AOL Straw Poll: Aug. 25-Sept. 1

How about that...


Joseph "Joe" Robinette Biden, Jr. (BORN NOVEMBER 20, 1942)...the
senior United States senator from Delaware...Currently in his SIXTH
TERM IN THE SENATE, BIDEN HAS SERVED FOR THE SIXTH-LONGEST PERIOD
AMONG CURRENT SENATORS (fourth among Democrats) and is Delaware's
longest-serving senator...



CHANGE...WE CAN BELIEVE IN ! ! !



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Just another..."ONE"....AGENT OF CHANGE...


IN THE 1988 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY...BIDEN'S campaign had
already begun to lag behind...In September 1987, the campaign ran
into serious trouble when he PLAGIARIZED A SPEECH by Neil Kinnock,
then-leader of the British Labour Party...Within days, it was also
discovered that, while a first year law student at Syracuse Law
School, BIDEN HAD PLAGIARIZED A LAW REVIEW ARTICLE IN CLASS PAPER HE
WROTE...



CHANGE...WE CAN BELIEVE IN ! ! !



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yet another..."ONE"....AGENT OF CHANGE...


The son of Barack Obama's vice presidential pick, Sen. Joe Biden, is
a top partner at a Washington law firm that has lobbied his father's
office, a family tie that could prove embarrassing for a campaign
that has positioned itself as fighting lobbyists and special
interests in Washington....

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5640118



CHANGE...WE CAN BELIEVE IN ! ! !



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

NANCY AND EVIL OIL

My how the tunes have changed ... Nancy Pelosi is now saying that expanded offshore drilling could be included in an upcoming energy bill. With some provisions, of course. First things first: supporters must "prove" that increased offshore drilling is a viable solution to the problem. Gee, I don't know Nancy. Just what standard of proof are you going to insist on? Anyone with a brain the size of a BB could understand that the more oil there is available on the market, the lower the price (assuming demand remains the same) ... not to mention the fact that the more oil from our own shores means less oil from foreign nations, and isn't that exactly what we want – a move towards energy independence?

You must know that this drilling is going to come at a price for oil companies. Nancy says that if oil companies want to drill, they are going to pay royalties to the federal government like you wouldn't believe. She says, "You want to talk about drilling offshore? Let's talk about profits made by the oil companies without paying royalties ... They're taking your oil without paying any royalties." You see, for Democrats it's not really about making American energy independent. It's not really about lowering the price of gas at the pump. It's all about funneling more money – money that will be eventually paid by consumers at the pump – into government coffers. It's all about growing government first, the economy second

Oh and one other thing. Nancy has also decided that her state is not going to be a part of the solution. Just as Florida has been a thorn in the side of US energy policy (luckily that seems to have changed), Nancy has decided that California's coast will be off limits to any increase in offshore drilling.

The Denver Dems Aren’t Making the Sale [Larry Kudlow]

There is no Biden bounce according to the latest Gallup tracking poll, as John McCain actually is taking a 46-44 lead over Barack Obama. Scott Rasmussen reports a 46-46 tie after the Democratic National Convention’s first night, which reverses a 3 percentage point Obama lead.

Meanwhile, another Gallup poll says 50 percent expect their taxes to be raised under Obama, despite the complaints of his economic advisors that they’re only raising taxes on the top few percent.

Make no mistake about it: There are many doubts and unanswered questions about the Illinois senator regarding his experience, his foreign policy, his economics, and his prior political and spiritual relationships. And despite some good moments last night, I don’t think Michelle Obama made the sale. At the end, only her husband can do it. Hillary can’t do it. If the badly split Democrats can be united at this late date, only Obama can do the job. No one else.

Reagan united a split GOP in 1980. George W. Bush united the McCain, Forbes, and cultural-conservative factions in 2000. Goldwater couldn’t do it in ’64. Neither could Humphrey in ’68. Of course, Jerry Ford couldn’t do it in ’76. And Carter failed dismally in 1980. But Bill Clinton succeeded in 1992.

Now it’s Obama’s task in 2008. That’s his job. No one else can do it for him.

And as the stock market looks on warily, falling slightly today after plunging yesterday, the lead story in this morning’s Wall Street Journal is a serious indictment of Obama’s economic program. “Senator Obama is proposing to use the government to remake economic policies in a way that hasn’t been seen in Washington in decades.” And if it’s a three-house Dem sweep, it will be Katy bar the door. Big-government spending programs, tax increases, trade restraints, a government health-care plan, cap-and-trade on climate change — all without any real deficit restraints, which are accorded a low priority.

Incidentally, while the public clamors for drill, drill, drill, Obama wants high-cost, cap-and-trade carbon regulation enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, McCain also wants cap-and-trade, but not if India and China don’t go along. Apparently Obama will not be constrained by the rest of the world.

Sure, the economy is languishing. But do we really want a big-government, high-tax solution? Do we really want higher investment taxes that would leave government bigger and private enterprise smaller? Do Americans really blame “rich” people? Or do they actually believe success is a good thing and should not be punished? Do rank-and-file working folks really want to do away with the secret ballot for unionization in the form of the so-called card check? And if there were a three-house Dem sweep, wouldn’t Obama’s middle-class tax credit be overturned in favor of even more government spending, just as Bill Clinton’s plans were subverted back in 1993? The National Taxpayers Union says Obama’s new spending would total $344 billion. That’s a big number. One has to wonder if that’s the opening bid or the final one.

The Obama economists sincerely believe that theirs is a growth program. His advisors are friends of mine — all of them terribly smart: Jason Furman, Austan Goolsbee, Robert Reich, Jarrod Bernstein. So this is surely not personal on my part. But I question their economic model. Raising marginal tax rates will minimize — not maximize — economic growth and jobs. Ditto for enlarging the size, scope, and sweep of government.

Business cycles come and go. Each has its own set of excesses and subsequent corrections. It is the nature of free-market capitalism. But heavy-handed government solutions are being rejected worldwide, and it seems foolhardy for the USA to move away from economic freedom when virtually the rest of the world is moving toward it.

One of the greatest tax reformers of all time was John F. Kennedy. He slashed marginal tax rates across the board for businesses and people of all income levels. The economy boomed in the 1960s. Reagan copied the JFK model in the 1980s. Are we turning back this supply-side model? I fear the Obama men are doing just that. I think that fear is worrying the stock market right now.

John McCain’s economic program is certainly not flawless. And his ad bashing business, oil, and others nearly reaches the class-warfare level of Obama-Biden. It’s a Big Mac mistake. Nor does McCain have a solid tax-cutting program for the middle class. More on all that later.

But as the Democrats discuss the economy tonight, I’m willing to bet they are not gonna make the sale. Obama’s task Thursday night will be a monumental challenge.

08/26 04:08 PM

McCain.....ready to lead from day one.

Mr. Ethics
Obama’s mentor retires.

By David Freddoso

Denver — “[E]thics reforms means getting officials to limit gifts to themselves.” Those are the words of Emil Jones, president of the Illinois senate, in his speech at the Democratic Convention Monday.

Jones would know. He is Barack Obama’s political mentor, and he can now give himself a $578,000 gift. It is a perfectly legal and completely corrupt arrangement that he made ten years ago, with just a little help from Obama.

If you listen to Barack Obama’s supporters, you might get the impression that the presumptive Democratic nominee did something to reform Illinois when he served there. Sometimes they mention Obama’s involvement in a 1998 ethics bill. They probably won’t mention that the law they are discussing could soon make Jones a wealthy man. Such stories do not fit the image of the bipartisan reformer that Obama’s campaign has spent millions of dollars projecting.

At the Saddleback Forum two weeks ago, Obama was asked to name one time when he had acted against his own or his party’s interests for the good of the nation. He responded by citing his work with John McCain on ethics reform — work that in fact never occurred. The two men never did work together on ethics reform — in fact they clashed in a nasty exchange of letters over the issue after meeting once to discuss it. Obama’s fictional answer to this question was revealing, given that the entire premise of his campaign is his alleged commitment to bipartisan reform.

Some of Obama’s supporters assert that he did at least reform Illinois’s ethics laws. You can judge for yourself what kind of ethics laws govern Illinois today by looking at what people can get away with.

Monday we explored how Senator Obama and his staff helped obtain $320,000 in state grants for Robert Blackwell Jr. — a political donor and client of Obama’s private law practice. Blackwell had just paid Obama $112,000 in retainer fees when the grant money started coming in, and he went on to be a large Obama donor. Somehow, When Obama wrote a letter for his private law client to receive a grant, he was not violating Illinois ethics laws.

When Obama tried to hide the obvious conflict of interest by burying Blackwell’s companies on his senate disclosure forms, amid a list of hundreds of his firm’s law clients, he was not violating Illinois ethics laws.

When Obama failed to mention in those forms that Blackwell had paid a majority of his income in 2001, and was not just any old client, Obama was not breaking Illinois ethics laws.

Obama’s aide, Dan Shomon was working part-time for Obama and part-time for Blackwell, the beneficiary of the grants he helped obtain. Apparently, that did not violate Illinois ethics laws, either.

Perhaps you are getting an impression of Illinois ethics laws — weak, toothless, easy to bend, and impossible to break. That is true. And it’s not even the half of it.

Emil Jones caused a splash here this week when witnesses saw him call a fellow convention-goer an “Uncle Tom” for supporting Hillary Clinton. But if anyone would bother to read Chicago’s excellent newspapers, they would discover that the real splash came last week, when Jones announced his upcoming retirement from public service.



When Jones leaves office, he will be allowed to take with him $577,605.04 from his campaign fund, which he can roll into his own bank account. That doesn’t violate Illinois ethics laws, either.

We can leave it to a Chicago ethicist to explain how Jones’s contributors have not in fact been paying bribes for all these years, but at least we know why it happened. Under the grandfather provisions of a landmark 1998 Illinois ethics law, Jones will be able to keep that money for his own personal use — the same amount of money his account contained on June 30, 1998, minus income taxes. As it happens, that provision was part of a famed ethics bill for which Senator Obama sometimes takes credit, wildly exaggerating his role in its passage. As Jones’s story demonstrates, Obama’s supporters are also exaggerating the law’s positive effects.

This ethics bill — which passed in a not-so-close 52-4 vote in the Illinois senate — did not clean up Illinois politics. It did at least bar political fundraising on state property. It blocked lobbyists and contractors from giving personal gifts to legislators. But it did not stop them from giving contributions in the so-called “pay-to-play” game. It did not prevent major political donors like Tony Rezko from influencing the makeup of the powerful boards that control the state’s pension funds, filling them with crooked allies who would help him steal. It did not prevent incumbent legislators from rolling campaign funds into their personal bank accounts.

When the 1998 law passed the state senate on May 22, 1998, it set off a mad dash for incumbent legislators to fill their coffers as quickly as possible, so as to maximize the amount in their accounts on the grandfather date. According to the Chicago Tribune, State Rep. Monique Davis (D.) went so far as to lend her campaign $33,000 five days before the deadline. The campaign of state Sen. George Shadid (D.) borrowed $50,000.

Obama cannot be blamed for any of this because he did not write this 1998 ethics law. In fact, he had very little to do with it until the day it passed. He was not the one to propose the ethics bill in the Illinois senate. He was not even a cosponsor until the day it passed. Five months after the ethics bill was introduced, and more than one month after it reached the senate, Obama was invited by Emil Jones to become its chief Democratic cosponsor. As David Mendell writes in Obama: From Promise to Power, former Rep. Abner Mikva convinced Jones to let Obama handle the legislation. Sen. Dick Klemm (D.) was removed as chief cosponsor and replaced by Obama on May 22, 1998 — the very day the bill passed.

Jones would never have allowed a tough ethics bill to pass. His expected $578,000 retirement package is fitting because it will end a long career he has spent enriching himself in the business of government. Jones’s entire family has somehow made its way onto the government payroll. The Chicago Sun-Times reported last July that his son, Emil Jones III, does not have a college degree, but obtained an unadvertised $57,000 job with the Illinois Department of Commerce. The hire was made shortly after Senator Jones agreed to back Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s (D.) budget plan. The younger Jones is expected to succeed his father in his senate seat.

Jones’s stepson, John Sterling, owns a technology firm called Synch-Solutions, which received a contract for $700,000 of work for the state budget office in 2007. In that same year, the Chicago Sun-Times found that the company had “a $3.5 million contract from the Chicago Aviation Department, a $1.2 million contract from the cash-strapped Chicago Transit Authority and another $1.2 million from the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority . . . [and] a separate $3 million subcontract through Chicago's public schools.”

In 2005, Governor Blagojevich rescinded the requirement that the director of mental health at the state’s Department of Human Services be a medical doctor. This allowed Jones’s wife, Lorrie, to take the position, with a salary of $186,000 — an $80,000 raise over her previous salary.

That was not enough money for Jones, whom the Sun-Times found earlier this year was giving himself interest-free loans out of his campaign fund.

Jones is an old ward-heeler who got his start in Chicago politics in 1960, when Democrats were digging up entire cemeteries to get out the vote for JFK. With his sham 1998 ethics bill, he protected his own nest-egg and can now retire comfortably.

And in the process, he made Barack Obama look just a bit like a reformer. If you don’t look too closely, that is.

In Denver, Deep Doubts About Obama
Undecided swing-state voters have trouble supporting the Democratic nominee.

By Byron York

Denver — On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, in a downtown high-rise conference room lined with two-way mirrors, 21 undecided Colorado voters sit trying to decide whether they have more doubts and reservations about Barack Obama or John McCain. It’s not easy.

The group has been convened by the pollster Frank Luntz, who usually does this sort of thing on live television but has instead organized the session at the behest of the American Association of Retired Persons and the related activist group Divided We Fail. As the voters answer Luntz’s rapid-fire questions, a small group of reporters watches from the other side of the mirrors. And after two hours of talking, and a pre-convention buildup here in Denver in which Democrats have received lots of positive coverage in this critical swing state, you’d have to say that the news is pretty good for McCain. The undecideds have plenty of problems with him, and they can’t stand George W. Bush, but they seem more deeply concerned about Obama than McCain, because they have still not answered the threshold question about the Democratic nominee: Is he ready?

At first, the atmosphere seems quite friendly for Obama. Luntz asks the Democrats in the room to raise their hands. Four people do so. Then he asks for the independents; about 15 hands go up. And then he asks for Republicans to raise their hands. There are none.

That in itself seems to show a pretty significant change. In information sheets the voters had filled out beforehand, twelve said they voted for George W. Bush in 2004, while just five voted for John Kerry. (Four either voted for other candidates or did not vote at all.) What that suggests is that people who voted for Bush just four years ago have no interest in being seen as Republicans now — surely not good news for McCain.

But the undecideds seem willing to separate their dislike of the parties, and the Republican party in particular, from the presidential candidates themselves. When Luntz goes around the room, pressing each person to give his or her best one-word description of Obama, these are some of the answers:

“Scary.”

“New.”

“Terrifying.”

“Charismatic.”

“Unknown.”

“Innovative.”

“Inexperienced.”

“Change.”

“Hopeful.”

“Smooth.”

“Unaffordable.”

“Apocalypse.”

Yes, one guy did say “apocalypse,” which suggests he might not be all that undecided. (On the other side, a couple of people say they’ve recently made up their minds to vote for Obama.) Then Luntz turns the one-word question to McCain:

“Scary.”

“Dependable.”

“Strong.”

“Patriot.”

“Veteran.”

“Bush Two.”

“Older generation.”

“Experienced.”

“Honest.”

“Older.”

“Integrity.”

“Repeat.”

At first, Luntz thinks the man who had said “repeat” had in fact said “creepy,” which seems a little odd. But he had actually said “repeat,” as in McCain would be a repeat of Bush. But listening to all the answers, the bottom line is, if you were a political consultant, and you had your choice between the voters’ impressions of Obama or McCain, you would choose McCain.



And then there are the issues. Before the session, Luntz asked group members to name the things that mattered most to them in a presidential candidate. He came up with a long list and asked them to pick eight. And the number-one concern, which made it onto the lists of 17 people, is: “Ending wasteful Washington spending and balancing the federal government,” which is, of course, a signature McCain issue. No other topic comes close. Next up is “reducing inflation and keeping costs down,” with ten votes. “Ending American dependence on foreign oil” gets nine votes, as does “bringing accountability and honesty back to the federal government.”

Could those concerns be more accurately described as Obama-friendly or McCain-friendly? Not strongly tilted either way, but certainly not tilted against the Republican. Reading the list, McCain would not be unhappy.

The undecideds also seem to be sending messages to the aficionados of hot-button issues both left and the right. For example, “improving our global image and public support internationally,” a favorite in Democratic circles, gets all of one vote. “Holding President Bush accountable for all his mistakes and failures” a huge issue among the netroots, gets two. On the other hand, “putting justices on the Supreme Court who will respect the law, not rewrite it” gets two votes, and “pro-life on abortion” gets one. (“Pro-choice on abortion” gets five votes.) And precisely zero voters assign great significance to “addressing the issue of gay marriage.”

After the voters discuss issues for a while, Luntz hands out little electronic dials and asks them to rate a series of Obama and McCain campaign commercials. First come the positive spots. One of McCain’s “country first” ads gets a rating of over 80 from the Republican leaners and about 70 from the Democratic leaders. The McCain ad describing him as the “original maverick” goes even higher. And an ad in which McCain argues for more oil drilling also hits 70.

Obama’s ads seem a bit less effective. His highest-rated one is his first biographical ad, the one in which he claims to have moved people from welfare to work; it tops 60 percent. Other ads score a bit lower.

Then there are the negative ads. While most voters, when surveyed, say they don’t like attack ads, Luntz asks the group to say which ads they find the most “impactful.” What follows is a bit of real-time research on the utility of negative advertising. And the winner, again, seems to be McCain.

Most people don’t like the idea of McCain’s famous “Celebrity” ad. “Ridiculous,” says one person. “Crap,” says another. “Really didn’t like it,” says a third. But most seem to think the ad had an impact, and when Luntz asks, “Who thought the ‘Celebrity’ ad made Obama look worse?’“ twelve people raise their hands. When he asks, “Who thought it made McCain look worse for running it?” five hands go up. Advantage McCain.

Then Luntz plays Obama’s ad attacking McCain on the “seven houses” issue. Nobody much likes it; the meters stay below 50 for both Republican and Democratic leaners. After that comes McCain’s response ad, the one featuring Tony Rezko. Republican meters shoot up to 80, while the Democratic meters climb slightly above 50. Asked later, people think Obama’s attack ad was good, but the Rezko response raised new questions. “For Barack to get money from someone else — and who knows where he got that money to get his house?” one woman asks. In general, says another woman, in McCain’s ads, “the issues were a little more clear.”

After a few more questions, everybody goes home. In the end, the striking thing about the undecideds is the problem they’re having translating their dislike of President Bush and the Republican party into a vote for Barack Obama. They’re simply not there, at least not yet. The presence of McCain seems to have given them just enough reason to grant him an exemption from their deep unhappiness with the GOP. If Obama instilled more confidence, it would be no contest. But for now, it couldn’t be closer.


—

First, I just wanted to point out that Mr. Obama's choice for
Vice-President, Joe Biden, garnered 2500 votes in the primaries.

Hillary Clinton? 18 million, more than any candidate in American
political history, including Barack Obama.

I am appalled that the media and the DNC and the Obama campaign
continue to blame the Clintons for Barack Obama's shortcomings.

There is nothing worse than a poor winner, and Barack has certainly
proved to be one. It is the role of the winner to reach out to the
defeated and bring them on board, not the other way around. Only a
political neophyte would not grasp this.

I am continually astounded by the DNC and Obama campaign's demands
that Hillary Clinton close the deal for her formal rival, Barack
Obama, who has done nothing to reach out to the Clinton supporters,
players and voters.

Not once has Obama spoken publicly to erase the damage he has done to
Bill Clinton due to the Obama campaing and the media smearing Mr.
Clinton as racist. Just a public acknowledgement that this was
untrue and unfair to Mr. Clinton, a long-time champion of civil
rights, would have been enough.

Mr. Obama raised a measly 500K towards paying off Mrs. Clinton's
debt, a debt that could have easily been paid off and very quickly.

Nor has he reached to her big-time donors and supporters, effectively
shutting them out from the Democrat Party's processes.

Additionally, Obama's deafening silence in regards to the blatant
sexism displayed by his fawning media and supporters against Mrs.
Clinton, has also not been addressed.

And now, Hillary Clinton, who has done more than any other defeated
political rival in history, is supposed to snap her fingers and fix
eerything for him.

Well forget it. Even though she is an organization woman who is
playing by the party rules, its not going to be enough for her
supporters.

I will never vote for him after what the Barack campaign, the DNC,
and the media has done to the Clintons.

Time to get "Pops" McCain up from his nap and have him dodder over to the cameras for a photo op.

The guy is pathetic.

Voice of Common Sense...McCain08

Michelle Obama’s Two Americas
At the convention, a new and radically different message from the candidate’s wife.

By Byron York

Denver — Near the end of Michelle Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention Monday night, I got an e-mail from a friend who had been with me at another speech by Mrs. Obama, in Charlotte, North Carolina, last May, on the eve of that state’s primary. “This isn’t the Michelle we know,” my friend said. And indeed, Mrs. Obama’s speech to the delegates here in Denver was worlds away from her address in Charlotte.

In Denver, Michelle Obama described America as a place of hope, a place where people find success during the course of “improbable journeys.” In Charlotte, her America was a dark and ugly place, where people who work hard are knocked down by sinister forces — a place where even young children burst into tears when they realize the deck is stacked against them.

In Denver, Mrs. Obama said, “My piece of the American Dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me.” Those forebears, she explained, were “driven by the same conviction that drove my dad to get up an hour early each day to painstakingly dress himself for work — the same conviction that drives the men and women I’ve met all across this country…That’s why I love this country.”

In Charlotte, Mrs. Obama said, “We’re still living in a time and in a nation where the bar is set, right?…You start working hard and sacrificing and you think you’re getting close to that bar, you’re working and you’re struggling, and then what happens? They raise the bar…keep it just out of reach.”

Had something changed in the last few months? In the early primaries, Mrs. Obama often gave complaining speeches. It was in late February that she said the now-famous words, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.” In other speeches, she grumbled — sometimes at length — about having to pay back her college loans. And she, as much as her husband, was associated with the anti-American rants of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The images began to accumulate. By the later months of the Democratic primary race, when her husband was stumbling to victory after a powerful stretch of wins in February, Mrs. Obama’s approval ratings began to slip. She was still not widely known at the time, but it seemed the more voters got to know her, the more they began to have reservations about her.

In May, the Pew Research Center found that 22 percent of people polled had an unfavorable opinion of Mrs. Obama. In July, an Associated Press poll showed that she had a 35 percent unfavorable rating — versus a 30 percent favorable figure. A couple of weeks ago, a the Rasmussen polling organization found that 43 percent of voters had an unfavorable impression of Mrs. Obama. (Of them, Rasmussen said, 24 percent said they had a very unfavorable view of her.)

The numbers were simply terrible for a candidate’s wife — not all that different from Hillary Clinton’s numbers, even though the former First Lady has been in the spotlight for much longer and was a candidate in her own right.

More recent polls have had slightly better news for Mrs. Obama. A few days ago, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed her with a 30-percent unfavorable rating and a favorable rating that had inched up to 51 percent. Still, Mrs. Obama’s unfavorable numbers remain significant — and well above those of the Republican would-be First Lady, Cindy McCain.

So here in Denver Mrs. Obama had a job to do. It wasn’t just to introduce Americans to the Obama family or show another side of her husband’s personality. It was to rehabilitate herself, to take the edge of anger and resentment from her public pronouncements and embrace a wholesome, country-loving, American-Dream-living image. And that’s what her speech at the convention was about.

Barach Hussein Obama, nuff said.

If you want to live in a socialist, American-hating country, move to France. No need to subject the rest of us to Obama.

Obama seeks to silence ad tying him to 60s radical
Aug 25 08:47 PM US/Eastern
By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press Writer
DENVER (AP) - Barack Obama is striking back fiercely and swiftly to stamp out an ad that links him to a 1960s radical, eager to demonstrate a far more aggressive response to attacks than John Kerry did when faced with the 2004 "Swift Boat" campaign.

Obama not only aired a response ad to the spot linking him to William Ayers, but he sought to block stations the commercial by warning station managers and asking the Justice Department to intervene. The campaign also planned to compel advertisers to pressure stations that continue to air the anti-Obama commercial.

It's the type of going-for-the-jugular approach to politics many Democrats complain that Kerry lacked and that Republicans exploit.

Obama's target is an ad by the conservative American Issues Project, a nonprofit group that questions Obama's ties to Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that took credit for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.

The lone financier of the anti-Obama ad, Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, was also one of the main funders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who targeted Kerry. Simmons, a McCain fundraiser, contributed nearly $2.9 million to the American Issues Project, according to documents filed by the group with the Federal Election Commission.

Fox News and CNN have declined to air the anti-Obama ad. But by Monday afternoon, the ad had run about 150 times in local markets in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan, according to Evan Tracey, head of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, an ad tracking firm.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama supporters have inundated stations that are airing the ad, many of them owned by Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails. He called the ad false, despicable and outrageous.

"Other stations that follow Sinclair's lead should expect a similar response from people who don't want the political discourse cheapened with these false, negative attacks," Vietor said.

Sinclair offices were closed late Monday and officials there could not be immediately contacted.

"It seems they protest a bit too much," American Issues Project spokesman Christian Pinkston said. "They're going all of these routes—through threats, intimation—to try to thwart the First Amendment here because they don't have an argument on merit."

Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He and Obama live in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

Obama also was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s.

Obama has denounced Ayers' past activities.

"Barack Obama is friends with Ayers, defending him as, quote, 'Respectable' and 'Mainstream,'" the group's ad states. "Obama's political career was launched in Ayers' home. And the two served together on a left-wing board. Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

In a letter to station managers, Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer wrote: "Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity."

Bauer also wrote to Deputy Assistant Attorney General John C. Keeney, noting that the ad is a "knowing and willful attempt to evade the strictures of federal election law."

The campaign's aggressive tactics could draw more attention to a subject the campaign wants to go away. On Tuesday, the University of Illinois at Chicago will make available records of Obama's service on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The group was set up to improve the city's schools. The documents could shed further light on whether Obama and Ayers had a relationship.

The American Issues Project is a 501(c)4 nonprofit corporation. It is permitted by law to air a political ad provided that the majority of its spending is nonpolitical. It cannot accept money from corporations and it must identify the donors that finance its ads in reports to the Federal Election Commission. Pinkston said the group has set aside money to carry out non-election related work to meet the legal requirements. It filed a report identifying Simmons as its sole donor for the ad last week.

In the Obama campaign's own response ad, an announcer states: "With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the 60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers. McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old."

The McCain campaign cannot coordinate efforts with outside groups. But the campaign took advantage of being the target of the response ad.

"The fact that Barack Obama chose to launch his political career at the home of an unrepentant terrorist raises more questions about Senator Obama's judgment than any TV ad ever could," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

vote

Obama-Biden '08

Obama seeks to silence ad tying him to 60s radical
Aug 25 08:47 PM US/Eastern
By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press Writer
DENVER (AP) - Barack Obama is striking back fiercely and swiftly to stamp out an ad that links him to a 1960s radical, eager to demonstrate a far more aggressive response to attacks than John Kerry did when faced with the 2004 "Swift Boat" campaign.

Obama not only aired a response ad to the spot linking him to William Ayers, but he sought to block stations the commercial by warning station managers and asking the Justice Department to intervene. The campaign also planned to compel advertisers to pressure stations that continue to air the anti-Obama commercial.

It's the type of going-for-the-jugular approach to politics many Democrats complain that Kerry lacked and that Republicans exploit.

Obama's target is an ad by the conservative American Issues Project, a nonprofit group that questions Obama's ties to Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that took credit for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.

The lone financier of the anti-Obama ad, Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, was also one of the main funders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who targeted Kerry. Simmons, a McCain fundraiser, contributed nearly $2.9 million to the American Issues Project, according to documents filed by the group with the Federal Election Commission.

Fox News and CNN have declined to air the anti-Obama ad. But by Monday afternoon, the ad had run about 150 times in local markets in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan, according to Evan Tracey, head of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, an ad tracking firm.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama supporters have inundated stations that are airing the ad, many of them owned by Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails. He called the ad false, despicable and outrageous.

"Other stations that follow Sinclair's lead should expect a similar response from people who don't want the political discourse cheapened with these false, negative attacks," Vietor said.

Sinclair offices were closed late Monday and officials there could not be immediately contacted.

"It seems they protest a bit too much," American Issues Project spokesman Christian Pinkston said. "They're going all of these routes—through threats, intimation—to try to thwart the First Amendment here because they don't have an argument on merit."

Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He and Obama live in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

Obama also was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s.

Obama has denounced Ayers' past activities.

"Barack Obama is friends with Ayers, defending him as, quote, 'Respectable' and 'Mainstream,'" the group's ad states. "Obama's political career was launched in Ayers' home. And the two served together on a left-wing board. Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

In a letter to station managers, Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer wrote: "Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity."

Bauer also wrote to Deputy Assistant Attorney General John C. Keeney, noting that the ad is a "knowing and willful attempt to evade the strictures of federal election law."

The campaign's aggressive tactics could draw more attention to a subject the campaign wants to go away. On Tuesday, the University of Illinois at Chicago will make available records of Obama's service on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The group was set up to improve the city's schools. The documents could shed further light on whether Obama and Ayers had a relationship.

The American Issues Project is a 501(c)4 nonprofit corporation. It is permitted by law to air a political ad provided that the majority of its spending is nonpolitical. It cannot accept money from corporations and it must identify the donors that finance its ads in reports to the Federal Election Commission. Pinkston said the group has set aside money to carry out non-election related work to meet the legal requirements. It filed a report identifying Simmons as its sole donor for the ad last week.

In the Obama campaign's own response ad, an announcer states: "With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the 60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers. McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old."

The McCain campaign cannot coordinate efforts with outside groups. But the campaign took advantage of being the target of the response ad.

"The fact that Barack Obama chose to launch his political career at the home of an unrepentant terrorist raises more questions about Senator Obama's judgment than any TV ad ever could," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

readers...

check your C-SPAN channel to see if it is working...if not call your service provider...

Why is it that Fair & Balanced never interviews votevets.org and ask them why they are disgruntled?

i wonder iF they think this is fair & balanced?

we can all agree on something...

after 8 years...Bush has had a miserably failed Presidency as its result


i voted for Ron Paul in my primary...and was screwed

but now...i've got a great candidate team...Obama-Biden '08
http://www.cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx

lies♫ lies♫ lies♫ yeah♫ (B-52's sound)

(announcers voice)
Mr. President...

Are you worried that the People think you are full of crap?

well....
:
:
you should be....


lies♫ lies♫ lies♫ yeah♫

(comedian voice)
i wonder...

when Dick Cheney crawls out of his bunker for the RNC convention and does not see his shadow.....

does that mean we get 6 less weeks of their administration?

(((rim shot)))

lies♫ lies♫ lies♫ yeah♫ ... they’re out to get'cha♫

Our Man in Havana?
The Democrats’ far-left foreign-policy guru.

By David Lewis Schaefer

Despite the presumptive nominee’s mantra of “change we can believe in,” the Democratic National Convention is taking on a decidedly retro look, with the Clintons, John Kerry, Al Gore, and Jimmy Carter all scheduled to speak. Now we can add to those elements of nostalgia a foreign policy drafted by McGovern.

No, not George McGovern — but the next best thing. Jim McGovern, running unopposed for a seventh term representing Massachusetts’s Third Congressional District, reportedly played a key role in drafting the party’s foreign-policy plank, and in winning support for it from other House Democrats as well as 60 of the convention’s super delegates . The plank includes what McGovern calls “strong unequivocal language” calling for a 16-month withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq — regardless of how the war there is going. (McGovern had been a leading Congressional opponent of the “surge.”) It promises a new “mission” for the American military: “ending this war and giving Iraq back to its people” (implying that it is American forces that took the country away from “its people” in the first place). Instead, it calls for a diplomatic “surge” to ensure a lasting peace in Iraq. In addition, the plank calls for closing the detention camp for captured terrorists at Guantánamo, described as “the location of so many of the worst constitutional abuses in recent years.”

Congressman McGovern, currently a Democratic whip for the New England region and the “dean” of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation, has an interesting background. He first worked on Capitol Hill as an intern in the office of the “other” McGovern in the late 1970’s, and then as an aide on his staff. He was Massachusetts campaign manager of the “George McGovern for President” movement during the Democratic primaries in 1984. He served for 14 years (1982-96) on the staff of longtime Massachusetts congressman Joe Moakley, a leading opponent of U.S. aid to the Contras, the Nicaraguan resistance that ultimately brought down the Marxist Sandinista dictatorship in 1990 elections. Since that time, McGovern has earned a reputation as one of Congress’s most left-wing members on foreign policy issues, especially regarding Latin America.

As Moakley’s aide in the 1980’s, according to a 2001 article in Insight magazine, “McGovern was one of the most hard-core Capitol Hill staffers helping the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Marxist-Leninist FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador.” As a member of Congress in his own right, he has been a consistent critic of aid to the Uribe government in Colombia, despite its courageous and successful struggle against the FARC narco-Marxist terrorists who have threatened to destroy that country’s democracy.

In 2003, he was singled out in a New Republic article by Christian Science Monitor correspondent Rachel van Dongen, who documented Uribe’s accomplishments and criticized McGovern for introducing a resolution to reduce U.S. aid to the Colombian government by 60 percent, and for offering the lame justification that it was impossible to destroy the country’s coca crop (untrue) and that the Colombian government needs “to feed people too” — as if there were an incompatibility between feeding people and fighting FARC.

More recently, McGovern has been a prominent opponent of the free-trade agreement with Colombia (currently stalled in Congress owing to Democratic opposition) on account of continued murders of trade-union officials in that country — despite the fact that even the New York Times editorial page acknowledged in April that such killings have gone way down under President Uribe, whose administration has offered special protection to the unionists. Most strikingly, McGovern’s name was discovered on the computer hard drive of the FARC commander killed by Colombian troops in Ecuador last March.


A FARC sympathizer named James Jones offered the rebels help in arraying American opinion against the Uribe government by volunteering to act as a “bridge” of communication between FARC and McGovern — who the would-be intermediary described as someone open to the FARC point of view. Remarking that FARC needed “a spokesman that can communicate directly with persons of influence in my country like Mr. McGovern,” Jones claimed to have spoken for several hours with the Congressman, “exchang[ing] some ideas that will be, I believe, of interest to the FARC-EP” (the guerrillas’ army). Jones suggested that by meeting with Congressional Democrats like McGovern, FARC could hope to secure American support for “safe havens” for its forces, circumventing the Uribe administration.

McGovern vehemently denied the charge of supporting FARC, claiming that he was just working to help free American hostages held by the guerrillas — some of whom were subsequently liberated by Colombian troops in a brilliant operation this summer. His office identified Jones as merely a “development expert and a former consultant to the United Nations.” But even while McGovern claimed to have “no sympathy” with FARC, comments in the district’s leading newspaper, the Worcester Telegram and Gazette from an emeritus professor at a local college (and McGovern supporter) suggested otherwise. Nor did McGovern ever offer a plausible explanation of why he was conducting a private foreign policy with FARC: What inducements was he offering them in his supposed work on the hostages’ behalf?

Meanwhile, McGovern has consistently served as an apologist for the Castro regime in Cuba. In 2002, as Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby has reported, he criticized President Bush for giving a speech saying that the Cuban people are entitled to liberty and democracy, and condemning Fidel Castro for jailing, torturing, and exiling his political opponents. (The DNC platform demands that the U.S. government pledge never to torture any terrorists it may capture. McGovern apparently takes a more generous view when it comes to Castro.) He has frequently called for the lifting of all U.S. sanctions against the Castro government — and continues to do so today, even as observers who previously doubted the utility of sanctions now see the value of continuing them, in order to have a carrot to encourage the newly installed Raul Castro to liberalize Cuba.

Previously, McGovern championed the successful movement to close the U.S. navy’s training ground on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, a goal long sought by Castro. Finally, McGovern (like Moakley before him) has been a consistent advocate for closing the School of the Americas (now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Fort Benning, Georgia — where Latin American military officers receive advanced training. In the liberal imagination, abuses committed by some graduates from the distant past make SOA a school for sadists that must be shut down — despite the lack of any evidence that SOA training had anything to do with the historical abuses, and despite the recent emphasis in its curriculum on democratization and human rights.

In turning over much of the responsibility for their foreign-policy platform to Jim McGovern, the Democrats indicate the influence that the far-left wing of the party continues to hold over its perspective on the world.

— David Lewis Schaefer is a professor of political science at College of the Holy Cross and the author of Illiberal Justice: John Rawls vs. the American Political Tradition.

BLUEPRINT FOR CHANGE…IF YOU STILL ASK WHAT CHANGE?…PLEASE READ
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

here’s that great vid again… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ