Politics Daily
Inside Politics Daily
Stung by Setback, Abortion Rights Backers Threaten Primary Challenges and 'No' Votes on Health
Hate Group Gets Cold Reception at D.C. Schools
Cao Goes Rogue on Health Care! Will Conservatives Make Him Pay?- Woman UP Video: Surprise, Barack Obama is a Liberal!
Obama and the Media: Is the Critic-in-Chief Too Thin-Skinned?
Zoning the Flock: Are Megachurches the New Walmart? 
House Narrowly Passes Historic Health Care Bill
Obama Mourns Fort Hood Soldiers, Plans Tuesday Trip There For Memorial Service
It's Crunch Time on Jobs, and Time for Obama to Make His Move
Rick Scott: Unsung Conservative Hero of the Health Care Debate
Obama Hails AARP, AMA Support for House Health Bill 2 Days Before Vote
Michele Bachmann's Capitol House Call: 'Get Your Hands Off My Health Care!'
Hillarack Oblinton, Meet Brangelina
The Associated Press is reporting that Barack Obama is related to Brad Pitt, while Hillary Clinton is related to
Angelina Jolie, an interesting bit of symmetry:
John McCain, it turns out, is a sixth cousin of Laura Bush. If you think that makes for an awkward barbecue, check out Barack's family reunion:
Hillary Clinton's family tree includes several popular singers, prompting Clinton adviser Philippe Reines to quip, "You'd think with all that singing talent in the family she'd be able to carry a tune..."
This story shows that, despite all of the political wrangling going on now, we really are all family. Hopefully, come November, we can start acting like it.
Angelina Jolie, an interesting bit of symmetry:BOSTON - This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt's girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.With the Democratic Primary race beginning to resemble an episode of "Tom & Jerry" without the instant healing, a fluffy bit of trivia like this is a welcome relief. The report goes on to highlight several other fascinating links, including one between Obama and George W. Bush:
Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates - Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.
Obama and President Bush are 10th cousins, once removed, linked by Samuel Hinkley of Cape Cod, who died in 1662.The article doesn't say whether Hinkley and John McCain were high school chums.
John McCain, it turns out, is a sixth cousin of Laura Bush. If you think that makes for an awkward barbecue, check out Barack's family reunion:
Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.Now, that's a party I'd go to.
Hillary Clinton's family tree includes several popular singers, prompting Clinton adviser Philippe Reines to quip, "You'd think with all that singing talent in the family she'd be able to carry a tune..."
This story shows that, despite all of the political wrangling going on now, we really are all family. Hopefully, come November, we can start acting like it.
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Tommy Christopher
Tommy Christopher is a freelance writer, blogger, and online journalist based out of New Jersey and Washington, DC...moreRelated Articles
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Comments (19)
shiver james
8:34AM Mar 26th 2008
Who is Obama related to on his Father's side? Noticed you only did his Mother's side!!
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(0) 
Susan Nation
9:08AM Mar 26th 2008
Tommy, the above was posted on AOL and total fluff. Boring...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and patronizing by you to your readers.
I do not see what Governor Bredesen's two day conference of southern democratic leaders would bring. We still have 10 primaries and as long as Senator Obama cannot force David Axelrod to back down from the personal attacks upon President Clinton and Sen. Clinton, the Party will not unite. Senator Obama can not be elected President without the support of the former President. Senator Clinton can not be elected without the support of Senator Obama. I agree with Governor Bredesen that Howard Dean has become an obstacle in this primary season and should be removed more so since there is a move by Axelrod to put Dean on the ticket. The Chairman 's treatment of Michigan and Florida , while pandering to David Axelrod , has been ridiculous. It certainly will be taken advantage of by the Republican Party in the fall. While John McCain seems to enjoy sailing under the radar , he still is not raising much money, however, the Republican National Committee is raising a mountain of cash. The excitement of the primary season rests in the Clinton - Obama campaign. Let us hope the Rules Committee meeting of the DNC bails out Chairman Dean over Michigan and Florida and restores order within the party.
I do not see what Governor Bredesen's two day conference of southern democratic leaders would bring. We still have 10 primaries and as long as Senator Obama cannot force David Axelrod to back down from the personal attacks upon President Clinton and Sen. Clinton, the Party will not unite. Senator Obama can not be elected President without the support of the former President. Senator Clinton can not be elected without the support of Senator Obama. I agree with Governor Bredesen that Howard Dean has become an obstacle in this primary season and should be removed more so since there is a move by Axelrod to put Dean on the ticket. The Chairman 's treatment of Michigan and Florida , while pandering to David Axelrod , has been ridiculous. It certainly will be taken advantage of by the Republican Party in the fall. While John McCain seems to enjoy sailing under the radar , he still is not raising much money, however, the Republican National Committee is raising a mountain of cash. The excitement of the primary season rests in the Clinton - Obama campaign. Let us hope the Rules Committee meeting of the DNC bails out Chairman Dean over Michigan and Florida and restores order within the party.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) Susan Nation
9:13AM Mar 26th 2008
I received this in my email the other day...it looks pretty well traveled. Does anyone know about this?
A Petition and Call To Convention
All Independents, Democrats and Republicans
To Meet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
St. Louis, Missouri
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sacramento, California
Columbus, Ohio
Orlando, Florida
New Orleans, Louisiana
San Antonio, Texas
And other designated cities
2008
Declaration of Independence from the Tyranny of the Leadership
Of the Democratic and Republican Party 2008
A Movement to Form a More Perfect Democratic People’s Party
And to Abandon the Democratic and Republican Party
For the People and of the People
Our nation and our democracy is indeed at risk, and our political parties that once was guided by true statesmen in the manner of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevlet, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman has been torn asunder by fanatical oppression within each party, and, whose repeated attempts and success to secure the White House has turned them against those members who have gained those columned halls in their solid and majority belief of social conscience, human rights, moral and fiscal responsibility. It is unconscienably clear that they have formed a tyranny of the minority within each party, disdainful of public opinion, and manipulative of the process of elections.
The tyranny of the minority is idenitfied by the US Consitution and the Declaration of Independence as those small but powerful groups that seek to control or overthrow the will of the people, be it King George and his government as indicated in the past, or, as indicated today by those who, in this day and age, has seized control of the leadership not to benefit the people, but to benefit themselves over and above the consensus of the people both party members and in the general population. This minority abandons the constitional process of rule by the people in favor of rule by the few.
We oppose those who seek to control and destroy our framework of constitution for the people, and oppose those people with militiant and excessive and destructive liberal ideology, which has revealed their total disdain of the majority’s public opinion in the United State and democrats alike. It is our constitutional right and privilege to overthrow such political aberrations to our Constitutional right of the majority.
This is a movement to put morality and a social contract into the conduct of campaigns, to end the marketing and branding of campaigns that offer no guarantees nor warranty to the people as experienced in the last eight years. They are Howard Deans and the Carl Roves, and their supporters and their nominates, and they are the men and women who live in the past of the 1960s and 1970s – who entrap and try to steer America backward and not forward. They are the George Bushs and the Ted Kennedys who seek to establish an oligarchial government rather than a representative government.
The disenfranchisement of Michigan and Florida only represents and symbolizes the absolute and undeniable desire by those men above to ignore the people of the United States, the public outcry against the DNC leadership, and their determination to outline an agenda that serves only the few and not the many. Uunder the guise of poetic oratory, not statesmenship, the goal of leadership today is to pursue issues not relevant to this time but of the past. Their method and message of fifty years is to leverage fear rather than vision, threats instead of consensus, and to market a candidate in the same venue as Rove, which is intolerable to the people of the United States. Such people will never achieve common goals or common ground, will further incite argument and division, and thus have led and will continue to lead this nation into polarization through distortion, dissonance, and an abhorrence to truths that are self evident.
In this race the issues remain constant and consistent but not heard or heeded.
To end the war in Iraq responsibly, and to recognize that conventional wars are not economically feasible by any nation, but to encourage a strong strategic defense, rather than tactical defense, as the bulwark of our defense policy.
A social agreement between the people of the United States and its respective industries to enact and enforce fair trade.
Educational reform that highlights achievement and productivity, not a dispute over low standards and how to accept inadequacy.
Enforcement of trade agreements not calls for protectionism.
A National Healthcare system to provide affordable healthcare and reduce spiraling costs
Lowering taxes to the Middle Class, seniors, high school students who work, and college students who work to put themselves through college
Confronting the growing problem in the housing markets
Bolstering retirement security by promoting savings and secure investment
Strengthening our markets and our unions and creating a set of of fair labor laws that works for all Americans
Tranperancy, fiduciary responsiblilty and accountability in all branches of our government both at the federal, state, and local level.
A declaration to end the feud between two good parties over Social Security, Medicare, and the future National Health Care system, and to equate the success of these programs, intragovernmental holdings, to the success of Congress and President in developing the strong eocnomic policies need by America that would put these funds first, not last, nor a political football of ideology. As indicated by the Clinton administration who left Social Security in the black, a strong economy means strong intragovernmental funds, and is an excellent barometer of a President’s administration.
Reaffirm America’s opposition to cartels and interlocking directorates
An economic reform plan that stops the bleeding of excess wealth to a few individuals. Reform of higly volatile markets based on unregulated speculation and manipulation.
Reform in earmarks and entitlements, subsidies and grants, in order to equalize all industry and social groups based on an equitable formula of distribution, not the indiscriminate and immoral distribution of taxpayers money.
Campaign reform and governance and oversite of 527s . . ." Etc, etc, etc.
This is a very long document but one worth reading.
A Petition and Call To Convention
All Independents, Democrats and Republicans
To Meet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
St. Louis, Missouri
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sacramento, California
Columbus, Ohio
Orlando, Florida
New Orleans, Louisiana
San Antonio, Texas
And other designated cities
2008
Declaration of Independence from the Tyranny of the Leadership
Of the Democratic and Republican Party 2008
A Movement to Form a More Perfect Democratic People’s Party
And to Abandon the Democratic and Republican Party
For the People and of the People
Our nation and our democracy is indeed at risk, and our political parties that once was guided by true statesmen in the manner of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevlet, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman has been torn asunder by fanatical oppression within each party, and, whose repeated attempts and success to secure the White House has turned them against those members who have gained those columned halls in their solid and majority belief of social conscience, human rights, moral and fiscal responsibility. It is unconscienably clear that they have formed a tyranny of the minority within each party, disdainful of public opinion, and manipulative of the process of elections.
The tyranny of the minority is idenitfied by the US Consitution and the Declaration of Independence as those small but powerful groups that seek to control or overthrow the will of the people, be it King George and his government as indicated in the past, or, as indicated today by those who, in this day and age, has seized control of the leadership not to benefit the people, but to benefit themselves over and above the consensus of the people both party members and in the general population. This minority abandons the constitional process of rule by the people in favor of rule by the few.
We oppose those who seek to control and destroy our framework of constitution for the people, and oppose those people with militiant and excessive and destructive liberal ideology, which has revealed their total disdain of the majority’s public opinion in the United State and democrats alike. It is our constitutional right and privilege to overthrow such political aberrations to our Constitutional right of the majority.
This is a movement to put morality and a social contract into the conduct of campaigns, to end the marketing and branding of campaigns that offer no guarantees nor warranty to the people as experienced in the last eight years. They are Howard Deans and the Carl Roves, and their supporters and their nominates, and they are the men and women who live in the past of the 1960s and 1970s – who entrap and try to steer America backward and not forward. They are the George Bushs and the Ted Kennedys who seek to establish an oligarchial government rather than a representative government.
The disenfranchisement of Michigan and Florida only represents and symbolizes the absolute and undeniable desire by those men above to ignore the people of the United States, the public outcry against the DNC leadership, and their determination to outline an agenda that serves only the few and not the many. Uunder the guise of poetic oratory, not statesmenship, the goal of leadership today is to pursue issues not relevant to this time but of the past. Their method and message of fifty years is to leverage fear rather than vision, threats instead of consensus, and to market a candidate in the same venue as Rove, which is intolerable to the people of the United States. Such people will never achieve common goals or common ground, will further incite argument and division, and thus have led and will continue to lead this nation into polarization through distortion, dissonance, and an abhorrence to truths that are self evident.
In this race the issues remain constant and consistent but not heard or heeded.
To end the war in Iraq responsibly, and to recognize that conventional wars are not economically feasible by any nation, but to encourage a strong strategic defense, rather than tactical defense, as the bulwark of our defense policy.
A social agreement between the people of the United States and its respective industries to enact and enforce fair trade.
Educational reform that highlights achievement and productivity, not a dispute over low standards and how to accept inadequacy.
Enforcement of trade agreements not calls for protectionism.
A National Healthcare system to provide affordable healthcare and reduce spiraling costs
Lowering taxes to the Middle Class, seniors, high school students who work, and college students who work to put themselves through college
Confronting the growing problem in the housing markets
Bolstering retirement security by promoting savings and secure investment
Strengthening our markets and our unions and creating a set of of fair labor laws that works for all Americans
Tranperancy, fiduciary responsiblilty and accountability in all branches of our government both at the federal, state, and local level.
A declaration to end the feud between two good parties over Social Security, Medicare, and the future National Health Care system, and to equate the success of these programs, intragovernmental holdings, to the success of Congress and President in developing the strong eocnomic policies need by America that would put these funds first, not last, nor a political football of ideology. As indicated by the Clinton administration who left Social Security in the black, a strong economy means strong intragovernmental funds, and is an excellent barometer of a President’s administration.
Reaffirm America’s opposition to cartels and interlocking directorates
An economic reform plan that stops the bleeding of excess wealth to a few individuals. Reform of higly volatile markets based on unregulated speculation and manipulation.
Reform in earmarks and entitlements, subsidies and grants, in order to equalize all industry and social groups based on an equitable formula of distribution, not the indiscriminate and immoral distribution of taxpayers money.
Campaign reform and governance and oversite of 527s . . ." Etc, etc, etc.
This is a very long document but one worth reading.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) Katherine
9:18AM Mar 26th 2008
Hopefully, come November we will start acting like family? Why not right now? Obama has been no saint, look at his campaign messages:
http://blog.hillaryclinton.com/blog/main/2008/03/24/152617
http://blog.hillaryclinton.com/blog/main/2008/03/24/152617
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(0) NEW YORK
9:21AM Mar 26th 2008
Wall Street Journal 3/18/08 ..excerpt...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120585801828545495.html
His BLACK JESUS theology refuses to accept a God who is not
identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is
not for us and against white people, . . Black theology will accept
only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the
white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black
Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors
here and now by any means at their disposal. ~~~ etc.~~ etc.
God Damn America http://youtube.com/watch?v=GFz1X1OCw8E&feature=related
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120585801828545495.html
His BLACK JESUS theology refuses to accept a God who is not
identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is
not for us and against white people, . . Black theology will accept
only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the
white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black
Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors
here and now by any means at their disposal. ~~~ etc.~~ etc.
God Damn America http://youtube.com/watch?v=GFz1X1OCw8E&feature=related
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) Katherine
9:25AM Mar 26th 2008
We should act like family in November? It's too late then. I just read a new announcement from Hillary Clinton.com
Three Myths:
MYTH: Barack Obama is running a positive campaign that will unite Americans.
MYTH: The delegate "math" works decisively against Hillary.
MYTH: For Hillary to win, super delegates must "overturn the will of the people."
_______________________
Peter Daou explains the "Facts"
http://blog.hillaryclinton.com/blog/main/2008/03/24/152617
Three Myths:
MYTH: Barack Obama is running a positive campaign that will unite Americans.
MYTH: The delegate "math" works decisively against Hillary.
MYTH: For Hillary to win, super delegates must "overturn the will of the people."
_______________________
Peter Daou explains the "Facts"
http://blog.hillaryclinton.com/blog/main/2008/03/24/152617
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) D. L. GRAHAM
9:52AM Mar 26th 2008
CLINTON “KNEE CAP’S” REID
PARTY FIRST
QUESTION: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention? REID REPLY: Easy! QUESTION: How is that? REID REPLY: It will be done! QUESTION: It just will? REID REPLY: Yep! QUESTION: Magically? REID REPLY: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with (D-VT) Governor Howard Dean, the (DNC) Democratic National Chairman, today. Things are being done. (Source: (D-NV) US/Senator Harry Reid)
TRANSLATION: After May the 6th, the party is working on a plan where Superdelegates, may have an open forum and make a selection based upon the “Will Of The People” as shown by the “Popular Vote”, “Pledged Delegates”, Number of States Won, Number of American Territories Won, and The American Citizen Foreign Vote Won. Based upon these factors, Superdelegates will impress upon the candidates the importance of party unity and stress the importance of Party over personal ego, and request that one candidate withdraw from the campaign placing their support behind the other’s campaign.
CO-CLINTON-PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN FIRST
“I just don’t think this is over yet, and I don’t think that t is smart for us to take position that might disadvantage us in November. And also remember that pledged delegates in most states are not pledged. You know, there is no requirement that anyone vote for anybody. They’re just like superdelegates… There are different ways to become a delegate, there are delegates form caucuses, there are delegates from primaries, and there are the appointed delegates. They’re all equal, they all have an equal vote-Those are the rules of the Democratic Party. (Source: (D-NY) US/Senator Hillary Diane Rodham-Clinton: Philadelphia Daily News).
TRANSLATION: We have no intention of ending the Co-Clinton-Presidential Campaign anytime prior to the convention regardless of the status of running behind in the “Popular Vote”, “Pledged Delegates”, Number of States Won, Number of American Territories Won, and The American Citizen Foreign Vote Won. “Superdelegates” and “Pledged delegates” are designed to protect the party and make sure “dark” horses don't run away with things. All delegates are “Free and Equal” to vote for the Clinton-Presidential Campaign after the first vote an neither candidate is selected, where upon , the Co-Clinton-Presidential Campaign feels its will be selected the nominee on the second vote.
The Co-Clinton Presidential Team plans a tactical gambit to muscle the party stealing the nomination at the convention this is as hard as hardball gets and recognize this potential gambit for what it is: a cynical, selfish hijacking of the democratic process. That will have an unimaginably damaging acrimonious ending wreaking havoc tearing the party apart. Throwing away the party's chances of victory and stigmatizing the Democratic Party among Black-African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas and bloodletting of the (1968) “The Whole World Is Watching” Democratic National Convention, in “The Windy City” of Chicago, Illinois.
PARTY FIRST
QUESTION: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention? REID REPLY: Easy! QUESTION: How is that? REID REPLY: It will be done! QUESTION: It just will? REID REPLY: Yep! QUESTION: Magically? REID REPLY: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with (D-VT) Governor Howard Dean, the (DNC) Democratic National Chairman, today. Things are being done. (Source: (D-NV) US/Senator Harry Reid)
TRANSLATION: After May the 6th, the party is working on a plan where Superdelegates, may have an open forum and make a selection based upon the “Will Of The People” as shown by the “Popular Vote”, “Pledged Delegates”, Number of States Won, Number of American Territories Won, and The American Citizen Foreign Vote Won. Based upon these factors, Superdelegates will impress upon the candidates the importance of party unity and stress the importance of Party over personal ego, and request that one candidate withdraw from the campaign placing their support behind the other’s campaign.
CO-CLINTON-PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN FIRST
“I just don’t think this is over yet, and I don’t think that t is smart for us to take position that might disadvantage us in November. And also remember that pledged delegates in most states are not pledged. You know, there is no requirement that anyone vote for anybody. They’re just like superdelegates… There are different ways to become a delegate, there are delegates form caucuses, there are delegates from primaries, and there are the appointed delegates. They’re all equal, they all have an equal vote-Those are the rules of the Democratic Party. (Source: (D-NY) US/Senator Hillary Diane Rodham-Clinton: Philadelphia Daily News).
TRANSLATION: We have no intention of ending the Co-Clinton-Presidential Campaign anytime prior to the convention regardless of the status of running behind in the “Popular Vote”, “Pledged Delegates”, Number of States Won, Number of American Territories Won, and The American Citizen Foreign Vote Won. “Superdelegates” and “Pledged delegates” are designed to protect the party and make sure “dark” horses don't run away with things. All delegates are “Free and Equal” to vote for the Clinton-Presidential Campaign after the first vote an neither candidate is selected, where upon , the Co-Clinton-Presidential Campaign feels its will be selected the nominee on the second vote.
The Co-Clinton Presidential Team plans a tactical gambit to muscle the party stealing the nomination at the convention this is as hard as hardball gets and recognize this potential gambit for what it is: a cynical, selfish hijacking of the democratic process. That will have an unimaginably damaging acrimonious ending wreaking havoc tearing the party apart. Throwing away the party's chances of victory and stigmatizing the Democratic Party among Black-African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas and bloodletting of the (1968) “The Whole World Is Watching” Democratic National Convention, in “The Windy City” of Chicago, Illinois.
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(0) Diana
10:04AM Mar 26th 2008
Tommy.....thanks for the much-needed, albeit brief respite from all of the headaches of the day. Nice to see your humorous light side reemerge once again! Wish we really could have some of that T&J 'instant healing' around here...Jeesh. Hey, where did you get that article from, anyway? LOL.
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(0) Sandra
10:25AM Mar 26th 2008
Susan, if you think even one person will read that long post you haven't been blogging very long.
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(0) Tommy Christopher
10:44AM Mar 26th 2008
Diana,
yes, credit where credit is due. Everyone, I found the Brangelina article in my email this morning, with a pretty bow on it, from Diana, and I must say, it was a sweet treat after all of this campaign combat. Thank you, Di.
Susan, lighten up, will ya?
Question for my readers: I wanted to fit in a "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" joke, but I couldn't make it flow. any suggestions?
yes, credit where credit is due. Everyone, I found the Brangelina article in my email this morning, with a pretty bow on it, from Diana, and I must say, it was a sweet treat after all of this campaign combat. Thank you, Di.
Susan, lighten up, will ya?
Question for my readers: I wanted to fit in a "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" joke, but I couldn't make it flow. any suggestions?
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) tzada
11:19AM Mar 26th 2008
From NEW YORK9:21AMMar 26th 2008
Wall Street Journal 3/18/08 ..excerpt...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120585801828545495.html
His BLACK JESUS theology refuses to accept a God who is not
identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is
not for us and against white people, . . Black theology will accept
only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the
white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black
Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors
here and now by any means at their disposal. ~~~ etc.~~ etc.
God Damn America http://youtube.com/watch?v=GFz1X1OCw8E&feature=related
_____________________________________________________
From me: Kinda hard to spin that one by the Obamanites
Wall Street Journal 3/18/08 ..excerpt...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120585801828545495.html
His BLACK JESUS theology refuses to accept a God who is not
identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is
not for us and against white people, . . Black theology will accept
only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the
white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black
Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors
here and now by any means at their disposal. ~~~ etc.~~ etc.
God Damn America http://youtube.com/watch?v=GFz1X1OCw8E&feature=related
_____________________________________________________
From me: Kinda hard to spin that one by the Obamanites
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) tzada
11:38AM Mar 26th 2008
If the family is gonna all get together, then Florida and Michigan need to have a seat at the table.
Do I think Brangelina will divorce one day? Yes I do. Will the Democratic party split one day? Yes it will. Maybe sooner than later.
Now to speculate.
First scenario Obama will get the nomination and Hillary will run as an independent. He may bend to Super Delegates and ask her to be VP. She will either not lower herself to run as his VP or say yes and plot ..... her course.
Second scenario Hillary will get the nomination and some Obama supporters riot. Hillary will offer the VP spot to him, needing his followers. He will accept and plot...... his course from there.
Some marriages just are not meant to last.
Do I think Brangelina will divorce one day? Yes I do. Will the Democratic party split one day? Yes it will. Maybe sooner than later.
Now to speculate.
First scenario Obama will get the nomination and Hillary will run as an independent. He may bend to Super Delegates and ask her to be VP. She will either not lower herself to run as his VP or say yes and plot ..... her course.
Second scenario Hillary will get the nomination and some Obama supporters riot. Hillary will offer the VP spot to him, needing his followers. He will accept and plot...... his course from there.
Some marriages just are not meant to last.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) mary
11:52AM Mar 26th 2008
SUSAN NATION, the article you posted would have who sent it. Post that. There is nothing outside groups can do, this is election 2008. Pandering has no weight. The beat will go on as scheduled for by both party systems. I for one, could care less about adhoc-conventions that are self-serving but if you are creating interest, the point of interest besides posting a plea would be who are the pleaders?
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(0) patty
12:06PM Mar 26th 2008
Katherine;;;;;; Hillary is a LYING SACK OF SHIT. Clinton's are the suptrafuge that feeds and fuels the shit. Their ass is about to wiped for their campaign sludge. Dragnet is out! Investigation on!
OBAMA LEADS inspite of the LYING SACKS OF SHIT!
OBAMA LEADS inspite of the LYING SACKS OF SHIT!
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(0) RON WALKER
12:16PM Mar 26th 2008
Barack Obama has not intention of adding Hillary to his resume, that would be a death sentance. The WHOLE DEMO PARTY know Clintons for who they are. Right now, a plan is being executed, hidden as yet, an up front they are acting as if all is well with Clinton. Read the NEWS and why they are doing what they are doing at this point in the game and believe they have the game plan sewed up tight. What looks like it is isn't! Good poker players never wince till they have the cards needed and then straight face spread them out. Take it to the bank, Clinton is not in their cards.
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(0) TED HARVILL
1:14PM Mar 26th 2008
BREAKING NEWS:
Hillary has asked McCain to be her Vice President and awaiting his acceptance speech. Bill Clinton's Library needed another write-off so the money helped buy the State Of Florida and Michigan for Hillary to get her out of her pity cups. The intention is to break those two states out of the Union and establish them as exclusively Hillary Country. There is a contest afoot to see what the country will be named. Many suggestions have came in. Hietal Hernia did not set well will Hillary nor did any submitted thus far. Hillary came up with Hill Village.
Plans have been drawn up to house three-somes and four-somes with a continental breakfast served at bedside by Bill.
The Guest Quarters will offer Obama Beef,..oh I miss-spoke, I mean Omaha Beef.
It idea has been toyed with moving the Gay Pride Parade to Hill Village cause it takes a village to raise children.
Further plans in the works include a fountain with a statue of Bill. Water will trickle from his cigar. Bill rejected the idea that it go through his manly part.
More information is available on www.HillWaterGate.
Hillary has asked McCain to be her Vice President and awaiting his acceptance speech. Bill Clinton's Library needed another write-off so the money helped buy the State Of Florida and Michigan for Hillary to get her out of her pity cups. The intention is to break those two states out of the Union and establish them as exclusively Hillary Country. There is a contest afoot to see what the country will be named. Many suggestions have came in. Hietal Hernia did not set well will Hillary nor did any submitted thus far. Hillary came up with Hill Village.
Plans have been drawn up to house three-somes and four-somes with a continental breakfast served at bedside by Bill.
The Guest Quarters will offer Obama Beef,..oh I miss-spoke, I mean Omaha Beef.
It idea has been toyed with moving the Gay Pride Parade to Hill Village cause it takes a village to raise children.
Further plans in the works include a fountain with a statue of Bill. Water will trickle from his cigar. Bill rejected the idea that it go through his manly part.
More information is available on www.HillWaterGate.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) Jenny
3:03PM Mar 26th 2008
I have never seen a more gullible poster than KATHERINE. Despite the Math, she takes her info off Hillary blog. For Petes Sake KATHERINE do you think Hillary fans are going to post that she is losing. Or Hillary admit to it. Not the way poliics work, they put up a united front as if all is rosie as long as they can. The Experts know differant. They are looking at the figures nor the person. When Hillary is waxed wonder what KATHERINE will do with her time. Maybe join the Peace Corp in Kenya. Would help her get over her deep terror of people of other colors and faiths that she thinks are planning to take over and turn America into something horrid. DILLUSIONS ARE SAFE!
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) Tommy Christopher
9:23PM Mar 26th 2008
Kat, c'mon. lighten up a little! It's a fluff story! Actually, everybody, lighten up!
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) MOJOJOJO
2:12AM Mar 27th 2008
Hillary Clinton’s Spiritual Adivsor Doug Coe And His Curious Admiration For Nazis And Communist Killings
VIDEO INCLUDED IN LINK
http://www.oliverwillis.com/index.php/2008/03/25/hillary-clintons-spiritual-adivsor-doug-coe-and-his-curious-admiration-for-nazis-and-communist-killings
WONDER HOW WELL IT WILL GO OVER WITH CATHOLIC PENNSYLVANIANS ON HILLARY'S PRO-CHOICE! DEPENDING WHO HILLARY IS TALKING TO SHE WILL EITHER BE PRO-ABORTION OR ANTI-ABORTION! FLIP FLOP FLIP FLOP! POWER OF THE INDIVIDUAL IS DECIDED BY THE MAJORITY!
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-4.html
Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics
News: For 15 years, Hillary Clinton has been part of a secretive
religious group that seeks to bring Jesus back to Capitol Hill. Is
she triangulating—or living her faith?
By Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet
Illustration by: Andy Friedman
September 1, 2007
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Astroturf Axelrod?
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Stuff Some Money In Your Mattress, Just In Case
One Superdelegate Who Gets It
It was an elegant example of the Clinton style, a rhetorical maneuver
subtle, bold, and banal all at once. During a Democratic candidate
forum in June, hosted by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners,
Hillary Clinton fielded a softball query about Bill's infidelity: How
had her faith gotten her through the Lewinsky scandal?
After a glancing shot at Republican "pharisees," Clinton explained
that, of course, her "very serious" grounding in faith had helped her
weather the affair. But she had also relied on the "extended faith
family" that came to her aid, "people whom I knew who were literally
praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me."
Such references to spiritual warfare—prayer as battle against
Satan, evil, and sin—might seem like heavy evangelical rhetoric for
the senator from New York, but they went over well with the Sojourners
audience, as did her call to "inject faith into policy." It was
language that recalled Clinton's Jesus moment a year earlier, when
she'd summoned the Bible to decry a Republican anti-immigrant
initiative that she said would "criminalize the good Samaritan...and
even Jesus himself." Liberal Christians crowed ("Hillary Clinton
Shows the Way Democrats Can Use the Bible," declared a blogger at
TPMCafe) while conservative pundits cried foul, accusing Clinton of
scoring points with a faith not really her own.
In fact, Clinton's God talk is more complicated—and more deeply
rooted—than either fans or foes would have it, a revelation not
just of her determination to out-Jesus the gop, but of the powerful
religious strand in her own politics. Over the past year, we've
interviewed dozens of Clinton's friends, mentors, and pastors about
her faith, her politics, and how each shapes the other. And while
media reports tend to characterize Clinton's subtle recalibration of
tone and style as part of the Democrats' broader move to recapture
the terrain of "moral values," those who know her say there's far
more to it than that.
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active
participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are
part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her
collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback
(R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from
that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just
cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader
of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers
to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good
that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open
Bibles, and prayer."
Clinton's faith is grounded in the Methodist beliefs she grew up with
in Park Ridge, Illinois, a conservative Chicago suburb where she was
active in her church's altar guild, Sunday school, and youth group.
It was there, in 1961, that she met the Reverend Don Jones, a
30-year-old youth pastor; Jones, a friend of Clinton's to this day,
told us he knows "more about Hillary Clinton's faith than anybody
outside her family."
Because Jones introduced Clinton and her teenage peers to the civil
rights movement and modern poetry and art, Clinton biographers often
cast him as a proto-'60s liberal who sowed seeds of radicalism
throughout Park Ridge. Jones, though, describes his theology as
neoorthodox, guided by the belief that social change should come
about slowly and without radical action. It emerged, he says, as a
third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the
New Deal's labor-based liberalism.
Under Jones' mentorship, Clinton learned about Reinhold Niebuhr and
Paul Tillich—thinkers whom liberals consider their own, but whom
young Hillary Rodham encountered as theological conservatives. The
Niebuhr she studied was a cold warrior, dismissive of the progressive
politics of his earlier writing. "He'd thought that once we were
unionized, the kingdom of God would be ushered in," Jones explains.
"But the effect of those two world wars and the violence that they
produced shook his faith in liberal theology. He came to believe that
the achievement of justice meant a clear understanding of the
limitations of the human condition." Tillich, whose sermon on grace
Clinton turned to during the Lewinsky scandal, today enjoys a
following among conservatives for revising the social gospel—the
notion that Christians are to improve humanity's lot here on earth by
fighting poverty, inequality, and exploitation—to emphasize
individual redemption instead of activism.
Niebuhr and Tillich's combination of aggressiveness in foreign
affairs and limited domestic ambition naturally led Clinton toward
the gop. She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high
school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as "to the
right of the John Birchers"), attended biweekly anticommunist
meetings and later served as president of Wellesley's Young
Republicans chapter. Out of step with the era's radicalism, Clinton
wrote Jones from college, lamenting that her fellow students didn't
believe that one could be "a mind conservative and a heart liberal."
To Jones, this question indicated that Clinton shared Niebuhr's
notion of Christians needing to have "a dark enough view of life that
they can be realistic about what's possible."
Two decades later, while Bill was campaigning for president, Clinton
picked up that theme once more, displaying a theological depth that
conservative believers could appreciate. In an interview with the
United Methodist Reporter, she expressed regret that her church had
focused too much on social gospel concerns in the '60s, '70s, and
'80s, "to the exclusion of personal faith and growth." The spirit,
believe theological conservatives, matters more than the flesh.
Clinton added that she was happy to see her liberal denomination
becoming more salvation centered in the '90s.
When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps
was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she
regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan
Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of
conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a
leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace
Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida
Democrat.
Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"),
a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and
military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ,
many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the
annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the
group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican
Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the
elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes.
Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's
plan.
Clinton declined our requests for an interview about her faith, but
in Living History, she describes her first encounter with Fellowship
leader Doug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars,
the Fellowship's majestic estate on the Potomac. Coe, she writes, "is
a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor
and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to
deepen his or her relationship with God."
The Fellowship's ideas are essentially a blend of Calvinism and
Norman Vincent Peale, the 1960s preacher of positive thinking. It's a
cheery faith in the "elect" chosen by a single voter—God—and a
devotion to Romans 13:1: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher
powers....The powers that be are ordained of God." Or, as Coe has put
it, "we work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."
When Time put together a list of the nation's 25 most powerful
evangelicals in 2005, the heading for Coe's entry was "The Stealth
Persuader." "You know what I think of when I think of Doug Coe?" the
Reverend Schenck (a Coe admirer) asked us. "I think literally of the
guy in the smoky back room that you can't even see his face. He sits
in the corner, and you see the cigar, and you see the flame, and you
hear his voice—but you never see his face. He's that shadowy
figure."
Coe has been an intimate of every president since Ford, but he rarely
imposes on chief executives, who see him as a slightly mystical but
apolitical figure. Rather, Coe uses his access to the Oval Office as
currency with lesser leaders. "If Doug Coe can get you some face time
with the President of the United States," one official told the author
of a Princeton study of the National Prayer Breakfast last year, "then
you will take his call and seek his friendship. That's power."
"If you're going to do religion in public life," concurs Schenck, a
Jewish convert to fundamentalist Christianity who's retained his
sense of irony, Coe's friendship is a kind of "kosher...seal of
approval."
Coe's friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft,
Reaganite Edwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts
(R-Pa.). Under Coe's guidance, Meese has hosted weekly prayer
breakfasts for politicians, businesspeople, and diplomats, and Pitts
rose from obscurity to head the House Values Action Team, an
off-the-record network of religious right groups and members of
Congress created by Tom DeLay. The corresponding Senate Values Action
Team is guided by another Coe protégé, Brownback, who also claims to
have recruited King Abdullah of Jordan into a regular study of Jesus'
teachings.
The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders
of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the
spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in
the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the
Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The
Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of
Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez
Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to
Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other
generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular
visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent
where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing
and spiritual guidance.
We contacted all of Clinton's Fellowship cell mates, but only one
agreed to speak—though she stressed that there's much she's not "at
liberty" to reveal. Grace Nelson used to be the organizer of the
Florida Governor's Prayer Breakfast, which makes her a piety broker
in Florida politics—she would decide who could share the head table
with Jeb Bush. Clinton's prayer cell was tight-knit, according to
Nelson, who recalled that one of her conservative prayer partners was
at first loath to pray for the first lady, but learned to "love
Hillary as much as any of us love Hillary." Cells like these, Nelson
added, exist in "parliaments all over the world," with all welcome so
long as they submit to "the person of Jesus" as the source of their
power.
Throughout her time at the White House, Clinton writes in Living
History, she took solace from "daily scriptures" sent to her by her
Fellowship prayer cell, along with Coe's assurances that she was
right where God wanted her. (Clinton's sense of divine guidance has
been noted by others: Bishop Richard Wilke, who presided over the
United Methodist Church of Arkansas during her years in Little Rock,
told us, "If I asked Hillary, 'What does the Lord want you to do?'
she would say, 'I think I'm called by the Lord to be in public
service at whatever level he wants me.'")
Coe counsels that Fellowship cells shouldn't engage in direct
evangelical activism, but rather allow Christian causes to benefit
from the bonds that develop within the cells. Former Nixon counsel
Chuck Colson provides a rare illustration of the process in his 1976
Watergate memoir, Born Again. Facing prosecution in 1973, Colson
allowed Coe to ensconce him in a Fellowship cell with a Nixon foe,
Senator Harold Hughes. Hughes became the Nixon hatchet man's
staunchest defender, voting in favor of a possible pardon for Colson
and later supporting Colson as he built Prison Fellowship, now one of
the most powerful organizations of the Christian right.
That's how it works: The Fellowship isn't out to turn liberals into
conservatives; rather, it convinces politicians they can transcend
left and right with an ecumenical faith that rises above politics.
Only the faith is always evangelical, and the politics always move
rightward.
This is in line with the Christian right's long-term strategy.
Francis Schaeffer, late guru of the movement, coined the term
"cobelligerency" to describe the alliances evangelicals must forge
with conservative Catholics. Colson, his most influential disciple,
has refined the concept of cobelligerency to deal with less-than-pure
politicians. In this application, conservatives sit pretty and wait
for liberals looking for common ground to come to them. Clinton,
Colson told us, "has a lot of history" to overcome, but he sees her
making the right moves.
These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives' group
into what may be Coe's most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer
Breakfast. Though weighted Republican, the breakfast—regularly
attended by about 40 members—is a bipartisan opportunity for
politicians to burnish their reputations, giving Clinton the chance
to profess her faith with men such as Brownback as well as the twin
terrors of Oklahoma, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and, until
recently, former Senator George Allen (R-Va.). Democrats in the group
include Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who told us that the separation
of church and state has gone too far; Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is also
a regular.
Unlikely partnerships have become a Clinton trademark. Some are
symbolic, such as her support for a ban on flag burning with Senator
Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and funding for research on the dangers of video
games with Brownback and Santorum. But Clinton has also joined the gop
on legislation that redefines social justice issues in terms of
conservative morality, such as an anti-human-trafficking law that
withheld funding from groups working on the sex trade if they didn't
condemn prostitution in the proper terms. With Santorum, Clinton
co-sponsored the Workplace Religious Freedom Act; she didn't back off
even after Republican senators such as Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter
pulled their names from the bill citing concerns that the measure
would protect those refusing to perform key aspects of their
jobs—say, pharmacists who won't fill birth control prescriptions,
or police officers who won't guard abortion clinics.
Clinton has championed federal funding of faith-based social
services, which she embraced years before George W. Bush did; Marci
Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel, says that the Clintons'
approach to faith-based initiatives "set the stage for Bush." Clinton
has also long supported the Defense of Marriage Act, a measure that
has become a purity test for any candidate wishing to avoid war with
the Christian right.
Liberal rabbi Michael Lerner, whose "politics of meaning" Clinton
made famous in a speech early in her White House tenure, sees the
senator's ambivalence as both more and less than calculated
opportunism. He believes she has genuine sympathy for liberal
causes—rights for women, gays, immigrants—but often will not
follow through. "There is something in her that pushes her toward
caring about others, as long as there's no price to pay. But in
politics, there is a price to pay."
In politics, those who pay tribute to the powerful also reap rewards.
When Ed Klein's attack bio, The Truth About Hillary, came out in 2005,
some of her most prominent defenders were Christian conservatives,
among them Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert
Mohler. "Christians," he declared, "should repudiate this book and
determine to take no pleasure in it."
Senator Brownback understood the temptation. He used to hate Clinton
so much, he told us, that the hate hurt. Then came the Clintons' 1994
National Prayer Breakfast appearance with Mother Teresa, who upbraided
the couple for their pro-choice views. Bill made no attempt to conceal
his anger, but Hillary took it and smiled. Brownback remembers
thinking, "Now, there's gotta be a great lesson here." He didn't know
what it was until Clinton got to the Senate and joined him in
supporting DeLay's Day of Reconciliation resolution following the
2000 election, a proposal described by its backers as a call to "pray
for our leaders." Now, Brownback considers Clinton "a beautiful child
of the living God."
Clinton, for her part, turned Mother Teresa's sucker punch into
political opportunity. She met with the nun after the prayer
breakfast, visited her orphanage in India, helped her set up another
one in Washington (which has since become an apparently inoperative
branch of Mother Teresa's conservative Vatican order, the
Missionaries of Charity), and generally built a highly visible
friendship with a figure whose moral bona fides also came with an
anti-abortion imprimatur that couldn't but help Clinton on the right.
Of course, no matter how much Clinton speaks of common ground, she
doesn't stand a chance of winning votes among pro-lifers. As Tom
McClusky of the Family Research Council, command central for
Washington's Christian right, told us, movement conservatives
consider legislation like Clinton's Putting Prevention First Act,
which supports greater access to birth control and sex ed, "just
another condom giveaway."
But the senator's project isn't the conversion of her adversaries;
it's tempering their opposition so she can court a new generation of
Clinton Republicans, values voters who have grown estranged from the
Christian right. And while such crossover conservatives may never
agree with her on the old litmus-test issues, there is an important,
and broader, common ground—the kind of faith-based politics that,
under the right circumstances, will permit majority morality to trump
individual rights. The libertarian Cato Institute recently observed
that Clinton is "adding the paternalistic agenda of the religious
right to her old-fashioned liberal paternalism." Clinton suggests as
much herself in her 1996 book, It Takes a Village, where she writes
approvingly of religious groups' access to schools, lessons in
Scripture, and "virtue" making a return to the classroom.
Then, as now, Clinton confounded secularists who recognize public
faith only when it comes wrapped in a cornpone accent. Clinton speaks
instead the language of nondenominationalism—a sober, eloquent
appreciation of "values," the importance of prayer, and "heart"
convictions—which liberals, unfamiliar with the history of
evangelical coalition building, mistake for a tidy, apolitical
accommodation, a personal separation of church and state. Nor do
skeptical voters looking for political opportunism recognize that,
when Clinton seeks guidance among prayer partners such as Coe and
Brownback, she is not so much triangulating—much as that may have
become second nature—as honoring her convictions. In her own way,
she is a true believer.
WHITE MAN'S BURDEN = ALL AMERICAN'S BURDEN = JUSTIFICATION FOR
IMPERIALISM
FEAR IS A GHOST OF THE IMAGE FROM OUR OWN HEARTS AND ONLY LIVES ONCE!
IT CONTROLS THE SOUL IF THE SOUL ALLOWS!
LET THE TRUTH BE KNOWN AND THE TRUTH SHALL BE SAID AND WE SHALL BE
LAIN SAFE IN OUR BEDS
VOTE FOR NO PRESIDENT
(REJECT AND DENOUNCE) HILLARY GOLDEN COW CLINTON! A STORY
THAT WILL BE ONCE TOLD AND THAN FORGOTTEN! STRICKEN FROM THE HISTORY
BOOKS!!
VIDEO INCLUDED IN LINK
http://www.oliverwillis.com/index.php/2008/03/25/hillary-clintons-spiritual-adivsor-doug-coe-and-his-curious-admiration-for-nazis-and-communist-killings
WONDER HOW WELL IT WILL GO OVER WITH CATHOLIC PENNSYLVANIANS ON HILLARY'S PRO-CHOICE! DEPENDING WHO HILLARY IS TALKING TO SHE WILL EITHER BE PRO-ABORTION OR ANTI-ABORTION! FLIP FLOP FLIP FLOP! POWER OF THE INDIVIDUAL IS DECIDED BY THE MAJORITY!
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-4.html
Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics
News: For 15 years, Hillary Clinton has been part of a secretive
religious group that seeks to bring Jesus back to Capitol Hill. Is
she triangulating—or living her faith?
By Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet
Illustration by: Andy Friedman
September 1, 2007
TOOLS
EmailE-mail article
PrintPrint article
Digg
del.icio.us
Yahoo MyWeb
BACKTALK
E-mail the editor
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Netscape
Google Google
RELATED ARTICLES
* Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Why Hillary Clinton Stokes Our Deepest
Fears and Darkest Hatreds
* The Men Who Would Beat Hillary
MoJo Blog
U.S. Spies Have Serious Job Gripes, Survey Finds
"John McCain's Slacks Don't Reach His Ankles"
McCain's Free Ride (in the MSM) on Rod Parsley
HRC Says Wright Would Not Be Her Pastor; So Who Would Be?
Astroturf Axelrod?
Wall Street Welfare
John McCain Plagiarizes Himself
Clinton: Sleeping with the Enemy To Mess Up Obama's Bed?
Stuff Some Money In Your Mattress, Just In Case
One Superdelegate Who Gets It
It was an elegant example of the Clinton style, a rhetorical maneuver
subtle, bold, and banal all at once. During a Democratic candidate
forum in June, hosted by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners,
Hillary Clinton fielded a softball query about Bill's infidelity: How
had her faith gotten her through the Lewinsky scandal?
After a glancing shot at Republican "pharisees," Clinton explained
that, of course, her "very serious" grounding in faith had helped her
weather the affair. But she had also relied on the "extended faith
family" that came to her aid, "people whom I knew who were literally
praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me."
Such references to spiritual warfare—prayer as battle against
Satan, evil, and sin—might seem like heavy evangelical rhetoric for
the senator from New York, but they went over well with the Sojourners
audience, as did her call to "inject faith into policy." It was
language that recalled Clinton's Jesus moment a year earlier, when
she'd summoned the Bible to decry a Republican anti-immigrant
initiative that she said would "criminalize the good Samaritan...and
even Jesus himself." Liberal Christians crowed ("Hillary Clinton
Shows the Way Democrats Can Use the Bible," declared a blogger at
TPMCafe) while conservative pundits cried foul, accusing Clinton of
scoring points with a faith not really her own.
In fact, Clinton's God talk is more complicated—and more deeply
rooted—than either fans or foes would have it, a revelation not
just of her determination to out-Jesus the gop, but of the powerful
religious strand in her own politics. Over the past year, we've
interviewed dozens of Clinton's friends, mentors, and pastors about
her faith, her politics, and how each shapes the other. And while
media reports tend to characterize Clinton's subtle recalibration of
tone and style as part of the Democrats' broader move to recapture
the terrain of "moral values," those who know her say there's far
more to it than that.
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active
participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are
part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her
collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback
(R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from
that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just
cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader
of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers
to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good
that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open
Bibles, and prayer."
Clinton's faith is grounded in the Methodist beliefs she grew up with
in Park Ridge, Illinois, a conservative Chicago suburb where she was
active in her church's altar guild, Sunday school, and youth group.
It was there, in 1961, that she met the Reverend Don Jones, a
30-year-old youth pastor; Jones, a friend of Clinton's to this day,
told us he knows "more about Hillary Clinton's faith than anybody
outside her family."
Because Jones introduced Clinton and her teenage peers to the civil
rights movement and modern poetry and art, Clinton biographers often
cast him as a proto-'60s liberal who sowed seeds of radicalism
throughout Park Ridge. Jones, though, describes his theology as
neoorthodox, guided by the belief that social change should come
about slowly and without radical action. It emerged, he says, as a
third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the
New Deal's labor-based liberalism.
Under Jones' mentorship, Clinton learned about Reinhold Niebuhr and
Paul Tillich—thinkers whom liberals consider their own, but whom
young Hillary Rodham encountered as theological conservatives. The
Niebuhr she studied was a cold warrior, dismissive of the progressive
politics of his earlier writing. "He'd thought that once we were
unionized, the kingdom of God would be ushered in," Jones explains.
"But the effect of those two world wars and the violence that they
produced shook his faith in liberal theology. He came to believe that
the achievement of justice meant a clear understanding of the
limitations of the human condition." Tillich, whose sermon on grace
Clinton turned to during the Lewinsky scandal, today enjoys a
following among conservatives for revising the social gospel—the
notion that Christians are to improve humanity's lot here on earth by
fighting poverty, inequality, and exploitation—to emphasize
individual redemption instead of activism.
Niebuhr and Tillich's combination of aggressiveness in foreign
affairs and limited domestic ambition naturally led Clinton toward
the gop. She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high
school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as "to the
right of the John Birchers"), attended biweekly anticommunist
meetings and later served as president of Wellesley's Young
Republicans chapter. Out of step with the era's radicalism, Clinton
wrote Jones from college, lamenting that her fellow students didn't
believe that one could be "a mind conservative and a heart liberal."
To Jones, this question indicated that Clinton shared Niebuhr's
notion of Christians needing to have "a dark enough view of life that
they can be realistic about what's possible."
Two decades later, while Bill was campaigning for president, Clinton
picked up that theme once more, displaying a theological depth that
conservative believers could appreciate. In an interview with the
United Methodist Reporter, she expressed regret that her church had
focused too much on social gospel concerns in the '60s, '70s, and
'80s, "to the exclusion of personal faith and growth." The spirit,
believe theological conservatives, matters more than the flesh.
Clinton added that she was happy to see her liberal denomination
becoming more salvation centered in the '90s.
When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps
was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she
regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan
Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of
conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a
leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace
Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida
Democrat.
Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"),
a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and
military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ,
many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the
annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the
group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican
Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the
elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes.
Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's
plan.
Clinton declined our requests for an interview about her faith, but
in Living History, she describes her first encounter with Fellowship
leader Doug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars,
the Fellowship's majestic estate on the Potomac. Coe, she writes, "is
a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor
and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to
deepen his or her relationship with God."
The Fellowship's ideas are essentially a blend of Calvinism and
Norman Vincent Peale, the 1960s preacher of positive thinking. It's a
cheery faith in the "elect" chosen by a single voter—God—and a
devotion to Romans 13:1: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher
powers....The powers that be are ordained of God." Or, as Coe has put
it, "we work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."
When Time put together a list of the nation's 25 most powerful
evangelicals in 2005, the heading for Coe's entry was "The Stealth
Persuader." "You know what I think of when I think of Doug Coe?" the
Reverend Schenck (a Coe admirer) asked us. "I think literally of the
guy in the smoky back room that you can't even see his face. He sits
in the corner, and you see the cigar, and you see the flame, and you
hear his voice—but you never see his face. He's that shadowy
figure."
Coe has been an intimate of every president since Ford, but he rarely
imposes on chief executives, who see him as a slightly mystical but
apolitical figure. Rather, Coe uses his access to the Oval Office as
currency with lesser leaders. "If Doug Coe can get you some face time
with the President of the United States," one official told the author
of a Princeton study of the National Prayer Breakfast last year, "then
you will take his call and seek his friendship. That's power."
"If you're going to do religion in public life," concurs Schenck, a
Jewish convert to fundamentalist Christianity who's retained his
sense of irony, Coe's friendship is a kind of "kosher...seal of
approval."
Coe's friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft,
Reaganite Edwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts
(R-Pa.). Under Coe's guidance, Meese has hosted weekly prayer
breakfasts for politicians, businesspeople, and diplomats, and Pitts
rose from obscurity to head the House Values Action Team, an
off-the-record network of religious right groups and members of
Congress created by Tom DeLay. The corresponding Senate Values Action
Team is guided by another Coe protégé, Brownback, who also claims to
have recruited King Abdullah of Jordan into a regular study of Jesus'
teachings.
The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders
of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the
spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in
the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the
Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The
Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of
Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez
Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to
Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other
generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular
visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent
where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing
and spiritual guidance.
We contacted all of Clinton's Fellowship cell mates, but only one
agreed to speak—though she stressed that there's much she's not "at
liberty" to reveal. Grace Nelson used to be the organizer of the
Florida Governor's Prayer Breakfast, which makes her a piety broker
in Florida politics—she would decide who could share the head table
with Jeb Bush. Clinton's prayer cell was tight-knit, according to
Nelson, who recalled that one of her conservative prayer partners was
at first loath to pray for the first lady, but learned to "love
Hillary as much as any of us love Hillary." Cells like these, Nelson
added, exist in "parliaments all over the world," with all welcome so
long as they submit to "the person of Jesus" as the source of their
power.
Throughout her time at the White House, Clinton writes in Living
History, she took solace from "daily scriptures" sent to her by her
Fellowship prayer cell, along with Coe's assurances that she was
right where God wanted her. (Clinton's sense of divine guidance has
been noted by others: Bishop Richard Wilke, who presided over the
United Methodist Church of Arkansas during her years in Little Rock,
told us, "If I asked Hillary, 'What does the Lord want you to do?'
she would say, 'I think I'm called by the Lord to be in public
service at whatever level he wants me.'")
Coe counsels that Fellowship cells shouldn't engage in direct
evangelical activism, but rather allow Christian causes to benefit
from the bonds that develop within the cells. Former Nixon counsel
Chuck Colson provides a rare illustration of the process in his 1976
Watergate memoir, Born Again. Facing prosecution in 1973, Colson
allowed Coe to ensconce him in a Fellowship cell with a Nixon foe,
Senator Harold Hughes. Hughes became the Nixon hatchet man's
staunchest defender, voting in favor of a possible pardon for Colson
and later supporting Colson as he built Prison Fellowship, now one of
the most powerful organizations of the Christian right.
That's how it works: The Fellowship isn't out to turn liberals into
conservatives; rather, it convinces politicians they can transcend
left and right with an ecumenical faith that rises above politics.
Only the faith is always evangelical, and the politics always move
rightward.
This is in line with the Christian right's long-term strategy.
Francis Schaeffer, late guru of the movement, coined the term
"cobelligerency" to describe the alliances evangelicals must forge
with conservative Catholics. Colson, his most influential disciple,
has refined the concept of cobelligerency to deal with less-than-pure
politicians. In this application, conservatives sit pretty and wait
for liberals looking for common ground to come to them. Clinton,
Colson told us, "has a lot of history" to overcome, but he sees her
making the right moves.
These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives' group
into what may be Coe's most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer
Breakfast. Though weighted Republican, the breakfast—regularly
attended by about 40 members—is a bipartisan opportunity for
politicians to burnish their reputations, giving Clinton the chance
to profess her faith with men such as Brownback as well as the twin
terrors of Oklahoma, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and, until
recently, former Senator George Allen (R-Va.). Democrats in the group
include Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who told us that the separation
of church and state has gone too far; Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is also
a regular.
Unlikely partnerships have become a Clinton trademark. Some are
symbolic, such as her support for a ban on flag burning with Senator
Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and funding for research on the dangers of video
games with Brownback and Santorum. But Clinton has also joined the gop
on legislation that redefines social justice issues in terms of
conservative morality, such as an anti-human-trafficking law that
withheld funding from groups working on the sex trade if they didn't
condemn prostitution in the proper terms. With Santorum, Clinton
co-sponsored the Workplace Religious Freedom Act; she didn't back off
even after Republican senators such as Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter
pulled their names from the bill citing concerns that the measure
would protect those refusing to perform key aspects of their
jobs—say, pharmacists who won't fill birth control prescriptions,
or police officers who won't guard abortion clinics.
Clinton has championed federal funding of faith-based social
services, which she embraced years before George W. Bush did; Marci
Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel, says that the Clintons'
approach to faith-based initiatives "set the stage for Bush." Clinton
has also long supported the Defense of Marriage Act, a measure that
has become a purity test for any candidate wishing to avoid war with
the Christian right.
Liberal rabbi Michael Lerner, whose "politics of meaning" Clinton
made famous in a speech early in her White House tenure, sees the
senator's ambivalence as both more and less than calculated
opportunism. He believes she has genuine sympathy for liberal
causes—rights for women, gays, immigrants—but often will not
follow through. "There is something in her that pushes her toward
caring about others, as long as there's no price to pay. But in
politics, there is a price to pay."
In politics, those who pay tribute to the powerful also reap rewards.
When Ed Klein's attack bio, The Truth About Hillary, came out in 2005,
some of her most prominent defenders were Christian conservatives,
among them Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert
Mohler. "Christians," he declared, "should repudiate this book and
determine to take no pleasure in it."
Senator Brownback understood the temptation. He used to hate Clinton
so much, he told us, that the hate hurt. Then came the Clintons' 1994
National Prayer Breakfast appearance with Mother Teresa, who upbraided
the couple for their pro-choice views. Bill made no attempt to conceal
his anger, but Hillary took it and smiled. Brownback remembers
thinking, "Now, there's gotta be a great lesson here." He didn't know
what it was until Clinton got to the Senate and joined him in
supporting DeLay's Day of Reconciliation resolution following the
2000 election, a proposal described by its backers as a call to "pray
for our leaders." Now, Brownback considers Clinton "a beautiful child
of the living God."
Clinton, for her part, turned Mother Teresa's sucker punch into
political opportunity. She met with the nun after the prayer
breakfast, visited her orphanage in India, helped her set up another
one in Washington (which has since become an apparently inoperative
branch of Mother Teresa's conservative Vatican order, the
Missionaries of Charity), and generally built a highly visible
friendship with a figure whose moral bona fides also came with an
anti-abortion imprimatur that couldn't but help Clinton on the right.
Of course, no matter how much Clinton speaks of common ground, she
doesn't stand a chance of winning votes among pro-lifers. As Tom
McClusky of the Family Research Council, command central for
Washington's Christian right, told us, movement conservatives
consider legislation like Clinton's Putting Prevention First Act,
which supports greater access to birth control and sex ed, "just
another condom giveaway."
But the senator's project isn't the conversion of her adversaries;
it's tempering their opposition so she can court a new generation of
Clinton Republicans, values voters who have grown estranged from the
Christian right. And while such crossover conservatives may never
agree with her on the old litmus-test issues, there is an important,
and broader, common ground—the kind of faith-based politics that,
under the right circumstances, will permit majority morality to trump
individual rights. The libertarian Cato Institute recently observed
that Clinton is "adding the paternalistic agenda of the religious
right to her old-fashioned liberal paternalism." Clinton suggests as
much herself in her 1996 book, It Takes a Village, where she writes
approvingly of religious groups' access to schools, lessons in
Scripture, and "virtue" making a return to the classroom.
Then, as now, Clinton confounded secularists who recognize public
faith only when it comes wrapped in a cornpone accent. Clinton speaks
instead the language of nondenominationalism—a sober, eloquent
appreciation of "values," the importance of prayer, and "heart"
convictions—which liberals, unfamiliar with the history of
evangelical coalition building, mistake for a tidy, apolitical
accommodation, a personal separation of church and state. Nor do
skeptical voters looking for political opportunism recognize that,
when Clinton seeks guidance among prayer partners such as Coe and
Brownback, she is not so much triangulating—much as that may have
become second nature—as honoring her convictions. In her own way,
she is a true believer.
WHITE MAN'S BURDEN = ALL AMERICAN'S BURDEN = JUSTIFICATION FOR
IMPERIALISM
FEAR IS A GHOST OF THE IMAGE FROM OUR OWN HEARTS AND ONLY LIVES ONCE!
IT CONTROLS THE SOUL IF THE SOUL ALLOWS!
LET THE TRUTH BE KNOWN AND THE TRUTH SHALL BE SAID AND WE SHALL BE
LAIN SAFE IN OUR BEDS
VOTE FOR NO PRESIDENT
(REJECT AND DENOUNCE) HILLARY GOLDEN COW CLINTON! A STORY
THAT WILL BE ONCE TOLD AND THAN FORGOTTEN! STRICKEN FROM THE HISTORY
BOOKS!!
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