in the
polls nor diverted the spotlight from the main man on the ticket. McCain's
choice has done both. McCain tries to masquerade this recklessness as the
virtue of a maverick. Would he use that same recklessness in appointing
Supreme Court justices and Cabinet members? Which candidate in recent weeks has shown a presidential demeanor? Which could best restore worldwide respect for the U.S.? Which man has tried to soothe not stoke rancor in the homestretch of this campaign? Clearly, that man is Obama.

On the issues, Obama and McCain share similar views on immigration, Social Security and Medicare. Their differences on how to repair the economy are
not overly contradictory. On the Iraq War, Obama prefers a quicker
withdrawal of troops than we would like, but his proven leadership and solid judgment indicate he can resolve the Iraq dilemma collaboratively, certainly not by waving a white flag as McCain repeatedly claims. Both men urge public investment in science and technology. On health care, Obama believes it is a right; McCain believes it is a responsibility. Obama would raise taxes on the rich but not the rest of us, while McCain wants to make permanent the Bush tax cuts of 2003.

Beyond these issues, let's review two popular but empty charges against
Obama. His supposed lack of experience, history reveals, is a red herring.
His 12 years in elected office are more than Abraham Lincoln, Teddy
Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan each brought to the presidency. Too young at 47? Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton were younger. (Also on the
subject of age, is McCain too old at 72? Certainly not.)

America's comparison between the upstart reformer and the venerable war hero inexorably returns to the qualities of leadership and judgment. Obama wins that comparison, and his message of partnerships at home and abroad seals the deal for us.
--------------
THE TENNESSEAN

This newspaper believes Obama would be an inspiring choice at an
extraordinary time for the nation. The country needs a fresh, energetic face
in the White House. Every race for president is important, but the current
confluence of events, including the war on terror, mountainous challenges in the economy and a growing strain upon the nation's health-care system make the current race a call for vigorous new approaches and enthusiasm.

Obama has managed to put a tone of optimism in his campaign at a time it
would be very easy to be downhearted, worried and pessimistic. That
characteristic alone goes a long way in demonstrating the kind of leadership the nation needs.

Obama has made the case effectively that his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, represents too much of the same failed policies that have plagued the nation during the Bush administration. McCain, it must be said, is a genuine military hero and an honorable candidate. His years of service both in the military and in Congress are traits any American should admire. But at this time, at this juncture, McCain does not embody the motivational leader Americans deserve for such crucial issues.

There is no question the economy is foremost on the minds of many Americans today. People are witnessing a financial system in chaos, and they are seeing their personal lives in upheaval because of the problem. People are fearful about their jobs, their retirement, their ability even to meet day-to-day needs. At the moment, the nation is still trying to get a handle on exactly what is happening in its economy, as some of the best economic minds in the country try to sift through possible solutions. Obama offers no magic wand, but he has been effective in linking the crisis to failed economic policies, and he expresses a keen understanding of how the crisis is creating hardship on American families....

Further, Obama demonstrated sound judgment in selecting as his running mate Sen. Joe Biden, whose experience and knowledge of foreign policy prepare him to step in if need be as chief executive. McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin, by comparison, may have shown political savvy, but at the expense of offering a vice president the country could rally around....

The nation could ask for no more. Obama has the opportunity to lift the
United States at a time when its burdens are heavy. His campaign has carried a theme of "Yes We Can," which is exactly the message the nation needs to hear most now.

THE POST-GAZETTE PITTSBURGH

In three weeks, Americans will be called upon to make an exceptional
judgment worthy of the times. The forces of history appear to invite
boldness and the Post-Gazette believes they should be heeded by voting for the only authentic, fresh agent of change in this race, Barack Obama....

Despite the recent nastiness of his campaign. Sen. McCain is essentially a
good man, but he is yesterday's man. His campaign takes its core text from
the "Wizard of Oz": Don't mind the man behind the curtain. That man is
George Bush, the failed magician who cannot be spoken of lest the American people be reminded of what he has wrought and what party he belongs to.

To make their trick work, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Palin, trade
heavily on being mavericks -- too heavily to be believed.

It is true that Mr. McCain has a capricious streak that has made him a thorn
in the side of his own party on various issues. Yet while he has not joined
the know-nothing brigade in climate change denial, he has picked a running
mate who is a diva in the drill, baby, drill chorus of fossil-fuel adulation. Mr. Obama, while he has recognized the need for more drilling, has put more emphasis on new sources of alternative energy, the only real hope for the future.

On Iraq, Mr. McCain did needle the Bush administration to put in more troops and he makes much of the fact that he backed the surge. That the surge was a success to the point that it reduced bloodshed does not vindicate the wrong decision in the first place to invade a country that was not behind the 9/11 attacks and did not have weapons of mass destruction; Iraq has been a huge diversion from Afghanistan.

All of this Mr. McCain, despite his vaunted experience, got wrong at the
start when Barack Obama recognized the folly. That fundamental error is
still costing the nation $10 billion a month, funds desperately needed at
home, yet Mr. McCain sees the surge as more reason to stay than to plan now to leave and put the war in the hands of the only people who can ultimately win it: the Iraqis. That is what Mr. Obama wants to do in stages and what Mr. McCain only hopes for over the rainbow.

On health care, Mr. McCain's insurance plan is straight from the George Bush playbook, with its heavy reliance on private competition to give Americans
coverage. His $5,000 tax credit for families is a pittance that won't solve
America's national shame, the millions in the ranks of the uninsured. Mr.
Obama's health-care plan will address that directly -- and, no, it won't be
socialism. Americans will still have their choices.

On the economic meltdown, Mr. McCain famously said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" shortly before it collapsed. Although he has admitted that economics is not his strong suit, he foolishly suspended his campaign briefly to interject himself into a situation that he did not understand and where he was not wanted.

Mr. Obama doesn't have all the answers either, but he does acknowledge what former champion of deregulation John McCain can't: While there's blame to go around both parties, the economic crisis is the final verdict on the failure of the Bush administration.

In this and much else, Mr. McCain is not the steady hand he purports to be,
and nothing proves it more than his reckless selection of Sarah Palin, whose lack of knowledge to take over as president has becoming increasingly
obvious and embarrassing. If Mr. McCain had chosen one of the many
accomplished women in the Republican Party, his candidacy would have the
stamp of seriousness. Instead, it bears the superficial imprint of pandering
populism.

But this election is not just about the shortcomings of Mr. McCain and Ms.
Palin and the failed legacy of a philosophy that they seek to perpetuate
under the hastily erected banner of maverick.

It is about the strengths of Barack Obama, whose rise to prominence is not a fluke or national infatuation but the consequence of his remarkable skills --a keen intellect, noble intentions and the wit and grace to express them in
ways that have inspired millions across the country. He has a rare gift
exactly suited to the fearful times -- he knows the language of reassurance
and hope.

If his were just empty words, this would be just another cheap political
gift. But what he says is carefully considered. In the debates and on the
hustings, Mr. Obama has been the voice of moderation, combining common sense and compassion on issue after issue. When the subject turns to foreign policy, supposedly Mr. McCain's strong suit, Mr. Obama gives no indication that he will have to learn on the job.

That the argument about issues has been essentially won by Sen. Obama is plain from the scurrilous attacks now being launched against his character --
increasingly by Ms. Palin -- alleging guilt by association, unpatriotic
behavior and worse.

This closing blizzard of slime is another attempt to spread the wizard's
curtain further: Don't look at how the economy has impoverished you while a Republican has been in the White House, look at Mr. Obama's passing
acquaintance with an old radical who did bad deeds almost 40 years ago,
because that is more important.

Yes, they apparently do think the American people are that stupid.

On Nov. 4, we believe Americans will heed the better angels of their nature
and recognize that the election of the eloquent Barack Obama -- whose story is a quintessentially American one of impossible odds overcome -- will best answer the pressing call of history.

_______________________

Obama’s ‘Diplomacy’ Wins a Republican Endorsement
By Adam Graham-Silverman, Congressional Quarterly Staff
The ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee parted ways with his party’s presidential nominee Wednesday by endorsing Democrat Barack Obama ’s approach to diplomacy.

In a lengthy speech at the National Defense University, Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar weighed the benefits of talking to foreign leaders, including U.S.
enemies, against other actions, such as military force. The issue marks one
of the sharpest divides between Obama and John McCain , who has called the Democratic nominee naive for suggesting that he would sit down with leaders such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Lugar, however, praised Obama, noting that isolation often does not resolve contentious issues.

“He correctly cautions against the implication that hostile nations must be
dealt with almost exclusively through isolation or military force,” Lugar
said in a prepared remarks released before his speech. “In some cases,
refusing to talk can even be dangerous.”

Lugar, however, said McCain is right to warn that “there are times when
diplomatic approaches to rogue regimes have little efficacy.” But he cited
North Korea, which was just removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of
terror, as a diplomatic success story and urged more contact with Syria and
Iran.

This is not the first time Lugar and Obama have seen eye-to-eye on foreign
policy issues. Lugar noted back in July that he was “pleased” to have worked with Obama on nuclear proliferation issues after an Obama ad ran mentioning Lugar by name.

Lugar also used his speech to underscore his concern that U.S. foreign
policy has become too reactive.

“If most U.S. foreign policy attention is devoted to crises fomented by
hostile regimes, we are ceding the initiative to our enemies and reducing
our capacity to lead the world in ways that are more likely to affect our
future,” Lugar said.

___________________________________________

EDITORIAL: Obama for President: We believe the senator from Illinois is the
right man to lead our country in a new direction

The Lufkin Daily News, PULITZER PRIZE WINNING NEWSPAPER IN TEXAS

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Today through Sunday, we're making our endorsements for the 2008 election. Our endorsements are not partisan — we supported George Bush in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Our choices reflect whose policies and strengths we think, after careful consideration, will mean a better, stronger economy and way of life for Angelina County, Texas and the United States.

To that end, the choice for this year's president is clear: Barack Obama,
senator from Illinois.

His strength has been to appeal to a broad range of people, including the
vital youth who are tomorrow's leaders. After watching an inflexible
president go overboard in a $700 billion bailout on loyalty for his nominee,
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, we think it's time for a changing
of the guard.

The East Texas economy is fundamentally doing well, and we're not hitting
highs and lows like other areas, some local leaders have said. But it
remains a fact that while the rich battle it out over billions, poverty is
barking louder than ever at our rural doors. As a litmus test, consider the
Christian Information Service Center, our largest area food bank. It has had
more people than ever through its doors — including more elderly and middle class than ever before.

Hundreds of local families have been impacted as fuel and utility costs
skyrocket, and job losses mount as major employers have circled the drain or gone down altogether. It's hard to remember the fundamentals when you're deciding between buying your medication or keeping the lights on.

Those people who think what's happening nationally has had little effect on
East Texas haven't checked their 401(k)s, or more likely aren't among the
many whose worry is about surviving until the end of the month, let alone
retirement.

It's the working class that are the backbone of this country, and we need
someone to help us share the wealth while still encouraging a free market
economy. We believe Obama has shown more interest in helping the middle class, and has proposed plans to make that happen.

Another consideration is that we should elect a president whose vice
president would be ready to lead if, heaven forbid, the president were to
die in office. We think Joe Biden's experience overwhelms Sarah Palin's
limited appeal as a candidate who would instill confidence during a national
crisis.

At the end of the day, it's about how you and your family will fare — while
still caring how your neighbor and the needy guy down the block is doing.

We're making our voice heard. We hope you'll go to the polls Nov. 4 and do
the same.
____________________________________

HUNTINGTON WEST VIRGINIA:
The Herald-Dispatch editorial board met today. We spent a lot of time
discussing the presidential endorsement, which comes out Sunday.

First, a bit of history. As best I remember, The Herald-Dispatch has
endorsed every Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Before then, I have no memory. So going by those elections, the HD is 3-5 in agreeing with the American voter.

I can't say here who gets our endorsement, but I can say that the discussion was calm at times and less sedate at others. The thing was that no one was really excited about either candidate.

But we were all over 50, and we have seen too much to be too excited about candidates. None of us sees anyone running as a Messiah who will lead us to the promised land.

________________________________
UNATTRIBUTED, BUT KEEN INSIGHTS:

My own prediction: Obama will win, and Democrats will control both houses of Congress. In 2010, Republicans will regain control of one house, and the
Republicans will win back the White House in 2012. Whether they regain
control of both houses of Congress I cannot say, but I seriously doubt it.

This assumes the Republican Party acts with more intelligence and foresight
than it has shown since 2004.

This year, the Democratic Party had two strong candidates in the primary.
The GOP really had none. For a party that is supposed to be conservative,
the GOP had no strong conservative with wide appeal in the primaries. McCain won almost by default, and if he surprises a lot of us and wins the election this year, it will be more a vote against Obama than a vote for McCain. I have talked with several Republicans, and very few are voting for him. They are either voting for Palin or against Obama. Or they are voting for the Republican candidate, whoever it may be. I know of no one who is voting for McCain because he is John McCain.

You can't do well in the long run if that's your base. But it's what the GOP
did to itself.

____________________________________

Fidel Castro Endorses Obama -- Again
By Humberto Fontova
The American Thinker

Barack Obama's Kenyan cousin Raila Obinga did well in naming his son Fidel Castro Odinga. From Havana this week, Obama's nephew's namesake issued his 2nd Barack Obama endorsement.

"The only thing that abounds in McCain are years" wrote the Stalinist Cuban dictator in his regime's official paper. "His (electoral) adversary far surpasses McCain in intelligence and serenity. And his health is not guaranteed."

So a major concern for Castro is,

"that the lady with the rifles, the inexperienced ex-governor of Alaska, could became U.S. President. We observe that she knows absolutely nothing about anything."

Castro's favoritism towards Democrats is nothing new. "We'd better hope Kennedy wins this election," Fidel Castro confided to a subaltern in 1960. "If Nixon wins our revolution won't last." the Bay of Pigs and Missile Crisis betrayals (of free Cubans) vindicated Castro's foresight a thousand times over.

I admit to imprecision when labeling Fidel Castro a "Stalinist dictator." For the record: the Castro-Che incarceration of political prisoners actually surpassed Stalin's. In her authoritative book, Gulag, Anne Applebaum documents that, all-told, 18 million people passed through Stalin's prison-camps. At any one time 2 million were incarcerated. That was out of a Soviet population of 220 million. Cuba's population in 1960 was 6.4 million. According to Freedom House, 500,000 Cubans (young and old, male and female) have passed through Castro and Che's prison camps. At one point in 1961, 350,000 Cubans crammed Castro's Gulag. Do the math.

"A profound racism exists in the U.S.," continues Fidel Castro in his Obama-endorsement. "It's a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not suffered the fate of other Americans who dreamed of equality and justice like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King."

For the record: Fidel Castro, forcibly overthrew a black Cuban head of state (Fulgencio Batista) and replaced his government with one where only nine percent of the ruling Stalinist party is black and where the prison population is 80- 90 percent black. He jailed the longest suffering black political prisoner of modern history (Eusebio Penalver who suffered longer in Castro's dungeon's than Nelson Mandela suffered in South Africa's.) He sentenced other blacks (Dr Elias Biscet, Jorge Antunez) to 20 year sentences essentially for quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in a public square.

"(Obama) has a habit of looking at his adversary with serenity and laughing at the verbal gaffes of an opponent who looks blankly into space," continues Castro's chucklesome article, where he proceeds to denounce McCain as "a habitual liar, who lacks an ethical code and is an instrument of the "Miami Mafia" (overwhelmingly Republican Cuban-Americans.)

Castro laments the "brutal measures" the U.S. is adopting during "this capitalist crisis," because these "will provoke more inflation, more devaluation and more loss of markets." Thus a McCain victory would be economically disastrous, because, "he was one of the worst students ever at West Point and knew nothing about mathematics, and knows nothing about economic complications."

For the record: Fidel Castro converted a nation with a higher per capita income than half of Europe, the lowest inflation rate in the Western hemisphere, a larger middle class than Switzerland, a huge influx of immigrants and whose workers enjoyed the 8th industrial wages in the world into one that repels Haitians. And this after being lavished with Soviet subsidies that totaled almost ten Marshall Plans (again, into a nation of 6.4 million) -an economic feat that defies not only the laws of economics but seemingly the very laws of physics.

Actually, Castroites have been associates of Obama's associates for decades. "I have been affiliated with the Cuba Council of Churches since the 1980s," boasted Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a sermon on July 16, 2006. "I have several close Cuban friends who work with the Cuba Council of Churches and you have heard me preach about our affiliation and the Black Theology Project's trips to Cuba. The Cuban Council of Churches has been a non-partisan global mission partner for decades. I have worked with them for two decades."

"Non-partisan," Reverend Wright? Not according to Cuban intelligence defector Juan Vives, who from hands-on experience reports that the Cuba Council of Churches is in fact an arm of Cuba's ICAP (Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos) itself an arm of Cuba's DGI, Cuba's secret police, founded and mentored by the KGB and East German STASI. The ICAP's long-time chieftain was Rene Cruz Rodriguez, perhaps one of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's "friends."

Rodriguez' meteoric rise through Cuba's Stalinist bureaucracy was facilitated by his diligence as an early executioner, often beating out Che Guevara and Raul Castro themselves in his zeal to shatter the firing-squad victim's skull with a coup d' grace from his .45.
____________________________________________________

About 100 Napa County-based Barack Obama supporters showed up Monday afternoon on the front steps of the Napa Valley Register building in downtown Napa to protest the newspaper's Sunday endorsement of John McCain for President.

____________________________________
SAN DIEGO CITY BEAT:

Seems kind of pointless to run through a litany of policy areas in which Barack Obama is a far superior choice over John McCain, what with California already signed, sealed and delivered for the Democrat, but we’d like to run up the score and make it a landslide, so we’ll say, briefly, that Obama has shown himself to be the more thoughtful and, dare we say it, more presidential candidate. He’s the guy in whom we’d have far greater trust on the economy, energy, healthcare and foreign policy.

As for McCain, we can go into his past and detail his fondness for industry lobbyists. We can go into his neoconservative, imperialist views on foreign policy that would absolutely be a continuation of the past eight years. We can cite our concerns about how he was once rightly against the Bush tax cuts before he was wrongly for them.

But we’ll simply point to a couple of recent decisions his campaign made. The first was his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. It was a cynical move to shore up the conservative Republican base, and it showed no regard for real-world possibilities—such as, What if McCain were to die or be incapacitated while in office? The second was the desperate, disgusting decision to portray Obama as a terrorist sympathizer, which is the kind of thing you do when you have nowhere else to turn, when you know you can’t capture votes on serious policy issues facing Americans.
McCain would likely win this election four years ago—before the public realized how wrong the invasion of Iraq was, before the Republican Party imploded amid scandal after scandal (Cunningham, Foley, Abramoff, DeLay, Craig, Stevens, et al.), before the current president became radioactive and before the economy descended into unimaginable crisis.

So, it’s the right time for you moderate Republicans and you independents to give our guy a chance. McCain’s thinking is no different than Bush’s in the key areas—costly military interventionism, trickle-down economics and free access for lobbyists—and if you really think about it, you’ll realize that it’s unsustainable. Please vote for Barack Obama.

________________________________________

NEBRASKA REPUBLICAN SENATOR'S WIFE ENDORSES OBAMA

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The wife of Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel plans to endorse Democrat Barack Obama.

Lilibet Hagel has scheduled a 10 a.m. news conference in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday with Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of Republican President Eisenhower. Susan Eisenhower also is an Obama supporter.

Hagel, R-Neb., has made no endorsement. Lilibet Hagel said in an Associated Press interview that her decision was independent of her husband. She said she didn't know whether he would make an endorsement or whom he would support.

"You'd have to ask him," Lilibet Hagel said.

She said it will be her first endorsement of a Democrat and that perilous world conditions were a factor.

"The fact is we're in two wars, two of the longest we've ever been in. We've run up a third of our nation's debt in just the past eight years. We're in the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression," she said.

The Hagels know John and Cindy McCain, and she said her endorsement was not meant to slam them.

"This isn't anti-McCain. This is pro-Obama. I'm just convinced he's the right person," she said.

The Hagels vote in Nebraska, but they have lived in Washington's Virginia suburbs since Hagel won his first Senate term in 1996.

A moderate Republican and veteran wounded in combat in the Vietnam War, Hagel has been a fierce and credible critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policies. During the summer, he accompanied Obama and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was briefly the object of speculation as a possible surprise Obama running mate selection.

The first compendium of the best endorsement editorials from many states, & the top 3 papers in Tennessee! & one by Fidel Castro & the Republicans Lugar and Hagel endorsements

Obama Leads on Values/Priorities

akmk — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:52:38 EDT

Senator Obama exemplifies family values. He honors his parents, grandparents, and his extended family in Kenya, Kansas, and Hawaii. He has been married to one beautiful woman for sixteen years and has two delightful young daughters. He's worked in communities to better the lives of children, teenagers, and families. He respects women and works to uphold their rights. His economic proposals are designed to help and lift up working families. He has detailed plans to make health care more available and affordable for all families. He has his own Christian faith, but does not impose that faith on others. He leads by example, with integrity and compassion. In recent debates, Obama has outlined clearly his economic priorities. Invest in diverse energy sources; invest in fuel-efficient automobile technology; invest in American jobs; invest in small businesses and the middle class; provide tax-relief to 95% of American individuals and families; invest in Head Start and in students pursuing higher education; invest in preventive health care. He’s done his part in this campaign, letting us know who he is and what he stands for. For a positive change for the future, let’s do our part by voting for Obama/Biden on Nov. 4.

"Just Keep Lying, John. The Surrogates Have You Covered In The Post-Debate Spin Room"

Hussein The Hope Monger — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:23:19 EDT

Fired UP!!

JPMorgan profit sinks as credit deteriorates

Hussein The Hope Monger — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:21:25 EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s profit tumbled 84 percent in the third quarter after it took big hits from souring mortgage investments, leveraged loans and home loans.

Profit at the New York-based bank, considered one of the stronger players in the current financial meltdown, came in better than Wall Street anticipated. But the deterioration seen in all types of loans -- from home equity loans to prime mortgages to credit cards -- bodes badly for a banking industry that is requiring unprecedented investment from the federal government.

Fired UP!!

No stone unturned....7 swing states Obama must win

Dave — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:36:37 EDT

- Virginia

- Nevada

- Colorado

- Montana

- North Carolina

- Florida

- Ohio

We need to win all of the above. That's the target folks. Can we do this?

Yes we can!

Get out the Vote, or no more real meds for you.

Jerod Poore — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:49:01 EDT

I've added a few things to the Obama Prayer Cards site.

There are now two cards for each selection. Why waste the paper? Keep one and give one away. There's also a little mixing and matching available.

I've also added a prayer for getting out the vote. It's not all that original, as I just kludged together three existing prayers, including one for community organizing. There was no saint acting as an intermediary for that one, even if it is a Catholic prayer.

Plus I've made a crappy banner for the get out the vote drive using my very own, and singular pill font:

Click on the above thumbnail for a full size .jpg There's also a version with a transparent background and .png (for printing) versions at the Obama Prayer Cards site.

It's About Us

akmk — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:14:36 EDT

The 2008 election, as Sen. Obama has stated repeatedly, is about us. It is about our believing in ourselves. It is about our being willing to become involved and to work for the issues that are important to each of us. It is about our own personal integrity and capacity for empathy for others.

The 2008 election is about working people standing up and speaking out for themselves. It is about believing that our own health and welfare is as important as corporate health and welfare. It is believing that trickle-up economics is stronger than trickle-down economics. It is about demanding affordable and accessible health care for all, as a right.

The 2008 election is about a smarter and more diverse energy policy that will help create new American jobs, boost the national economy, and reduce world tensions. It is about hope, not fear. It is about the better America we know we can be when we work together for the common good. If America is to have the change we want, it is our votes that will lead the country in a new direction. We are the change we have been looking for. It is about us.

Deregulation - wars - bank crisis - movie Bush without words - (6)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:37:34 EDT

Deregulation - wars - bank crisis - movie Bush without words

To look the movie you must go to my blog. Unfortunately the situation can still change to be more terrible and so movie is not fun like could be.

(If you have a chance give a Digg please.)

Normally this should be known since hundred of years - without regulation a lot of banks will fall for profit! The end is always the same, like Bush McCain would be the same too - we, the world need change! Of course it's now more worse like we had known last crisis because of huge amounts of wasted money in wars too.(post continued)

Ashamed to be a Republican

Bill — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:32:02 EDT

When I was young freshman in college, John F. Kennedy was my hero. I will never forget the day he was assasinated. I believed in serve to our Country, and joined the ROTC. Upon graduation, I spend four years serving my country. Upon separation from the service, I was greeted as if I was a traitor for serving my country. It was a difficult period that left deeply troubled with the Democratic Party, but I felt a tremendous need for peace in this world. I was a member of World Citizens and helped put together the first conference in San Francisco. The conflict between service to country and the anti-war attitudes led me to the Republican Party.

I support McCain, and rooted for him to be the Republican candidate. I became interested in Barack Obama, because he inspired me the same feelings that I had oh so many years ago. The part of me that see hope, and sees the possibility of a world of peace. It wasn't an overnight change, as the feelings from Vietnam were still there. Then I begin to see a part of McCain that I didn't like. Yes, I had the feelings that we surrendered in Vietnam, but I also know that there is no such thing as a pure military victory. It is time for McCain to get past those feelings.

The selection of Gov. Palin made no sense, it was the signs of a desparate man trying to change the equation. The events of the past two weeks were the final straw. When I was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi in the late 1960's, I still saw laundramats with "White Only" signs; a resturant on the way to New Orleans had a sign behind the counter that read "We will server Blacks, but all monies received will go to the KKK." I was apalled at the attitude then, and am apalled at what I hear and see in this campaign. McCain's campaign is stirring the raw emotional anger that exists in financially rough times. He is stirring that anger that brings chants of "terrorist." He knows full well what he is doing, and so does Sarah Palin. Creating division in this Country of ours is not the solution, it is the problem.

I call on all Republicans to look at what is being said, how the McCain is running hsi campaign, and ask is this the country that I want? Are we going to work together, or are we going to throw all the work of civil rights out the window? If we do, then how are we different then the any country that is ruled by fear?

The True American Terrorists

ObamaCanada — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:56:57 EDT

Wilkpedia describes terrorism as the systematic use of fear or terror especially as a means of coercion. Terrorism is also a form of unconventional warfare and or psychological warfare.

It appears to me the real terrorists in the USA are the McCain campaign and the MSM media for covering his events and not debunking the stories or telling the American people the entire truth.

Followers at their town Hall meetings, frustrated, already fearfull and hurting from current economic conditions are looking for someone to blame. The lies and half truths told to these followers serves to bring out this frustration and turn it into hatred at an extremely dangerous time in America's history.

McCain is trying to drive a wedge in between different races, religions and classes of people. In effect, what he's trying to do is initiate a race and class war. The media, all hell bent to ensure their ratings stay high, are jumping over each other to cover it AND not exposing it for what it really is-an act of terrorism.

American's no longer need to worry about Osama Ben Laden or any outside terrorist attack, it's already underway with the McCain campaign and further perpetrated by the MSM.

If you believe as I do that this is already a very dangerous time for the US and the rest of the western world because of the economic crisis engulfing the globe, then it's time for action.

It is not enough for Democratic surrogates, including the Clinton's to speak out against this evil; strong republican brands such as Collin Powell,Chuck Hagel,Condolezza Rice and others need to come out and fully denounce these McCain campaign tactics for what it is-a true act of American terrorism.

If this McCain action is allowed to continue and does affect the election outcome, America will become the laughing stock of the world allowing an election to be decided by terrorism.When you really think about it this sounds a lot like 3rd world elections-decided by fear and terror. Is that what American's want?

So here's a call out to those strong republican brands including Collin Powell, Chuck Hagel and Condolezza Rice and the MSM. Denounce the McCain tactics for what they are or help destroy your country-the choice is yours.

Why I voted for Barack

Montana for Obama — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:32:48 EDT

This is why I’m voting for Barack. Frank From the Huffington Post: Frank SchaefferPosted October 8, 2008 | 02:45 PM (EST) Obama Will Be One of The Greatest (and Most Loved) American Presidents Great presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine.Obama is one of the most intelligent presidential aspirants to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times.I say this as a white, former life-long Republican. I say this as the proud father of a Marine. I say this as just another American watching his pension evaporate along with the stock market! I speak as someone who knows it's time to forget party loyalty, ideology and pride and put the country first. I say this as someone happy to be called a fool for going out on a limb and declaring that, 1) Obama will win, and 2) he is going to be amongst the greatest of American presidents.Obama is our last best chance. He's worth laying it all on the line for. This is a man who in the age of greed took the high road of community service. This is the good father and husband. This is the humble servant. This is the patient teacher. This is the scholar statesman. This is the man of deep Christian faith. Good stories about Obama abound; from his personal relationship with his Secret Service agents (he invites them into his home to watch sports, and shoots hoops with them) to the story about how, more than twenty years ago, while standing in the check-in line at an airport, Obama paid a $100 baggage surcharge for a stranger who was broke and stuck. (Obama was virtually penniless himself in those days.) Years later after he became a senator, that stranger recognized Obama's picture and wrote to him to thank him. She received a kindly note back from the senator. (The story only surfaced because the person, who lives in Norway, told a local newspaper after Obama ran for the presidency. The paper published a photograph of this lady proudly displaying Senator Obama's letter.)Where many leaders are two-faced; publicly kindly but privately feared and/or hated by people closest to them, Obama is consistent in the way he treats people, consistently kind and personally humble. He lives by the code that those who lead must serve. He believes that. He lives it. He lived it long before he was in the public eye.Obama puts service ahead of ideology. He also knows that to win politically you need to be tough. He can be. He has been. This is a man who does what works, rather than scoring ideological points. In other words he is the quintessential non-ideological pragmatic American. He will (thank God!) disappoint ideologues and purists of the left and the right. Obama has a reservoir of personal physical courage that is unmatched in presidential history. Why unmatched? Because as the first black contender for the presidency who will win, Obama, and all the rest of us, know that he is in great physical danger from the seemingly unlimited reserve of unhinged racial hatred, and just plain unhinged ignorant hatred, that swirls in the bowels of our wounded and sinful country. By stepping forward to lead, Obama has literally put his life on the line for all of us in a way no white candidate ever has had to do. (And we all know how dangerous the presidency has been even for white presidents.) Nice stories or even unparalleled courage isn't the only point. The greater point about Obama is that the midst of our worldwide financial meltdown, an expanding (and losing) war in Afghanistan, trying to extricate our country from a wrong and stupidly mistaken ruinously expensive war in Iraq, our mounting and crushing national debt, awaiting the next (and inevitable) al Qaeda attack on our homeland, watching our schools decline to Third World levels of incompetence, facing a general loss of confidence in the government that has been exacerbated by the Republicans doing all they can to undermine our government's capabilities and programs... President Obama will take on the leadership of our country at a make or break time of historic proportions. He faces not one but dozens of crisis, each big enough to define any presidency in better times.As luck, fate or divine grace would have it (depending on one's personal theology) Obama is blessedly, dare I say uniquely, well-suited to our dire circumstances. Obama is a person with hands-on community service experience, deep connections to top economic advisers from the renowned University of Chicago where he taught law, and a middle-class background that gives him an abiding knowledgeable empathy with the rest of us. As the son of a single mother, who has worked his way up with merit and brains, recipient of top-notch academic scholarships, the peer-selected editor of the Harvard Law Review and, in three giant political steps to state office, national office and now the presidency, Obama clearly has the wit and drive to lead. Obama is the sober voice of reason at a time of unreason. He is the fellow keeping his head while all around him are panicking. He is the healing presence at a time of national division and strife. He is also new enough to the political process so that he doesn't suffer from the terminally jaded cynicism, the seen-it-all-before syndrome afflicting most politicians in Washington. In that regard we Americans lucked out. It's as if having despaired of our political process we picked a name from the phone book to lead us and that person turned out to be a very man we needed.Obama brings a healing and uplifting spiritual quality to our politics at the very time when our worst enemy is fear. For eight years we've been ruled by a stunted fear-filled mediocrity of a little liar who has expanded his power on the basis of creating fear in others. Fearless Obama is the cure. He speaks a litany of hope rather than a litany of terror.As we have watched Obama respond in a quiet reasoned manner to crisis after crisis, in both the way he has responded after being attacked and lied about in the 2008 campaign season, to his reasoned response to our multiplying national crises, what we see is the spirit of a trusted family doctor with a great bedside manner. Obama is perfectly suited to hold our hand and lead us through some very tough times. The word panic is not in the Obama dictionary. America is fighting its "Armageddon" in one fearful heart at a time. A brilliant leader with the mild manner of an old-time matter-of-fact country doctor soothing a frightened child is just what we need. The fact that our "doctor" is a black man leading a hitherto white-ruled nation out of the mess of its own making is all the sweeter and raises the Obama story to that of moral allegory.Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they've gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness. Speaking as a believing Christian I see the hand of a merciful God in Obama's candidacy. The biblical metaphors abound. The stone the builder rejected is become the cornerstone... the last shall be first... he that would gain his life must first lose it... the meek shall inherit the earth... For my secular friends I'll allow that we may have just been extraordinarily lucky! Either way America wins.Only a brilliant man, with the spirit of a preacher and the humble heart of a kindly family doctor can lead us now. We are afraid, out of ideas, and worst of all out of hope. Obama is the cure. And we Americans have it in us to rise to the occasion. We will. We're about to enter one of the most frightening periods of American history. Our country has rarely faced more uncertainty. This is the time for greatness. We have a great leader. We must be a great people backing him, fighting for him, sacrificing for a cause greater than ourselves.A hundred years from now Obama's portrait will be placed next to that of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Long before that we'll be telling our children and grandchildren that we stepped out in faith and voted for a young black man who stood up and led our country back from the brink of an abyss. We'll tell them about the power of love, faith and hope. We'll tell them about the power of creativity combined with humility and intellectual brilliance. We'll tell them that President Obama gave us the gift of regaining our faith in our country. We'll tell them that we all stood up and pitched in and won the day. We'll tell them that President Obama restored our standing in the world. We'll tell them that by the time he left office our schools were on the mend, our economy booming, that we'd become a nation filled with green energy alternatives and were leading the world away from dependence on carbon-based destruction. We'll tell them that because of President Obama's example and leadership the integrity of the family was restored, divorce rates went down, more fathers took responsibility for their children, and abortion rates fell dramatically as women, families and children were cared for through compassionate social programs that worked. We'll tell them about how the gap closed between the middle class and the super rich, how we won health care for all, how crime rates fell, how bad wars were brought to an honorable conclusion. We'll tell them that when we were attacked again by al Qaeda, how reason prevailed and the response was smart, tough, measured and effective, and our civil rights were protected even in times of crisis...We'll tell them that we were part of the inexplicably blessed miracle that happened to our country those many years ago in 2008 when a young black man was sent by God, fate or luck to save our country. We'll tell them that it's good to live in America where anything is possible. Yes we will.

Obama Clearly States His Priorities

akmk — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:17:47 EDT

In the Town Hall debate, Obama clearly stated his priorities.

#1 A smarter and more diverse energy policy to invest in jobs, turn the economy around and stabilize world tensions.

#2 Health care is a right. An emphasis on prevention will reduce costs of health insurance and Medicare.

This Is The Man I Want To See Tonight!

Hussein The Hope Monger — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:02:29 EDT

"The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America." (BHO 2004)

Fired UP!!

Obama Exemplifies Family Values

akmk — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:33:43 EDT

Senator Obama exemplifies family values. He honors his parents and his grandparents. He honors the stories of his extended family in Kenya. He has been married to one beautiful wife for sixteen years and he has two beautiful daughters. He honors his wife, works at his marriage, and supports his children. He respects women and works to uphold their rights. He's worked in communities to better the lives of children, teenagers, and families. He has his own Christian faith, but does not impose that faith on others. He values his own family and honors the families of others. His economic proposals are designed to help and lift up working families. He is working for a better health care system with an emphasis on prevention that is affordable and accessible to all--for families. He understands that families need clean air, clean water, healthy food, and adequate shelter. He leads his family and his country by example, with honesty and compassion.

Republicans crossed line with voter purge attempt

Constance — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:36:05 EDT

Sign the petition against Montana voter suppression and call the Montana Republican Party. Link and contact information is at the bottom of this article.

Republicans crossed line with voter purge attempt
Guest opinion, By John Bohlinger, lieutenant governor, 10/05/2008

Frank St. Pierre, of Anaconda, fought in World War II. He is one of the most decorated living veterans in America. And yet, on Wednesday, my party — the Montana Republican Party — tried to invalidate his voter registration because he lives in a county with a lot of Democrats. Incredible as this may sound to you, it is the truth.

When people ask why, as a Republican, I agreed to become part of a Democratic administration, I tell them that I believe in putting my state before my party. This has created tension at times. On occasion the folks who run the Republican Party have tried to lock me out of their convention, and this year they even tried to prevent me from speaking at the Presidential Primary Caucus in support of John McCain.

I have always taken this treatment in stride. As the saying goes, "All's fair in love, war and politics." But the executive director of the Republican Party crossed the line when he attempted to remove 6,000 voters from the rolls in Montana. These voters are law-abiding citizens and are legally registered. Some are veterans. Others are active servicemen, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan or about to be deployed there.

As a Republican, I was ashamed to hear of this. But as a Marine, I was outraged. Why would the Republican Party, which always claims to care greatly about our troops, do this?

It appears that Republican operatives looked to gain an advantage by purging as many voters as possible from counties that lean Democrat. The director of the Republican Party issued a blanket challenge to validly registered voters based on false criteria, trying to persuade election clerks that a mere change of mailing address is grounds for automatic cancellation of voter registration.

Not only was the effort blatantly deceptive, but the Republicans based their challenge on a national change-of-address database from an out-of-state vendor who sells personal information. Among other problems, this database lists servicemen and women who have been deployed overseas as having moved out of Montana. In other words, if you go to Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Fort Sill, Okla., to report for active duty, you have "moved out of the state" according to this list.

A significant number of the 6,000 voters targeted were servicemen, including Kevin Furey, a former state legislator from Missoula who left the legislature to serve in Iraq; Cindie Kalan-Green, who is also serving in Iraq; and Mathew Robison, who I am told has been deployed to Fort Drum.

Many were college students and elderly people. For example, Babe Aspholm, of Anaconda, an elderly man, simply moved across town from his house to a senior living center. The Republicans tried to void his registration. Tom Detonacour, a policeman from Deer Lodge County who simply bought a house in another county, also got targeted.

But worst of all is the legendary Frank St. Pierre, 86, also of Anaconda, who helped save thousands of allied troops at Dunkirk in World War II and has 10 Medals of Honor. St. Pierre, too, moved from one end of town to the other, and the Republicans tried to void his and his wife's registrations. I have a copy of the signed affidavits from the Republicans, declaring that Frank and Marilyn St. Pierre's voter registrations must be purged. An utter disgrace.

Beyond the outrageous lack of consideration for citizens, patriots and heroes, a significant burden and cost has been placed on county election administrators, public servants who work hard to ensure the integrity of our elections. They have been completely swamped by this scheme.

I am a Republican, and I will continue to be a Republican. But I am appalled at the leadership of my political party. I urge party elders to take action and promptly withdraw this outrageous effort to challenge the eligibility of legitimate voters, and to call for the removal any Republican Party employees responsible for this. This kind of activity has no place in a democracy. Finally, I would urge the voters of Montana whose registrations have been improperly challenged not to be discouraged by this unfortunate effort.

— John Bohlinger is Montana's lieutenant governor. He may be reached via e-mail at jbohlinger@mt.gov.

http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2008/10/05/opinion/hjjbijjejjigfj.txt

Sign the petition against Montana voter suppression:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1739/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1420

Montana Republican Party
p: (406) 442-6469 | f: (406) 442-3293 | 1313 N Last Chance Gulch | Helena, Montana 59601

"It's YOUR Campaign, John. Look Me In The Eye And Say It."

Hussein The Hope Monger — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:06:26 EDT

At each of the next 2 debates, Sen Obama has to call him out on all this stuff.

Do you believe that the intent of the Illinois legislature was to pass a bill encouraging kindergartners to have orgies during recess?

Do you think I'm a Muslim terrorist?

You've met Michelle. Do you think she hates America?

Do you believe I went to a Madrassa in Indonesia? We both know that's as far fetched as those who say you were brainwashed by the Russians while held captive in North Vietnam and are now the 'Manchurian candidate'.

Do you believe that Bill Ayers and I are plotting in our dining rooms to overthrow the government?

Do you think Tony Rezko has me in his 'back pocket' and has influenced my decisions on any legislative matters in my career? If so, which ones?

You know how bills are structured. Do you believe I voted to raise taxes 94 times anymore than you voted to raise taxes 477 times on similar proposals?

Look me in the eye and say it, John.

Fired UP!!

McCain 'Pals Around' With Keatings; Taxpayers Foot The Bill

Hussein The Hope Monger — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:53:50 EDT

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

Fired UP!!

ObamaCart in the Bitterroot Valley

Bill Johnson — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:24:25 EDT

For the next few weeks the ObamaCart is in the Bitterroot Valley. You can see it on the East side of the highway right before Stevensville.

Milissa has several Obama signs up and it is hard to miss, but, of course, I missed it.

Stop by and sign it.

"And More GOOD News!"

Bigskygirl — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:38:35 EDT

Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081005/ts_alt_afp/usvote1monthinternetmedia

"Stand Up Straight, John. Look Me In The Eye And Say It."

Hussein The Hope Monger — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:38:30 EDT

At each of the next 2 debates, Sen Obama has to call him out on all this stuff.

Do you think I'm a Muslim terrorist?

You've met Michelle. Do you think she hates America?

Do you believe that Bill Ayers and I are plotting in our dining rooms to overthrow the government?

Do you think Tony Rezko has me in his 'back pocket' and has influenced my decisions on any legislative matters in my career? If so, which ones?

You know how bills are structured. Do you believe I voted to raise taxes 90+ times anymore than you voted to raise taxes 477 times on similar proposals?

Look me in the eye and say it, John.

Fired UP!!

Tell Karl, John, Dick, and Sarah in a Letter to the Editor that this Ayers Tactic Just Won't Work! THEN, send it to editorial page editors in Battleground States, particl VA, NC,MISSISSIPPI, AND OHIO

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:15:40 EDT

The Republicans seem to be getting down to last-straw mean tactics, but we have to be ready for them! The New York Times today hit the nail on the head with this headline OBAMA AND '60s BOMBER: A LOOK AT CROSSED PATHS.

HERE IS A LINK TO THAT ARTICLE:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

This is prescient anticipatory coverage, indeed, anticipating the R's next step, for anyone who is slightly paying attention now, to get ready for the next campaign barrages, which will probably go all month: Obama as Muslim, Obama as African-American,Obama as Radical, Obama as (I have even heard and rec'd such things from folks I normally consider as sane) Satanist.

Next comes "Obama the Friend of the Radical Weatherman Bomber, Bill Ayers."

This is what I have to say: back in the late 60's and early 70's, I
remember meeting Mark Rudd, who either blew up a building or tried to, I don't remember which; I met Angela Davis, and golly: very early one Sunday morning after one of the famous San Francisco Peace Marches to end the Vietnam War in 1967, I even saw, driving a yellow Porsche Convertible about 60 miles an hour through Haight Ashbury, JANIS JOPLIN!

I visited Patty Hearst at the San Mateo County Jail after she got arrested for Bank Robbery. So what? I gave her a book of microphotographs to help her while away the hours. Does that mean I was in the Symbionese Liberation Army? Naaah....If I were running for dog catcher in Talahatchi County, a Neocon strategist could and would use that against me...big deal!

Those were wild times, and sometimes I am quietly very proud of such weird and unusual stories...

Just because twenty years ago, you befriend anyone and talk intelligently with them, years ago: what does that mean, anyway? That you are learning. Does that mean you are sitting at the feet of 9/11 bombers? No. Of course not, but the Republicans will use this ludicrous and deranged line of reasoning to scare the elderly as they have already done in South Florida, the undecideds, the apathetics, the rural Americans who don't read the New York Times everyday, etc. And let's face it: SUCH TACTICS ALWAYS WORK ON THE
PURELY IGNORANT AND RACIST AMONG AMERICANS!

AP's Headline Reflects the Republican Urgency:

Onus on McCain to Turn Race Around

Direct quote from AP: "The onus is on Republican John McCain to turn the race around under exceptionally challenging circumstances -- and his options are limited." McCain's advisers say he will gear up major broadside attacks (that pray on the ignorance of many) by saying that Obama is "too liberal" and "too risky."

Obama's advisers retort that McCain is incabable of communicating any economic overview different from Bush's.

Associated Press interviews nationwide show:

Democrats are optimistic of victory if nervous over whether Obama can hold his advantage while Republicans are worried that the race may be moving out of reach though hopeful that McCain will beat the odds as he did in the GOP primary. Both sides note that plenty can change in one month -- and they're right.

South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson said that given McCain's
standing, ''I'd be concerned at this time, but I would never count this guy out. He's got the political hide of an alligator.''

McCain will not be able to win without keeping most of the states that Bush won, and he's tied or trailing in public polls in 10 of them -- Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

The GOP nominee also is only playing in five states that Democrat John Kerry won in 2004 -- Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire and, now, Maine -- and he's running behind. McCain abandoned efforts Thursday in Michigan, as Obama reaches double-digit lead in that high-unemployment state.

Some Republicans close to McCain's campaign fret in private that Obama may be pulling away for good; others aren't so pessimistic.

''He needs to be able to speak to his strengths and remind people of why they like him,'' said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire delegate to the Republican National Convention. Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer said McCain must clearly ''distinguish between the two approaches to governing.'' And Ted Welch, a veteran Republican fundraiser in Tennessee, said: ''He has to give voters enough reasons to vote for him. He hasn't yet.''

That doesn't appear to be the campaign's priority in the final weeks. GOP operatives say the goal is to undercut Obama, likely by raising questions about his associations with convict Antoin ''Tony'' Rezko, a former Obama top fundraiser, and Bill Ayers, a founder of a 1960s radical group.

''We're looking at a very aggressive last 30 days of turning the page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans,'' senior adviser Greg Strimple told reporters Thursday.

Biden Scores a Knockout

akmk — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:23:17 EDT

The Economy and Taxes--Biden

Healthcare--Biden

Energy, the Environment and Global Warming--Biden

Connected with Main Street--Biden

Human Compassion--Biden

Foreign Policy--Biden

Got his Facts Right--Biden

Answered the Questions Asked--Biden

Women's Issues--Biden

Supreme Court Justice Appointments and Ideology--Biden

Role of the V.P. (Cheney's Interpretation Dangerous)--Biden

Supports his/her Running Mate--Biden

Closing Comments--Biden

Did I miss anything? Please continue.

"This Is Some Seriously Good News!"

Bigskygirl — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:28:19 EDT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081001/ts_afp/usvote

See you at "The Pour House" for the Biden/Palin Debate Watching Party!

BSG

A "Maverick" Has No Brand ..

Hussein The Hope Monger — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:23:44 EDT

Sen McCain's been roped, tied and BRANDED by the far right wing of the GOP. Just keep stickin' it to him.

Fired UP!!

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.

My Bailout Plan

Consultant — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:54:19 EDT

To My Bought & Paid For Senators & Congressman,

Voters are obviously outraged over this Wall St. bailout bill. The tweaks to the bill that I've read about this morning (9/30/08) are not going to make the bill any more acceptable to voters.

The premise of the bill is flawed to the point of being worthless. It is so flawed that people who know NOTHING about economics or finance know the bill is completely unfair and will not solve our problems.

This is what I think voters will support (in order of importance):

1) Law enforcement. Start indicting and arresting large numbers of people who committed wire fraud and others crimes in this epic Ponzi scheme. Rule of law still means something to large numbers of voters.

2)Help middle and working class families. Substantially reduce INTEREST RATES on all mortgages and credit cards. Put a cap on credit card interest rates. That would help millions, reduce foreclosures and kick start the economy.

3)Reestablish regulatory oversight over financial institutions and products. Start monopoly busting. Break up some of these concentrated mergers which are anti-competitive.

4) Help some of the bankrupt financial companies go out of business in an orderly fashion-to calm public fears and the "market".

Put together a plan with those four points, and you will get the vast majority of voters to support you and the rest of the Congress.

The World is Watching

Constance — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:28:09 EDT

Editorial from Jonathan Freedland of the British newspaper The Guardian on the upcoming US election.

"If Sarah Palin defies the conventional wisdom that says elections are determined by the top of the ticket, and somehow wins this for McCain, what will be the reaction? Yes, blue-state America will go into mourning once again, feeling estranged in its own country. A generation of young Americans -- who back Obama in big numbers -- will turn cynical, concluding that politics doesn't work after all. And, most depressing, many African-Americans will decide that if even Barack Obama -- with all his conspicuous gifts -- could not win, then no black man can ever be elected president.

But what of the rest of the world? This is the reaction I fear most. For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama.

The crowd of 200,000 that rallied to hear him in Berlin in July did so not only because of his charisma, but also because they know he, like the majority of the world's population, opposed the Iraq war. McCain supported it, peddling the lie that Saddam was linked to 9/11. Non-Americans sense that Obama will not ride roughshod over the international system but will treat alliances and global institutions seriously: McCain wants to bypass the United Nations in favour of a US-friendly League of Democracies. McCain might talk a good game on climate change, but a repeated floor chant at the Republican convention was "Drill, baby, drill!", as if the solution to global warming were not a radical rethink of the US's entire energy system but more offshore oil rigs.

If Americans choose McCain, they will be turning their back on the rest of the world, choosing to show us four more years of the Bush-Cheney finger. And I predict a deeply unpleasant shift.

Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start -- a fresh start the world is yearning for.

And the manner of that decision will matter, too. If it is deemed to have been about race -- that Obama was rejected because of his colour -- the world's verdict will be harsh. In that circumstance, Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote recently, international opinion would conclude that "the United States had its day, but in the end couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race."

Even if it's not ethnic prejudice, but some other aspect of the culture wars, that proves decisive, the point still holds. For America to make a decision as grave as this one -- while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars -- on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality, that does indeed suggest a nation in, to quote Weisberg, "historical decline." Let's not forget, McCain's campaign manager boasts that this election is "not about the issues."

Of course I know that even to mention Obama's support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the "candidate of Europe" and making him seem less of a patriotic American. But what does that say about today's America, that the world's esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us -- and, make no mistake, we shall hear it."

OBAMA & the Youth Appeal Contextualized

Kwapi V — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:24:08 EDT

Their words, deeds and sacrifices echoed through the passages of our historic books and were immortalized through the oral testimonies of the generations they inspired; many nights we spent enamored by the empowering stories told by our parents & grandparents and as we sat in classrooms our professors would digress from the dictates of the syllabus and spin into recollections of their college days and exaggerated tales of civil disobedience. Indeed, they spoke of Icons that inspired generations; in times of uncertainty they encouraged those that came before us to ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country’, in times of injustice they reminded them that Injustice anywhere was a threat to justice everywhere and when a victory against apartheid seemed improbable and the chains of imperialism unbreakable they reminded our fathers & mothers that It ‘always seems impossible until it’s done’

You see, we debate our parents in living rooms and on dining room tables as they find themselves trying to dissect and fully comprehend our generations’ intrigue with Obama; they say our generation tends to have an erroneous perception of reality and thus, they relegate our opinions & contemporary values to mere disillusionment and misguided values. By so doing however, they unconsciously condemn us to a tumultuous future, one in which our destinies are bound to collide as they pivot upon and embrace imperfect legacies & flawed ideologies; flawed ideologies and imperfect legacies that allow the mistakes of the past to consistently reappear.

So allow me to PARTIALLY contextualize Obama’s appeal to the younger demographic; he represents to us what Nelson Mandela tried to emphasize when he said “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Education Policy; he represents to us what John F. Kennedy try to encapsulate when he said “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” – Iraq Policy; he is a true manifestation of what Gandhi meant when he said “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” – Community Organizer; what Cesar Chavez stood for when he professed, “The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.” – Immigrant Rights & Workers Rights; he is what Martin Luther King Jr. meant when he said “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Universal Healthcare; and represents Sound Judgment that can fully be expressed in the words of John F. Kennedy, “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

Pope Jon Paul II once said the future starts today, not tomorrow. We as generation are poised to inherit a tainted legacy rife with flawed ideologies; a place where the difference between right & wrong is not based on morals & ethics, but rather, is based on the dictates of a political agenda that is set by a malevolent mutation of socio-economic; a place in which the lessons from history are seldom realized and so the vicious cycle of instability and confrontation continues to manifest. We do not see Obama as the “chosen one”, rather we view him as our gatekeeper; the protector and guardian of what we as generation will one day inherit and hopefully make right. Because we understand that the need for us to coalesce around a renewed fundamental set of values that look to celebrate the greater good within all of us regardless of political affiliation, gender, race, religion, sexual preference & ethnicity is paramount and regardless of our preprogrammed ideologies and personal convictions, we as a generation realize that our destinies intertwined; a point that Obama seems to understand, no offense McCain.

Bonus Barack Afternoon Buzz - 9-28-08

Barack Daily Buzz - Victory2008.net — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:31:24 EDT

Bonus Barack Afternoon Buzz - 9-28-08
On to Victory in November

(1) Obama Leads 50% to 42%
Gallup.com
http://www.gallup.com/poll/110740/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Moves-50-42-Lead.aspx

(2) Debate Watchers Give Obama Edge over McCain-46% to 34%
Gallup.com
http://www.gallup.com/poll/110779/Debate-Watchers-Give-Obama-Edge-Over-McCain.aspx

(3) Obama and McCain Ads on Network Evening Newscasts
David Bauder-New York Times
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iZ3oUsnzFoRGvDQjzCtFv4Q5snEAD93FR7M80

(4) Obama Did Better in First Debate-Scores Big on Proposal to Change the Country
Mark Memmott and Jill Lawrence-ABC News
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=5902766&page=1

(5) Obama Big Winner in Debate
Jimmy Orr-Christian Science Monitor-the vote blog
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/09/28/obama-big-winner-in-debate-says-new-poll/

(6) Obama Outperformed McCain in Debate
Jill Lawrence-USA Today-2008 Election Coverage
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080928/pl_afp/usvotefinancebankingobama_080928190013

(7) Obama Says "No Welfare for Wall Street"
Bob Schieffer-CBS News-Face the Nation
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/28/ftn/main4483699.shtml

(8) Obama Claims Stake in New Wall Street Deal
Agence France Presse-AFP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080928/pl_afp/usvotefinancebankingobama_080928190013

(9) Delicate Embrace by Obama and McCain of $700 Billion Bailout
Tom Raum-Associated Press
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMTux__tYFdM9y-JnbKpzQbc_OtQD93FR9A80

(10) "Meet the Press" Transcript Including Bill Clinton, David Axelrod and Steve Schmidt
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26927711/

(11) Bill Clinton Vows to Do What He Can to Elect Obama
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE48R2NO20080928

(12) Is Obama the Money Man?
Geoffrey Garrett-Herald Sun-Australia
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24415637-5000117,00.html

(13) Obama Making Strides on Electoral Map
Agence France Presse-AFP
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jpOjqF_1A-GBwCVHtq_OY22Svo6g

(14) Obama Inches Ahead in Tight Race
Alexandra Marks-Christian Science Monitor-
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/09/28/obama-inches-ahead-in-tight-race/

(15) Obama Says He Helped Taxpayer in Bailout Talks
Christi Parsons-Chicago Tribune-The Swamp
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/obama_pushed_hard_for_taxpayer.html

(16) Advisors Say Both Obama and McCain Deserve Credit for Rescue
John Hughes-Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aBokJqABrv.0&refer=home

(17) Obama and McCain Walk the Tightrope and Back $700 Billion Bailout
Tim Reid-Times-UK
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article4842110.ece

(18) Debate Fails to Fire Worried Voters
Stefanie Balgh-Herald-Sun-Australia
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24416792-5012748,00.html

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.”

Declaring Victory Again!

Daryl — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 08:36:09 EDT

As I recall, violence was down in Iraq once before, the first time Bush and McCain declared victory!!

It's Too bad they couldn't come up with a winning strategy, before loosing the 2006 elections. It's too bad the troops were stretched so thin that results couldn't be achieved until just before the 2008 elections.It's too bad that we will spend a trillion dollars to remove Saddam, only to replace him with a government more closely aligned with Iran then us!

The truth is that we will not know if we have won in Iraq, until we bring our troops home!

"Concentrate On The Debate, John. Blunt's An A--Hole."

Hussein The Hope Monger — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:32:16 EDT

Fired UP!!

McCain still running ads-what a joke!!

Unknown user — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:12:26 EDT

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO AS MANY CONTACTS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 1:51 PM, Crystal Ainardi <metricstarr@gmail.com> wrote:
> Stop saying John McCain suspended his campaign-Why else would he be
> smiling at the meeting today with Bush? Oh thats right he is lying
> AGAIN!!
>
>
> Until the traditional media types can show some shred of evidence that
> John McCain suspended his campaign -- besides McCain saying it -- the
> traditional media types should stop saying McCain suspended his
> campaign. He didn't.
>
> Evidence abounds that McCain's campaign is operating at full speed.
> We've been able to document here and here and here. Think Progress
> found five instances of McCain campaign flacks on t.v. spinning their
> message. There's active campaign underway in Virginia. And, by doing
> some actual investigating, Huffington Post confirmed that the McCain
> campaign is very active today in key battleground states:
>
> http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/palin-is-campaigning-at-ground-zero.html
>
> http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/25/mccain-suspend-campaign/
>
> http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=A8CA13DB243955EEF4C9F1F363FB47D2?diaryId=16228
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/mccain-campaign-still-act_n_129327.html
> Across the country, McCain campaign offices are up and running,
> accepting volunteers, conducting phone banking, literature dropping
> and over GOTV activities. This held true on a local, state, and even
> regional level. The Huffington Post called up 15 McCain-Palin and
> McCain Victory Committee headquarters in various battleground states.
> Not one said that it was temporarily halting operations because of the
> supposed "suspension" in the campaign. Several, in fact,
> enthusiastically declared the continuation of their work. Others
> hadn't even heard that the candidate for whom they were devoting their
> time had officially stopped campaigning.
>
> Here's a little hint for the political press corps: If you can keep
> reporting on Palin/McCain campaign events and if you keep having
> McCain staffers on your networks, the campaign ain't suspended.
>
> John McCain tried to dupe the American people. He got a lot of help
> from the traditional media. If they actually reported what was going
> on and not what McCain said, this sham would be exposed.
>
> http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/stop-saying-john-mccain-suspended-his.html
>
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 8:24 AM, Nico Sciscente <blueskyns@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hey, what happened to suspending all ads and campaign by McShame till a deal
>> is done?
>> This morning I've seen ads by McCain....actually ads pertaining to the
>> situation concerning the bill trying to be pressed through......looks like
>> McCain threw a hail mary to save himself and he has just realized that it
>> backfired and that guess what: the american people are not stupid!!!!....He
>> thought he could run and hide but the american people are standing up to
>> this stupidity and have called his bluff......stop hiding and running
>> away....both of you....McShame and McPain......you are going to lose.....one
>> can go back to his 13 cars and retire to his ranch....the other can go back
>> and build a retirement home on her "Bridge To Nowhere" or on her "Road To
>> Nowhere" or....spend her days at that sports complex!!!!!lol
>>
>> OBAMA/BIDEN/CLINTON 08
>>
>> Nico...aka.....bluesky
>>
>>

Barack Obama for President!!!

Randy — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:46:16 EDT

I don't know how long it going to take us to realize that we are in a real fight. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are going to have to quit playing this nice guy game because everytime barack tries to do something nice, like today Obama calling John Mccain and offering to do a joint interview about the bail out bill. Well I hope we learned our lessons because before Obama could even hang up the phone Mccain was already planing a press conference and telling the news reporters that he came up with the idea FIRST and you know our reporters aren't smart enough to figure out that Mccain couldn't have came up with that all by himselve! It made Mccain look like he was going to go to washigton and rescue it. That he was going to take charge AND SAVE AMERICA. Obama better stop doing these things or were in trouble.

all I know IS Obama better not let him off the the hook with the debates because we do need a president that can walk and chew gum at the same time. We do need a president that can multitask The Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves scareing the American public so bad by saying things like your going to loose your retirement and your car and you'll never get credit again hell between Bush and Mccain you'd think the world was comeing to an end.

It's time to get tough. Its time to to start asking the questions that know one wants to here. Like who is sarah Palin and can she really run our country.

I think this better be a wake up call. Although i do think the country is in bad shape, I don't think it is so bad that the whole world has to stop. Wev'e got plenty of people in washington to take care of this problem. we didn't elect them because there all stupid if the senators are needed to vote they can have the vote on monday this WAY i get my debate and the congress gets a few more days to think about this bail out.

GO OBAMA AND BIDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES WE CAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. WHERE ARE THE CLINTONS? I THINK THE CLINTONS COULD BE DOING FAR MORE THEN THEY ARE IN FACT I THINK THEY ARE STILL HOLDING A GRUDGE. I LISTEN TO BILL CLINTON THE OTHER DAY AND ALL HE DID IS PRAISE SARAH PALIN. I'M SORRY BUT I REALLY FEEL THIS WAY I THINK THE CLINTONS COULD BE MAKING MUCH MORE NOISE.

Phone Banking Results

Starla Gade — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:56:47 EDT

What a great time we had yesterday afternoon! Thank you to everyone that showed up. We made 345 phone calls to MoveOn.org members in the Helena area and got 36 folks to go into their local office and volunteer! Awesome! We meet some new folks and had a great time enjoying cake and ice cream after the call. What was really excellent is that many of the folks here last night night had not volunteered before for the Obama campaign, they are now fired up and ready to go!

Call Congress

Consultant — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:47:38 EDT

I know most of them are bought and paid for, but what else can we do?

Call your Senators and Congressional Representative and order them not to support whatever bailout plan Paulson and Bush present to Congress.

This is the run up to the Iraq War all over again. We all remember how the Administration successfully pressured Congress to quickly pass the Joint Resolution to Authorize Force, giving Bush wide authority to go after the WMD threat in Iraq. All of which turned out to be mostly administration lies. We all know what happened next.

Our current financial crisis is not made up. But giving Paulson and Bush complete authority (and immunity) to deal with this crisis is just plain old stupid and dangerous. Read my last post on the track record of these Administration fools.

I’m hoping Obama and Biden will show some backbone and fight this plan to use taxpayer money to bailout Bush and Paulson’s friends on Wall St.

So please, start calling your Reps now before it’s too late!

Alaskans Support Obama/Biden Team

akmk — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:05:27 EDT

I'm an Alaskan who supports the Obama/Biden as being best for Alaska, the nation, and the world. At this critical time in our history, we need responsible leadership that will stabilize our economy, commit to a more diverse and smarter energy policy that will create jobs, and bring ethics and honesty back into our government.

Kathleen Menke, Haines, Alaska

Belgrade's Fall Festival

Bill Johnson — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:29:37 EDT

Just got back from Belgrade. It was a lot of fun.

The traffic in Belgrade is equal to that of much of the east coast, at least it was today. I was planning on arriving at the Event Center at 9, but due to traffic, I was at the school instead and did not arrive until 9:30. Elizabeth found me and set me straight. We got the ObamaCart together and got in line.

I thought we had quite a few Obama supporters in the parade. Not hundreds, but a nice group. My daughter, Cheyenne and a friend of hers pulled the cart most of the parade route before being relieved by three young ladies from Belgrade.

Along the route as we went through Belgrade's older town with our paraders chanting O-Ba-Ma, the crowd picked up the chant and it echoed off the old brick buildings back to us. I sounded as if everyone was chanting, but we all know Belgrade has its fair share of Republicans.

At what I believe is the Lewis and Clark Park we had a booth set up for the Democrats. We parked the ObamaCart at the booth and enjoyed the rest of the morning and early afternoon with the great people of Belgrade. Free barbeque. Can't beat that. The girls played in the park and ran loose for awhile, before we disassembled the cart and came home.

As we were working our way through the park with the cart to leave, a lady stopped us and told us that her brother supported Obama and her husband supported McCain. So she always took pictures of anything with "Obama" on it to irritate her husband and tease her brother. We had a nice long chant with her and left unsure of who she supported. She took a lot of pictures of us with the cart and wished us luck.

Next trip is to Hamilton unless someone wants us sooner.

Seattle Times, A Pacific NW Conservative Newspaper, Endorses Obama

akmk — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:12:44 EDT

seattletimes.nwsource.com — Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent. Obama is a little young, but also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that's OK. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip.

John McCain doesn't understand Economics

Dave — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:47:08 EDT

See the you tube video that confirms this by clicking on this link.

Picture sourced from: http://blog.mlive.com/kzgazette/2008/06/large_obamaMccain.jpg

Conservative Editor Shifts to Obama

akmk — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:51:32 EDT

Please digg and send this man an email thanking him for his honesty and sanity. Hopefully more and more sane Republicans will keep coming out like this! This is one of the best pieces I've read recently.

<http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Former_conservative_writer_and_editor_shifts_to_Obama>http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Former_conservative_writer_and_editor_shifts_to_Obama

A Conservative for Obama

My party has slipped its moorings. It's time for a true pragmatist to lead the country.

Leading Off By Wick Allison, Editor In Chief

THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT "the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate," the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me.

In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher.

Conservatism to me is less a political philosophy than a stance, a recognition of the fallibility of man and of man's institutions. Conservatives respect the past not for its antiquity but because it represents, as G.K. Chesterton said, the democracy of the dead; it gives the benefit of the doubt to customs and laws tried and tested in the crucible of time. Conservatives are skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes, doubtful that government is wiser than its citizens, and always ready to test any political program against actual results.

Liberalism always seemed to me to be a system of "oughts." We ought to do this or that because it's the right thing to do, regardless of whether it works or not. It is a doctrine based on intentions, not results, on feeling good rather than doing good.

But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don't work. The Bush tax cuts--a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war--led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his "conservative" credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask.

Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world "safe for democracy." It is John McCain who says America's job is to "defeat evil," a theological expansion of the nation's mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.

This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.

Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don't matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama's books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.

"Every great cause," Eric Hoffer wrote, "begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.

The Feds Say: First Americans Are Less Equal Than Everyone Else (Part 2)

Jerod Poore — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:09:27 EDT

Most of the people who read this are probably familiar with the huge Indian Trust class action lawsuit (Cobell v. Norton / Kempthorne). The trial ended with a whopping $455 million award to the plaintiffs, and after all the costs and attorney fees that will work out to about $25 per person. I'm sure it will be more, but anyone who's been on the receiving end of a class-action payout knows how huge-sounding awards result in crappy amounts for each person in the suit. This is especially insulting because the original amount asked for is $47 billion. 121 years of mismanagement and fraud has to be worth something, right?

So the plaintiffs are appealing. That's understandable. I don't understand the legal reasons behind it, but I'm sure there are plenty of actual technical and procedural reasons for their getting slightly less than a penny on the dollar than what they asked for.

Seems like paying less than 1% of what they were being sued for is still too much for the BIA. So they're appealing the decision as well. Why?

The government appeal, filed Thursday, contends Robertson's court does not have the jurisdiction to award the money at all, pointing to his January decision that the task of accounting for the trust money was ultimately impossible.

That's right, because the government lost and actually destroyed records after the lawsuit was filed it's impossible to determine how much they owe, therefore they owe nothing.

Try that with the IRS sometime. Destroy all of your financial records and don't pay any taxes. "Hey, I don't have any records. It's impossible for me to determine how much I owe you, so I can't pay you anything. Sorry." See how far that gets you.

Senator Obama has promised real input from tribal leaders in his administration. Cleaning up the BIA and fixing this mess will be a good place to start.