LinkBlog: obama

Seeing all the lies told about him, just staying in the plus column is a major victory.

Must read. No registration required.

My paraphrase of Mr. Reich's analysis: We can't recover without jobs. The only buyer left to finance the jobs to create goods and services is the government so naysayers on stimulus and infrastructure spending should STFU.

Funny until you realize how plausible it is.

Notes the fact that the person who pays his or her bill every month is using free money services paid by the rest of us. Now that the Congress and Obama have put constraints on the gouging of the rest of us capitalism with do what it does best, go after those who are getting the service for free.

The "No on Prop 8" group did not use a letter of support from Barack Obama last fall in their effort to block the amendment taking away the right to full marriage recognition for gays and lesbians in California.

People like his common sense solutions and obvious feeling for the middle class.

For explanation click on link.

Can we get him to come out here to California and help us fix our mess? Money is fine, but what we really need is his "no drama" perseverance.

An actual good assessment of what the average American is going to get directly from the Stimulus Package as passed

Excerpt: If Republicans try a 1993-style strategy of attacking [President Obama] for promoting big government, they'll learn two things: Not only has the financial crisis discredited their economic theories, the racial subtext of anti-government rhetoric doesn't play the way it used to. Take away quote: It was a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the Republicans into a cul-de-sac. What I didn't know: The Southern Strategy was behind even the Republicans feelings about the tax code.

Okay, so maybe the Bible doesn't say that people who vote for a pro-choice candidate need to confess it before taking communion, confesses a Central Valley priest. The father looks like a nice guy, and, 'going to confession' to a non-catholic seems pretty benign, but in reality he was saying that it was a sin, something to be avoided. That would carry a lot of weight with those who relied on him for their spiritual guidance. Too many people rely on those who have a self interest to tell them how to live their lives. I had a foolish pastor who once, while I was young who admonish we 'read the Bible for ourselves'. And I foolishly listened, and did it three times over. You get a better perspective of what it says than listening to the pastors I've heard later. Pastors and priests are interested in increasing their power if not their income too. Even Christians have a right to think for themselves. In fact, personal salvation demands it. So all those people who thought that it would be okay to just ignore the killing we were doing in Iraq because a lot of church leaders (who were getting extra funds from the government through faith based 'charities') said it was okay, have a lot of rethinking to do.

The Secretary of Defense who will be remaining on when Barack Obama takes control of the executive branch has warned the world not to test the new administration's resolve. They won't find it lacking. But he also reassures Iran (while warning it) that they are not looking for regime change, just an attitude and behavior change from the Middle Eastern nation.

If you've seen the movie, you know where this is going.

As you can read if you visit any of the SLT issue articles, other important subjects will be dealt with during the week.

Found: A newspaper dealing with the issues in a simple, clear cut manner. The McCain camp isn't going to like that.

Excerpt: Those Wall Street financial alchemists who turned garbage into gold must have helped John McCain prepare for his debate with Barack Obama last Friday. Senator McCain’s insistent claims that the US is winning the war in Iraq thanks to his "surge" strategy are the military-political equivalent of the junk securities that Wall Street’s shady financiers have been selling around the globe.

Wow. Ms. Bhutto didn't talk about this stuff in "Reconciliation". This is the kind of stuff that Obama's 300 member team of foreign advisors have been keeping him up to snuff on. I guess that's why the Bush administration has been taking some more of the Senator's advice in the past week. Though apparently we really need to get serious. What a relief it would be if we could actually get Osama and Zawahiri and end the war that the Republicans are counting on to last forever.

Republicans claim that Senator Obama wants to promote comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners. Obama only voted for a measure in committee that would have approved of age appropriate sex education, like teaching kindergarteners that they can tell someone whenever a person touches them in an inappropriate manner according to this mainstream fact check article.' LA Lady says: What problem do the Republicans have with schools teaching kids how to avoid being repeatedly sexually abused by someone? What are they afraid of, being exposed for what they are??? How deep does the sexual perversion in the GOP go?

Well put.

The press's assumptions about the Democratic Convention didn't reflect the reality anymore than their guesses about the future in the rest of the Obama campaign.

Excerpt: It was Barack Obama, vets and military family members said, who had fought to repair the scandalously decrepit facilities at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and pushed legislation to help an estimated 200,000 homeless vets. Now, Democratic vets, say it’s the non-veteran Obama – not the revered war hero McCain – whom they can trust to help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress and combat brain injuries and military families strained by the pressure of four or five combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Krugman shows that Republicans and their hate radio enablers smeared John Kerry in 2004 with class warfare charges of having a Sugar Daddy relationship with his wife, but are downplaying the same type of unbalanced between John and Cindy McCain. Dirty pool apparently rules American politics and so does shadow financed hate radio.

More Reich than Rubin, but definitely centrist. Build alternative energy sources and restore infrastructure to put the left behind working class to work (because they can't all become nurses). Create affordable health insurance programs that are good enough to entice the uninsured. Obama is new, but has the great Team Obama behind him with hundreds of years experience to help. And he's shown he will listen to the best minds, even ours.

Well, you have to wonder.

Excerpt: Most Americans still don’t know, as Marshall writes, that on the campaign trail “McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries’ names wrong, forgets things he’s said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused.” Most Americans still don’t know it is precisely for this reason that the McCain campaign has now shut down the press’s previously unfettered access to the candidate on the Straight Talk Express.

Photos

New York Daily News article tells you how to sign up. Ignore the cheesy Valley Girl rap about it.

What he said

Environmental matters expose John McCain's crass hypocrisy: "he was against offshore drilling before he was for it" says Mr. K. It all seems to depend on what role the Senator wants to play at the time.

I agree with Mr. Herbert. The conjunction of the McCain ad showing Britney, Paris, and Senator Obama with the ad against Harold Ford earlier makes it clearer that the ad was playing the race card.

He had the position and power to bring the problems to the light of day so they could be fixed. Why didn't he?

Both candidates would raise the cost of fossil fuel derived energy

The Bush administration and military have banned pictures our war dead, heading off a popular revolt from American's disgust over other Americans dying for Exxon's ability to get Iraqi oil cheaply.

Americans need to know more about candidate John McCain. Herbert puts it together for them.

Actually about Al Gore, not Senator Obama, in case you're wondering.

Magazine staff says putting all elements of stories about Obama's together in 'satire' exposes the 'caricature' the right has tried to insert as an actual depiction of the pair, but the Obama campaign believes the picture is "tasteless and offensive". I agree with both sides. But isn't this a little more Mad's type of stuff? Picture of New Yorker cover at linked site. (Warning graphic depiction of 'fist bump'. Please make sure that sensitive individuals are out of room before viewing. /sarcasm)

Remember this is the kind of ad that Senator Obama warned about, which makes an end run around the public financing system and therefore is 'gaming' the system.

Just a couple of weeks ago the Republicans cried foul when Barack Obama refused to go along with the broken public financing system in which a candidate had allies spend overwhelming amounts of money while he collected taxpayer dollars in a supposedly pristine environment. Now we see the dirty donors that will overwhelmingly enhance McCains virginal public funds.

Yeah, I could have ripped off the video (it has a share option) with just a hat tip, but I have the sexy "African animals being mellow video up and Truth Dig is a good low bandwidth site.

James Dobson attacked Barack Obama for not ascribing to Dobson's view of Christianity. Don Wycliff uses logic to explain why Dobson is a "doo doo head". (Words within quotes are my own.) BTW, Dobson, we know you take your contributors' money and pay someone to google for your name, so Google This. My view is that Barack Obama's wonderfully caring, inclusive theology actually matches more people's view of Christ's desire for his church than the hate and bigotry filled view as practiced and pushed onto people by Dobson and other right wing church types.

Assign your own level of Pinocchio noses using the information available at link.

Excerpt: The architects of American culture papered over this shaming history [of failures to protect families during the Indian Wars] by concocting what would become our prevailing national security fantasy — personified by the ever-vigilant white frontiersman who, by triumphing over the rapacious “savage” and rescuing the American maiden from his clutches, redeemed American manhood.

Excerpt: You’d never guess that Mr. McCain is a fierce foe of abortion rights or that he voted to terminate the federal family-planning program that provides breast-cancer screenings. You’d never know that his new campaign blogger, recruited from The Weekly Standard, had shown his genuine affection for Mrs. Clinton earlier this year by portraying her as a liar and whiner and by piling on with a locker-room jeer after she’d been called a monster. “Tell us something we don’t know,” he wrote.

Excerpt: It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Democrats’ nomination of Obama as their candidate for president has done more to improve America’s image abroad — an image dented by the Iraq war, President Bush’s invocation of a post-9/11 “crusade,” Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay... — than the entire Bush public diplomacy effort for seven years.

Thank you Hillary. Excerpt:

Mo goes after the GOP who are going after Michelle and any other woman they see in their way.

Excerpt: So a victory lap is in order. Not for Senator Obama (he still has a way to go), but for all those in every station in life who ever refused to submit quietly to hatred and oppression. They led us to a better place.

Now John McCain wants to play the part of short Stephen Douglas. Ten second sound bites, must be his style too. Juding by his speech Tuesday that would be a 10-4.. Best point made by Mr. Collins: McCain doesn't so much smile as show his dental work on cue.

Krugman manages to insinuate that Barack Obama's group is like Ken Starr and his kind of folk, while once again exonerating Clinton of her Southern Strategy and giving her gentle advice that her campaign seems to have no desire to follow. All the while pretending he's had nothing to do with the problems between the two camps.

Reeves notes that Hillary's use of "electability" arguments really is the old GOP game called the "southern strategy" where code words are used to let people know it's okay to vote their prejudices. In this case, because supposedly Obama can't win anyway. (funny thing, but before Hillary started the southern strategy, he was winning the working class white vote.

Friedman examines criteria that he thinks, as an American Jew, should be used to determine if a presidential candidate would be "good for Israel".

Should Obama punish Hillary by asking her to be VP or by ignoring her?

The Southern Strategy in Democrat Clothing? Bob Herbert and others are understandably pissed about the Clintons' lack of class.

Great column

The best one can hope for is complete ignorance.

The former DNC Chairman (nominated by President Clinton) also says it's time to end the battle, which is hurting the party.

Krugman notes that Republicans only have two solutions to every problem, tax cuts, and deregulation. If those solutions can't solve a problem they ignore it, from acid rain to global warming to health care. (I disagree. They invade other people's nations too. But still. Mr. K makes a good point there, and a minor one about Obama giving the Republicans too much credit. Darn that Senator Obama instead of focus grouping issues 5 ways to Sunday and then passing them out to selected loyal pundits, he just says what he thinks! How dare he. Doesn't he know there's a campaign going on?

After gray backed excerpt of letter, Sullivan notes: ...honorable campaigns do not allow foreign agents, especially terrorist organizations, to insert themselves into American presidential politics. No respectable foreign governments do such a thing; and the gambits of al Qaeda, Hamas, or any other grouping to play one candidate against another should in general be ignored, not exploited. More good thoughts by Mr. Sullivan at other end of link.

Unfortunately, Mr. Herbert is right. We need to get back to the good campaign Senator Obama was waging. Maybe they can split advisory teams, one to deal with attacks from the Clinton, and McCain and one to make sure the great ideas that Barack Obama have are spotlighted.

On the Debate, Junk Campaigning, TV News Analysis that Americans hopefully will continue to see through. Frank Rich touched lightly on something I was forming a post about. Are Americans turned off by well-educated candidates? Or are they turned off by wealthy elitists who try, to ridiculous extent, to pretend they never went to college to capture the vote of people they intend to sell to the highest corporate and fat cat bidders?

The Internet has given voters something other than packaged 'sound bites' for political information. And even more opportunities to donate than in 2004. Barack Obama is helping change politics for the better already. I'm noticing that few click on this link. Probably because its another thing Internet savvy America needs anymore: Political analysis on things we've already figured out for ourselves.

Revealing the Real Michele Obama. Imagine struggling and working hard to rise above poverty and then having people call you "elitist".

How Mr. Herbert would have advised the Senator explain why some white working class people won't vote for him.

Mo compares Hillary's run to a Horror movie or nightmar or at least the Terminator. We all know how Dowd feels, but suprising is how other important Democrats feel about the Clintons and why Hillary's campaign is haunting them too.

Is Obama the man for now because of his international family relations?

Excerpt:Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain should take the initiative and denounce the fear-mongering about Mr. Obama as hate speech. The wink-wink references to “Barack Hussein Obama” and lies about his going to a madrassa are the religious equivalent of racial slurs, and Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton should denounce them in the strongest terms. This is their chance to show leadership. When Mrs. Clinton was asked in a television interview a week ago whether Mr. Obama is a Muslim, she denied it firmly — but then added, most unfortunately, “as far as I know.” ... Martin Luther wasn’t a model of tolerance but even he took the position that, “I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian.”...

Okay, you could have found this at the Post after clicking on the link below, but I felt this was too good to miss.

The big lie is that Barack Obama can't win in white working class areas, but the success of Bob Foster for whom the Illinois Senatorcampaigned, shows that he can win.

That kitchen sink which the Clinton campaign is throwing at Obama is full of garbage and razor sharp knives

US said it. Go see what that means

I think he's wrong, but here he is.

Well, lets just say that if you're for Hillary, you may want to tune Ms. Dowd out for a while.

I missed this when it first came out. I think she's got a good take on the situation, but I believe Hillary's handlers have more to do with it than her own personality. Then again she's apparently relied on them for many years and will for years to come. Of course Ms. Dowd as usual goes to extremes for laughs.

One of the Primary Candidates Outshines the Rest as a Civil Libertarian according to NY Times' Jeffrey Rosen

Herbert Says Primary Needs to Be Resolved Soon for the Good of the Party.

My Thoughts: I want to like Hillary Clinton. I have for almost 2 decades. I can only figure that the big money people behind her, and her staff push her to do whatever it takes to attempt to destroy Barack Obama. She may just be taking our only hopes to defeat "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" McCain with her, not to mention the future viability of our party. The tactics of the Clinton camp show exactly why we need, not just a democratic nominee Obama, but a president Obama.

Seven macaque monkeys in the study were infected with the reconstructed 1918 virus at the Public Health Agency of Canada's high-security laboratory in Winnipeg. All the animals were so severely sickened by the virus that they had to be euthanized within eight days. Thank you UW for reconstructing the Spanish Flu.