Hi FriendThere is a new group that just started on Facebook that I thought Organizing for America members may be interested in joining. Please see United Against Racism -
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/354956/80588439?m=9dc74a6eUnited Against Racism
posted by David Apperson
President Obama always said that the campaign was not about getting someone elected and it wasn't about him. It was about creating change in our country. Come down to the DeWitt Communtiy Library this Saturday April 11th at 1pm and hear how you can help President Obama enact that change and help our nation recover from the current economic crisis. RSVP at one of the below events on facebook or MyBo.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gptw7d
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=158638970175
Hope you can make it!
John
Daniel Zamlen - Endangered Missing - Minnesota
Nathaly Alonzo 12 - Abducted - Delaware
Joshua David Avara 11 - Abducted - Texas
Sandra Cantu 8 - FOUND DECEASED
JACK CONNOLLY 7 - FOUND DECEASED - KILLED BY NON-CUSTODIAL FATHER WITH VIOLENT HISTORY - NO SUPERVISED VISITATION
DUNCAN CONNOLLY 9 - FOUND DECEASED - KILLED BY NON-CUSTODIAL FATHER WITH VIOLENT HISTORY - NO SUPERVISED VISITATION
BRITTANY WELLS 17 - SUSPECTED RUNAWAY - NORTH DAKOTA
Rochelle Denise Battle 16 - MISSING - MARYLAND
ALLYSON CORRALES 4 - ENDANGERED MISSING - MISSOURI
Mariah Sparks - MISSING CHILD - ALABAMA
Amber Leeanne Dubois - Endangered Missing - California
Haleigh Cummings - Endangered Missing - Florida
Tierny Perry 16 - Endangered Runaway - Florida
Adji "Ji Ji" Desir - Endangered Missing - Florida
SAMANTHA CHER HOWELL 15 - ENDANGERED RUNAWAY - NEW MEXICO
Jeff Renaud - Missing - Ontario
Crystal Ann Fox - Missing - California
Mystic Dawn Salazar - Missing - Colorado
Omar Qutaiba Mahoud - Abducted - New Mexico
Nadia Mahmoud - Abducted - New Mexico
Pebbles Jace - Missing Endangered - California
Max-Gian (Max-Jon) Alcalde 7 - Missing - Idaho
Ashley Nicole Lopez 18 - Endangered Runaway - New Mexico
Wendy Rameriz-Beristain - Endangered Missing - Florida
Marlene Torales - Endangered Missing - California
Claudia Vanessa Yat - Endangered Missing - California
Tangena Hussain 2 - Endangered Missing - Michigan
Jaliek "Jay" Rainwalker 12 - Endangered Missing - New York
Elian Amilcar Majano 2 - Endangered - Texas
Benjamin “Ben” Melvin Roseland - Missing - Iowa
Yasmin Acree - Missing - Illinois
Amy Fitzapatrick - Missing - Spain
Adrian Gonzalez 7 - Endangered Missing - Florida
Neida Rodriguez-Gonzalez 3 - Endangered Missing - Florida
Thor Danielsson Wang 1 - Endangered Missing - California
AMBER ADELIA BITTINGER 15 - ENDANGERED RUNAWAY - NEW MEXICO
Latoya Fleming 6 - Endangered Missing - New York
JOANNA CANO 15 & ANGEL 6 mo. - "PERSON OF INTEREST" WANTED FOR 1ST DEGREE MURDER - NORTH CAROLINA
XYLONIA BEGAY - MISSING - NEW MEXICO
MADELEINE MCCANN 4 - MISSING - INTERNATIONAL
Tabitha Tudor 18 - Endangered Missing - Tennessee
Kyle Fleischmann - Missing - North Carolina
Justin Gaines - Missing - Georgia
Donna Jou - Missing - California
Jason Michael Rourk - Missing - Georgia
Jennifer Keese - Missing - Florida
Mark Degner - Missing - Florida
Brian Hayes - Missing - Florida
Maura Murray - Missing - New Hampshire
Tabitha Tudors - Missing - Tennessee
Branson Perry - Missing - Missouri
Suzanne "Suzy" Gloria Lyall - Missing - New York
Karen Wilson - Missing - New York
Michael Mayfield - Endangered Missing - Texas
Pamela Mayfield - Endangered Missing - Texas
I do not believe the current surviving crop of republicans to be evil. Not in the classical sense of the word. No, I believe them to be be self-righteously selfish. So selfish that they would rather this whole country plunge into some deep dark pit than be proven either wrong or be forced to part with any of their ill-gotten gains. Does this presentation of my opinion of their existence meet your definition of evil? I don't know. I just think they are great examples of bad human beings. Of human beings who have learned to be efficient predators who have come to feel that their fellow men are quite properly prey. God made it that way. This is why they are so tied into the reborn Christian movement. They can take the Christian ethic and twist it to explain their cretinous behavior. They use the old testament to justify their own actions and the new testament to define how their 'prey' should act in return.
The Chicago Tribune is a republican newspaper. The op-eds are dominated by pundits by the names of Kaplan and Chapman. Today they were hard at it. The bailout is a disaster. It gives money to all the wrong people. The businessmen should be getting the money so that they can hire workers (if they feel like it). Executives should not be limited in pay or the good ones will leave for more money elsewhere. No new taxes because we don't need any new spending. Yes, they are really writing this crap, hand over fist. They are not alone in shouting out their brutish form of trickle-down idiocy that only works to enslave wholesale numbers of the population. If we have learned nothing from this disaster then we have learned that we simply can't trust people who are given the money without restriction. That wherever large amounts are entrusted then we must make demands and vigilantly monitor. We cannot expect such people to 'do the right thing.' They do not. In Iraq we are fast discovering that the theft of billions was not billions at all. It now appears that it was in the hundreds of billions. As I have been saying all along. David Brooks, over in the New York Times, and who you might think would no better, was busy writing about trying to describe the hopes and dreams of the American public. That public that must decide between having a MacDonalds in its neighborhood or a Starbucks (MacDonalds is said to win this contest, but the triumph is narrow). The American dream, according to Brooks, is to have a garage stuffed with ski equipment, snowmobiles, lawn mowers and on and on and on. Americans, it would also seem, pine for the great open outdoors where they can wear casual clothes. This is giggle stuff! How do these people keep their jobs?
I drove over to the beach area at Waimanolo on Oahu the other day. I took along my new small Leica digital. Ten mega-pixels. What a wondrous pocket invention of brilliant german design. I took shots of the beach, surf, trees and everything I could see. It was a beautiful trade wind blowing day. When I had finished my tour down on the beach and had walked the long path back to the street where my car was parked I was tired. I put the camera in it's little brown case and set it on top of the roof of the car over the driver's door. Then I went into the trunk, rummaged around for a coke and some snacks. I slammed the trunk, opened the driver's door, using the key, while balancing my armload of stuff, then got in and drove away. Two blocks later, at a stop light, my brain exploded. The Leica! I had left the camera on top of the car. I jumped out the door, but there was no camera up there. I looked back the way I had come, but could see no brown dot along the road side. I got back in and executed a completely illegal U-turn, and raced the two blocks back. The parking space was still open where I had parked. I stopped and started looking around.
Nothing. At the opening through the brush where the path started, however, there was a street person sitting next to his cart. He was an islander of mixed heritage. Kanaka, they are referred to, by many of the local white population. I walked over. "Hey, Brudda," I started, in my best island pidgeon. "I lost da kine camera. A ting in a little brown case, see," and I held out one cupped hand to indicate the size. "You find?" I waited. He shook his head. The thatched hat on his head almost fell off, and I instinctively took a step back. The hat was like the rest of him. Dirty and tattered. "I give two hundred bucks as reward for dat camera," I said. I took my money clip out to show him I had the money. But he shook his head, then stood and began to gather his things to move on. There was nothing I could do, so I just waited, as he walked away. I felt, deep down, that he had my camera, but here was nothing I could do about it. Ruefully, I got into the rental and headed for my hotel. "I should have offered five hundred," I whispered to myself.
When I got to the hotel I was still extremely upset. One of the doormen took my car and gave me a ticket. The head doorman was a local of Hawaiian extraction. Ahi, his name tag said. There was nobody about at that hour of the morning so I strolled over and told Ahi my tale of woe. He laughed, but politely. "Sure man, the guy has your camera. But he won't keep it. He's probably on his way to Kaimuki right this minute." Ahi pointed toward the mountains. "How do you know that?" I asked, perplexed by the immediacy of his answer. He shrugged. "Kaimuki Jewelry. It's the big pawn shop of Honolulu, except for the one at Ala Moana Shopping Center. But that kinda street guy, he won't go to Ala Moana. Security'd throw him out." I handed my ticket back to him to get the car. He waved me off. "No man, you can't go there yet. Give him time. He gotta take the Number One Around The Island Bus to get to Kaimaki from Waimanalo. You go this afternoon. Here's my card. Tell Koko that Ahi sent you."
I drank Mai-Tais on into the afternoon. I waited until three. Ahi was gone when I got the car so I asked one of the other guys for directions. Then I was on my way to Kaimuki.
The Jewelry store turned out to be a ramshackle store wedged between two ratty looking Chinese restaurants. The restaurants were near empty, as I peered in the through dirty windows. I entered the pawn shop gingerly, noting that there was not even a front display of any jewelry to be seen. The place was brightly lit, however, and consisted mainly of a counter with tons of junk behind it. A white guy stood behind the counter, of about my middle age. "You Koko?" I asked, producing Ahi's card. The man took his cigar out and put it into a half-filled ashtray. He smiled, almost gleefully, after taking a look at the card. "You came to see camera, eh Haole?" I frowned. "Ah, don't worry, Ahi call me. We all close out here Haole." Haole was the word used by locals to describe White people. It was not used nicely, ever. For another White to use it was so uncommon I had never heard it so used before. "Yeah," I forced out, wishing that I had brought Thomas Magnum, of Magnum P.I., along for support. The man rummaged for a moment, then produced my camera. He did not let go of it. "Five hundred bucks cash, buys you this thousand dollar rig." Koko said, grinning.
"That's my camera," I pointed, as I spoke. "It is after you pay me five hundred cash," Koko responded. "What about the police," I asked, blithly, stepping back a pace, and reaching for my cell phone. Koko laughed, and reached for his own phone. "My Brother is Lieutenant and runs this part of Honolulu. I'll call him for you myself, you want." He flipped his phone open. I wondered instantly if Koko was bluffing. Then I shook my head and my shoulders sank. "Okay Haole," Koko said, handing me the camera, "I trust you."
I examined the delicate machine. My chip was in the camera. I had been taking pictures for weeks on that chip. It was much more valuable to me than even the camera. "Alright, I'll pay," I said, in resignation. I had gone to an ATM, figuring I might need some cash. I peeled off five one hundred dollar bills and Koko took them, holding each up to the light. "How about a receipt," I murmured, checking the camera to make sure it still turned on and functioned. I waked toward the door, still listening to Koko's laughing. I stepped out onto the sidewalk and almost collided with the street bum from Waimanalo, sitting against the wall.
"You," I blurted out. He looked back at me directly, without blinking. "You had my camera, all along," I said accusingly, pointing at the man's skinny bare chest. He just looked back at me without answering. I shook my head in disgust and started to walk away, holding the camera. Suddenly I stopped and turned. "How much he give you for it?" I asked, my face expressing only genuine curiosity. The man looked down at his dirty feet for a moment, then looked up and smiled. "Fifty bucks," he said, showing several gaps where front teeth had been. "Fifty bucks," I whispered, in surprise. "But why didn't you take my two hundred when I offered it to you?" I asked, then waited. He continued to smile. "You Haole, I no trust Haole. I take no money from Haole." He then frowned and shook his head. "What?" I said, astounded. "But Koko's a Haole!" I yelled at him, as I pointed back through the door where Koko sat, again with the cigar in his mouth. The street person slowly stood up, leaned, then looked through the door I still held open. He looked at Koko and then back at me. He shrugged. "Not all Haole's alike," he said, then returned to his seated position.
I left the pawn shop and returned to the hotel. I drank Mai Tais on into the night, but could not come to terms with what I had learned. Where there seemed such racial connotations to everything that had consumed my day, in the end I could not make that connection. They were local and I was foreign, is all I could conclude, and it was enough.
from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com
http://www.themastodons.com
At least in Erie County NY, the powers that be put together a list of 100 proposed projects, that are far in excess of what is needed in dollar amount, projects promote very few jobs in the short term, and almost none for the long term. With very few proposed road and bridge work. Promoting more urban sprawl with little regard for existing buildings or domiciles.
One proposal I know is way over bloated even though I know it well and believe work is required but not to the amount Erie County has proposed to its constituants. For example: http://www.erie.gov/exec/pdfs/stimulus_project.pdf
1)--$3.75 Million-- for "Chestnut Ridge Park- Heritage Area Restoration: 100 Stone Steps, Bridges(1), Stone Picnic Structures (75), Stone Restroom Facilities (16), Stone and Wood Pump Houses (6); Gateway Improvements: Main Entrance, NewtonRd. Entrance; Maintenance/Storage Yard Reconfiguration: Design, Initial buffer/landscaping; Casino Reuse Feasibility Study; Casino Restoration; Playground Facility Upgrade"
2)--$750,000-- for"Chestnut Ridge Park Casino: The historic Chestnut Ridge Casino roofstucture is severely leaking, causing damage to the building interior, the windows are in poor repair, and the heating system is old and can no longer be repaired"3)--$250,000-- for"Chestnut Ridge Park Toboggan Towers: Repairs to remediate structural damage and lead paint hazzards, and re-open both towers."
Plus a share of another $25.4 million for amenity upgrades and roads for all parks.
In addition to Double dipping for the Casino proposals which is actualy a park setting main event type building made of stone which is pretty cool but not thats its not worth it, its the fact that someone will pocket probably more than 50% of the sum proposed for these projects to this one park I know so well.
I am sure I can refine the stats better, I am sure I can find more inconsistancies in thier ways or proposals.
ButI warned before on 9/11,I warned again in before the economic crisis hitand I have warned on events on varying subjects
Still nobody listens and I don't get paid.
So listen if you care, don't if you won't; but someone has to keep the local politicians in check.
Morality may have one the White House, but it has not beaten back greed and corruption elsewhere.
Thank You for allowing me to at least vent my frustrations with an outlet to someone in power that seems to give a f*&@.
Andre Chernogorec Jr., Tomahs Frejnofes
and PS Under the 2006 Presidential Budget proposal, you have a lot more autority than you may even know. ;)
Seeking an individual who is passionate about progressive politics....
Field organizer needed ASAP for special election in NYC on February 24th. This organizer will be working to elect a progressive Hispanic Democrat running for a vacant seat in a diverse community. The organizer will have general field duties, including running canvasses and phonebanks, working to recruit and manage key volunteers, etc. Requirements: Must have worked at least one previous election cycle. Bilingual Spanish/English is a plus. Must have experience organizing in African-American communities. How to Apply / ContactTo apply, please send a resume to wjhowell1220@gmail.com
When elections are close the most important votes are always the ones that weren't counted and that includes especially all the votes that went to neither of the neck and neck runners, but to other candidates. Which of the top two would they have voted for?
Many folk are seeing the light in the two very tight Senate races. How would Instant Runoff Voting have made a difference? Then there are the controversial high profile appointments in Illinois and New York!
The editor of Denver Forgotten Communities Examiner says, "Instant-runoff voting has been tried in municipalities in the United States. It should be tried in statewide elections. The place to start would be in elections for U.S. Senate vacancies. Take the power away from the Governor to make an appointment and let the people vote in a single election with an instant runoff. We will end up with better senators." You can visit:
http://www.examiner.com/x-1173-Denver-Forgotten-Communities-Examiner~y2009m1d6-We-will-have-better-senators-with-instant-runoff-voting
to find out why he has come around to this opinion.
I have started a group: Obama Supporters for Instant Runoff Voting in Tompkins County, NY. Please feel welcome to visit us, help us, and see how we go about working on it locally.
Looking for LIVINGSTON descendants of slaves from Orangeburg County, South Carolina and the following towns: North, Livingston, Elizabeth TWP, Bull Swamp P.O., Neeses, Norway, Willow.Also in Cannon, Newberry County, SC.
Tony Livingston - 1820 Wesley Livingston - 1862 John W. Livingston - 1896 Ernest Livingston - 1915 Idella LIVINGSTON - 1916 Victor Livingston - 1919 Charley Livingston - 1900 Herman Livingston - 1924 Howard Livingston - 1953 (me) Paul F. Livingston - 1897 Pauline LIVINGSTON - 1918 Gertrude LIVINGSTON - 1920 Paul F. Livingston, Jr. - 1922 Edith LIVINGSTON - 1925 John W. Livingston - 1928 Clifton Livingston - 1929 Phillip Livingston - 1901 Dorothy LIVINGSTON - 1919 Dan Livingston - 1903 Clifton Livingston - 1904 Emily LIVINGSTON - 1905 Lonnie Livingston - 1906 Wilson Livingston - 1908
I've been online reading blogs for years, yet this is my first. I am so inspired by President Obama and Family that I can't keep quiet any longer. I've honestly been given hope, inspiration and change. THANK YOU!
To Whom It May Concern:
For years i've been on my way back to school to futher my career. I've had plenty to say that was meaningful and from the bottom of my heart. Afraid to walk in the shoes of the person I truely want to be... the person I am. Haven't embraced the extremely artistic portion of myself... my passion. Its crazy how i've taken so much from myself, and pretended not to be as intellectual, and beautiful as I am inside and out. I thought to myself that I didnt want to be intimidating. Didn't say it if I thought it would hurt your feelings. It's fine... I am ok with who and where I am.
What the ____! What really have I been thinking...
There was five of us sitting in a room. The television showed one news channel, while the computer streamed live feed from another. We had all been watching for quite a while. We had all been waiting a lot longer.
When both channels went silent, we all put own our drinks, our food, and stared. At the same moment, both channels predicted, in a peaceful, soft way, that Barack Obama will win the presidency.
We had champagne in the kitchen, waiting, hoping, to be opened. In less than twenty seconds, the bottle was emptied. No one sat. Other apartments emptied and came into ours. All doors were opened. None were locked. The hallway was filled with hugs from friends, and strangers.. neighbors, family, and guests.
On the New York City streets Tuesday night, the gatherings of people celebrating were less than difficult to find. Most streets were occupied by fast-walking, smiling New Yorkers, shouting and cheering across the streets to one another. Other areas, like Union Square, or St Marks and 2nd Ave, was a different world. Cars pulled over, blasting music... swarms of people engulfing the entire park under a giant american flag, swallowing up the ever-flowing masses of people. It was, for many people, the birth of a new country within us.
This was not an ordinary election. This was not just a process; this was a defining moment for millions of Americans. It was a defining moment for everybody.
Obama supporters have been continuously called frontrunners, trend followers, disillusioned. Let the author express why so many support Obama. We don't think he will save the world. We don't expect him to be successful in every single thing he says he will do. We do, however, believe in what he stands for. He represents a different era of thinking. The commanding generation is slowly becoming our own. We are a molten nation. We are not built of bricks. We don't align and assemble ourselves and remain immobile after we've been placed. We flow. Barack Obama represents a chance for America to pick itself up. He is not perfect. McCain is not the devil, either. We see in Obama everything we all have been feeling. We all want the best for this country. We are tired of how things have been going. We want change. Not change for change's sake. We are not 'blinded by the thirst for change" and simply voting Obama because he seems different and is telegenic. It's much more than that. We see a tomorrow so different and new that we can barely comprehend just how far we (not merely Obama) actually have the power to take this country. It's time to stop attempting to fix a speeding train. We need a new direction. We need to stop, and move forward in a completely fresh way.
The streets Tuesday night echoed and howled. Cheers from blocks, miles away, roared down the charged streets. Cheers from buildings, dorms, apartments, passing cars... the honking of horns... the thousands of people in different gatherings across the city (and the country)... the city howled. The city howled for hope and for optimism.
To be able to walk down the streets of New York, the chilling yet inspiring and beautiful howls filling your ears, and high five strangers, hug people you've never met, cheer along with so many different types of people, people of different ages, sexual orientations, ethnicities, beliefs, and cultures... it's something that will slowly be realized as one of the most significant turning points in our country's history.
There is no way of knowing what tomorrow will bring. It's the terrible beauty of being human. I will leave the reader with this... no presidential election has been like this in quite some time... and if you turn on any channel, or were lucky enough to be apart of the celebrations Tuesday night, you will see that these next four years will be four of the most important years to the current and future generations of Americans.
Graham Long for US Congress; Help Defeat GOP Bushco incumbant Pete King on Long Island, NY 3rd Congressional District
Graham Long spends every day at work seeking solutions to Long Island's challenges. As an economic development advisor, working with Nassau County, he helps to shape a better future for Long Island.
This is his first run for public office.
Born and raised on the island, he is concerned, along with so many others, that he will not be able to afford to stay in his hometown.
With a background in suburban planning, historic preservation, & government, his goal is to restore the unique character of the island that has always been the frontier of America's future.
Graham is a regional planning specialist, and has worked with Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi on his initiatives to reduce our tax burden, create senior and next-generation affordable housing in our downtowns, strengthen our economy, and preserve our environment and the history and character of Long Island.
He has extensive background in both planning and government, starting out as an intern with The White House, working for the director of the President's National Economic Council in 2002.
While in Washington DC, Graham acted as Advisory Commissioner for the District of Columbia, focusing on regional planning, controlling development, and transportation infrastructure.
Since then he worked as an operations manager for the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. After the current administration in Washington proved to be drifting away from the challenges our nation faces, Graham returned to Long Island and became active in local government issues.
He holds a B.A. in American Studies, concentrating in economic development and regional planning, from The George Washington University.
His family hails from Franklin Square, and Graham is a graduate of Locust Valley Central School District. He continues to reside in his hometown.
Visit and Bookmark Graham's website here:
http://grahamlong2008.com/
Graham Long is challenging Congressman Peter T. King for his long-held seat in the 3rd Congressional District.
While Mr. Long has never held elected office, he is no neophyte to the governmental arena, beginning with his work as an intern with the White House, working for the director of the President's National Economic Council in 2002 and acting as advisory commissioner for the District of Columbia, focusing on regional planning, development and transportation infrastructure. Mr. Long stated that "After the current administration in Washington proved to be drifting away from the challenges our nation faces, I returned to Long Island and became active in local government."
He currently works as an economic development advisor and regional planning specialist for Nassau County, working "to restore the unique character of the Island that has always been the frontier of America's future." His initiatives have served to help reduce the tax burden, create senior and next-generation affordable housing in downtowns, strengthen the economy, and preserve the environment, history and character of Long Island. These county issues, said Mr. Long, also apply to more local governments.
Concern for Long Island's economic base has led Mr. Long to the realization that "We need to bring in high-tech research and development industries and to steer our economy in a new direction that is centered on 'green' industries, building a renewable energy network, and rebuilding and reworking our crumbling infrastructure." Long Island has the educated workforce to do that, Mr. Long added, but the economy must provide that workforce the affordability to live here. Affordable rental and condominium units in the downtowns, which are often near public transportation, will serve to encourage seniors and young adults to remain on Long Island and will promote greater use of trains and buses, thus reducing traffic, as well as gasoline usage, he said.
Mr. Long believes property taxes can be reduced not only through increased federal and state aid for our schools, but also through restructuring and consolidating local government to make the system more efficient.
Mr. Long said he is running as the candidate of change, and that Rep. King is "the candidate for the status quo." The fact that he has never run for, nor held, political office serves to his advantage, Mr. Long believes, because, "I'm not beholden to any special interests. We can no longer trust the politicians in Washington to fix the problems they helped create in the first place."
If elected, Mr. Long said he vows to help Long Island preserve the legacy, neighborhoods, landmarks and environmental resources "that make our Island unique and attractive" while continuing "to grow responsibly and bring more development into our downtowns, encourage clean energy industries to come to Long Island, and rebuild and enhance our [public and private] transportation network."
In regard to international affairs, Mr. Long said, "We must encourage the next president to re-deploy our combat forces in Iraq, give our troops the benefits and breaks they deserve, and increase our troop levels in Afghanistan where Al-Qaeda is regrouping." The U.S. should reduce combat forces in Iraq, he said, while continuing to work as peacekeepers, which could provide our nation with greater international support. Mr. Long said he will also seek to reverse the current trend in Washington to export our economic base, which he said, has "left us with an unstable economy and a government based on borrowing."
Mr. Long stated, ""I am thrilled and honored to have the support of Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi, State Assemblyman Charles Lavine, Presiding Officer of the Nassau County Legislature Diane Yatauro and former Town of North Hempstead Supervisor May Newburger."
At press time, Mr. Long has also received the endorsement of the Nassau Women's Democratic Caucus and the Alliance for Retired Americans.
Mr. Long is running on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines. He holds a BA in American studies, concentrating in economic development and regional planning, from George Washington University. He resides in his home city of Glen Cove.
Tim Foley (AKA Commander Foley :) has been doing a great job of organizing Upper West Siders to go down and canvass in PA on the week-ends. I've been doing this with him for a number of week-ends now, but this Saturday was the best experience yet. We went to a small town near Scranton called Duryea of about 5000 people where, after the canvassing, we were invited to a party held by the local democratic party organizer, a delightful woman named Trina Moss. She had a party in her backyard, and here's the kicker: we got a chance to meet Congressman Kanjorski and freshman US Senator Bob Casey. I had my handy dandy Flip video camera with me and took some video of their speeches and put together a short movie. Hope you enjoy it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvPXk_0pbeQ
Tim will be organizing more trips this coming week-end. Come and join us!
New York City has a larger population than all of Alaska, and Washington, DC residents don't have anyone in Congress, but Palin puts Alaska first instead of the United States of America. Seperatist/survivalists are our country's homebred terrorists.
Palin shouldn't be casting stones when she supports these nut-jobs!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Independence_Party
If you liked this message, then please have a look at the rest of my blog, http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/henrymu and please consider donating to the campaign: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/PListe4Obama
Henry M
Hi all!
I just created my profile on my.BarackObama.com and I guess the next business at hand would be getting ACTIVE. For a while I have been interested in participating in this election somehow. I want to help out because I do NOT want the same thing that happend to Gore and Kerry to happen again. Honestly I was not as active in either of the two aforementioned campaigns as I could have aside from supporting them with my vote.
With the failure of both of those campaigns, and the very blatant criminal act against the American citizens when the Presidential role was given to to someone who not EARN it, I cannot be absent during this election. I agree that it will take every single person so support our candidate because he is being attacked and I won't let the past happen again.
I am very inspired by my acting coach Mimi. Mimi is very strong, hardworking, open-minded, and everything you would want a leader to be.
So here I am finally setting up my profile and slowly trying to figure out how I can help. There are many ways I see around me to help but yet I am still. I realize I must be a bit reluctant to not have taken action yet but I must recognize that my apprehension is only because this is something new and I have to get over that fear.
I think I will begin today with a donation. Hopefully soon I will step up and help out in other ways.
PEACE for ALL!!!
All that fuss during the primary. All Bill and Hillary Clinton's rankering about the 18 million women supporters she brought into the primary - is now being used to aid Sarah Palin and the McCain/Palin GOP ticket. No, it wasn't just Hillary's 3am add about her supposed foreign policy experience that then hurt Barrack Obama. She caused the American voter to re-think what Presidential experience is, and what it is NOT. She spoke of how critical it is to have women serving in high office.
There is no doubt Hillary "opened the door" for Sarah Palin and the GOP, again. Palin, who could well become the President in that McCain's health and age are in question, is no Hillary. The only thing they have in common is gender and big oil. But Palin is a radical religious right loyalist, hand picked by Carl Rove. She's more right than George Bush. The only change she would bring is further to the right! The American people are getting waxed by the Rove machine!
So - where is Hillary? Where are her communications with the 18 million women she claimed were democrats in the primary? Her SILENCE is remarkable. It raises serious questions about her loyalty to the party and future in the Senate.
Wake up New York. Your Senator is about to hand the GOP the 2008 election!
As I walked to work today, on the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I glanced down 6th avenue to the empty sky where the Twin Towers used to rise above the city. In New York our backdrop is a constant reminder of September 11—we’re still working and meeting friends and going to supermarkets just steps and miles from where the World Trade Center once stood. That absence is a part of our lives, and yet we voted in overwhelming numbers for Kerry and will do the same for Obama. I kept spinning this over in my mind—9/11 is a reason why many Americans won’t vote for Obama, and yet we, who live in New York City, will.
We were here when the planes hit the towers; we watched from our rooftops as innocent people hurled themselves to certain death; we witnessed firsthand the screams and cries and shockwave while much of the country was still asleep. This is not to say you didn’t suffer. We all suffered. We all woke up on September 12 to a very changed world, one where we knew our enemies lived among us, invisible, cunning and eerily patient. To world where tens of thousands of Americans from all over the country were called to duty or would step up for duty and return in body bags or maimed or paralyzed, their families left to endure a kind of suffering the rest of us can’t even imagine.
Still, here in New York, we saw the ash rain down on the streets of the Financial District; we found notebooks and file folders on outback lawns in Brooklyn; we smelled the steel and chemical smolder for days, weeks; we learned to accept the broken skyline; we made our way out hesitantly into the streets where missing posters were plastered well into November, first as signs of continually vanishing hope and then as tributes to lost souls. Those of us lucky enough not to be personally touched by the tragedy did our best to comfort neighbors who were. We tried, in small and quotidian ways, to show New York’s Bravest and Finest how grateful we were, leaving flowers or chocolate chip cookies on the steps of our local fire stations, stunned into silence by the courage they showed.
We here in New York, living every day with that operatic backdrop of loss, with that tangible record of people “hell-bent on destroying America,” feel safer voting for Barack Obama. We feel our security will be better protected by him. We feel he will better serve our interests abroad at home. How is it that 9/11 has been such a divisive issue in these past two elections with people so far from where the attacks took place, here or at the Pentagon or on Flight 93, using it as a rallying call to keep Republicans in power, one that we in New York, steps from that chilling urban wilderness of Ground Zero, can’t relate to?
For many New Yorkers, electing Obama continues the great American tradition of progress and change and opportunity that the Twin Towers stood for. We know that Bush has not secured our borders and McCain, who plans to continue Bush’s policies and has supported them 90% of the time, will not either. We choose Obama because Bush and the Republican party, McCain’s party, took the world from a state of universal support and compassion to one of near universal disgust for our unilateral wars and the disgraceful way we’ve left Afghanistan, for the way we shirked diplomacy in favor of endless war. We choose Obama because Bush and the Republicans took friends and made them distant and distrustful. They took the distant and distrustful and made them outright enemies. Yes there are people” hell-bent on destroying America” as Bush/McCain/Palin keep reminding us. But what have the Republicans done to stop those people? 9/11 happened on their watch. What happened to finding Osama Bin Laden dead or alive? Seven years later and we haven’t found him either way. Thousands of lives lost and close to 1 trillion dollars later and our mission is still unaccomplished while we face a health crisis, an education crisis, an environmental crisis, a job crisis and an economic crisis thanks to Bush's and McCain's policies.
We’re not voting for Obama because we think he’ll hold hands and sing Kumbaya with Nouri al-Maliki and Kim Yong-il. We’re supporting him because we believe he’ll revitalize our economy and make us competitive again in the world market and help us begin to dig ourselves out of the mind-numbingly heavy weight of our debt and deficit, both greater than at anytime in U.S. history. We’re supporting him because we believe he’ll help us repair the damage we’ve done to our reputation as world leaders and regain the respect of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. We’re supporting him because we believe he’ll make sure we have the world’s strongest military and also the world’s strongest minds trained and ready to embrace the challenges of the 21st century, not least among them the era of extreme weather that is clearly upon us.
New York is a place where the world comes together, the place where the relatives of 40 percent of the US population first set foot on American soil. The place where, as Fitzgerald so elegantly wrote, Dutch sailors laid eyes on “a fresh, green breast of the new world.” A city that welcomes 44million visitors every year. And you have all come back. You came rushing in to help dig through the debris. You came rushing in to pay tribute to fallen heroes. You came rushing in to honor the dead. And after that eerily beautiful fall of 2001 when we in New York woke each morning and cocked our heads like animals in the wild, listening for danger, and, surprised not to find it, went quietly about our day, the city came back to life and you came swirling back to our shops and our restaurants and raced up to survey the view from the top of Empire State Building and took the ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.You showed that you still loved New York, that you weren’t scared.
You understood what New York stood for —the melting pot of America, prosperity and progress and a chance for anyone who had the strength and determination to take it. That sense of unity and opportunity is at the root of our part of the American mythos just like a pioneering sense of adventure is at the heart of the mythology of many of the so-called red states, maybe Alaska most of all.
We have a chance to show the rest of the world that we have faith in a better world, a powerful world of exploration and expansion. We have to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King who quoted the Scripture when he said “The truth will set you free.” We have to be able to face up to the truth of what has been happening to our country and the fact that for eight years we have been in a state of decline. We won’t be free otherwise.
It’s a great country. We all feel that. We feel it when we drive across the Brooklyn Bridge and see the broken skyline by the Battery that still shines and inspires and draws millions from all over the world every year to see it. We feel it when we watch our Olympic superstars cross the finish line and hear the roar of the crowd. We feel it when the Star Spangled Banner blasts over the loudspeakers at our baseball stadiums. We feel it when we hear the cascading waters plunging over Niagara Falls. We feel it when we watch the radiant setting sun from the last little strip of land on the Florida Keys. We feel it when we contemplate the depth of the Grand Canyon. We feel it when we hear the sound of a saxophone twisting out of the narrow streets of a city on the Gulf Coast rising from the ashes. We feel it when we imagine the gleaming white mountains of Alaska, perhaps our last frontier. We feel it when we stand at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial and think about what it means to have “a new birth of freedom.”
What Lincoln fought so hard for—“that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth"— it’s perishing. It’s not by the people any more. These are not our voices. The scare tactics and the media circus extravaganza where black is white and up is down and bloody images of 9/11 are shown only to immobilize us into voting a certain way-- I know these are not your voices, in Houston and Denver and Des Moines and Baton Rouge. I know these are not your voices, pretending more of the same is change because you slap the word “change” onto a giant banner and wave it behind you. These are not your voices, in Atlanta and Montgomery and Tallahassee. These are not your voices, in San Diego, in Seattle and Fairbanks. I know you believe in progress and I know you know the meaning of the word change.
In this election we can’t pretend the red state/blue state divide is real because we all have, more or less, the same things that we want out of life. We love our friends and families. We love our country. We want everyone to have a fair chance. We want good, caring people to have good things happen to them. We want fulfilling careers. We want to help our neighbors. Well want a strong education for our children. We want our children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy nature the way we did. We want to know theywill be able to swim in the oceans and lakes, that they’ll someday see what polar bear looks like and not just read about them in science class. That they’ll be able to afford to keep themselves healthy, that even though they may have to struggle, that they’ll have a fighting chance of following their goals and living up to their ideals. That they’ll be able to throw their voice into the mix and be heard and to feel that their lives mattered.
