Believes in abortion on demand (virtually under any circumstance), and has told Planned Parenthood that sex-ed for kindergartners is ‘the right thing to do’ (as long as it’s ‘age appropriate’);
What Obama actually says:
Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in that case.
Preventing Unintended Pregnancy:
Barack Obama is an original co-sponsor of legislation to expand access to contraception, health information and preventive services to help reduce unintended pregnancies. Introduced in January 2007, the Prevention First Act will increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. The Act will also end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception, and provide compassionate assistance to rape victims.
There is a huge difference in tone and inference between the two.
They call it worst security glitch to date in state's voting machines and a 'big deal'
By Stephanie Desmon Sun reporter
May 12, 2006
Computer security experts say they have found the worst security flaw yet in the oft-criticized touch-screen machines that Maryland voters will use in this year's elections, leaving one computer scientist to warn that the state should have stacks of paper ballots on hand in case of a complete Election Day breakdown.
The machines, made by Diebold Elections Systems, are much, much easier to attack than anything we've previously said, said Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer science professor who first cast doubt on the reliability of the technology in a 2003 report.
On a scale of one to 10, if the problems we found before were a six, this is a 10. It's a totally different ballgame, he said.
The new problem is being described as an intentional hole left in the system to allow elections workers to update voting software easily. Instead of using pass codes or other security protocols, anyone with access to a voting machine could install new software that could easily disable a precinct full of machines, Rubin said.
Diebold officials say they are aware of the situation and, although they say any problem can be avoided by keeping a close watch on voting machines, they are developing a permanent fix.
Still, said company spokesman David K. Bear, it's one more what-if scenario. ... It's becoming somewhat ridiculous.
Maryland elections officials said they have known about the latest concerns for two weeks and will have an independent security consultant look into them next week to ensure that the state's Diebold machines are safe.
We are taking steps, said state elections administrator Linda H. Lamone. She said she is confident that the problem will have little effect in Maryland because of strict rules about who is permitted to handle voting machines in the state. Everyone that has access to them has to undergo a criminal background check, she said.
Before the Diebold machines were distributed statewide about two years ago, questions arose about whether hackers might be able to get into the automated-teller-like computers and alter their software, allowing multiple votes, vote-switching and other problems.
Computer experts, including Rubin, said security measures were insufficient and poorly designed. Activists pushed to add a paper ballot component to the machines in case a recount was needed.
Still, the state moved forward and nearly every voter in Maryland used a touch-screen machine in the 2004 presidential election. There were few complaints or problems.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. called on the state this year to abandon its touch-screen machines, saying he had no confidence in the technology, in part because lawmakers adopted other voting changes such as early voting.
He put money into his budget to pay for optical scan machines, which were used in the state for years before 2004. The General Assembly did not approve a voting machine switch during this year's session, which ended last month.
Rubin said he fears that the latest security problem could be serious enough to cause an Election Day meltdown that could put precincts of machines out of action. He recommends that counties have a pen-and-paper alternative on hand as insurance.
Joseph M. Getty, the governor's legislative and policy director, called the newly disclosed security flaw not really a new problem.
It's the same problem of vulnerability to outsiders, he said.
Getty said the latest Diebold problem bolsters the administration's case against early voting, which was approved by the legislature last year. He said any security risk can be minimized in one day of voting but is multiplied when machines are in public use for six days.
Michael Shamos, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a Pennsylvania voting machine examiner, pushed his state, which will have a primary election next week, to lay out strict new rules for installing software and sealing machines for safety.
It's a big deal. It's a very big deal, Shamos said. The good part is it's very easy to fix. You have to repair it. You can't just do nothing. ... It's not just like leaving the key to your door under the mat. It's like leaving the key dangling from a string from the door.
The temporary fix, Shamos said, involves reinstalling the proper software just before the election, preferably in a public setting, then locking the machines to keep them from being tampered with before voting begins.
In 2004, Shamos testified on behalf of the state of Maryland in a suit filed by a citizens group asking a court to compel the state to address possible security problems and give voters the option of using paper ballots instead of the new machines. The state won.
If I had known about this problem then, I wouldn't have had good things to say, he said.
The latest security hole was discovered by Finnish computer scientist Harri Hursti, who was doing work in Utah for Black Box Voting Inc., a nonprofit group that has focused on computerized voting.
Most computer scientists don't want to disclose too many details about the problem because they fear that would provide hackers with the tools needed to cause havoc during an election. They waited many weeks before making their findings public.
We were worried the threat was so serious that if the details were to get out, someone could actually do it, Rubin said.
Asked whether former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 52 percent said he was not, but 43 percent said they believe he was. The White House has denied Hussein's 9/11 involvement -- most recently in a news conference August 21, when President Bush said Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks.
There have to be at least 15 things going on in Washington and the world right now that might have merited an intelligent comment. But wait...what am I saying?
What's so boring about it? Because
this woman speaks from the heart? Because she put in writing what a lot of Americans feel right now?
I, too, wrote an open letter to the Congress and Senate, emailed all that I could when this TARP, Stimulus, and the last legislation passed back then. You know what kind of answer I received? Nada. No comment. Nothing. That's how much our government cares for us anymore.
Wake up. A lot of items in that letter hold true for a lot of people. Take extra caffeine and read it. It might do you some good.
I've been at the computer all day. I think I'm working harder now than I did before I retired. Today I've been working on a website for our grist mill restoration project. I guess I'm a professional nonprofit fund raiser now. Maybe that statement fits on the politics board since there's a lot of politicking involved. LOL
In enjoy your posts whether we always agree or not!
Please show me what part of my post reflects bigotry or ignorance? I have made a few statements based on my own life experience, rather than the hook-line-and-sinker method of forming my world view. Then the impotence of your suicide bomber reference was buried under concrete evidence of informed, researched and factual data that would suggest an oppressed, occupied, half-starved population does not have the upper hand when it comes to defending themselves against Israel's US-bankrolled arsenal of pain, misery, death and destruction. They are just a tad out-gunned, wouldn't you say?
I answered your post point-by-point and
all you can come up with is a lame tit-for-tat? Can you provide some sort of substantive response that would argue against the point I am trying to make here? Of course not.
Please show me what part of my post reflects bigotry or ignorance? I have made a few statements based on my own life experience, rather than the hook-line-and-sinker method of forming a world view. Then the impotence of your suicide bomber reference was buried under concrete evidence of informed, researched and factual data that would suggest an oppressed, occupied, half-starved population does not exactly have the upper hand when it comes to defending themselves against Israel's US-bankrolled arsenal of pain, misery, death and destruction they employ in order to "secure" themselves.
The Palestinians are just a tad out-gunned, wouldn't you say? This might just account for the lop-sided fatalities/injuries ratios between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In closing, it is worth noting that even with the advantage of all those terrorist toys and tools our tax dollars have bestowed upon them, security and peace of mind just seem to be further and further beyond their reach. Wonder why that is?
If your point is that it was 7 years ago, that's not much of a point is it? sm
Not long ago at all in the scope of things. The point is that the same thing could and probably would happen here. 9-11 happened 7 years ago too....I guess that couldn't happen again, huh?
I get your point, but my main point is -
why should the government be allowed to tell people what they can and can't eat? Everyone says the government is too involved in our business anyway, so if they should stay out of one part of our lives, they should stay out of all parts of our lives!
Well, I don't know about this article...
I don't really have the time to sit and read it, but I will tell you that the ACLU has its tentacles ALL OVER the Democratic party, and they do some pretty repulsive things. You might want to inform yourself of some of the stuff they defend. Like the NAMBLA website that tells gay pedophiles how to seduce young boys. They defend NAMBLA's right to that website, specifically with the court case filed by the Connecticut 10-year-old who was raped and murdered by some sicko who read that website and carried out his dastardly deed. They've gone around the bend these days. They used to be reasonable years ago, doing some good things. But not anymore.
NYT article
This whole Rove thing is not about outing anyone, it is about the uranium and Wilson finding no evidence that Saddam was trying to buy it. Great article. Link is below.
article Why Bush Can't Answer Cindy By Marjorie Cohn t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 18 August 2005
Cindy Sheehan is still waiting for Bush to answer her question: What noble cause did my son die for? Her protest started as a small gathering 13 days ago. It has mushroomed into a demonstration of hundreds in Crawford and tens of thousands more at 1,627 solidarity vigils throughout the country.
Why didn't Bush simply invite Cindy in for tea when she arrived in Crawford? In a brief, personal meeting with Cindy, Bush could have defused a situation that has become a profound embarrassment for him, and could derail his political agenda.
Bush didn't talk with Cindy because he can't answer her question. There is no answer to Cindy's question. There is no noble cause that Cindy's son died fighting for. And Bush knows it.
The goals of this war are not hard to find. They were laid out in Paul Wolfowitz's draft Pentagon Defense Planning Guidance in 1992, and again in the neoconservative manifesto - The Project for a New American Century's Rebuilding America's Defenses - in September 2000.
Long before 9/11, the neocons proclaimed that the United States should exercise its role as the world's only superpower by ensuring access to the massive Middle East petroleum reserves. To accomplish this goal, the US would need to invade Iraq and establish permanent military bases there.
If Bush were to give an honest answer to Cindy Sheehan's question, it would be that her son died to help his country spread US hegemony throughout the Middle East.
But that answer, while true, does not sound very noble. It would not satisfy Cindy Sheehan, nor would it satisfy the vast majority of the American people. So, for the past several years, Bush and his minions have concocted an ever-changing story line.
First, it was weapons-of-mass-destruction and the mushroom cloud. In spite of the weapons inspectors' admonitions that Iraq had no such weapons, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, and Bolton lied about chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Bush even included the smoking gun claim in his state of the union address: that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from Niger. It was a lie, because people like Ambassador Joe Wilson, who traveled to Niger to investigate the allegation, had reported back to Cheney that it never happened.
The Security Council didn't think Iraq was a threat to international peace and security. In spite of Bush's badgering and threats, the Council held firm and refused to sanction a war on Iraq. The UN weapons inspectors asked for more time to conduct their inspections. But Bush was impatient.
He thumbed his nose at the United Nations and invaded anyway. After the "coalition forces" took over Iraq, they combed the country for the prohibited weapons. But they were nowhere to be found.
Faced with the need to explain to the American people why our sons and daughters were dying in Iraq, Bush changed the subject to saving the Iraqis from Saddam's torture chambers.
Then the grotesque photographs emerged from Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. They contained images of US military personnel torturing Iraqis. Bush stopped talking about Saddam's torture.
Most recently, Bush's excuse has been "bringing democracy to the Iraqi people." On June 28, 2004, he ceremoniously hailed the "transfer of sovereignty" back to the Iraqi people. (See Giving Iraqis What is Rightly Theirs). Yet 138,000 US troops remained in Iraq to protect US "interests."
And Iraq's economy is still controlled by laws put in place before the "transfer of sovereignty." The US maintains a stranglehold on foreign access to Iraqi oil, private ownership of Iraq's resources, and control over the reconstruction of this decimated country.
For months, Bush hyped the August 15, 2005 deadline for Iraqis to agree on a new constitution. But as the deadline came and went, the contradictions between the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds over federalism came into sharp focus. The Bush administration admitted that "we will have some form of Islamic republic," according to Sunday's Washington Post.
So much for Bush's promise of a democratic Iraq.
The constitutional negotiations are far removed from the lives of most Iraqis. When journalist Robert Fisk asked an Iraqi friend about the constitution, he replied, "Sure, it's important. But my family lives in fear of kidnapping, I'm too afraid to tell my father I work for journalists, and we only have one hour in six of electricity and we can't even keep our food from going bad in the fridge. Federalism? You can't eat federalism and you can't use it to fuel your car and it doesn't make my fridge work."
Fisk reports that 1,100 civilian bodies were brought into the Baghdad morgue in July. The medical journal The Lancet concluded in October 2004 that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died in the first 18 months after Bush invaded Iraq.
Unfortunately, the picture in Iraq is not a pretty one.
Bush knows that if he talked to Cindy Sheehan, she would demand that he withdraw from Iraq now.
But Bush has no intention of ever pulling out of Iraq. The US is building the largest CIA station in the world in Baghdad. And Halliburton is busily constructing 14 permanent US military bases in Iraq.
George Bush knows that he cannot answer Cindy Sheehan's question. There is no noble cause for his war on Iraq.
Marjorie Cohn, a contributing editor to t r u t h o u t, is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.article
My mom, not Cindy Sheehan, is Bush’s biggest problem
Thursday, August 25, 2005
By John Yewell/City Editor
With Cindy Sheehan gone home to take care of her stroke-stricken mom, President Bush can enjoy the last week of his Texas vacation free of the distraction of her encampment outside his ranch. But a grieving liberal mom whose son died in Iraq demanding an audience may not be Bush’s biggest problem.
His biggest problem may be my mom.
My mother is a lifelong Republican. She got it from her father, a yellow-dog Republican if ever there was one. As unofficial GOP godfather of Fillmore, Calif., he collected absentee ballots every election for his large family and marked them himself. No sense in taking chances that someone might vote for a Democrat.
So when my mother called me the other day and told me she was considering registering as a Democrat, I was, well, stunned. Somewhere in a cemetery plot near Fillmore a body is spinning.
For the last year or more my mother has been gradually expressing ever greater exasperation with President Bush, the war, and the religious right. “Have you heard about this James Dobson guy?” she asked me on the phone, referring to the head of Focus on the Family. “If they overturn Roe vs. Wade, that’ll be it for me,” she said.
Then she mentioned Cindy Sheehan.
For all the efforts to discredit Ms. Sheehan, what she accomplished in drawing attention to the human cost of the war, if my mother’s opinion is any indication, crossed party lines. There’s a Mom Faction in American politics, and while it isn’t a monolithic Third Rail, it’s at least and second-and-a-half rail. When their children are dying on a battlefield of choice, you touch it at your peril.
My mother has her fingers on the pulse, and scalps, of many such women. She’s a hairdresser with a clientele that has been coming to her regularly for decades. Now grandmothers, these women were moms during Vietnam, in which over 50,000 American sons and daughters died. They worried then about their kids’ safety, now they’re worried about grandkids - theirs or someone else’s. Most are pretty mainstream, most Republican, and most, my mother tells me, pretty much fed up with George Bush.
There is other evidence of trouble on the Republican horizon. According to the latest compilation of state polls produced 10 days ago by surveyusa.com, of the 31 states Bush won in 2004, he now enjoys plurality job approval in only 10. This includes a 60 to 37 percent disapproval rate in the key state of Ohio, and a 53 to 44 disapproval rate in Florida.
A recent assessment from the influential and scrupulously nonpartisan Cook Political Report reads: “Opposition to and skepticism about the war in Iraq has reached its highest level, boosted by increased American casualties, a lack of political progress inside the country and growing signs of an imminent civil war. Given the centrality of the Iraq War to the Bush presidency and re-election, a cave-in of support for the president on the war would be devastating to his second-term credibility and influence.”
If Republicans are wondering where Cook is finding this “cave-in of support,” they could start looking in worse places than my mother’s one-chair salon, where Cindy Sheehan found sympathetic ears.
According to various reports, Bush and his team concluded that granting Sheehan an audience would only have encouraged other malcontents to demand similar attention from the president. Whatever the rationale, the decision alienated the clientele of Natalie’s Beauty Shoppe.
In the end my mother decided against changing her registration. Any criticism she might have of Bush, she decided, would be more credible if she stayed in the party, a sophisticated conclusion I admire and applaud.
Although Democrats can’t count on being the automatic beneficiaries of such dissatisfaction, Bush’s refusal to acknowledge fault, his “because I’m the Daddy and I say so” attitude, doesn’t work for a lot of women anymore. Women resent being patronized, and that’s how many view the president’s treatment of Cindy Sheehan.
The next election may be 14 months away, but when my mom and a lot of others like her walk into their voting booths, they may well be reflecting on their children and their choices, and which party is less likely to put either in harm’s way.
John Yewell is the city editor of the Hollister Free Lance. He can be reached at jyewell@freelancenews.com.
It's the name of an article. Hello??? nm thanks for the article!
Thank you for this article..its not too long for me to read, as others have suggested (the mentality of many in America and our downfall, if you ask me..dont want to spend the time to research, read, decide with their own mind..too much paper work to sift throught, oh please!)..as I care about what is going to happen to America and frankly the world..Bush has opened a Pandoras box and heaven help us all for the future..I dont get scared much about anything in life but what Bush has done sure concerns me to the max..Took an ant hill and created a mountain of monsters..
Here's another article Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches Does anyone remember that?
In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has inherent authority to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress's decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own.
The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General.
It is important to understand, Gorelick continued, that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities.
Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, provides for such warrantless searches directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
Reporting the day after Gorelick's testimony, the Washington Post's headline — on page A-19 — read, Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches. The story began, The Clinton administration, in a little-noticed facet of the debate on intelligence reforms, is seeking congressional authorization for U.S. spies to continue conducting clandestine searches at foreign embassies in Washington and other cities without a federal court order. The administration's quiet lobbying effort is aimed at modifying draft legislation that would require U.S. counterintelligence officials to get a court order before secretly snooping inside the homes or workplaces of suspected foreign agents or foreign powers.
In her testimony, Gorelick made clear that the president believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime. Intelligence is often long range, its exact targets are more difficult to identify, and its focus is less precise, Gorelick said. Information gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus.
The debate over warrantless searches came up after the case of CIA spy Aldrich Ames. Authorities had searched Ames's house without a warrant, and the Justice Department feared that Ames's lawyers would challenge the search in court. Meanwhile, Congress began discussing a measure under which the authorization for break-ins would be handled like the authorization for wiretaps, that is, by the FISA court. In her testimony, Gorelick signaled that the administration would go along a congressional decision to place such searches under the court — if, as she testified, it does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security. In the end, Congress placed the searches under the FISA court, but the Clinton administration did not back down from its contention that the president had the authority to act when necessary.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 — A former deputy director of the White House office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives is charging that many members of the Bush administration privately dismiss its conservative Christian allies as “boorish” and “nuts.”
The former deputy director, David Kuo, an evangelical Christian conservative, makes the accusations in a newly published memoir, “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction” (Free Press), about his frustration with what he described as the meager support and political exploitation of the program.
“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’ ” Mr. Kuo writes.
In an interview, Mr. Kuo’s former boss, James Towey, now president of St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., said he had never encountered such cynicism or condescension in the White House, and he disputed many of the assertions in Mr. Kuo’s account.
Still, Mr. Kuo’s statements, first reported Wednesday evening on the cable channel MSNBC, come at an awkward time for Republicans in the midst of a midterm election campaign in which polls show little enthusiasm among the party’s conservative Christian base.
While many conservative Christians considered President Bush “a brother in Christ,” Mr. Kuo writes, “for most of the rest of the White House staff, evangelical leaders were people to be tolerated, not people who were truly welcomed.”
The political affairs office headed by Karl Rove was especially “eye-rolling,” Mr. Kuo’s book says. It says staff members in that office “knew ‘the nuts’ were politically invaluable, but that was the extent of their usefulness.”
Without naming names, the book says staff members complained that politically involved Christians were “annoying,” “tiresome” or “boorish.”
Eryn Witcher, a spokeswoman for the White House, said that the administration would not comment without reading the book but that the faith-based program was “near and dear to the president’s heart.”
Suevon Lee contributed reporting.
There is an article on
the Common Dreams website that is pretty much a transcript of what was said, on all sides; you can read it and decide for yourself whether or not it was biased. I think it was pretty fair; they included both sides of the argument.
Article. Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press WriterWed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.
Some examples:
PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
FORMER Arkansas GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.
FORMER Massachusetts GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
___
Associated Press Writer Jim Drinkard in Washington
allay any of my doubts about SP. If she were an 18-year-od college student, this would be a flattering piece. As a VP candidate, shallow, uninformed, asking polite questions, flashing some gam. No thanks. If you think she is qualified -- let the press ask her some questions!!! If not, put her in a wet T shirt poster and be done with it.
okay, in going to the site you posted, and going to the subheading of what you'll pay in taxes, with Obama, I will pay $1118 less and with McCain only $325 less -
Now for me, that is a no brainer! Of course if I am worried about the economy in general, and my household in particular, I would have to choose Obama!
In your other post above, you wrote: This country has laws to protect people from being murdered, from having their lives taken from them by another person.
Those "people" are called "citizens" under the Constitution, and the "phrase" you refer to that defines citizens is found under article XIV reads as follows:
Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
As you can see, the words fetus, embryo, or twinkle in my daddy's eye are NOT included in the definition. One must be born first in order to be a citizen and receive protective services.
IMHO, when life begins is mostly a matter of philosophical and/or religious belief and not something to be legislated.
What does this say for our future? If what this writer is saying is true (or evenly remotely a little bit true) looks like a lot of hard times ahead. What I found of particular interest is the paragraph that talks about unemployment (the last 3 lines are in all caps). What would happen to this country if unemployment reaches 30-40 percent? Would we be able to survive? Are there any plans in the future that Obama had promised during his campaign that will turn things around. He had a lot of plans/ideas during his campaign, but now all I hear him keep saying is "it's going to get worse" or "it's really bad", but not hearing of any of those plans.
Also, I didn't realize that there were so many people receiving welfare and food handouts in this country (11 million?). There shouldn't be any reason for this. Not well Wall Street execs, politicians, etc. are still flying on luxury private planes and certain politicians are staying in $9 million dollar ocean front homes.
I'm just wondering if people who read this are following along and believe a lot in this article may come true or could happen what are you doing to prepare?
Here's what really stands out in this article - "Obama, on the other hand, is seeking to duplicate the failures of the president he is replacing, only on a far greater scale."
According to Article 20......... sm
Obama became POTUS at noon, regardless of whether he was sworn in yet or not. I believe this article was enacted to cover situations exactly like this one where the timetable may be a little behind and to prevent confusion over who is POTUS in the event something should happen during the inauguration that would require the POTUS's attention, such as a terrorist attack or acts of war, etc.
Article
Posted below is an article. Please read. No it is not gossip or made up, it is real and it is disgusting. Obama has done nothing about this and will not.
Racism of the Congressional Black Caucus
President's spokesman cites 'membership policies' as explanation
At least three times racism has raised its head in the new administration of President Obama, and now his chief spokesman has cited "membership policies" as an explanation for the all-whites-are-banned practice of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs responded to the question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, following the conclusion of today's press briefing at the White House.
"To your knowledge has the president ever disagreed with the expressed hope that children 'could live in a nation where they would not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character' as made by Dr. King," Kinsolving asked.
"Has he ever … ," Gibbs asked. "Disagreed," Kinsolving finished.
"Not that I know of, no. I think he believes that's the goal of this country," Gibbs said.
Kinsolving continued, "Since the members of Congress who have applied to join the Congressional Black Caucus have been turned down because, as the black caucus' William Lacey Clay put it, 'they are white and the caucus is black,' my question: Does the president hope the caucus will stop this racial discrimination?"
"I will certainly look into. … I don't know what … prompted Mr. Clay," Gibbs said.
"There have been three of them who have applied and they've been turned down because they are not black, and that is the policy of the Congressional Black Caucus, and if you can ask the president, I would be delighted to hear," Kinsolving said.
"I think the first thing to do is ask members of … ," Gibbs aid.
"I have. I have," Kinsolving confirmed.
"… what their membership policies are," Gibbs said.
As WND reported, U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., was refused permission to join the organization because of his race. Kinsolving recently documented in his WND column how Anh ("Joseph") Cao, the Vietnamese-American Republican from Louisiana who defeated the re-election bid of New Orleans Democrat William Jefferson, expressed an interest in joining because the district he represents is predominantly black.
Also, in 2007, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who is white, pledged to apply for membership during his election campaign to represent his constituents, who were 60 percent black. It was reported that although the bylaws of the caucus do not make race a prerequisite for membership, former and current members of the caucus agreed that the group should remain "exclusively black."
Kinsolving reported Clay said, "Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. He's white and the caucus is black. It's time to move on. We have racial policies to pursue and we are pursuing them, as Mr. Cohen has learned. It's an unwritten rule. It's understood."
Kinsolving said Clay later issued an official statement from his office: "Quite simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept – there has been an unofficial congressional white caucus for over 200 years, and now it's our turn to say who can join the 'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives."
Charges of racism arose
after posting of a video showing top Obama economic adviser Robert Reich saying he wanted to make sure economic stimulus money didn't go to just "white male construction workers." Also as WND reported, Democratic Party strategist Donna Brazile admitted she swiped Obama's complimentary blanket from his inauguration ceremony and then joked it was not a criminal offense because, "We have a black president ... this was free."
Also,
outrage erupted over the inauguration benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery, the 87-year-old civil rights pioneer, for asking God to help mankind work for a day when "white would embrace what is right."
Obama, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus while on Capitol Hill, reacted to the benediction with a smile.
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