Sunday, April 27, 2008

ONLY 228 DAYS or so UNTIL "DAY ONE"

Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the United States Senate by the people of New York on November 7, 2000, after years of public service on behalf of children and families. She is the first First Lady of the United States elected to public office and the first woman elected independently statewide in New York State. A strong advocate for New York, Senator Clinton works with communities throughout the state to strengthen the economy and expand opportunity. The Senator supports a return to fiscal responsibility because she knows that wise national economic policies are essential to protect America's future.
She serves on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; the Environment and Public Works Committee; the Special Committee on Aging; and she is the first New Yorker ever to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Clinton chairs the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee, responsible for communicating with the public about key issues before Congress.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Senator Clinton worked with her colleagues to secure the funds New York needed to rebuild. She fought to provide compensation to the families of the victims, grants for hard-hit businesses, and health care for front line workers at Ground Zero. She continues to work for resources that enable New York to grow, to improve homeland security for New York and other communities, and to protect all Americans from future attacks. She has introduced legislation to provide for direct and threat-based homeland security funding to ensure that first responders and high-target communities have the resources they need.
In 2004, Senator Clinton was asked by the Department of Defense to serve as the only Senate member of the Transformation Advisory Group to the Joint Forces Command. She has visited troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; at Fort Drum in New York, home of the 10th Mountain Division; and at Walter Reed Military Hospital to learn first hand the challenges facing American combat forces. She is an original sponsor of legislation that expanded health benefits to members of the National Guard and Reserves.
In the Senate, she has continued her work for children and families by leading efforts to ensure the safety of prescription drugs for children, with legislation now included in the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act; working to strengthen the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which increased coverage for children in low income working families; and helping schools address environmental hazards.
Senator Clinton continues to work to increase access to health care. She authored legislation that has been enacted to improve recruitment and retention of nurses, to improve quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs, and to protect our food supply from bioterrorism. She sponsored legislation to increase America’s commitment against Global AIDS, and is now leading the fight for expanded use of information technology in the health care system to decrease administrative costs and reduce medical errors.
To encourage business expansion, Senator Clinton co-sponsored legislation enacted in 2004 to extend tax credits to communities in regions designated as Renewal Communities. She has sponsored conferences and business development tours throughout the state aimed at attracting new investment; introduced legislation to increase access to broadband technology in rural areas; and serves as chair of the advisory board for New Jobs for New York.
Senator Clinton has spoken clearly about the importance of protecting our constitutional rights, respecting such landmark Supreme Court decisions as Roe v. Wade. Her commitment to supporting Roe and working to reduce the number of abortions, by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies, was hailed by the New York Times as “frank talk… (and) a promising path.”
Strongly committed to making sure that every American has the right to vote in fair, accessible and credible elections – and that every vote must be counted, Senator Clinton introduced the Count Every Vote Act of 2005, to provide a verified paper ballot for every vote cast in electronic voting machines; set a uniform standard for provisional ballots, and require the Federal Election Assistance Commission to issue standards that ensure uniform access to voting machines and election personnel in every community. She continues her fight to this day, fighting for the votes in the Floridian and Michigan primaries to be counted.
HILLARY CLINTON VS. BARACK OBAMA, OR JOHN MC CAIN?
Look at the records...it isn't even a fair fight.

WORRIED ABOUT BILL CLINTON ROAMING THE WHITE HOUSE WITH NOTHING TO DO?

Don't be...he could be appointed to take over his wife's Senate seat for the next three years......wouldn't that be fun !!!!

TRUTH OR DARE

It's time for everyone to face the truth. Barack Obama has no real chance of winning the national election in November at this time. His crushing defeat in Pennsylvania makes that fact crystal clear. His best, and only real chance of winning in November is on a ticket with Hillary Clinton as her VP.
Hillary Clinton seemed almost somber at her victory speech. As if a part of her was hoping Obama could have defeated her. And proven he had some chance, some semblance of a hope of winning against the Republican attack machine, their unlimited money (remember he hasn't spend much since getting the nomination), and resources. In all honesty, I felt some of that too.
But it is absolutely essential that the Democrats take back the White House in November. America and the American people are in a very desperate condition now. And the whole world has been doing all that they can to help keep us propped up.
It should be clear to everyone by now that Hillary Clinton is fighting her heart out for the American people. She has known for a long time that Mr. Obama cannot win this November. Now we are getting a clearer picture of Obama, a truer measure of the man, and Hillary is starting to win. In Pa., she won every major group except Black Americans, which Obama took by 92%. You have to remember that the Clinton's have won the White House twice before. They know what it takes. Politics is like a hot dog, you may like them, but you don't want to know what goes into them.
Sen. Hillary Clinton: "You know, more people have now voted for me than have voted for my opponent. In fact, I now have more votes than anybody has ever had in a primary contest for a nomination. And it's also clear that we've got nine more important contests to go."

Saturday, April 26, 2008

HOOSIERS GETTING A FULL COURT PRESS

During a rally at Indiana University's Assembly Hall, Clinton said Sen. Barack Obama, her Democratic rival for the White House, voted for the energy bill put together by Vice President Dick Cheney that gave millions in tax breaks to oil companies. Actions, she said, trump words.
"When it came time to stand up against the oil companies, against Dick Cheney's energy bill, my opponent voted for it and I voted against it," Clinton said. "It was the best bill the energy companies could buy."
Her remarks came a few hours after Obama stood at an Indianapolis gas station and blamed Washington insiders for failing to deliver on fuel efficiency standards that could lead to energy independence and lower prices, namely McCain and Senator Clinton.
Clinton also took issue with Obama's ads about not taking money from oil companies. She charged that he took more money from oil company executives than any other candidate last month.
A new Indianapolis Star poll has found that the Democratic contest is nearly a dead heat, with about 21 percent of Hoosiers undecided.
Sen. Barack Obama sat and talked about his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He called her smart, capable and "obviously a tenacious campaigner." He said they do not have huge policy differences. But then he made the point he hopes will carry him to victory in the Indiana primary May 6 -- the point he has been making for months. "I think I have a better chance of bringing the country together, to solve problems and to govern, than she does," he said. ". . . Part of the attraction, I think, of our campaign has been our ability to get past some of these old arguments. Now, sometimes I've been getting pulled back in."
"I was raised in a setting with my grandparents who grew up in small-town Kansas, where the dinner table would have been very familiar to anybody here in Indiana -- a lot of pot roasts and potatoes and Jell-O molds," he said. Obama said he "doesn't want to go out of my way to sort of prove my street cred as a down-to-earth guy." He laughed about his image being anything "elitist."
"I basically buy five of the same suit, and then I patch them up and I wear them repeatedly. I have four pairs of shoes," he said. "Recently, I've taken to getting a haircut more frequently than I used to because my mother-in-law makes fun of me."

Friday, April 25, 2008

WILL THE REAL OBAMA PLEASE STAND UP

More from Barack's spiritual advisor, someone who has known him for twenty years, with absolutely no axe to grind......the good Reverend Wright....
"He's a politician, I'm a pastor.
We speak to two different audiences.
And he says what he has to say as a politician.
I say what I have to say as a pastor.
"But they're two different worlds. I do what I do.
He does what politicians do.
"So that what happened in Philadelphia, where he had to respond to the sound bites,
he responded as a politician."

"The U.S. of K.K.A."
"We are no better than Al Quida, we just have a different colored flag"
"God damn America"
The U.S. lied about Pearl Harbor"
"We are an arrogant racist superpower"

And now some laughable, bold-faced lies about his 20 year participation in his church...
Get a reality check yourself, Obama
Here's a preview of a GOP political commercial, the likes of which will bury
Obama as completely unelectable.
Let's see if we can lose three cakewalk Presidential elections in a row...
Obama 08'

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

LOOSE THOUGHTS HEARD AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE

The Jews in both Israel and the US have a specific reason to fear an Obama presidency. Much attention has been paid to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the anti-Semitic, black supremacist preacher who has served as Obama's spiritual guide for the past 20 years. Then too, there are Obama's foreign policy advisors who range from the viscerally hostile towards Israel (Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Malley, Samantha Power, Merrill Tony McPeak) to the messianically hostile towards Israel (Dan Kurtzer). Further troubling is Obama's close associations with Palestinian and pan-Arab champions and jihad apologists like the late Edward Said and Prof. Rashid Khalidi, and his stated intention to have open negotiations with Iran about the mullocracy's nuclear weapons program, his monetary ties to anti-Israel donors like George Soros and to anti-Israel organizations like Moveon.org are similarly pointed to as reasons for concern. That being said, in the current presidential race, American Jews (like all their fellow Americans), would be wise to consider if they are truly ready to accept Obama as their savior.
IN FACT, THE BLOGOSPHERE IS RED HOT WITH REPORTS AND CORROBORATING EVIDENCE THAT OBAMA IS ANTI-SEMITIC. I WILL STOP JUST SHORT OF THIS, BUT I DO HAVE MAJOR, MAJOR CONCERNS AS TO THE TRUTHFULLNESS OF THIS.
The Democrats are tottering at the edge of the abyss. They are about to nominate someone who cannot win, despite vastly out-spending his opponent, any of the key large states — CA, NJ, NY, OH, PENN, TX, etc. — that will determine the fall election. And yet not to nominate him will cause the sort of implosion they saw in 1968 or the sort of mess we saw in November 2000. Hillary won't quit, since she knows that Obama, when pressure mounts, is starting to show a weird sort of petulance, and drops the "new politics" for snideness. And at any given second, a Rev. Wright outburst, an Ayers reappearance, another Michelle 'never been proud' moment, or another condescending Obamism can cause him to nose dive and become even more snappy.
More and more, McCain will want to run against Obama and his far weaker coalition of elite whites, African-Americans, students — and closets of skeletons. More and more, we will start to see the buyer's remorse of midsummer 1972.
One survey in Pennsylvania suggested that only 53 per cent of Clinton supporters would definitely vote for Mr Obama if he were the nominee – with 26 per cent saying they would support the Republican nominee. Nearly seven in 10 (Pennsylvania) voters said Clinton has attacked Obama unfairly, and half said the same of Obama's campaign against Clinton. Those are the highest numbers saying the candidates have unjustly characterized each other since before Super Tuesday contests on Feb. 5, according to network exit polls conducted with voters as they left polling places. Barely more than a third of Clinton voters in Pennsylvania said they would be happy with Obama atop the Democratic ticket; less than half of those backing Obama said they would be satisfied with Clinton.

WHO IS LEFT?

Philadelphia primary (no POLITICAL caucus crap) results:
No college degree? 60% Clinton
Income less than $50k? 54% Clinton
Union households? 60% Clinton
White males? 56% Clinton
Late deciding voters? 57% Clinton
All women? 57% Clinton
White voters? 63% Clinton
Seniors? 63% Clinton
Rural areas? up to 75% Clinton
College educated voters? a virtual tie
WHO IS LEFT?

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Click here for the Op/Ed piece everyone will be talking about tomorrow morning....from the New York Times, no less, a paper that has endorsed Hillary. A very interesting read entitled....
"The Low Road to Victory"
The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it. Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.
On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

ROVE ON THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES

Karl Rove believes she (Clinton) committed a fundamental error at the outset by allowing Obama to steal the mantle of change from her. After Clinton spent years as a senator building bridges with Republicans, Obama breezed in and said only he could unite “red state” (Republican) and “blue state” (Democrat) America.
“She let him take her natural message from her after she had gone out of her way to work on bipartisan initiatives,” Rove said. “There is no evidence he has worked for bipartisan change, but she has.”
In his view, Obama’s hands are no cleaner than hers. “The same claim could be made that he is doing the Republicans’ dirty work for them. Obama has been attacking her – subtly, but nevertheless strongly – as a symbol of the past and someone who has flip-flopped on the war in Iraq.”
After taking the heat in the TV debate, Obama said Clinton was “in her element” when playing the cynical Washington game of tearing people down rather than “lifting each other up”. In turn, she accused him of being a wimp. “He spent all day complaining about the hard questions he was asked.”
Rove is reluctant to call Clinton the stronger Democratic candidate against McCain this autumn, but he observed: “All her weaknesses are known. There will not be a lot of surprises if she is the nominee. Americans are now finding out much more about the Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers and Obama’s attitude to small-town America.”

THROW THE BOOK AT HIM

One of the enduring myths of the Democratic primary campaign is that Hillary has been "throwing the kitchen sink" at Senator Obama while he runs a hopeful, unifying campaign. As I wrote in a blog post recently, the reality is that Sen. Obama and his top officials have been throwing the sink, the stove, the plates and the garbage can at Hillary.
Whether you've been following this race closely or you just tuned in, see if you can figure out who's been using the Republican attack playbook.
Take the quiz:
www.hillaryclinton.com/quiz

PENNSYLVANIA BOWLERS AND HUNTERS KNOW....OBAMA IS A GUTTER BALL WHO IS SHOOTING OFF BLANKS

According to the latest polling done by the Kansas City Star....
Hillary Clinton leads among bowlers, gun owners and hunters in Pennsylvania, a blue-collar trifecta that is helping her hold an edge over rival Barack Obama heading into Tuesday's pivotal primary there. The New York senator leads by solid margins in all three slices of working-class Pennsylvania - the political battleground where the two Democrats have waged war for control of the state, according to a new poll conducted for McClatchy Newspapers, MSNBC and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The one group where she does not have a solid lead is among beer drinkers; they split evenly between her and the Illinois senator.
Overall, Clinton leads Obama by a margin of 48-43 percent, with 8 percent still undecided. The telelphone survey of 635 likely Pennsylvania voters was taken April 17-18 and had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
"Clinton leads in Pennsylvania," said Brad Coker, the managing partner for Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the poll. "However, the lead doesn't indicate she's going to win by a large enough margin to make a serious impact on Obama's overall delegate lead."
Clinton leads among women, whites, Roman Catholics and Jews, voters older than 35, those looking for experience and those who rank Iraq, the economy or health care their top issues.
Their campaign's been marked by sharp disagreements over his comments claiming that small-town Pennsylvanians cling to religion and guns out of bitterness over their economic anxiety, as well as inflammatory sermons by Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Indeed, Clinton seems to have won the better part of the culture clash, leading among hunters by a margin of 56-31 percent, among bowlers by 54-33 percent, and among gun owners by 53-28 percent.

THIS WILL HAVE TO DO UNTIL JESUS SETS UP A MY SPACE ADDRESS

Too busy to go to mass? The blogosphere has finally answered your prayers, so to speak. Try www.dear-God.com, a new site where you can have your prayers and confessions sent to your Lord via the internet. Here is the vision statement from the website....
Dear God is a global project for people around the world to share their innermost hopes - and fears - through prayer. It doesn’t matter what your version of God is…Jesus, Allah, Buddha or simply a spiritual universal energy… praying to a higher power soothes and heals. It’s scientifically proven that people who pray are healthier, happier and more resilient.
Share your prayers here and help us create hope one prayer at a time. Simply send us your personal letter to your God and/or a picture that sums up your message visually. (Dear God will source a picture if you don’t have one).
Disclaimer: This website is totally independent and non-denominational. We are not a religious or spiritual/new-age organization. We have no affiliation or relationship to any church or religious or spiritual group or organization.
Here is an example of what you will find on the web site, an entry from a Michael in Wyoming entitled "My sex life sucks..."
Dear God, I grew up in your church that told me that sex before marriage was wrong and could lead to destruction in relationships later in life… I abstained. Now I’m married to my beautiful wife that grew up under the same pressures to abstain. We don’t have sex because there are so many barriers and fences put up in her that sex is bad, sinful, guilt-riden, and carries all these negatives. (Now, she doesn’t say these things, but its what I surmise & feel from her) While dating, we grew strong spiritually and emotionally, but the sex/physical intimacy was avoided. Now we are like on a 3-legged stool with only 2 legs! Falling. Honestly it sucks with the sex drive that you handed me! I waited my whole life for this? And when we do make love, it has to be in the bedroom, on the bed, missionary pos. no exceptions… ever. God, is this what you intended for this beautiful experience? Sometimes, shamefully, I wish I’d taken advantage of all the opportunities I had in HS or College. Hear my cry Oh Lord! Why is it so bad to talk about this important intimate part of a marriage relationship? Yes, I’m a Christian and my sex life sucks!
Michael, Wyoming/USA
When I saw 32 comments under Michael's posting, I got ready for wise cracks, potty humor and the like such as what would happen if you open yourself to exposure amongst millions of strangers. But, the comments were serious, and respectful with honest to.....you know, him, helpful pieces of advice, including referral web sites to check out. So why not? If this is the only exposure you have to clergy, why not. It sure beats nothing....

Saturday, April 19, 2008

THE IRONY OF USING BIOFUELS TO DRIVE TO YOUR LOCAL FOOD BANK

A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake. For the first time in 30 years, food protests are erupting in many places at once. Bangladesh is in turmoil, even China is worried. Elsewhere, the food crisis of 2008 will test the assertion of many economists, that famines do not happen in democracies.
Famine traditionally means mass starvation. The measures of today's crisis are misery and malnutrition. The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate—those on 50 cents a day—face disaster.
Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day. If, on a conservative estimate, the cost of their food rises 20% (and in some places, it has risen a lot more), 100m people could be forced back to this level, the common measure of absolute poverty. In some countries, that would undo all the gains in poverty reduction they have made during the past decade of growth. Because food markets are in turmoil, civil strife is growing; and because trade and openness itself could be undermined, the food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalisation.
In general, governments ought to liberalise markets, not intervene in them further. Food is riddled with state intervention at every turn, from subsidies to millers for cheap bread to bribes for farmers to leave land fallow. The upshot of such quotas, subsidies and controls is to dump all the imbalances that in another business might be smoothed out through small adjustments onto the one unregulated part of the food chain: the international market.
For decades, this produced low world prices and disincentives to poor farmers. Now, the opposite is happening. As a result of yet another government distortion—this time subsidies to biofuels in the rich world—prices have gone through the roof. Governments have further exaggerated the problem by imposing export quotas and trade restrictions, raising prices again. In the past, the main argument for liberalising farming was that it would raise food prices and boost returns to farmers. Now that prices have massively overshot, the argument stands for the opposite reason: liberalisation would reduce prices, while leaving farmers with a decent living.

DEJA PEW or Mr. Audacity with the Pope

THE HILLARY CLINTON DEATHWATCH

NAME THE SENATORS

  1. He voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.
  2. According to Bloomberg News, he is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says he "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."
  3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but he voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.
  4. He opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."
  5. The Children's Defense Fund rated him as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.
  6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet he says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.
  7. Many of his fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
  8. He talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says he has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.
  9. He has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor he calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." He also has sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."
  10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

HILLARY, STAY ON MESSAGE

1. Change is good, but change takes time. We don't have time. We need someone who can affect changes immediately under our present system.
2. I am not a dreamer, I am a leader. Dreamers dream, leaders act.
3. I watched my husband turn the American economy around. I know how he did it & I can do it again.
4. I am the champion of the working class. With me as President they will have less to be "bitter" about.
5. My life has been examined and displayed in over 85 books. i am fully vetted, and there will be no surprises with me.
6. My family has championed the causes of civil rights, and the American people without a voice.
7. I am fighting to ensure that all votes count. To do anything to the contrary is distinctly un-American, period.
8. I am a fighter. I don't give up. I have experienced massive personal hits and blows in my life, much of which were not of my doing. I have always gotten off the mat and landed on my feet.
9. I won't be the most well liked person in the room, but I will be the smartest.
10. Over the past 9 years in congress, I have received praise from both sides of the aisle. I am not a "show horse," I am a "work horse."

HILLARY'S DREAM

A friend e-mailed me with this and I can't for the life of me decide if this is hip and funny,
or represents the basest form of racism.
Click on the word "comment" below and tell me what you think...

Friday, April 18, 2008

OBAMA GIVES THE DEBATE THE BRUSH OFF

After a 45 minute pummeling involving his relationships with The Rev. Wright (not to mention a corrupt Chicago politician), his refusal to wear an American flag, his patriotism, and other character issues, here is Senator Obama's reaction the morning after...
Apparently Obama needed to exert the fact that is actually a tough guy and someone not to be messed with by the Republicans. Reports of his lack of toughness, his lack of fight, and a general lack of testicles apparently have been exaggerated. In fact, after 15 months of criticizing Senator Clinton for her tenacity and political tactics, he is now ready to throw down against John McCain, and get right down into the mud with him, if need be...... so much for the change rhetoric you bitter losers have not only swallowed, but came back for seconds on. What a shame. To wait so long to finally learn about this mans lack of credibility and character. Hillary should come out and say it...he doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of beating John McCain in November. Get ready for a Democratic congress that will be unable to get anything done because they cannot override a Republican veto.

Monday, April 14, 2008

OBAMA: PISSED OFF, BITTER VOTERS TURN TO GUNS AND GOD


Saturday in Indiana, Sen. Clinton accused Sen. Obama of delegitimizing rural voters who value guns and religion. "I grew up in a church-going family," Sen. Clinton said at a rally in Indianapolis. "The people of faith I know don't 'cling to' religion because they're bitter." She later told of how her father taught her to shoot a gun. "Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a constitutional right," she said.
Sunday, Sen. Obama mocked Sen. Clinton, who supported gun-control measures in the 1990s.
"She's packing a six-shooter. Come on," Obama said to roars of approval from the steelworkers. "... I want to see that picture of her out there in the duck blind."
Last month, Sen. Obama survived a test when racially divisive remarks from his longtime pastor surfaced, forcing the first viable African-American presidential candidate to give a nuanced and widely praised speech on race relations. Rival campaigns were wary of exploiting the incident for fear of backlash.
Sen. Obama has encountered other problems in trying to connect with rural whites. At a campaign stop in Adel, Iowa, he drew cringes when he asked a crowd of farmers: "Anybody gone into a Whole Foods lately and seen what they charge for arugula?"
Obviously, there's more to Barack Obama than the eloquent, post-partisan, disciplined purveyor of "hope" that he typically projects. There's also the Barack Obama who attended Rev. Jeremiah Wright's ("God damn America") church for 20 years, the one who emerged from the Chicago Democratic machine with friends like Tony Rezko, the one with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate, and now we learn the one with a Harvard-eye view of American angst.
Mr. Obama's unreflected condescension is reminiscent of the famous 1993 Washington Post article that described evangelical Christians as "poor, undereducated and easy to command." And the fact that he said it so naturally in front of a San Francisco crowd suggests that this is what he may truly believe. This is Mr. Obama's inner Mike Dukakis.
The Senator went into damage-control mode on the weekend, initially defending his comments as what "everybody knows is true," then later saying he "deeply" regretted if his words "offended" some. He also tried to suggest that he really meant to say that economic anxiety prods people to focus on cultural and social issues at the polls. "So I said, 'Well, you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people....they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community."
Mr. Obama's comments are a gift to Hillary Clinton, who of course pounced on his "demeaning remarks." So far, Senator Obama has had a mostly charmed Presidential run, but the truth is there's much that Americans still don't know about him or what he believes. Let's hope Hillary keeps the heat on the Senator from Illinois, lest we elect another disappointment such as past history has proven.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

THE ONLY THING BITTER WAS YOUR ELITIST REMARKS TO PEOPLE DESPERATE FOR HELP

Barack Obama:
At the fund-raiser in San Francisco last Sunday, Mr. Obama outlined challenges facing his presidential candidacy in the coming primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana, particularly persuading white working-class voters who, he said, fell through the cracks during the Bush and Clinton administrations. “So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations”


Hillary Clinton:
"I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies," she said. "Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith.
"I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich.
"Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe." "People don't need a president who looks down on them," she said. "They need a president who stands up for them."


The World According to Kimba:
"Let's give Barack a break here. All he knows is what he was raised to believe; fundamental core values and beliefs that draw HIM to HIS church, bitterness and hatred; namely the bitterness and hatred he, and his fellow church goers feel towards Caucasians and the government, and this has resulted in him misunderstanding white working class voters in small towns. They do not share your perspective, Senator. They aren't bitter, and they do not "cling to religion, or the freedom to bare arms" as a result. They are honest and hardworking people who appreciate someone who will work hard for them, and not an elitist who merely looks down on them and pays them lip service about hope and change.


THE TRUTH ABOUT THE OBAMA IRAQI STRATEGY

As Barack Obama continues to criticize John McCain for saying he’s willing to keep a 100-year troop presence in Iraq, another Obama adviser has suggested U.S. forces could stay in Iraq longer than the Democratic candidate initially thought.
Adviser Colin Kahl wrote in a policy paper for the Center for a New American Security that the United States should transition to an “over-watch” force of between 60,000 and 80,000 troops by the end of 2010, according to an article Friday in the New York Sun. That appears to be at odds with Obama’s public position of removing all combat brigades from the country within 16 months of taking office. Kahl told the Sun his plan would still keep the U.S. “out of the lead” and mainly in a “support role.” He said the plan had nothing to do with the campaign.
The Obama campaign said in a statement: “The writing of Mr. Kahl, one of hundreds of outside advisers to the campaign, is not representative of Barack Obama’s consistent policy position on the Iraq war.” But Kahl’s plan seems to jibe with other advisers’ statements that Obama’s withdrawal timetables are more a goal than a firm policy commitment.
Foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, for instance, told reporters in February that Obama’s plan to end the war in 2009 is not absolute, and that he reserves the right to revisit troop levels in Iraq upon taking the oath of office.
Former foreign policy adviser Samantha Power told the BBC that Obama’s 16-month plan is a “best-scenario” and that the reality is he will try to withdraw troops “as quickly and responsibly as possible.” Power was the adviser who resigned in early March after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster” in an interview with a Scottish newspaper, but Clinton also tried to paint Obama an inconsistent for Power’s statements on Iraq. Obama later affirmed that he would bring the war “to an end in 2009.”

THE HYPOCRACY OF A CHINA BOYCOTT

Democratic leaders are calling on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing this summer. Hillary Clinton said Monday that she believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy towards China. "At this time, and in light of recent events, I believe President Bush should not plan on attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese government,” Clinton said in a written statement.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several other House lawmakers had previously urged Bush to skip the opening ceremonies. Her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, said recently that he was conflicted about whether the U.S. should fully participate.
The threat of a presidential boycott could be a symbolic slight to China, which takes face and respect for itself very seriously. But it also could do damage to relations with a country that has huge investments in the U.S. and that generates massive exports here.
I say no. Why on earth would President Bush boycott these games? A boycott would be hypocrisy with a capital "H", and I do not mean Herbert. Let's look at the reasons why the nation, and the world are protesting the Chinese Olympic games...
The illegal invasion of Tibet in 1950?
By our standards and time lines, not only did China have the right to invade, they even have 100 years to get out (they have 42 years to get out).
A gluttonous demand on the world's natural resources of energy and building materials?
They are following in our footsteps since the 1930's.
The use and sanction of the use of torture?
That's too easy. The Bush administration has employed the techniques of torture since 9/11. And have either denied the use of torture, or simultaneously defended the need to torture, up to / and including the employment of secret torture camps around the world.
A pollutinous global footprint on the world?
The U.S. are the leaders in pollution for a century now, and have only just now seen the light of their ways (thank you Al).
An assault on personal and individual rights?
Three words: The Patriot act.
Should President Bush stay away in some sort of hypocritical slight on the only developing super power? I say NO. Not only should he go, while he is there, he should apply for residency and run for office. He is their kind of people.
And that is the "World According to Kimba."
Thanks for reading.

Friday, April 11, 2008

BUSH is WHACKED

In a speech given on the fifth anniversary of the war on / in Iraq, King George II publicly declared a halt to troop withdrawals for the moment. He (again) promoted the effectiveness of the troop surge, and promised this would not be an "endless war," , a war which will end when the government of Iraq can meet these four benchmarks....
They become a capable and viable partner
They become a stable democracy
They promote our common interests
They help us fight our common enemies
To which, I have to ask.....
Where do we put the fifty-first star? We might as well add it to the union right now.
50 or 100 years? Try not for generation after generation......Try possibly not ever. The government of Iraq is powerless and flaccid, except in their ability to twist Bush around their little fingers, as they sit idly by and watch us pour billions upon billions of dollars (and human life after human life) trying to stabilize a country completely and utterly at war with each other, mired in a civil war that even a complete fractionalization of the country will not end.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

WE LOST MORE THAN A MAN THAT DAY

Inspired by and quoted heavily from a thought-provoking piece by E.J.Dionne in the Washington Post: Forty years ago, American liberalism suffered a blow from which it has still not recovered. On April 4, 1968, a relatively brief but extraordinary moment of progressive reform ended, and a long period of conservative ascendancy began.

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the ensuing riots that engulfed the nation's capital and big cities across the country signaled the collapse of liberal hopes in a smoky haze of self-doubt and despair. Conservatives, on the run for much of the decade, found a broad new audience for their warnings against the disorders and disruptions bred by reform.

April 4th, 1968 is the day the United States of America, burst into flames and the fires have not abated to this day. To this day, it cannot be said that liberalism has ever recovered. It had twitched a finger or two during the ineffective Carter years and the House was lost in the GOP revolution spearheaded by Newt and Rush in the 90's during the Clinton years.

Liberalism, in fact, is so dead, that the last seven plus years, despite eight preceding years of relative peace and economic prosperity, a surplus and a balanced budget after 12 years of Republican sledgehammering before that, liberals have let the GOP frame the word "liberal" as if it was as shameful as the words "pedophile" or "batterer."

For reasons that have yet to be divined and adequately explained, the American public still has not caught on to the inescapable and incontrovertible fact that America's greatest failures since 1968, failures that include two illegal wars, a major terrorist attack, the indefinite suspension of the Constitution, the loss of a major American city and the most massive deficits ever seen in American economic history are the results of conservatism.

And still the party is fragmented. Hillary Clinton spends more time attacking Barack Obama and questioning his own dedication to change more so than John McCain, who, according to some major polls, is in a dead heat with both she and Obama.

And still, when Republicans block and deny resolutions apologizing to surviving relatives of lynching victims, block legislation that seeks to apologize for slavery itself, we allow them to sound reasonable. When they blame the indigent African Americans of New Orleans for the federal government's massive indifference and failure in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when these people are openly called names like "deadbeats" and "losers" by conservatives, neocons and libertarians, they sound nastier than Nixon at his nastiest yet are allowed to keep their airtime and infest the airwaves time and again.

Civil rights? It's a quaint notion but one that hardly forms the basis for a comprehensive domestic policy, as Dick Cheney would put it. Largely lost are the last great messages, those powerfully musical and intoxicating clarion calls of change once uttered by the man who had been slaughtered 40 years ago today. Civil rights, liberalism, even hope itself had been torched along with dozens of American cities starting the day Dr. King was assassinated. While Republicans rally to inspire those with nonexistent marches with Dr. King, they also don't take the time to remind those whose support they're soliciting that they and members of their party have only helped widen a divide that the same Dr. Martin Luther King had only begun to bridge toward the end of his life.

It is easy to forget that the core themes of contemporary conservatism were born in response to the events of 1968. The attacks on "big government," the defense of states' rights, and the scorn for "liberal judicial activism," "liberal do-gooders," "liberal elitists," "liberal guilt" and "liberal permissiveness" were rooted in the reaction that gathered force as liberal optimism receded.
From the death of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 until the congressional elections of November 1966, liberals were triumphant, and what they did changed the world. Civil rights and voting rights, Medicare and Medicaid, clean air and clean water legislation, Head Start, the Job Corps and federal aid to schools had their roots in the liberal wave that began to ebb when Lyndon Johnson Democrats suffered broad losses in the 1966 voting. The decline that 1966 signaled was sealed after April 4, 1968.

Martin Luther King left this earth at a moment of gloom, at least about the short term. "I feel this summer will not only be as bad but worse than last time," he said, four days before his death, in a sermon at Washington's National Cathedral. He was referring to the urban riots of the previous summer. And then came the days of chaos that followed his assassination.

Forty years later, is it possible to recapture the hope and energy of the days and years before that April 4? Has liberalism spent enough time in purgatory for the country to revisit how much was accomplished in its name and to acknowledge that the nation is better off for what the liberals did? Now is the moment to put an end to our contempt for liberalism. There was business left unfinished on that fateful day in 1968, and it is time to take it up again.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

BENCHMARKS FOR A CLINTON DEPARTURE

Hillary should drop out of the Presidential race when, and if, any of the following events occur.
1. Hillary fails to win Pennsylvania by double digits.
2. Hillary loses North Carolina by more than double digits.
3. Hillary loses Indiana.
4. Obama offers her the Vice Presidency.
5. She is down more than 200 in the delegate count, including the pledged delegates.

ANOTHER DAMN CALL @ 3AM.....


Friday, April 4, 2008

CLINTON'S RELEASE TAX RETURNS

If there’s been a lot of interest in the lives of this power-couple, there’s been a lot of interest on the campaign trail in the long-promised tax returns of the Clintons that the Clintons have filed since he left the White House and she started in the Senate. The campaign today released returns from 2000 through 2006 and a summary of the couples’ earnings and taxes in 2007.
As per Clinton spokesman Jay Carson: "The Clintons have now made public thirty years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service. None of Hillary Clinton's presidential opponents have revealed anything close to this amount of personal financial information.

"What the Clintons' tax returns show is that they paid more than $33,000,000 in federal taxes and donated more than $10,000,000 to charities over the past eight years. They paid taxes and made charitable contributions at a higher rate than taxpayers at their income level. "

TAXES PAID: $33,783,507
The Clintons paid $33,783,507 in federal taxes - 31% of their adjusted gross income. According to the most recent data available from the IRS, in 2005 taxpayers earning $10,000,000 or more paid on average 20.8% of their adjusted gross income in taxes.
CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: $10,256,741
The Clintons donated $10,256,741 to charity - 9.5% of their adjusted gross income. According to the most recent data available from the IRS, in 2005 taxpayers earning $10,000,000 or more contributed 3.1% of their adjusted gross income in cash contributions to charity. Information about the Clinton Family Foundation, including a list of charities to which the Clintons contributed through the Foundation, is available online in the Foundation's publicly available tax returns (www.foundationcenter.org).
AFTER TAX EARNINGS: $57,157,297
CUMULATIVE TOTAL(GROSS) INCOME: $109,175,175
Including, among other items:
Senator Clinton's Senate Salary: $1,051,606
President Clinton's Presidential Pension: $1,217,250
Senator Clinton's Book Income: $10,457,083
President Clinton's Book Income: $29,580,525
President Clinton's Speech Income: $51,855,599

SENATOR CLINTON'S BOOK INCOME: $10,457,083
Senator Clinton's book income is comprised of earnings for Living History ($10,267,895), including an $8,000,000 advance, and It Takes a Village ($189,188). The earnings for It Takes a Village were donated to charity. Since the release of It Takes a Village in 1996, Senator Clinton has donated over $1,100,000 to charity.
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S BOOK INCOME: $29,580,525
President Clinton's book income is comprised of earnings for My Life ($23,280,525), including a $15,000,000 advance, and Giving ($6,300,000). The President donated $1,000,000 of his income from Giving in 2007 to charity.
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S SPEECH INCOME: $51,855,599