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Friday, July 25, 2008
Barack's Days As a Community OrganizerAnd what they mean for his potential presidency are covered here: As a young college graduate immersed in the world of tax-bankrolled activism, Obama adopted the big-government ethos that prevailed among neighborhood organizers who viewed attempts to reform poverty programs as attacks on the poor. Speaking to an alternative weekly on the eve of his 1995 run for state senate, Obama said—in language that his wife, Michelle, would echo years later—that “these are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a ‘lock ’em up, take no prisoners’ mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress.” He derided the “old individualistic bootstrap myth” of American achievement that conservatives were touting. Self-help strategies “have become thinly veiled excuses for cutting back on social programs, which are anathema to a conservative agenda,” he wrote in a chapter that he contributed to a 1990 book, After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois. (He also depicted leftist community organizing as a harder task than similar efforts by the Christian Right, telling a reporter in 1995 that “it’s always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness and false nostalgia.”) Labels: Barack Obama, Community Organizing
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Hope Guy Starts Measuring the Oval Office CurtainsChickens yet unhatched. "Barack is well aware of the complexity and the organizational challenge involved in the transition process and he has tasked s small group to begin thinking through the process,” a senior campaign adviser said. “Barack has made his expectations clear about what he wants from such a process, how he wants it to move forward, and the establishment and execution of his timeline is proceeding apace.” Changeover you can believe in.
Obama Loses a SupporterNot because of anything Obama said or did, but because of what the supporter did. Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said. Sounds like a swell fella. Why did they mercilessly execute this excellent Democrat, who was working on founding "Death Row Inmates for Obama"? They try to make a big deal out of the fact that he did not personally kill the person whose death he was executed for. But: Johnson hit Gentry over the head with a hammer, and Bishop grabbed him in a headlock and hit him, according to testimony. When Gentry jumped from the car and fled, Bishop ran after him and took him back to the car, where he was hit and kicked numerous times. Bishop acknowledged holding Gentry while Johnson struck him.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
A Journey from Being a Stupid American....To being a stupid Leftist: I was horribly ignorant. To be fair I, just like many people, had a lot of factors working against the possibility of me finding out the truth. High school history classes omit anything controversial. Texas is the holy grail of contracts for any high school text book publisher, so anything controversial is left out. Texas is not the only culprit, it is just the biggest. Like hospital food, textbooks are kept bland to make sure not to offend anyone who can’t handle spiciness. Also in my defense, I was never a person who could not locate Japan on a globe, or who did not know who the vice president was. I thought was one of the informed people of the US. Ahh, sadly, I was not even remotely informed.
Over the last two years, I have found out that: Well, you can probably guess, it's the usual litany of evil that a kid who's just read Howard Zinn's books can spout. My guess is he's just finished his sophomore year at college. He's a little off here: Another change to the Constitution is that Senators were not originally elected by the people, they were elected by members of the House of Representatives. Not quite; the Senators were elected by the members of the various state legislatures, not the same thing as the House. And he's got a lot of ridiculous nonsense as well: US oil companies are going to make money off of the sale of Iraqi oil. The US has been unable to get the Iraqi Oil Law passed through the Iraqi Parliament, even though I have read that they offered each member $1 Million each to pass it. Recent contracts circumvent the law anyway, our oil companies are going in, and they will make money selling Iraqi Oil. Whether he pulled that one out of his butt or read it on a message forum at Zmag, it's nutty. And don't ever tell me that committed Leftists love America: Are we a good country? The evidence I cited above would indicate that it is probably not what we are doing at all. Yet for almost two years I have tried to tell my friends and family these things, and they resist them. My aunt recently said ‘well maybe the US has done some bad things, but I refuse to believe the US is the worst country in the world’?
This is a common sentiment. Why would anyone though, refuse to believe (accept) anything , if they are given evidence to support what they are being told? The worst country in the world?
Joe Klein's Panties Get TwistedI mean, how much of a sissy can you be? John McCain said this today in Rochester, New Hampshire:
This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.
This is the ninth presidential campaign I've covered. I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad. Oh, grow a pair! Look, Obama made an enormous goof with his "I wouldn't have voted for the surge even if I knew what I knew now," answer. Heck, even Katie Couric, not noted for her sympathy to Republicans, was baffled by Obama's insistence on this point: Couric: But talking microcosmically, did the surge, the addition of 30,000 additional troops ... help the situation in Iraq?
Obama: Katie, as … you've asked me three different times, and I have said repeatedly that there is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence. There's no doubt.
Couric: But yet you're saying … given what you know now, you still wouldn't support it … so I'm just trying to understand this.
Obama: Because … it's pretty straightforward. By us putting $10 billion to $12 billion a month, $200 billion, that's money that could have gone into Afghanistan. Those additional troops could have gone into Afghanistan. That money also could have been used to shore up a declining economic situation in the United States. That money could have been applied to having a serious energy security plan so that we were reducing our demand on oil, which is helping to fund the insurgents in many countries. So those are all factors that would be taken into consideration in my decision-- to deal with a specific tactic or strategy inside of Iraq.
Couric: And I really don't mean to belabor this, Senator, because I'm really, I'm trying … to figure out your position. Do you think the level of security in Iraq … She's digging for the pony rather frantically and Obama's shoveling the manure back onto the pile.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Moron Greg MitchellMy old buddy is at it again. How dare a newspaper cover the netkooks with anything less than reverence? Beach described the gathering in stereotypes that better fit the aging Old Left of years ago than the much younger Netroots of today. I mean, how many of these bloggers have ever read much of Chomsky, as he suggested? Much younger Netroots? I would remind people that although some of the liberal bloggers are youthful, many of them have graying ponytails. As for how many of them have read Chomsky, I'd suspect a fair number. Including Greg. Anyway the purpose of the story seems to be how Greg got the newspaper to spike the article. Anyway, King informed me that the comments from Beach’s article had been wiped and it was impossible to find the article on the paper’s Web site, though it might still be there somewhere. Perhaps, he mused, "some editor finally looked at the piece and yanked it out of simple embarrassment."
Later Monday, I found the link to the original article on Google – and now the story had been removed from the site completely and was "not available." Great job, Greg! Maybe for your next task, you could take on burning some conservative books!
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sanctuary Recipient Slays ThreeI'm not anti-immigrant, but this is lunacy: The man charged with killing a father and two sons on a San Francisco street last month was one of the youths who benefited from the city's long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who committed felonies from possible deportation, The Chronicle has learned. Commit a felony, stick around. What the hell? Ramos, a native of El Salvador whom prosecutors say is a member of a violent street gang, was found guilty of two felonies as a juvenile - a gang-related assault on a Muni passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman - according to authorities familiar with his background.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
You Can Trust Obama Because He's LyingHere's a hilarious and backhanded endorsement: Plus, when it comes to domestic issues, I don't take Obama at his word. That may sound cynical. But the fact that he says just about all the wrong things on domestic issues doesn't bother me as much as it once would have. Change you can believe in. Or not.
Goofus Should Be Treated Like GallantShorter Rick Ellensburg: The worldwide consensus is crystal clear -- citizens want their Governments to be neutral and even-handed in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, not tilted towards either side. And that consensus is shared not just by a majority of American citizens, but by the overwhelming majority. Few political views, particularly on controversial issues, attract more than 70% support among American citizens. But the proposition that the U.S. Government should be even-handed -- rather than tilting towards Israel -- attracts that much support. That's not an "anti-Israeli" view -- to the contrary, it's a position that America can and should resolve that violent, four-decades-long dispute by being even-handed rather than one-sided. The poll result is a semantical issue. Who's going to come out in favor of not being evenhanded when asked? But as a practical matter it's like saying we should treat the British government and the IRA equally.
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