Unconventional Wisdom

This Blogger page might go bye-bye...

2007-08-18T23:20:00.001-05:00

I got my Wordpress Blog back up at a different address. I would like to post any new updates there. Eventually I can point the address to that blog to this blog's address. Stay Tuned.

I just watched O'Reilly talking to Sen. Chris Dodd

2007-08-02T22:26:00.000-05:00

I'm like wow. I didn't see the whole interview, but while Billy O was arguing with the Democrat from Connecticut about the DailyKos website comments it seemed that the Senator was legitimizing it. And when the Senator was talking about Billy O said about San Francisco and Al-Qaeda, he couldn't even get that right!

Dennis Miller tore him a new one afterwards apparently. He was eavesdropping on that interview. Miller was disappointed that Billy O didn't slap the senator backwards. Though it was great to see O'Reilly get on the Senator for his statements with regards to what Billy O said and when and where.

Miller and O'Reilly boiled it down to how the Senator was going to the Kos Convention in Chicago and was going to get pats on his back because he stood up to O'Reilly. And the Senator made the mistake of not knowing what he was talking about.

I've got it working

2007-08-01T16:05:00.000-05:00

Thanks to some help and even some advice. I've got wordpress operating now!

My next trick is to move my Blogger archives into wordpress. I can't wait and I look forward to it. Just for some proof I'll post a screenshot. And check out my handiwork here again.

Netroots' site gains political force, and foes

2007-08-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

DailyKos has been in the news recently. Or more accurately The O'Reilly Factor because of the hateful language used on their website and the fact that a convention that they were supposed to have was sponsored by some big time companies. One of them Jet Blue Airlines was singled out with a news camera and producer sent to confront their CEO. As a result of this encounter Jet Blue removed their sponsorship of this DailyKos convention.

Anyway Daily Kos is mentioned in a column in today's Chicago Tribune. They make no mention of the comments that were made there though...

Trying to get your arms around Daily Kos is like trying to wrap them around a blimp as it inflates -- an apt analogy because Kos, as a political Web site, features no small amount of hot air.

The site is a sort of blog on steroids, a writing collective that can be daunting to first-time visitors in its presentation of hundreds of thousands of fresh words daily, most of them espousing a left-of-center, politically progressive viewpoint.

It is the inspiration for and intellectual wellspring of the Yearly Kos convention, the second edition of which opens in Chicago on Thursday. Featured speakers will include Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Coming on the heels of the largely successful "YouTube debate," the convention should draw intense national media attention.

Daily (and Yearly) Kos are the current targets of Fox News Channel video tiger Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly has Kos -- named for founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga -- in his scope for, it seems, becoming powerful enough to draw the likes of Clinton and Obama, but also for exemplifying the Internet, a technology promising hierarchical change that is threatening too much of O'Reilly's core, older audience.

That fight, which has seen O'Reilly trying to characterize Kos based on the most inflammatory comments he could find there, earned the site the tacit endorsement of Stephen Colbert. On his Comedy Central show recently, Colbert pretended to side with O'Reilly by telling people not to visit Daily Kos, even as he put the site's address, www.dailykos.com, up on the screen.

"There is no single political Web site that has greater impact," says Micah Sifry, editor of techpresident.com, a site tracking how the presidential candidates are using technology and the Web. "It is a collaboration engine. It is a hive of concerted activity that goes way beyond what you see on the front page."

And Yearly Kos, he contends, in addition to becoming the default convention for the "netroots" (grass roots via the Web) political movement, may be rising up to take the place of the old, now-defunct, midterm political conventions. It's sold out at 1,500 registered attendees, organizers say, with another 250 people getting media credentials, and C-SPAN and CNN planning to televise Saturday's Democratic presidential candidate forum live.

"The community is not just an online hub, but now it's a physical hub that's attracting every top Democrat," Sifry says. "It's like a big state fair where everyone comes to connect and mingle."

Jeff Jarvis, the blogger (buzzmachine.com) and Web thinker, sees Kos as a demonstration of the Internet's ability to build coalitions.

"Give incredible credit to Kos for being the kingmaker that he is, and opinion leader and organizer and all that," Jarvis says. "I also think we need some caution about projecting too much power onto" Kos and the netroots.

"Kos is an important force, but it's only one force," Jarvis says.

Pork at issue in doughnut franchise row

2007-08-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

Well we should always respect a man's religious beliefs, but why stay in a business that requires you to handle pork products. This man might need to consider getting another franchise instead of sticking with what he already has. From today's Chicago Tribune...

Every day for nearly 30 years, Walid Elkhatib has sold doughnuts. Glazed, chocolate frosted, Bavarian Kreme and other varieties. As a Dunkin' Donuts franchisee, he expanded the menu to include breakfast sandwiches, such as egg and cheese bagels.

But he drew the line at serving sandwiches with sausage, ham or bacon because his Muslim faith forbids him from eating or handling pork -- a departure from company policy that led Dunkin' Donuts in 2002 to threaten it would take away his two Chicago-area franchises.

So for five years Elkhatib has been waging a legal battle against the Boston chain claiming racial bias, not religious discrimination. The federal court of appeals in Chicago last month reinstated the case, blurring the lines between religion and race.

"What is life without dignity and your beliefs?" said Elkhatib, a 57-year-old Arab who was born in Jerusalem and came to Chicago in 1971.

Elkhatib's case highlights the ongoing challenges businesses face in dealing with increasingly diverse workplaces. For instance, Islamic dietary restrictions, dress and grooming requirements and the five-time-daily prayer vigil have become sources of friction.

Muslims have filed thousands of complaints of workplace discrimination in recent years, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. In one high-profile case in 1999 the federal courts found that the Newark Police Department's no-beard policy discriminated against two Muslim police officers. Companies have become more accommodating of the religious practices of Islamic workers, setting aside quiet rooms for prayer and allowing women to wear the hijab, or loose-fitting clothing that includes a head covering.

For years Dunkin' Donuts made exceptions for Elkhatib, even providing him signs for his restaurants that read "No meat products available," he asserts in court documents.

The company introduced breakfast sandwiches in 1984, five years after Elkhatib bought his first franchise, which he later sold.

"That's why I bought a Dunkin' Donuts, because I never had to handle pork or alcohol [also forbidden under Islamic dietary laws]," said Elkhatib, who drove a bus before going into business for himself.

In 1995 he opened his second franchise in west suburban Berkeley, and three years later followed up with one in Westchester. His total investment in those two restaurants was $580,000, court documents said.

His franchises consistently received positive reviews for cleanliness, hospitality, marketing and product quality. His supervisors raised no objections to his refusal to sell pork sandwiches, he said in court filings.

But Dunkin' Donuts reversed course in 2002, Elkhatib said. That year, according to court papers, he had discussions with the corporate real estate group about the possibility of relocating his store in Westchester to a busier intersection. But the company later rejected the plan when Elkhatib refused to sell breakfast sandwiches with pork at the new location.

In August a company lawyer followed up with a letter telling Elkhatib that his two franchises would not be candidates for renewal when those agreements expired. Dunkin' Donuts said in court papers that the decision was made because company policy "requires franchisees to sell the complete line of approved Dunkin' Donut products."

A company spokesman declined to comment for this story because the case is pending.

Roberts Checks Out of Hospital

2007-07-31T11:17:00.000-05:00

When I first heard this news all I guess the news wires knew was that he fell. Then when the network evening news came on they talked about how he had seisures in the past and it led me to conclude that apparently he had a seisure. I'm not an ardent follower of the Supreme Court, but I'm certainly glad he's not in bad shape.

From the Chicago Tribune again...

Chief Justice John Roberts walked out of a hospital in Maine Tuesday, released a day after he suffered a seizure. The White House said he told President Bush he was doing fine.

Roberts strode briskly out of the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine, wearing a blue sport coat, open collar shirt and slacks. He waved to onlookers before getting into a waiting sports utility vehicle.

The chief justice, 52, plans to continue his summer vacation, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. She said that doctors found no cause for concern after evaluating Roberts.

Roberts was hospitalized after he fell on a dock near his summer home on Hupper Island, near Port Clyde, Maine. He had a prior unexplained seizure in 1993. Bush had called Roberts earlier Tuesday, and press secretary Tony Snow said that the president was assured the chief justice was doing well.

Snow said that Roberts "sounded like he was in great spirits."

Doctors who examined Roberts after his seizure said they found no tumor, stroke or any other explanation for the episode.

Snow told reporters that the White House had been aware of the previous seizure when Bush nominated Roberts to the nation's highest court. The seizure did not prevent Roberts from getting a clean bill of health at the time, recalled a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the expected release of more details by the White House.

By definition, someone who has had more than one seizure without any other cause is determined to have epilepsy, said Dr. Marc Schlosberg, a Washington Hospital Center neurologist who is not involved in the Roberts case.

Whether Roberts will need anti-seizure medications to prevent another is something he and his doctor will have to decide. But after two seizures, the likelihood of another at some point is greater than 60 percent.

New generation of activists re-form 1960s Students for a Democratic Society

2007-07-31T11:00:00.000-05:00

I often listen to Rush Limbaugh who often talks about how the left in this country continues to play from the same playbook. Well this story should clinch it. From the Chicago Tribune...

In the newspaper photographs, they are frozen in time confronting police, taking to the streets, staging teach-ins and leading universitywide strikes. Now gray-haired, these members of the original Students for a Democratic Society are teachers, artists and activists. As they look at a new generation of student activists, they see changed circumstances but a similar struggle.

Forty-five years ago, students gathered in Port Huron, Mich., to draft a statement of principles around which the SDS would organize. This past weekend, the new SDS' four-day national convention opened in Detroit.

Tom Hayden, who wrote the Port Huron statement and is the author of a new book, "Ending The War In Iraq," said the most obvious differences between then and now are the absence of a military draft and that, until 1971, the voting age was 21. That meant that 18- to 20-year-old men could be sent to fight in Vietnam but could not voice their opinions at the ballot box.

"You can't imagine what it is like to feel like everyone on your campus was going to be drafted and here was a war that didn't make any sense," Hayden recalled of the campus protests four decades ago. With an all-volunteer military force, there have been few '60s-style street protests even as polls show that a majority of Americans has turned against the Iraq war.

Hayden said he gets e-mails almost every week from students who are writing papers about the Port Huron statement as a historic document. But former SDS members said that doesn't mean that the anti-war sentiment animating the SDS has receded into history, just that today's circumstances are markedly different.

He said that as the '60s activists grew old enough to vote, they saw many of the politicians and public figures killed that they believed would have brought changes in American policy. "We gradually overcame our disenfranchisement as young people only to be disenfranchised as the top leaders who could have been elected were killed," he said.

President John F. Kennedy, who Hayden said might have ended the war, was assassinated in 1963, as were Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968.

Students involved in today's SDS are certainly opposed to American involvement in Iraq, but, like their SDS elders, are focused on broad societal change.

The new SDS, announced in 2006, says it has 265 registered chapters. Beth Blum, who recently graduated from Drew University in New Jersey, said she joined out of a desire for a network of like-minded people who were more focused and less frustrated than the anti-war movement.

"People get frustrated with the anti-war movement because there is no visible change," she said.

Blum and others also cited the new SDS' broad agenda. Pat Korte, one of the founders and a student at The New School in New York, said he hopes to create "a long-term vision of what a better society could look like," and he ticked off a list of problems he sees: capitalism, racism, sexism, patriarchy. "We wanted to put forth a vision that would replace the institution that would keep producing these horrors," he said.

Mark Tribe, an artist who teaches at Brown University, organized a re-enactment last Thursday on the National Mall of a 1965 speech by then-SDS President Paul Potter. The re-enactment was part of an art project that came out of Tribe's surprise over the lack of anti-war protests on the Brown campus. "In the middle of a war that my students say they oppose, the campus was quiet," he said.

His project, he said, is not aimed at increasing activism but at finding a way to express his own reaction to the Iraq war and to the differences between now and the protests of the 1960s and early '70s, which he vaguely remembers attending with his parents. The re-enactment attracted about 30 people, but Tribe said he thought it was effective in echoing the frustration felt by 1960s activists before the anti-war movement evolved into national protests.

Check out ZombieTime.com...

2007-07-30T22:58:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite blogs called Uptown Avenger based out of Chicago had this post about a protest that resulted in exposed old woman cleavage. There was some point to be made with this, mainly to get our troops out of Iraq. I just want to know what the point of the topless protest was.

ZombieTime.com

Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed

2007-07-30T19:45:00.000-05:00

I was watching Meet the Press yesterday morning and I'm not sure what to make of the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Yeah he seemed to be very crafty with his answers. More like contenuous to the point where even I'm starting to wonder if he knows what he's doing. Is it the right thing to do to give a hostile Congress some more ammunition to hammer an already battered administration.

I like President Bush, but I don't know why he won't just get rid of this guy. I know the President is a loyal guy and will be dragged kicking and screaming before he jettisons someone from his administration, but Gonzales' performance at Congressional hearings so far just have to leave much to be desired.

If there was one guy who was considered incompetent by some in the MSM it was Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense. I liked him, too bad he can't continue in the role, but he always gives you the best answer he can. Gonzales isn't even close.

Of course I think someone discussed that Gonzales is running interference for President Bush and his battered administration. Well I can believe that, but who knows if I can take that suggestion seriously. Then again after the Attorney General has done his job protecting the Bush administration, then I guess the President can jettison him.

I don't know but all I can ask you to do is read this Washington Post article and come to your own conclusions.

Sunday in the Park with Mama Sheehan

2007-07-29T21:40:00.001-05:00

This photo was chosen by Little Green Footballs as their photo of the day. Check out this write up over at Atlas Shrugs who talks about a rally for Cindy Sheehan as she considers a run against Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Hmmm, wouldn't it be funny if Sheehan effectively wipes out Pelosi, but the district that I assume covers the city of San Francisco is represented by a Republican. Think of the possibilities here.

Hazmat Scare Closes D.C. Metro Stations

2007-07-29T16:15:00.000-05:00

If you read this story then you might see this as an overreaction. Besides, I'm subscribed to an ABCNews e-mail list and all I saw was that some DC Metro stations were closed because of some dead birds. Here's a piece of the story...

Two Metro train stations were closed Sunday while hazardous materials crews investigated a number of dead birds and a substance at one that was identified as a commercial rat poison.

The Greenbelt station on the Green Line in suburban Maryland and the Takoma Park station on the Red Line in the city were closed, said Cathy Asato, a spokeswoman for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

There were as many as 20 dead birds outside the Greenbelt station and one to three outside other stations, Asato said. The Anacostia and Naylor Road stations on the Green Line also were affected.

Investigators determined the substance at the Greenbelt station was d-Con rat poison, said District of Columbia Fire and EMS spokesman Alan Etter.

"We suspect very strongly that it's the same chemical at the other stations," Etter said.

He said investigators were looking for a person in a black pickup truck who witnesses saw spraying the material.

"Metro will have to figure out if this person works for them or is a contractor or what," Etter said.

No injuries were reported.

Hmmm,

2007-07-28T21:09:00.000-05:00

Still can't get WordPress up over here. I got the info I need but I don't know. See WordPress is a lot more work than I wanted to do. I might figure this out yet, but perhaps I need to just stick wtih the Blogger platform.

Libertarian Purity Test

2007-07-27T00:39:00.000-05:00

I hope you enjoy taking this quiz of sorts. I scored a 61 and that makes me a medium core libertarian. I think I like that.

There are plenty of things a Libertarian and I could certainly agree on.

Sen. John Kerry's attempt at a joke...

2007-07-25T13:31:00.000-05:00

To be sure it's actually pretty good, but since he made his remark regarding President Bush in the last Presidential race in '04 and other attempts to make a humorous comment well it's to be expected isn't it. Still it's worth noting here and thanks to The Political Realm...

"There once was a man named Vitter
Who vowed that he wasn't a quitter
But with stories of womenAnd all of his sinnin'
He knows his career's in the--oh, never mind."
--Senator John Kerry, joking about Senator David Vitter at a fundraiser last week, from The Hill.

Do you guys think this was a good jab? Well I think so although I'll honestly admit that I haven't been following the story of Sen. Vitter (Republican from Louisiana) in the news.

If you missed last night's debate...

2007-07-24T22:17:00.000-05:00

Here it is. See it in all its glory. And this also means that I should probably watch it myself. Oh well enjoy this.

CNN/YouTube Democratic debate: Complete video

Hillary Outflanks Obama

2007-07-24T18:09:00.000-05:00

I missed this interesting debate last night on CNN where everyday people submit questions to the Democratic candidates for President thru YouTube. But here's some anaylsis with regards to Clinton v. Obama...

FOR HILLARY CLINTON, the presidency is not in the bag. Even winning the Democratic presidential nomination is considerably less than a sure thing. But of the 18 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, Clinton is the most likely to be the next president. And she did nothing last night in the bizarre presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina, to alter that.

Clinton managed to maintain at least the outward appearance of seriousness in a debate that included a taped question from someone dressed as a snowman, another from a sanctimonious Planned Parenthood official who asked if the candidates had talked to their kids about sex, and an especially silly one about whether the candidates would be willing to be paid the minimum wage as president. Most of them lied and said yes.

This was the first of six debates sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. Based on this one, there's a long and tedious season of yakking ahead in the presidential race. With You Tube providing the questions and the candidates offering special one-minute commercials, the idea was to make last night's debate livelier and more fun. Often, though, it was merely unserious, excessively cute, and frivolous.

There was a key moment, however, and once again it pitted Clinton, the New York senator, against Barack Obama, her counterpart from Illinois. The question was whether they'd promise to meet in the first year of their presidency with the leaders of such enemy nations as Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

"I would," Obama said, foolishly showing his inexperience, and perhaps his naivete as well, in foreign affairs. After all, he said, President Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and still talked to Soviet leaders. "I think it's a disgrace we haven't talked" to leaders of the five anti-American countries, Obama said.

Clinton benefited from getting to answer after Obama, and she made the most of it. She said, firmly and coolly, that she wouldn't promise to meet with them. Clinton said the new president had to be careful not to be exploited by hostile leaders for propaganda purposes and not to do anything "that would make the situation worse." Before any meeting, she'd have to know "what the way forward would be."

The verdict on whose answer was better, Obama's or Clinton's, came from John Edwards, the next candidate to speak. He echoed Clinton.

Get it together Sen. Obama!

Well I'm halfway there

2007-07-23T17:57:00.001-05:00

We'll I've got it installed so I did something right, now I have to figure out the little problem with creating a Database.

Check out my handiwork here.

Wordpress is too much work

2007-07-23T16:17:00.000-05:00

Why am I bothering with it?

I needed to play with MySQL to create some kind of database. And for what? I mean do I install it onto my webspace or do I use it from my own PC.

So many programs to use to make this conversion works, but so far I've done one thing right. I actually downloaded Wordpress onto my webspace. That's a victory, but everything else I must research.

Guess what I did tonight

2007-07-21T20:53:00.000-05:00

I just uploaded some Wordpress files up to this webspace. All I had to do was use Windows Explorer click the mouse and then drag it to the Window with my files here at Uppity's Space. It took about four minutes to upload (of course I was using the FTP method but without any fancy FTP program and thank you for broadband) and it looks like I'm good to go.

Now the next trick is to get these files the way I want them. Then figure out how to turn the posts I have already written on the Blogger system into Wordpress posts. Then finally complete this latest refurbishment.

Whew, having this webspace then figuring out what to do is hard work. I needed helpt to get this blog from Blog*spot to Uppity's Space. Now the next challenge which is to make this a Wordpress site.

How to deal with suspicious behavior on an airliner...

2007-07-20T09:36:00.000-05:00

I have to say that over on PW and on the PW clones as of late there have always been people who railed against Islam. Unfairly I would often think because often I don't look at the religion as the problem, but it's just the people who believe in that faith seemed messed up. Still I hate to hear about how Arabs or Muslims are singled out as terrorists and yes I mean those who are essentially innocent.

I know we live in times where we can't be sure what a person's motivation is, but I think it does no good to give in to your fears about some people. Even if I suppose these people resemble the people who piloted planes into buildings and cost about 3,000 people their lives almost six years ago. Still I would rather not cause a panic unless I find some obvious suspicions other than their language, mode of dress, or even customs of prayer.

I say all this to bring this article by Evan Coyne Maloney at Brain-Terminal.com to your attention. Read up because if you have suspicions about the people you're traveling with this is how to go about it. If you have to report someone at least have some good logical reasoning for it. Not merely because of their ethnicity.

Of coure Maloney also notes that even if these guys were behaving suspiciously and were about to engage in criminal activity, they will sue you for even reporting them. Even worse there was a bill that should protect citizens from such lawsuits but that bill was killed by the Democratic Congress. Hmmm, I wonder why American citizens don't have the right to be protected from lawsuits by some suspicious people?

Radio Host Tears Into "Offended" Muslim

2007-07-19T14:54:00.000-05:00

It's been a long while since I have listened to the Neal Boortz Show based out of Atlanta, GA. Awesome clip provided here of Boortz tearing into a Muslim caller Will who was seeking to complain about some Danish cartoons that outraged Muslims around the world. A laundry list of crimes that Muslims have perpetrated against people around the world. It's certainly staggering and Will, well I don't know what to say about him.

Sleepless in DC

2007-07-18T11:40:00.000-05:00

Well after all this...

After a long night of talk, talk and more talk about the war in Iraq,
...
To keep the all-night session in gear, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid held three live quorum call votes at 9:00 p.m., 12:30 a.m. and shortly after five a.m. He also threatened to have absent senators hauled into the Senate chamber by the Sergeant at Arms, but that never actually happened.

Democratic leaders brought cots into the Lyndon Baines Johnson room, just steps from the Senate floor, for lawmakers who wanted to nap between votes.

And pizzas were delivered to the second floor of the Capitol for sustenance.

Democratic staffers also sent toothbrushes and toothpaste wrapped in yellow ribbons to Republican staff. They helpfully attached a note, too: "Here are some supplies for your sleepless night. Help us bring an end to the war."

This still happened...

The Senate rejected a plan Wednesday to bring home U.S. troops from Iraq by early next year after spending an all-night session debating whether to demand President Bush change the mission.

The 52-47 vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and move toward passage. Four Republicans voted with the Democrats, but only one new backer emerged after the 24-hour Democrat-orchestrated talkathon: Susan Collins of Maine who is seeking re-election next year. She joined three previously known Republicans supporting a troop withdrawal plan: Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon.

Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman voted against the troop withdrawal plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who strongly supports the withdrawal approach, voted no as a technical move that allows him, under Senate rules, to bring the troop withdrawal plan back to a vote at a later date.

Well while I may not care for the war myself I really have to hand it to the Republicans for sticking to their guns. It's really not a smart thing to invade Iraq and then leave them with their chaos. We need to finish what we have started there.

So where's Alan Keyes???

2007-07-17T17:51:00.001-05:00

Clout St. a Chicago Tribune local politics blog talks about Alan Keyes. Keyes was a failed Presidential Candidate and more recently a failed candidate for US Senate who was defeated by Barack Obama in 2004. This was all after he replaced another candidate who dropped out because of what was found in his divorce records. Anyway this is what he's been up to...

After getting crushed by Democrat Barack Obama in Illinois' 2004 U.S. Senate race and arguably playing a role in Obama's bid for the presidency, the imported candidate of the Republican Party, fiery Maryland resident Alan Keyes, said he would stay in the state and help rebuild the Illinois GOP.

But Keyes, who got 27 percent of the vote to Obama's 70 percent, quickly left his Calumet City rental abode after the election. For a man who acknowledged to Illinois Republicans that his campaign strategy against Obama was to say something outrageous every day, Keyes hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention ever since.

Keyes has signed up with an East Texas evangelist, Rick Scarborough, in trying to invigorate the cause of Christian conservatives who find themselves showing disaffection to the leadership nationally of the Republican Party.

Scarborough and Keyes will lead an event in Houston on Wednesday, one of several that have been planned that promote the need for Christian conservatives to stay politically active despite their unhappiness. Scarborough is the leader of Vision America and the rallies are being billed as the "70 weeks to save America campaign."

Keyes, a former GOP presidential contender, famously declared during his Illinois campaign that "Christ wouldn't vote for Barack Obama."

Things haven't changed much.

At the first event of the "70-week" group in Lufkin, Texas, earlier this month, the Lufkin Daily News reported Keyes as saying, "Barack Obama is an evil man," citing the Democrat's record on abortion.

Needless to say I'm quite happy that I'm not writing about Sen. Alan Keyes right now.

Democratic presidential candidates address trial lawyers group

2007-07-15T22:05:00.000-05:00

Just of interest plus the fact that I'm sure many people like to talk about lawyers like they are vampires. Anyway from ABC7Chicago...

Presidential candidate and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told a group of trial lawyers Sunday that he would appoint an attorney general who would not politicize interpretation of the law.

"I will appoint someone who I will direct and say: 'You will be an attorney general for the people. I don't want to even see you talking to the political arm of the White House staff,"' Richardson said, taking a swipe at President Bush's embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.

Richardson, along with fellow Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Joe Biden, were in Chicago Sunday for a presidential forum sponsored by the American Association for Justice, a trial lawyer's group.

Richardson, who was the first to address the group at a downtown hotel, vowed a major overhaul of the Patriot Act if elected.

He also gave a near-failing grade to the Supreme Court that has evolved during the Bush Administration.

"No. 1., we will not eavesdrop on our citizens without a court order," he said.

Well good going for the Democratic candidates for President.

In other news the Republicans are down one in James Gilmore, the former Governor of Virginia, left the race.

Giuliani's got problems...

2007-07-12T23:00:00.000-05:00

I considered myself an admirer of sorts of Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of the city of New York. He was the face of the government as we attempted to cope with the terrorism many faced on 9/11. Indeed he's smart to cloke himself with his leadership during that period.

Now I'm starting to hear things about how the decisions he failed to made as far as his fire department in New York. Failing to provide them with the necessary radios that might have saved many lives. Well I can only let them tell their stories and then give you the necessary liks.

Right now I have this video from the International Association of Fire Fighters...

And check this out from Illinois Reason, a mostly liberal blog in Illinois where Giuliani is ahead in the polls. Here's an excerpt...

Cross-dresser Rudy Giuliani (recently found to be leading in Illinois) has apparently ticked off some of the people he thought were just extras for his campaign’s Really Big Show. NYC’s firefighters have thrown the book at Giuliani, letting us all know how his leadership was lacking on (and well before) that fateful September day:

Survivors of the attack and relatives of some of those who died in the twin towers blamed Giuliani for a lack of radio gear they said could have saved the lives of more than 100 firefighters who had been ordered to evacuate the north tower before it collapsed.

And they criticized Giuliani for placing his emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex before the attacks, after the towers had been the target of a previous bombing in 1993.

“He’s not a leader,” said retired Deputy Chief Jim Riches, whose son was killed in the 2001 attack. “He’s running on 9/11, and it’s all a fallacy.”

It’s not clear why anyone considers this former mayor to have any sort of standing on security matters given he didn’t bother listening to his first responders’ warnings about potential disasters. Sure, he’s groomed an air of knowledgeability on security for himself — but til now that’s been mostly an effort to help fatten his wallet as the star of a consulting firm bearing his name.

He cleaned up Gotham’s streets? Great. Terrorists aren’t bums and pimps (and there are still plenty of both in the Big Apple anyway). As we saw on 9/11 and again in recent weeks in London and Edinburgh, al Qaida and its splinter groups and copycats specifically recruit terrorist cells from among the middle class.

Sheehan Threatens to Run Against Pelosi

2007-07-09T18:49:00.000-05:00

Cindy Sheehan quits her movement in Crawford, Texas only to say that she may run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unless the Speaker makes moves to impeach President Bush. Let's see what is said in the Chicago Tribune...

Cindy Sheehan, the slain soldier's mother whose attacks on President Bush made her a darling of the anti-war movement, has a new target: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Sheehan, who announced in late May that she was departing the peace movement, said she decided to run against Pelosi unless the congresswoman moves to oust Bush in the next two weeks.

"I think all politicians should be held accountable," Sheehan told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership. We hired them to bring an end to the war."

Sheehan said she will run as an independent against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 if Pelosi does not file articles of impeachment against Bush by July 23. That's when Sheehan and her supporters are to arrive in Washington, D.C., after a 13-day caravan and walking tour starting from the group's war protest site near Bush's Crawford ranch.

Although Sheehan has never held public office, she said she already has the name recognition and would not have to run against Pelosi in a primary.

"I would give her a run for her money," Sheehan said.

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the congresswoman has said repeatedly her focus is on ending the war in Iraq.

"She believes that the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to bring them home safely and soon," Daly said in an e-mail to the AP. "July will be a month of action in Congress to end the war, including a vote to redeploy our troops by next spring."

Sheehan, who turns 50 on Tuesday, said Bush should be impeached because she believes he misled the public about the reasons for going to war, violated the Geneva Convention by torturing detainees and crossed the line by commuting the prison sentence of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. She said other grounds for impeachment are the domestic spying program and the "inadequate and tragic" response to Hurricane Katrina.

The White House declined to comment Sunday.

Honestly I would be very entertained by the possibility of a run by Sheehan against Pelosi. Who knows Sheehan might be successful.

I saw a segment on FDR on CBS Sunday Morning

2007-07-08T09:20:00.000-05:00

Hanging around in conservative circles on the internet I understand that so many seem to have a certain dislike for Franklin D. Roosevelt. Yeah government expanded during his administration and we're living in the times that resulted from it. They reffered to this book in this story The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Johnathan Alter.

I'm not sure who they were talking to, but he came out with a quoteable and said that with FDR, there was a new social contract that government does have an obligation for the people. He provided the example with hurricane Katrina where he would say that no one said it wasn't government's business that people are starving or people are suffering. FDR provided for a more active government.

Of course there is a downside to everything. Yeah they mentioned the agencies started under FDR. FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.), SEC (Securities Exchange Commissions), and then there's Social Security. The same social security that people may discuss often as in crisis and also the social security that isn't enough for many elderly people to live on after they retire these days.

I would just like to say that I like to look at the presidents. The men in addition to their job as chief of state and chief executive. He had an illness that took away his ability to walk (polio) and he was able to serve although it was thru "political theater" that he was able to walk.

Generally I can look at his world view and say he may be a hard liberal, but Presidents do have to make the tough decisions. I don't think the American people want a chief executive who's asleep on the job. It doesn't matter if this person is a liberal or a conservative, but how this individual is able to do the job is there choice and only they can live with what they do. And we as citizens have to live with the consequences.

Health Care Looms as Top Campaign Issue

2007-07-06T16:22:00.000-05:00

I'd be lying if I said that health care isn't an issue. There is definitely some improvements to be made in that area. Of course the question is whether or not we should go to a "single-payer" government operated system or not.

Well health care has often been a running theme in the last decade or so in politics. We would hear about medicaid or medicare often and remember the Clinton administration attempts to work on the health care system in the 1990s. Then check out Sicko out your local cinema and check out this website.

The Caucus blog talks about health care becoming an emerging issue in this race...

There is no better measure of the power of the health care issue than this: Sixteen months before Election Day, presidential candidates in both parties are promising to overhaul the system and cover more — if not all — of the 44.8 million people without insurance.
… Republicans, by and large, promise to expand coverage by using a variety of tax incentives to empower consumers to buy it themselves, from private insurers. Conservatives warn, repeatedly, of Democrats edging toward the slippery slope of “government-controlled health insurance,” as former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York puts it, and tout the innovation and choice offered by private insurers.
The major Democratic candidates propose strengthening the private-employer-based system, through which most working families get their coverage. But many Democrats also see a strong role for government, including, in some plans, new requirements that individuals obtain insurance and that employers provide it, along with substantial new government spending to subsidize coverage for people who cannot afford it.

Check out the candidates' stands on health care.

Since Al Gore is attempting to deal with some family issues...

2007-07-06T14:49:00.000-05:00

With his son who's in the news recently, Gore gets some play from the Tribune's Swamp blog. Larry King was talking to Gore about the possibility of Mayor Michael Bloomberg running for President next year...

One of the best and less predictable moments, however, came after King asked Gore about Michael Bloomberg who appears to be contemplating a presidential run.

What made the moment interesting was that it seemed like Gore was going to say that even though he liked Bloomberg, he couldn't vote for or endorse him if the mayor's entry in the race made him a spoiler, giving the victory to a Republican in a scenario similar to the one Gore played a starring role in seven years ago.

Gore didn't say this. He ended his thought prematurely. But it sure seems like that's where he was headed.

Maybe he thought it would sound like sour grapes. It was Ralph Nader in 2000 who many observers believe siphoned away the winning votes from Gore in Florida, leaving that race too close to call which led to the abbreviated recount and, eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court decision delivering the election to President Bush.

You can read more there where there's a brief transcript of the exchange between Gore and King with a little history lesson in the mix.

Here are a couple of Sen. Clinton items...

2007-07-05T10:58:00.000-05:00

First from July 2nd about Bill Clinton, Sen. Clinton's husband who just so happen to be a former president. Interesting huh? From the Chicago Sun-Times...

Love him or hate him, anybody who has followed Bill Clinton's career knows it's always been about him. Now it's about her.

Considered by friends to be as self-absorbed as he is brilliant, the former president checks his ego this week to fly to Iowa and take a surrogate's role in the presidential campaign of his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Her advisers privately fret that the former president will overshadow Sen. Clinton with his unparalleled campaign skills and career-long habit of drawing attention to himself. But the senator needs his help, and her staff bets that Bill Clinton is ready to be Mr. Her.

''He's going to talk about her, and she's going to talk about the country,'' campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said. ''And nobody can do better than him.''

Another item about Hillary bringing out her hubby...

Bill Clinton, one of the most popular figures in Democratic politics, embarked Monday on a Fourth of July tour with his wife, White House hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the leadoff voting state of Iowa in an effort to boost her campaign.
Bill Clinton said he is backing his wife because she is the most qualified, not because of any spousal obligation.

''All you have to do is decide who do you think will be the best president,'' he told thousands of voters gathered at twilight on the Iowa State Fairgrounds. ''Here's what I want to say to you: I'd be here tonight if she asked me if we weren't married.''

His wife, a New York senator, said she was ''thrilled to finally find something in politics that I'm doing that my husband didn't do.'' Bill Clinton skipped the Iowa caucuses in 1992 because Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin was running against him.

Normally a spouse's presence on the campaign trail isn't so noteworthy, but so far the Clinton campaign has been using Bill Clinton only sparingly. Monday's rally was the first time they had campaigned together in an early voting state, and he planned to stay at her side through the July 4 holiday.

The former president's visit comes six weeks after an internal campaign memo by a senior staffer suggested she should skip Iowa and invest her resources in other early voting states. Clinton denounced the memo, which called Iowa ''our consistently weakest state,'' and said she would continue to compete vigorously in Iowa.
...Bringing out Bill Clinton is not without risks. He tried not to overshadow his wife at the fairgrounds, keeping his remarks to an uncharacteristically brief 81/2 minutes. Republicans used the joint appearance to remind voters of their personal problems.

''After Bill Clinton tarnished the name of the president of the United States, the Republican Party restored hope, respect and morality within the Oval Office by bringing positive ideas and conservative values back to the White House,'' the Iowa Republican Party said in an e-mail sent to reporters. ''Neither Iowans nor the rest of the country need to witness another Clinton catastrophe.''

Bill Clinton is especially beloved by Democrats who will decide the nomination. According to a CBS News poll, 79 percent of Democrats view Bill Clinton favorably, compared to two-thirds who said they have a favorable view of his wife.

Finally Sen. Barack Obama has this to say about Hillary bringing out her former President hubby...

Between stump stops with his family at July 4 festivities, capped off by watching the Iowa Cubs play here, White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was asked about former President Bill Clinton's remark that "yesterday was pretty good."
That comment was designed to bolster Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) while serving to obliquely question Obama's relentless call for change.

"Well, my campaign," said Obama, "is not premised on running against the past. My campaign is based on what we can accomplish in the future."
...
During an interview with an Iowa Associated Press reporter just before, Obama had stronger language: "I admire Bill Clinton, I think he did a lot of fine things as president and he's a terrific political strategist. What we're more interested in is in looking forward, not looking backward. I think the American people feel the same way. They are looking for a way to break out of the harsh partisanship and the old arguments and solve problems.''

The Clintons were barnstorming across Iowa at the same time as the Obamas. Obama was asked about the overshadowing presence of the popular former president and he said he was not overly concerned. "I am sure that Bill Clinton is going to be campaigning for his wife and there is nothing wrong with that," downplaying Clinton's lead in national polls.

Later, he added, "What we are not worried about is the sort of the day-to-day horse race aspect in the middle of July when we have six months of campaigning to go,'' while pledging to compete "fiercely and aggressively all the way through.''

Leaving Jihad Behind

2007-07-03T11:18:00.000-05:00

Evan Coyne Maloney of Brain-Terminal.com links to a story about a former British Jihadist...

[W]hat drove me and many others to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary worldwide Islamic state that would dispense Islamic justice.

If we were interested in justice, you may ask, how did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting such a (flawed) Utopian goal?

How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion?

There isn’t enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.

For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Since I'm experimenting here...

2007-07-02T13:18:00.000-05:00

Now that I have a blog here on some dedicated webspace as opposed to having it on Blogspot I want to start experimenting with Wordpress. I feel like having some fun so why not. It might help make me smarter.

Clinton: popular with blacks but not whites

2007-06-29T20:45:00.000-05:00

From The Swamp...

It's a given that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Ill.) and her husband are very popular with African-Americans, a popularity that was on display at last night's Democratic debate at Howard University.

Gallup's pollsters have a new survey that indicates just how highly thought of she is among African Americans but Hispanics as well.

According to the poll, 84 percent of blacks rated her favorably while only 10 percent viewed her negatively. That compared with 68 percent of blacks who view Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) positively and eight percent unfavorably.

Gallup's report had this amusing explanation of Clinton's strength with black voters:

Due to his strong support in the African-American community, some have cleverly referred to former President Bill Clinton as America's "first black president." Blacks also view his wife Hillary Clinton positively, with 84% rating her favorably and only 10% unfavorably.

Blacks also have positive views of Obama, who is seeking to become the first official black president.

This has honestly irked me to no end. I can agree that Pres. Clinton had a much higher comfort level with black folks, but I would really like to know what justifies that.

Wow Mr. Vice President...

2007-06-28T22:19:00.000-05:00

The news for the past week has been that Vice President Dick Cheney considers himself not a member of the executive branch but a member of the legislative branch. That's mentioned in this column from Jonah Goldberg...

Take the current argument over Cheney's self-exemption from the rules on how classified documents should be handled. Instead of getting a waiver from the president, Cheney argued that he's immune to executive orders because he's also the president of the Senate and hence a member of the legislative branch too. Not only is this a goofy argument on its face, it does nothing to restore executive authority. It's not like the vice presidency was an outpost of the legislative branch before Watergate. Cheney's argument amounts to a convenient rationalization for his own secretive style.

Sounds like Goldberg was a fan up until this point. This was about the middle of the column how did it start...

Why do I like Dick Cheney? Because at a time when everybody talks a big game about how they don't like people-pleasing politicians who live by the polls, Cheney is pretty much the only guy out there who walks the walk. He truly doesn't care what people think about him. I love that.

In particular, I like his stance toward the media. His view of the Fourth Estate is a bit like that of a bull elephant annoyed by varmints shnuffling around his feet: He's not bothered enough to squish 'em ... yet.

But although I like Cheney's style -- particularly in contrast to his boss' -- it's become clear that the Cheney method leaves a lot to be desired. He may be more popular than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but that's like saying "This head cheese is tastier than carpet mold."

Moreover, Cheney's approach to government is ultimately counterproductive. That's certainly the upshot of an epic exegesis on Cheney's tenure that is unfolding like daily Pulitzer bait in the Washington Post this week. So far, the image of the VPOTUS emerging in the series is one of almost cinematic villainy. Like Cancer Man in "The X-Files," he always seems to be standing in the shadows, moving the gears of government to his own nefarious tune. According to the Post, he even intimidated former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft -- who, we all know, smells of sulfur and eats puppies like popcorn -- into abandoning his objections to harsh treatment of enemy combatants.

The vice president is famously concerned with two things: restoring the prerogatives of the executive branch, lost in the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate, and defeating our enemies in the war on terror. Both are admirable goals. But seemingly countless sources inside the Bush administration tell the Post that Cheney has a contempt for bureaucratic and legislative consensus-building that rivals his contempt for cultivating public support through the media. As a result, he often succeeds in bulldozing policies -- on enemy interrogations, etc. -- all the way to the president's desk. But he's isolated when it comes time to defend these policies.

You know I was reminded of this episode from this shortlived 2001 sitcom, That's My Bush (btw, you can see eps of this program over at TV Links). This episode had President Bush becoming a pro-wrestler after he lost his job as leader of the free world so we see Dick Cheney become President of the United States and he seems to be more of a bully than the loveable President Bush. Hmm, leads to the next point...

Such opportunism undermines his more principled arguments and exhausts the goodwill of his defenders, precisely when Cheney needs that goodwill for bigger and better things. And it sends his detractors on the left around the bend, just like President Bill Clinton's abuses -- real and perceived -- drove many of us on the right to kick our TV sets. The fact is that Cheney's cause isn't helped when millions of Americans think he's a comic-book villain.

A big part of Cheney's appeal in 2000 was that he was the first VP in memory without presidential ambitions. Cheney was going to be a managerial veep, bringing lessons from the private sector and his stint as secretary of defense to the job. That sounded good (and attendance at Cheney Fan Club meetings was high back then). But it turns out there's a benefit to politicians behaving like politicians. If Cheney had been planning his own presidential run, he would have cared more not only about public opinion but also about the political relationships he'd need in the future -- the same relationships this White House needs now.

"The irony with the Cheney crowd pushing the envelope on presidential power is that the president has now ended up with lesser powers than he would have had if they had made less extravagant monarchical claims," Bruce Fein, an associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, told the Post.

There's the rub of democratic government. Sure, the act of building consensus often requires sacrificing on your most preferred policies. But such consensus-building actually convinces the public, the bureaucracy and legislators of the necessity to act and reduces the chances they'll turn their back on the whole effort. The Cheney method instead creates a blowback that hobbles your efforts in the long run far more than compromise does.

You know I see the point of this column. There are some aspects of politicians I don't like, but maybe the take charge aspects aren't good sometimes. Whether you're take charge or not you have to work with people.

You know what this place needs

2007-06-28T16:52:00.000-05:00

I would like to do a newswire type thing here. And why not, this place is good for some frivolity, but also news of the day. So I'm going to work on finding some newsfeeds to to here in the future.

Maybe you'd like to do this one day. One of my favorite blog The Capitol Fax Blog has newsfeeds up using Feed Digest. Perhaps you can utilize that.

Redistricting Game

2007-06-27T12:53:00.000-05:00

I found this game the other day. It's fun but it can get difficult. Hopefully you will learn about the process of drawing up districts and maybe even the influence a mapmaker has in this process. A mapmaker can help maintain the status quo or they can shake things up big time.

Barack or Hillary: Who's got the juice?

2007-06-26T21:48:00.000-05:00

This is a match up I would like to see. Sen. Barack Obama, the man who was for all intents and purposes was drafted into running for President of the United States even though he hasn't even finished his first term as a United States Senator. Then there's Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (yeah I understand that she's dropped her maiden name) who seems to have been gunning for the White House since before she ran for the New York US Senate seate.

Yesterday in Chicago there was a fundraiser held. So they compete for dollars. According to the Chicago Sun-Times...

Barack Obama says he has no problem with Hillary Rodham Clinton coming to Chicago to raise campaign cash -- even if her formal dinner Monday night was expected to raise seven times as much as his cocktail party earlier in the evening.

But the South Side Democrat wasn't going to let anyone suggest the senator and former first lady was more qualified to hit the ground running as president than he is.

"The only person who would probably be prepared to be our president on Day 1 would be Bill Clinton -- not Hillary Clinton," Obama said when asked about unnamed Clinton backers questioning Obama's experience.

"I think that we're all very qualified for the job," the freshman senator said. "The question is who can inspire the nation to get us past the politics that have bogged us down in the past. That was true, by the way, in the '90s as well as more recently."

It was an obvious dig at the political divisions of the Clinton years.

Clinton's campaign officials declined to respond.

The two Democratic presidential front-runners held competing fund-raisers about six blocks apart.

The Chicagoan-turned-New York senator's event was at the historic Palmer House Hilton, with a son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Yusef, and more than 300 others helping her raise an expected $750,000. Even Mr. Cub Ernie Banks helped out, although he didn't attend the dinner.

For between $1,000 and $2,300 a pop, her donors dined on chicken with mushrooms, a garlic roasted risotto, tomato basil soup with blue cheese, triple chocolate mousse cake with pistachio sauce and fresh berries.

But if Clinton was trying to out-class or out-Chicago her rival on his own turf, Obama wasn't biting -- even though his event at Fulton's on the River was expected to raise only $100,000.

For a suggested $2,300 donation, Obama's 50 to 75 guests got hors d'oeuvres, red and white wine, Miller Lite, Miller Genuine Draft and Heineken. The hosts were Ariel Capital Management chief John W. Rogers Jr. and James S. Crown, head of Henry Crown & Co.

Wow, these politicians have all the great events. And they even go to the fine-dining restaurants.

Protest Warrior

2007-06-26T00:08:00.000-05:00

One night I was talking to a friend about PW (that's my name for Protest Warrior). He said that the typical M.O. of PW was to just go after the anti-war/leftist protestors with clever sarcastic signs and he suggested that this limited PW. He believe that the leaders of PW Alan & Kfir could have made a solid movement that could have united conservatives of different stripes.

Well in any political movement there is diversity. You've got Christian conservatives, libertarians, social conservatives, and I'm sure there are other designations I can't even consider. Still PW could have been that movement.

You wanna know how I discovered Protest Warrior. I would read this website called Brain-Terminal.com and I saw this video about Alan & Kfir's encounters with the anti-war/leftists in San Francisco called "Warrior Among Them". It was pretty hilarious, but it also helped that Kfir called the Rush Limbaugh program to talk about PW's earliest exploits on two separate occasions. To be sure it was interesting to see these guys used most of these protestors half-baked slogans against them.

And the forums, where most of the people here at the Refugee Camp came from, were good for the lastest news and arguments. People of varying ideologies and stripes come together to exchanges ideas and debate. It was good for about a good two years until not too long after the last presidential elections.

This same friend talked about how the "neo-cons" and the Christian conservatives came to the forums and that ruined it for him. I'm not clear on what a neo-con is, but to be sure the old friend referred to them as socialists and not true conservatives. To be sure what ruined the forum for me was the petty arguments, off-forum drama leaking onto the forums, and the forums getting swamped by some non-contributing members especially those of the leftist bent that dropped by before the forums went down last September.

The forums are always rumored to return and hopefully not in the same fashion that they once were. I jokingly suggested that Alan & Kfir were better off just "nuking" (or closing the forums) and start all over again. It looks like Kfir (Alan is no longer with PW) has done exactly that. And hopefully PW can have a revitalized organization just in time for the 2008 presidential election.

BTW, I see that Alan & Kfir has just released their new book for sale. Does anyone have an opinion on it?

How about some Constitutional Law???

2007-06-25T20:48:00.001-05:00

The court limits a high school student's free speech. From the Chicago Tribune...

A high school student's "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner got slapped down by the Supreme Court in a decision Monday that restricts student speech rights when the message seems to advocate illegal drug use.

The court ruled 5-4 in the case of Joseph Frederick, who unfurled his handiwork at a school-sanctioned event in 2002, triggering his suspension and leading to a lengthy court battle.

"The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic," Chief Justice John Roberts said. But the school principal who suspended him "thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one," Roberts said in the majority opinion.

In a concurrence, Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy said the court's opinion "goes no further" than speech interpreted as dealing with illegal drug use.

"It provides no support" for any restriction that goes to political or social issues, they said.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the ruling "does serious violence to the First Amendment."

Students in public schools don't have the same rights as adults, but neither do they leave their constitutional protections at the schoolhouse gate, the court said in a landmark speech-rights ruling from Vietnam era.

The court has limited what students can do in subsequent cases, saying they may not be disruptive or lewd or interfere with a school's basic educational mission.

Frederick said his banner was a nonsensical message that he first saw on a snowboard. He intended it to proclaim his right to say anything at all.

Frederick displayed his handiwork on a winter morning as the Olympic torch made its way through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

School principal Deborah Morse said the phrase was a pro-drug message. Frederick denied that he was advocating for drug use and brought a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Former independent counsel Ken Starr, whose law firm represented the school principal, called it a narrow ruling that "should not be read more broadly."

Taking issue with that, Steven R. Shapiro, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "It is difficult to know what its impact will be in other cases involving unpopular speech."

The Students for Sensible Drug Policy said it was sad that the court thought there should be a drug exception to the First Amendment.

In their concurrence Alito and Kennedy said that the decision "goes no further than to hold that a public school may restrict speech that a reasonable observer would interpret as advocating illegal drug use."

Nor does it address political or social issues such as the wisdom of the war on drugs or of legalizing marijuana for medicinal use, Alito and Kennedy said, embracing language from Stevens' strong dissent.

An Obama ad

2007-06-25T20:21:00.000-05:00

I found this over on the Capitol Fax Blog. They give a little more background into one of the prominent Illinois Republicans you'll see. You might see this guy as a RINO if you're a Republican while it could be seen here that Obama is a guy who can work across party lines.

Look here for some more ads.

Oh and check out YouTube's contributions to the 2008 Presidential race.

I just saw the latest Doctor Who just now

2007-06-24T20:56:00.001-05:00

Man I really can't wait to see what's going happen in this third installement of this three parter. The Doctor seems helpless and it's up to his travelling companion Martha Jones to save the day. The Master is back to his old tricks wreaking havoc on the universe or in fact in this case on Earth.

The next episode is titled "Last of the Time Lords". What's going to happen next?

C-SPAN Attacked by Right Wing Radio Listeners

2007-06-21T20:42:00.000-05:00

Hmmm, you know I would like to know what these upset radio listeners are trying to prove. If nothing else they have proven themselves to be very foolish. You'll be laughing when you hear what is said in these emails. There are two parts...

The Republican field isn't exciting me...

2007-06-21T14:36:00.000-05:00

They don't. I'm a fan of Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the house. And I really hope he gets into the race. I think his leadership style is very well thought out and he would be very welcome.

Former senator Fred Thompson well I liked him on Law & Order, but I don't know about President. I think he should have taken a leave of absense before leaving his role as the Manhattan District Attorney on L & O. Also I remember that it was speculated that Thompson was going to run for president in 2008 especially if he was successful in investigating the Clinton administration.

John McCain is too old in my view. That shouldn't disqualify him necessarily, but I think I want a much more younger president than McCain who is in his 70s. To be sure though I could have went for a President McCain had he been able to beat President Bush in 2000.

Sen. Sam Brownback. Well he may not be the only one, but he might be good for the Christian conservatives. I should look into him more, however, because at this moment I don't know what he's about. It's fine to be anti-abortion, because I'm anti-abortion, but what else does he have going for himself.

Former Massachusettes Gov. Mitt Romney has been doing very well. Especially in the polls and in fundraising, now if only that meant he'll be the Republican nominee for President. It looked like Howard Dean was going to be the Democratic nominee, but something happened and instead we had Sen. John Kerry as their nominee. Well his religion (Mormon) doesn't bother me too much (and besides we've yet to have a Mormon president just like in 1960, we've yet to have a Catholic president). I read in the news one day that one of his laws as governor of Massachusettes was to mandate that everyone in that state must have health insurance. While I can agree that something must be done about health care in this country, an initiative like that would bother me.

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas is (or maybe was) a Baptist minister. That bothers me and I think I want to keep religion a very long arm's length from politics. I can look at what he's for, but other than that I haven't looked at his candidacy closely.

Here's the last two candidates worth mentioning and they may very well be outside of the Republican mainstrean Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo, but members of the US House of Representatives.

Tom Tancredo I know him for his passion on the issue of illegal immigration and we can use some of that. Ron Paul is said to be a libertarian, but he made statements at a debate that made him look kookish. These two aren't going very far in the election, though I would like to think I'm wrong.

So that's how the Republicans look to me right now

Clinton Spoofs Sopranos

2007-06-20T22:54:00.000-05:00

From The Political Realm...

As we noted yesterday, Hillary Clinton announced the winner of her campaign theme song contest, settling on Celine Dion's "You And I." The method in which she announced, however, was one of the most creative web videos thus far in the 2008 cycle. In a spoof of the final Sopranos scenes, including a cameo from former cast member Johnny Sack played by Vince Curatola, Clinton teases viewers about her song choice. The video does a great job of showing a lighter side of the woman who often seems inaccessible.

And here's the video. To be sure, even I chuckled. Got myself humbled almost as if I actually watched The Sopranos series finale.

Hc619-tm
Uploaded by hotternews

I just saw NBC's William & Harry interviews

2007-06-18T22:14:00.000-05:00

The sons of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Prince William is the heir to the throne and Prince Harry well I don't know what his role is but he's next in line after his brother.

They talked about a number of subject such as life in the public eye. Their relationships with their parents, their romantic lives, and even what they are doing as the future of the British monarchy.

As a matter of fact their mother the late Princess Diana of Wales dominated this interview. They talked about being raised by her and even her death. I recorded that funeral when it happened in 1997. I was totally shocked when I heard that she had died in that accident in Paris.

One thing I want to touch up is the two prince's role in the military. Harry is said to love the army and would be disappointed if he wasn't going to be sent to Iraq although he may go to the Afghan theater. As an officer in the army he was really talking up how his troops would be disappointed if he didn't go to Iraq because they had trained together. Prince Harry was truly thinking about his men.

Of course I wanted to point this out and maybe this should have been the title of this post. The terrorist in Iraq were salivating at the prospect of killing the heirs to the throne of the United Kingdom. Some were calling for Prince Harry's head and I'm sure their excitement waned when the British Ministry of Defence said that Harry isn't going to Iraq.

Still someone should make a poster called the Princes of Freedom. Why not the British has often been on the right side of the fight for freedom. Especially if you look at the last century.

BTW, does anyone know I'm an Anglo-phile. With a great interest in the history of the British monarchy.

I've been asked to join this new website...

2007-06-18T19:37:00.000-05:00

Politics.wikia. A new project of wikipedia where I can join other political junkies and create a database of knowledge.

I don't know if I should join yet and I think I should check it out more before I finally make the leap. I only have this space to take a look at national politics. So maybe I need to have more grasp of that than anything else.

The Simpsons Personality Test

2007-06-17T22:23:00.000-05:00

You Are Homer Simpson

You're just an ordinary, all-American working Joe...

With a special fondness for pork rinds and donuts.

You will be remembered for: your little "isms" and philosophies on life

Your life philosophy: "Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals ... except the weasel."

The Simpsons Personality Test

I was at TV-Links this morning...

2007-06-17T13:58:00.000-05:00

I watched the latest Doctor Who episode titled "Utopia" and I'm like wow. I say this because the Doctor's archnemesis the Master has returned. And he is about as evil as ever.

He disguised himself as the Doctor did in a two part episode respectively called "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood". Where to flee a hostile species the Doctor had to change himself and hide amongst humans in 1913. He place most of his memories into a simple pocket watch. The character who was the Master had did the same thing.

An important theme in the new Doctor Who is the belief that Time Lord civilization was destroyed with their planet Gallifrey and their people. The Doctor believed he was the last of the Time Lords only to discover that the Master also survived this "Time War". The next two episodes of this season is going to be even more interesting.

Man I'm glad I'm now a Doctor Who fan.

TV-Links

Weekly blogthing coming up.

Mike Nifong

2007-06-16T19:56:00.000-05:00

I remember when the story of an alleged rape hit the news last year.

Me and some guys were talking about this story. And he said that he believed it. You see this was a story about a black woman who was a stripper and she accused the white members of a university lacrosse team of raping her.

He graduated from Morehouse and is currently a student at this university, Duke, and I talked to him and asked him about this story. He says that they don't talk about it anymore. During this whole ordeal there was talk about whether enrollment will go down and what not.

Eventually the story of this woman went down the tubes and eventually the accused rapists were proven innocent and today we see the aftermath.

Mike Nifong was disbarred because of his actions in pursuing this case. He has indicated that he will resign for his transgressions.

This was discussed a little on the forums tonight and I said it there and I'll say it here.

That the reason her pursued this case was to become some hero. And looking at the article I linked to from BreitBart, that appears to be what he did.

I heard about how his face turned red when a decision over his fate was rendered. In addition to that there are those who said he should go to jail. When this story came out there were a number of people who were very upset about the rape or the injustice to the accused individuals.

So let me just say this. I don't think that he should go to jail. His humiliation should be enough because he only did that to himself.

Rosie O'Donnell to host "The Price is Right"?

2007-06-16T11:19:00.000-05:00

If you don't know already Bob Barker is retiring after being the host of the famed daytime TV gameshow since 1972. I've seen some of the recent episode and I wish I could still be that active into my eighties. Still I could see where he was slowing down a bit physically and mentally.

You see I got nostalgic watching clips of old Price is Right from the very first one to other recent shows. It made me want to watch the old program a few more times. This show was my dad's favorite and it has given viewers and contestants many memories.

In any event who's going to replace Barker?

Well check out this post from Hot Air. It seems Rosie O'Donnell is interesting in replacing Bob Barker. Didn't she just come off a one year stint on a daytime talk show where he got into a verbal joust with another co-host?

Anyway, I wonder if hosting a game show where people are supposed to like you is a good fit for her.

I didn't mean to play hookey...

2007-06-14T20:49:00.000-05:00

I just haven't felt like blogging over here. This place just needs some direction. I intend to talk a little about the presidential elections next year. There are a lot of good stories here, but I don't want this place lacking in fun and personality. I'll figure it out eventually.

And where's the other author here?

Ruth Graham has passed away...

2007-06-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

You I found this over at the Refugee Camp forums. You know I decided to look this woman up because I know Billy Graham I had to figure if she was in some way related to him. To be sure I'm not a faithful follower of his, but bless them both and bless his wife, Ruth more because she passed away today.

I saw this line in the Wikipedia article I just linked to about the famed evangelist. And it brought out the romantic cynic in me...

In 1943, Graham married Ruth Bell (1920-2007), whose parents were Presbyterian missionaries in China, where her father, L. Nelson Bell, was a general surgeon. He met Ruth at Wheaton college: “I saw her walking down the road towards me and I couldn’t help but stare at her as she walked. She looked at me and our eyes met and I felt that she was definitely the woman I wanted to marry.”

I saw that and I was like, "Oh please". Well they were together 64 years though, can you believe that! If only I can be so lucky.

Well in any event bless Ruth Graham and her family in their time of grieving.

Are You a Dumb American?

2007-06-10T12:08:00.001-05:00

You Are a Smart American

You know a lot about US history, and you're opinions are probably well informed.
Congratulations on bucking stereotypes. Now go show some foreigners how smart Americans can be.

Are You a Dumb American?

Politics of 9/11

2007-06-07T20:26:00.000-05:00

From the good people over at The Political Realm with a video from a very good episode of Family Guy. Very funny...

Check out this blog post on Sen. Clinton

2007-06-07T18:46:00.001-05:00

From a blog called Chicago Carless. They slam Sen. Hillary Clinton on how she's presenting herself to the people as she seeks to become the nation's first female president. First there's a feud between her New York and Washington, DC staffs and then her presentations in her video diaries....

Take a walk through Clinton's YouTube diary. Video after glossy, shiny video show Hil wordsmithing at great length to a variety of audiences--but if you listen, pretty much saying nothing. In fact, fully half of the speaking time in Clinton's YouTube videos is devoted to smarmy voter testimonials, as if the American electorate is so stupid as to cast a vote for President based on a glowing review from Slappy the trailer guy as opposed to a candidate's own stated positions. Even given Iraq and the second coming of Emperor W., I have trouble believing Clinton thinks the American public is that asinine.

Ouch, so Clinton isn't on her A game is she. Well I'll have to check out these videos for myself. Also this blog post got on her for her vote on the war and how she answer this question during the recent Democratic debates...

SEN. CLINTON: "...I think it's important particularly to point out this is George Bush's war. He is responsible for this war. He started the war. He mismanaged the war. He escalated the war. And he refuses to end the war."
So I guess, Hil, merely voting in favor of going to war as you did back about 3,000 lives ago somehow absolves you of any responsibility for the quamire we're in? Yes I know, as you said last night, you just thought you were practicing "coercive diplomacy" with your vote. My mistake, you're right, that makes it better. Moving on...
MR. BLITZER: "So let me just be precise; that the question was, do you regret not reading the National Intelligence Estimate?"
SEN. CLINTON: "I feel like I was totally briefed, I knew all of the arguments that were being made by everyone from all directions. National Intelligence Estimates have a consensus position and then they have argumentation as to those people who don't agree with it. I thought the best way to find out who was right in the intelligence community was to send in the inspectors. And if George Bush had allowed the inspectors to finish the job they started, we would have known that Saddam Hussein did not have WMD and we would not have gone and invaded Iraq."
You know, Hil, you would have saved us all a lot of time if you had just said "no comment", because the above certainly is no answer to the actual question with which you were presented.

Looking at this post I wonder if Hillary might be able to actually win this thing. We'll see.

Check this link out!!!

2007-06-07T00:35:00.000-05:00

TVLinks. There you can watch your favorite TV program, movie, cartoon, or music videos. It's a great website that's worth checking out. So enjoy!

From Illinois...

2007-06-04T23:04:00.001-05:00

A cable access show called Public Affairs starring Jeff Berkowitz. The program you're about to watch is with a Republican operative named Dan Proft. He was behind a number of candidates in Illinois from Governor, US Senator, Cook County Board President, and was involved in elections in municipalities such as Cicero, Rosemont, and Chicago Heights.

Anyway on this show he's interviewed and you should pay attention to what he says about 2004. He seemed candid about what happened with Alan Keyes when he came in to replace the original GOP nominee for US Senate Jack Ryan. He talks about the problems with Republicans in Illinois, but doesn't seem to give solutions just diagnoses the problem.

I wonder if the national Republican party knows who he is. Anyway Check out this program it lasts roughtly thirty minutes.

This show is often local in nature but there probably will be episodes on issues that may cover the US Congress (House or Senate) and maybe even some eps with regards to the Presidential campaign.

What Does Your Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Say About You?

2007-06-03T20:57:00.000-05:00

What Your Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich Means

Your eating style is reserved. You are a bit of a fussy eater, and you have very specific ways you like your food prepared.

You have an average sweet tooth. While you enjoy desserts, they aren't exactly your downfall.

Your taste in food tends to be conservative and traditional. It's likely that you prefer "All American" favorites like mac and cheese or hamburgers.

You are probably a fairly normal, upper middle class person. You don't rock the boat too often.

You are a tough person who isn't afraid to live life fully. There isn't a lot that scares you.

You are laid back and extremely easygoing. You never make a fuss, and you try to enjoy every moment.

What Does Your Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Say About You?

A lot going on today...

2007-06-03T20:50:00.001-05:00

The Democrats had a debate in New Hampshire on CNN this evening. I didn't get a chance to watch so if I talk about it, it will only be because I saw an article or two on it. I assure you that I won't talk about it until I see an article or two.

BTW, Hotline on Call got a good quote from tonight's debates...

“I get my meds from the VA.” – Mike Gravel.

Also right now I'm watching former Senator and Law & Order star Fred Thompson making a speech announcing his intention to run for president. A great speech that is holding my interest at this moment airing at this moment on C-Span. It's convincing me that he really wants to be POTUS.

Anyway, I'll be back soon with more information. I think I'll make it a weekly feature to do a Blogthing so stay tuned for that as well, OK.

RNC faces donor falloff, fires solicitors

2007-06-02T17:47:00.000-05:00

I never liked money in politics. I wonder if I should look at this as a good thing or a bad thing. Hmm check this article out from the Washington Times...

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, The Washington Times has learned.

Faced with an estimated 40 percent falloff in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee's chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, fired staff members told The Times.

Several of the solicitors fired at the May 24 meeting reported declining contributions and a donor backlash against the immigration proposals now being pushed by Mr. Bush and Senate Republicans.

"Every donor in 50 states we reached has been angry, especially in the last month and a half, and for 99 percent of them immigration is the No. 1 issue," said a fired phone bank employee who said the severance pay the RNC agreed to pay him was contingent on his not criticizing the national committee.

A spokeswoman for the committee denied any drop-off in fundraising.

"Any assertion that overall donations have gone down is patently false," RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote by e-mail yesterday in response to questions sent by The Times. "We continue to out-raise our Democrat counterpart by a substantive amount (nearly double)."

It's unfortunate that some have lost their jobs because of it.

Links

2007-06-02T11:22:00.000-05:00

Alright I've been working on some links around here. Mostly political and news sources, but I would like some fun links as well. Even included a link to the RefugeeCamp. If you got some links to offer please off them. Make a comment in this post. Thanks.

Pelosi’s Order in the House

2007-06-01T22:39:00.000-05:00

From the New York Times. Compare and contrast Nancy Pelosi versus her immediate predecessor J. Dennis Hastert...

He is a burly former wrestling coach, a conservative Republican from small-town Illinois who usually ran from the microphones. She is the designer-clad member of a political family, a wealthy liberal from San Francisco who sees herself as a top party spokeswoman.

But what could turn out to be their defining contrast was exhibited on May 24, when Ms. Pelosi allowed the Iraq war spending bill to clear the House with predominantly Republican votes while most Democrats – including her – opposed it. It was a marked departure from the principle that guided Mr. Hastert during his years as speaker.

Mr. Hastert was an advocate of governing the House by a “majority of the majority” – a standard he thought best served the interests of his Republican members and, by extension, the nation. Just months into her tenure, Ms. Pelosi has shown she will deviate from that approach, balancing the potential of significant rewards against big risks.

The rewards could come from success in winning approval of major legislation that reaches beyond party label. Critics of Mr. Hastert said his self-imposed rule prevented the House from considering centrist social and economic measures that, in their view, could have benefited both parties. It is likely, for instance, that a coalition existed in the House last year to pass an immigration overhaul that Republicans and Democrats could have hailed going into the elections. But strong opposition from a majority of the majority derailed that idea.

The risks are related to party cohesion. If a leader such as Ms. Pelosi regularly cuts against the wishes of most of the people who put her in leadership, it stands to reason they would eventually wonder if new leadership was warranted. At a more subtle level, passing important bills with coalitions built outside party lines can expose and deepen fractures within them and sap the support of interest groups that can be essential to winning and holding onto power.

Republicans see internal problems for Democrats as they sort through how to govern. “The problem for Pelosi is that the majority of her majority still has a minority mindset,” said John Feehery, a lobbyist who was an adviser to Mr. Hastert. “They would rather protest than legislate. And that dynamic will weaken her control over the House in the long-run."

While some anti-war groups remain outraged at the war vote, many Democrats were not all that upset with the way she handled it. Through some procedural maneuvers, the speaker allowed Democrats to back a minimum wage increase and popular domestic spending and still vote against the war money. At the same time, Democrats got out of what the leadership saw as a political jam that could have left them being blamed for cutting off money to troops overseas.

The next test for Ms. Pelosi will come on looming votes over increased free trade. Many - perhaps most - House Democrats are leery of going along with the push by President Bush, free-trading Democrats and congressional Republicans for new trade deals that they believe ship jobs out of the country and lack labor and environmental safeguards.

To some veteran House Democrats, the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement is a particularly bitter memory. A majority of then-minority Republicans joined with a minority of then-majority Democrats to pass the deal sought by President Bill Clinton. Quite a few Democrats believe that approval of the trade deal over the objections of organized labor diluted union support in 1994 and contributed to the loss of Congress by the Democrats that year. Ms. Pelosi was among 102 Democrats who backed the 1993 trade deal; 156 Democrats, including the majority leader and whip, opposed it.

Anti-trade Democrats are worried the war vote foreshadowed Ms. Pelosi making a similar trade move this year, forgetting the hard lessons of NAFTA. They promise that such a decision will stir strong resentment. Ms. Pelosi has urged lawmakers not to jump to conclusions, but she is making no guarantees that legislation must have majority Democratic backing.

“I have to take into consideration something broader than the majority of the majority in the Democratic Caucus,” she told reporters.

US Navy fires at terrorists in Somalia

2007-06-01T21:42:00.000-05:00

I originally got wind of this from my FOXNews alert e-mail, but the only place I could find this story was at MSNBC. So here goes...

The destroyer USS Chafee fired her deck guns at two or three suspected "high-value terrorist targets" in the Puntland area along the northern coast of Somalia on Saturday, U.S. officials told NBC News. The three suspects are accused of taking part in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

According to the officials, the U.S. had "actionable intelligence” gathered by U.S. Special Operations Forces and local tribal leaders that the suspects were in the area.

Out of fear that the suspects would leave the area, the decision was made to order the strike from the Chafee, which fired 20 five-inch rounds from her deck guns.

The Chafee was the U.S. military's closest asset, the officials said. Airstrikes would have come too late.

There has been no battle damage assessment to determine if any of the suspects were killed or wounded in the attack, the officials told NBC News.

One of the suspects, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, had also been targeted in December in airstrikes by U.S. AC-130 gunships in Somalia.

He is the leader of the East Africa cell of al-Qaida and is believed to be the mastermind of the al-Qaida attacks in 1998 on U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed more than 200 people.

He was also the author of the 2002 attacks on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and the attempted shoot-down of an Israeli charter plane that same day.

He is also known as Harun Fazul. He is on the FBI's most wanted list. There is a $5 million reward.

How about a little Cuba news...

2007-06-01T17:36:00.000-05:00

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is already working on Cuba it seems according to this Chicago Sun-Times article. Cuba's state of affairs has been unusual since we hear that their ~~President~~ Dictator Fidel Castro isn't doing very well health wise. Still I do wonder about a Cube without Castro. Will the Communist Party fall without Castro?

Here's Condi's thoughts...

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Cuba is on the verge of a ''major transition,'' and chided Spain for not doing more to support dissidents in the communist nation, in comments made Friday while en route to talks with Spanish leaders.
Rice's one-day visit here was meant to smooth over a three-year downturn in relations between Washington and Madrid, but the disagreement over Cuba has threatened to wash away any growing good will. At issue is Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos's decision to snub Cuban dissidents on a visit to Havana in April, a move that has earned Washington's ire.

Moratinos has defended the move, saying engagement with Cuba is the best policy.

''There is a major transition coming in Cuba, and I think democratic states have an obligation to act democratically,'' Rice said before touching down in Madrid, alluding to the lingering health problems of 80-year-old Cuban President Fidel Castro.

She said Western democracies must not ''give the regime the idea that it is just going to be transitioned from one dictatorship to another.''

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has said he would be glad to discuss Spain's position on Cuba with Rice, and hoped his explanation would assuage U.S. concerns.

''Countries and governments don't have to have equal visions on every aspect of international policy,'' Zapatero said earlier this week. ''But it is positive that we are talking about it. Surely, when we talk our positions will become more understandable.''

But Zapatero's office has also downplayed the significance of his meeting with Rice, saying it would be brief and characterizing it as a ''courtesy call.''

Clinton takes the cake -- or pie -- in Iowa

2007-05-31T22:38:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting this race to boil down to Sen. Hilary Clinton vs. Sen. Barack Obama. It always seemed to me that Sen. Clinton wanted it more than Sen. Obama. I'm also willing to wager that Sen. Clinton's designs on the presidency has been upset by the meteoric rise of her Senate colleague.

Either way I have my ideas about Sen. Obama's chances in the presidential race. For me, there are things against him such as his lack of solid, concrete, specific details on such things as health care. However, I believe his popularity might help him and hopefully he will have specific details on what he would do as president and how he'd get there. Those are questions he will answer at some point for sure.

Still the question is, will he be ready to be the Democratic nominee for President or will he be ready to be President? Here's a column from the Chicago Sun-Times from where this post steals its title...

He paused and ducked and weaved: "I don't want to just differentiate myself from one candidate because there are a lot of good candidates. ... We are all on the same team. We're all just running for quarterback."

But if Obama had been really honest, he would have admitted this: He rarely indulges in sweets, but Clinton sees dessert and pizza as a serious part of her campaign obligations, especially in Iowa, where meeting small crowds over coffee -- so called retail politics -- is de rigueur.

"We always serve pie at our events," acknowledges Clinton's good-humored Iowa press secretary, Mark Daley. Pie is, after all, an Iowan tradition. "The cherry pie has been a really big hit," he says. Rhubarb and mixed berry are also popular.

But Daley says Clinton doesn't often get to eat the pie since "she spends most of her time talking."

Check out Sen. Clinton's campaign schedule according to this column. She ate up or at least gave some of those sweets to others in her campaign...

• Friday, May 25, 4 p.m., Charles City, Iowa: Clinton Meets with Iowans over Pie and Coffee.

• 7:15 p.m., Algona, Iowa: Clinton Attends a "Meet and Greet" with Iowans at Premier Pizza.

• Saturday, May 26, 9:30 a.m., Emmetsburg, Iowa: Clinton Meets Iowans Over Coffee and Rolls at Pizza Ranch.

• 1 p.m., Sioux Center, Iowa: Clinton Meets with Iowans over Pie and Coffee at Sioux Center Library.

• 4 p.m., Sioux City, Iowa: Clinton Attends an Ice Cream Social and "Conversation with Iowans."

Hmmm, I would really love to run for office in the state of Iowa or at least President. But the column suggests that Barack needs to get in the game and eat up. No more excuses...

The truth for Barack Obama is, as his wife, Michelle, tells it, he doesn't like sweets much, having spent the formative years of his childhood in Indonesia, where dessert is not part of the menu. In fact, the only time I have seen Obama dig in to the traditional end to a meal was the ice cream he ate Sunday in Berlin, N.H. And he had it in a cup, not a cone! (What is he afraid of, 60 more calories?)

We know he is a rigorous exerciser, sneaking down often to the hotel work-out rooms early in the morning while he is on the campaign trail. It's harder to go for a run outside now with these burly Secret Service guys around. But Obama's extremely wiry frame suggests to me that he is not taking in enough calories on the campaign trail. In fact, I say this as a good Jewish mother: "What, you don't like the food on your plate? You look too thin. Eat up."

Listen Barack, if you're a smart politician, you won't let Hillary take the cake!

You have got to be kidding me!!!

2007-05-30T20:21:00.001-05:00

Former US Rep. Cynthia McKinney (Democrat-Georgia) is seeking the Green Party nomination for President. From Peach Pundit.

Fred Thompson is going to enter the presidential race

2007-05-30T18:17:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot of talk about former Tennessee Senator Fred Dalton Thompson joining the race. The Washington Post says that he is going to form a presidential committee. Here's a piece of this article...

"Law and Order" star Fred Thompson will make his flirtation with a White House bid official this week, forming a presidential committee and launching a fundraising effort that could culminate in a formal announcement over the July 4th weekend, advisers to the former senator said.

Thompson, who has been fueling speculation that he would seek the Republican presidential nomination with a spate of appearances and speeches around the country, urged a group of donors in a conference call yesterday to each attempt to raise a total of $46,000 from 10 couples starting on June 4, according to two participants in the call. Once the money begins flowing, Thompson will begin to hire a campaign staff and set up headquarters in Washington and Nashville, his advisers said.

In addition, the nascent campaign is planning to launch a Web site in the next 10 days, according to one person familiar with campaign planning. Thompson will give a speech in Virginia this weekend and is scheduled to appear on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" next month.

The papers Thompson intends to file on Friday with the Federal Elections Commission will allow the former Tennessee senator to test the waters by raising money that could be used once he declares officially, several sources said. The committee he will establish will be called "Friends of Fred Thompson."

"It allows for testing the waters, to see if the financial resources are going to be there to mount a campaign, set up an operation and continue to get ready to announce his candidacy," said one source with knowledge of Thompson's immediate plans.

Thompson's advisers have discussed making that announcement over the July 4th weekend, using the hoopla of the national holiday as a backdrop for the official launch of the campaign. But those plans are in flux and could change, two sources said today. One source said a formal announcement is likely to come "around that time."

Hmmm, I recall he flirted with running for President before 2000. It looks like he's actually serious now. I wonder where this pans out and where he fits with the front runners.

And I wanna know if Newt is going to get into the Presidential sweepstakes.

2007-05-29T21:20:00.000-05:00

Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays

I just had to post this from The Onion. Very hilarious or maddenning.

Oh yeah let's talk about the GOP convention next year too...

2007-05-29T16:43:00.000-05:00

You national Republican should get to know Bob Kjellander (the KJ is pronounced SH). He's a national GOP committeman in Illinois and a friend of Karl Rove. Kjellander was dogged in Illinois for doing business for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (Democrat) during his first term. He got a good pay day of about $300K.

From the Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet's blog...

During the 2007 State Chairmen’s Meeting this month in Columbia, S.C., the Committee on Arrangements for the 2008 Republican National Convention elected the following officers by resolution: Bob Kjellander, National Committeeman for Illinois as Vice Chairman; Sara Gear Boyd, National Committeewoman for Vermont as Secretary; and Tim Morgan, National Committeeman for California as Treasurer. Blake Hall, National Committeeman for Idaho, will serve as General Counsel to the committee.

The Committee on Arrangements is the RNC body charged with the planning and management of the Convention. The 2008 Republican National Convention will be held in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota September 1-4, 2008.

Illinois Republicans have tried in the last few years without success to remove Kjellander from his GOP post. There were even calls by grassroots Republican groups to call for the direct election of Republican national committeeman in Illinois.

Illinois may be in play for the presidential race...

2007-05-29T16:20:00.000-05:00

The Illinois General Assembly has already passed a law that moves up the presidential primary to February 5th instead of March. It was designed to help Illinois US Senator Barack Obama. Now this could be seen as a good thing for the struggling IL GOP. From the Chicago Sun-Times...

"It really is wide open on the Republican side," said Illinois Republican Party chairman Andy McKenna.

"It's ironic," he said. "A move to help Obama helps the Republican Party.''

When Gov. Blagojevich signs the legislation setting Feb. 5 as the primary date, switching from March, Illinois joins more than 20 other states holding elections that day, creating a new national primary. While Obama has a near lock on Illinois, the three top Republican contenders -- former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- see Illinois as fertile territory and are establishing statewide campaigns.

In order to draw attention to Illinois, McKenna said the party is considering organizing a straw poll on Aug. 16, five days after the influential Aug. 11 Iowa Republican party straw poll.

Each of the three frontrunners on the GOP side have tapped leading Illinois Republicans as chairmen -- all with statewide political networks.

It appears that the three "frontrunners" are really serious about playing a role in Illinois and has even gotten prominent GOP state legislators to chair their campaigns. Others like Gov. Tommy Thompson seem OK with not mounting a serious campaign for Illinois' 70 delegates.

Here's more...

The primary could provide a shot in the arm for the Illinois GOP that is much needed -- what with the Democrats in every statewide office and in control of the House and Senate.

McKenna sees the primary as a "basis for re-engaging volunteers who may have been dispirited the past couple of years.''

The GOP rivals, said McKenna, will be "viewing Illinois not just as a place to raise money but a place where they want to win."

The Swamp talks about a 106 year old veteran of the First World War...

2007-05-28T22:11:00.000-05:00

A pretty good post. I would be grateful to be 106 and sharp as this post described him...

Frank Buckles, frail but sharp, surrounds himself with totems from another time and distant lands.

A china cabinet is filled with military patches, an old wireless telegraph and other knickknacks he collected while deployed to England, France and Germany. One wall holds a sepia-toned photograph of Buckles as a fresh-faced soldier at age 16 posing with the rest of his Army unit.

Another showcases commendations from Congress and the West Virginia governor, as well as a photograph of French President Jacques Chirac pinning the French Legion of Honor medal on Buckles' jacket.

And there are his war stories.

From World War I. "The Great War."

The life of Frank Buckles in some ways tracks a timeline for the rise of America as a superpower. He has been witness to it all, and he is one of very few living to tell about it.

At age 106, Buckles is one of only three known living American veterans of World War I, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"For many years, I would read the figures in The Torch [a veterans magazine] in two columns -- one was the number of 4.7 million-something veterans who served, and the other, which kept going down, was the number of us that were still alive," Buckles said. "I knew one day it would come to this. But I didn't think I would be one of the few still around to talk about it."

Buckles is the youngest of the three known living U.S. World War I veterans. His voice is raspy, he has difficulty walking, and he needs help getting dressed each morning. But his mind is keen, and the memories of his two years in Europe during the war remain clear.

On Monday, Frank Buckles will serve as a marshal for the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C., sharing the starring role with actor Gary Sinise. White House officials also offered to give Buckles a tour on Memorial Day, but his doctor advised that the parade was more than enough excitement for one day.

Buckles said he doesn't mind all the attention. It's a salute to his generation, and he happens to be the only one of his contemporaries available to take a bow. But he said he is concerned about whether he is the right guy for the parade.

"What are you supposed to do when you lead a parade?" Buckles asked.

Besides Buckles, the VA has identified the only other living World War I veterans as Harry Landis, a 107-year-old living in Sun City Center, Fla., and Russell Coffey, a 108-year-old in North Baltimore, Ohio.

After the last Navy veteran and the last American woman to serve in World War I died days apart in March, the VA made a public appeal to identify any other veterans of the war, but found no others, said VA spokesman Matt Burns.

While World War I marked the decline of the British Empire and led to the remapping of the Mideast, "The Great War" has largely become the forgotten war of American history, said Eli Paul, director of the newly opened National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Mo.

God bless him!!!

What's Your Average American Name?

2007-05-27T21:44:00.001-05:00

Your Average American Name Is...

Matthew Robert Anderson

What's Your Average American Name?

Not sure if I like the sound of this

2007-05-25T15:38:00.000-05:00

From the Washington Note.

Not sure how much turmoil there is but it bothers me how they titled this post.

There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.

On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.

The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel.

However, the Department of Defense and national intelligence sector are also preparing for hot conflict. They believe that they need to in order to convince Iran's various power centers that the military option does exist.

But this is worrisome. The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well -- as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging.

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

Sounds to me like someone needs to slow down a little bit.

Rosie O'Donnel off of The View

2007-05-25T14:59:00.000-05:00

It was just announced by FOXNews in an email alert. It follows directly on the heels of the what you saw in the video I posted a couple of days ago.

You know I just saw this part of the article from FOXNews.com and how Donald Trump even interjected himself into this new controversy. As most of you may have heard he's been engaged in a nice public back and forth with Rosie stemming from the Miss USA pageant. His quote doesn't make him look very good...

O'Donnell's nemesis Donald Trump naturally weighed in on Wednesday's war of words between Hasselbeck and O'Donnell, surprisingly taking O’Donnell’s side while still managing to insult both co-hosts.

“On this one I think Rosie should win, but Rosie is not much herself. I think anybody that’s against the war in Iraq is the winner of the fight, because to justify the war in Iraq — only an imbecile could do that," he told "Extra."

About Hasselbeck’s political views, especially on the war in Iraq, he added, “Elisabeth is not a very smart person, she’s one of the dumber people in television. To see that she supports the war, and she’s solidly behind the war, give me a break.”

Trump later told reporters that Hasselbeck was "probably the dumbest person on TV."

2007-05-23T22:22:00.000-05:00

This video was from BreitBart.tv from The View where Rosie O'Donnell gets into it with her co-host Elizabeth Hasselback. It was a verbal brawl going back and forth. This was a virtual catfight, but I'll let you decide who won.

Hello!!!

2007-05-23T00:40:00.000-05:00

You're are now reading this blog over at dedicate webspace over at the Refugee Camp. So I have made one step to doing something different over here.

This blog is one excuse to look at national and world events as opposed to my very first blog which does look at national and world events except that these days it's mostly local in nature. I hope to get back to that here and provide for more of an interesting blog in the process. We'll see how far it goes.

I'm the main one writing this blog. This blog has two other writers although one just provides the technical support that I don't have a clue about. He helped to upload this blog up to RefugeeCamp. The other is a great gatherer of political news so that's his job.

Anyway let's have a discussion.

Let's take a poll: Just how crazy are Democrats?

2007-05-17T17:53:00.000-05:00

Uh-oh!!! Let's check out this article by Jonah Goldberg...

Most fair-minded readers will no doubt take me at my word when I say that a majority of Democrats in this country are out of their gourds. But, on the off chance that a few cynics won't take my word for it, I offer you data. Rasmussen Reports, the public opinion outfit, recently asked voters whether President Bush knew beforehand about the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The findings? Well, here's how the research firm put it: "Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent of Democrats believe he did know, 39 percent say he did not know and 26 percent are not sure."

So, one in three Democrats believes that Bush was in on it somehow, and a majority of Democrats either believe that Bush knew about the attacks in advance or can't quite make up their minds. There are only three ways to respond to this finding: It's absolutely true, in which case the paranoid style of American liberalism has reached a fevered crescendo. Or, option B, it's not true and we can stop paying attention to these kinds of polls. Or there's option C -- it's a little of both.
...
We don't know what kind of motive respondents had in mind for Bush, but the most common version has Bush craftily enabling a terror attack as a way to whip up support for his foreign policy without too many questions.

The problem with rebutting this sort of allegation is that there are too many reasons why it's so stupid. It's like trying to explain to a 4-year-old why Superman isn't real. You can spend all day talking about how kryptonite just wouldn't work that way. Or you can just say, "It's make-believe."

Similarly, why try to explain that it's implausible that Bush was evil enough to let this happen -- and clever enough to get away with it -- yet incapable either morally or intellectually of doing it again? After all, if he's such a villainous supergenius to have paved the way for Sept. 11 without getting caught, why stop there? Democrats constantly insinuate that Bush plays politics with terror warnings on the assumption that the higher the terror level, the more support Bush has. Well, a couple of more Sept. 11s and Vice President Dick Cheney will finally be able to get that shiny Bill of Rights shredder he always wanted.

And if Bush -- whom Democrats insist is a moron -- is clever enough to green-light one Sept. 11, why is Iraq such a blunder? Surely a James Bond villain like Bush would just plant some weapons of mass destruction?

No, the right response to the Rosie O'Donnell wing of the Democratic Party is, "It's just make-believe." But if they really believe it, then liberals must stop calling themselves the "reality-based" party and stop objecting to the suggestion that they have a problem with being called anti-American. Because when 61 percent of Democrats polled consider it plausible or certain that the U.S. government would let this happen, well, "blame America first" doesn't really begin to cover it, does it?

So then there's option B -- the poll is just wrong. This is quite plausible. Indeed, the poll is surely partly wrong. Many Democrats are probably just saying that Bush is incompetent or that he failed to connect the dots or that they're just answering the question in a fit of pique. I'm game for option B. But if we're going to throw this poll away, liberals need to offer the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to data that are more convenient for them. For example, liberals have been dining out on polls showing that Fox News viewers, or Republicans generally, are more likely to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11. Now, however flimsy, tendentious, equivocal or sparse you may think the evidence that Hussein had a hand in Sept. 11 may be, it's ironclad compared with the nugatory proof that Bush somehow permitted or condoned those attacks.

And then there's option C, which is most assuredly the reality. The poll is partly wrong or misleading, but it's also partly right and accurate. So maybe it's not one in three Democrats suffering from paranoid delusions. Maybe it's only one in five, or one in 10. In other words, the problem isn't as profound as the poll makes it sound. But that doesn't mean the Democratic Party doesn't have a serious problem.

This is for you partisan right wingers out there.

Anti-war ads star retired generals

2007-05-17T17:49:00.000-05:00

From the Chicago Tribune Washington Bureau...

As a Republican who was opposed to President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq but voted against setting a timetable for withdrawal, downstate Rep. Tim Johnson finds himself in the cross hairs of a Democratic-leaning anti-war group.

Since last week, two retired Army generals have called on Johnson and seven other congressional Republicans in television advertisements aired in their districts to take action to wind down the war in Iraq. The television spots were paid for by the Democratic-leaning organization VoteVets.org.

The ads, featuring retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste and Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, criticize President Bush for not listening to commanders' warnings about Iraq and are tailored for the six representatives' and two senators' home television markets.

All eight Republicans are up for re-election in 2008. A spokesman for VoteVets.org said they were chosen because they appear on the cusp of breaking ranks with Bush.

In one ad with Eaton that first aired in the Champaign-Urbana market on Tuesday, the general stands before a backdrop of a U.S. flag and a map of Iraq and says Bush failed to listen to commanders like him about the dangers of invading Iraq.

"Mr. President, you're being told we need serious diplomacy, not escalation. And you're still not listening. If the president won't listen, Congress must," said Eaton, who oversaw training of Iraqi troops in 2003-04. "Rep. Johnson, protect America, not George Bush."

Television ads targeting Johnson with a similar message from Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, ran from May 10 to Monday in the Champaign area.

Jerry Clarke, Johnson's chief of staff, dismissed the ad campaign as little more than political posturing and predicted that constituents would see it as such.

Clarke said his boss wants to see a responsible winding down of the war and has been talking with members of his caucus about ways to push Iraqi forces to take greater responsibility for the country's security. But Clarke said Johnson believes a precipitous pullout would be dangerous for U.S. troops and he refuses to consider holding up funding for the troops.

Sen. Obama on Affirmitive Action

2007-05-16T12:41:00.000-05:00

The first of many Obamarama's around this place.

Brain-Terminal takes a look at Sen. Obama's position on affirmitive action. And it probably will make some in his own party's shake their head. Here's an excerpt...

On affirmative action, Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, said he thinks that someday when his two young daughters apply to college, they “should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged” and there is nothing wrong with that.

“I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and been brought up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed,” he added. “There are a lot of African-American kids who are still struggling.”

Obama said that “if we have done what needs to be done to ensure that kids who are qualified to go to college can afford it, that affirmative action becomes a diminishing tool for us to achieve racial equality in this society.”

Evan Coyne Maloney notes that...

If Obama actually opposes race-based affirmative action outright, I’d consider it an act of political courage. Supporting racial preferences is a default Democratic position, and given the current state of American racial politics, it is a position that black Democratic candidates in particular are expected to take. To demonstrate that you don’t always take the default party position can be refreshing to people, especially when doing so runs the risk of getting you labeled as a traitor to your race.

Also linked is a letter Obama wrote to the BlackCommentator...

I favor affirmative action, but I’m still going after the votes of white union members who oppose affirmative action, because I think I can convince them that it’s Bush’s economic agenda, and not affirmative action, that is eroding their job security and stagnating their wages.

Unconventional Wisdom

This Blogger page might go bye-bye...

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Mike Nifong

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Are You a Dumb American?

Politics of 9/11

Check out this blog post on Sen. Clinton

Check this link out!!!

From Illinois...

What Does Your Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Say About You?

A lot going on today...

RNC faces donor falloff, fires solicitors

Links

Pelosi’s Order in the House

US Navy fires at terrorists in Somalia

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Clinton takes the cake -- or pie -- in Iowa

You have got to be kidding me!!!

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The Swamp talks about a 106 year old veteran of the First World War...

What's Your Average American Name?

Not sure if I like the sound of this

Rosie O'Donnel off of The View

Hello!!!

Let's take a poll: Just how crazy are Democrats?

Anti-war ads star retired generals

Sen. Obama on Affirmitive Action