Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Why America is Still Not 'Winning' the Iraq War

McCain's talk of "victory" is not just logically false, it is morally obscene. Our unprovoked invasion destroyed Iraq. Up to a million Iraqis may have died. The drop in violence has made the war an afterthought -- and allowed McCain to claim we're "winning." Here's why we're not -- and we can't.

read more | digg story

Friday, September 26, 2008

Rate Tonight's Debate

 

 

Measure the Media: Sign Up to Rate the Debates!

Last week, Institute for America's Future supporters sent almost ten thousand letters to the presidential debate moderators pressing them to deliver The Debate We Need. We urged them to move America beyond the gossip and the gotcha politics, to refocus the debate on the issues that matter most to most Americans.

Tonight's moderator – Jim Lehrer – responding to the tidal wave of communications on this front from us and allies across the nation, promised no "gotcha" moments. [1]

Now, our allies at Free Press have launched a new online tool -- Rate the Debates! -- to judge whether he, and his fellow debate moderators, hold true to that promise and deliver debates worthy of our great nation.

However tonight unfolds, you can help get the media back on track by using this tool to instantly rate how well the media moderates and reports on the debates.

Sign Up Now to Rate the Debates as They Happen!

Your ratings will be immediately reported back to members of the press as soon as the debates are finished -- allowing you to weigh in before the spin cycle gets out of control.

Will the media cover the issues that are most important to you? Will they focus on trivial issues? Will they ask tough questions? Will they help return focus to real issues like the economy, over campaign gossip and candidate gaffes?

Now more than ever, we need the media to be the watchdogs of our democracy. The few journalists selected to participate -- and the media narrative that follows -- will play a defining role in determining our next president.

Please sign up to rate the debates as they happen, and join us as we hold our media -- and through them, our leaders -- accountable.

Thank you,


Ian Mishalove, Director Online Communications
Institute for America's Future

McCain dead wrong about Kissinger's stance on talk with Iran

Kissinger, speaking Monday at George Washington University along with four other former U.S. State Department secretaries, said the next president should initiate high-level discussions with Iran "without conditions," ABC News reported.

read more | digg story

Subpoenaed Palin Aides Fail To Appear For Abuse Probe

Seven of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's top aides defied subpoenas for their testimony Friday into possible abuse of power by the governor.

read more | digg story

US Nobel laureates: vote Obama - physicsworld.com

Sixty-one US Nobel laureates, including 22 who won the prize for physics, made the stand yesterday after Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, published an 11-page policy document entitled, “Investing in America’s future: Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s plan for science and innovation”.

read more | digg story

DebateCheck: McCain lies about Obama's tax plan -- again

There he goes again. McCain claimed during the debate that Obama would tax people with an income of $42,000 -- a lie he frequently goes to. Obama called him out on it on stage -- and PolitiFact called him out on it a long time ago.

read more | digg story

Max Bergmann: Major Gaffe: McCain Said Pakistan Was a Failed

McCain just badly misstated the history of Pakistan. For someone claiming extensive foreign policy knowledge, this is simply not acceptable. McCain said Pakistan was a failed state before President Musharraf came to power. That is not true.

read more | digg story

McCain In 2003: We Can ‘Muddle Through In Afghanistan’

Thus, what Obama said in the debate is true. In fact, just a year earlier, on CBS’ Face the Nation, McCain said capturing Osama bin Laden wasn’t “that important.”

read more | digg story

Swiss man flies over English Channel

I was cheering ths guy on while watching it on the Today show! It's so cool that he succeeded! - A Swiss daredevil crossed the English Channel strapped to a homemade jet-propelled wing Friday, parachuting into a field near the white cliffs of Dover after a 10-minute solo flight.



read more digg story

Moore's Slacker Uprising Makes a Splash Online

Hate him or love him, but maverick filmmaker Michael Moore has pwned Hollywood and Washington. Earlier this week, the politically minded director became the first major cinematic player to release a feature-length film for free online. Now that film, Slacker Uprising, is killing at the virtual box office.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Nico Pitney: McCain Wants A Time Out -- But Why?

Hmm, someone seems a little scared of Friday's debate...Why does John McCain suddenly want to suspend his presidential campaign and postpone Friday's debate? His campaign surrogates are saying it's a typical "maverick" move, that McCain is simply "putting country first." Let's look at the evidence:

read more | digg story

The world gets a chance to vote in the American presidential elections


The rest of the world can " vote" in the US elections thanks to the Economist. As everything is now global, it is an interesting idea.

read more digg story

FactCheck: McCain Ad Claims Obama Quiet on Economic Crisis

A new McCain-Palin ad says that "McCain and his congressional allies led" on the financial crisis while Obama was "mum." That's simply not true. Obama has in fact made several statements about the crisis on Wall Street in recent days

read more | digg story

The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear

The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis. Its three one-hour parts consist mostly of a montage of archive footage with Curtis's narration. The Film can be Downloaded at: http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmaresDVD



read more digg story

Joe Biden Obliterates McCain Over National Security

"This week, John talked about the judgment required to be Commander in Chief. He's right: nothing is more important than judgment. But time and again, on the most critical national security issues of our time, John McCain's judgment was wrong," Biden will say according to excerpts of the speech released by the campaign.

read more | digg story

Another Great Depression? Palin Says America Might Go There

Asked whether there's a risk of another Great Depression if Congress doesn't approve a $700 billion bailout package, Sarah Palin said: "Unfortunately, that is the road that America may find itself on." The word "road" when said by Palin makes me shudder like a goose walking over my grave, because Sarah knows her roads, at least the road to nowhere

read more | digg story

Americans Respond to McCain Stunt

SurveyUSA has just completed a snap poll on response to John McCain's request to cancel or postpone the presidential debate. The key finding: only 14% of Americans believe suspending the first debate is a good idea.

read more | digg story

The List of Foreign Leaders Joe Biden has Met

Today, as Sarah Palin met her first foreign leaders, the Obama campaign released a list of the foreign leaders his running mate Joe Biden has met with. Needless to say, it is pretty extensive.

read more digg story
Pretty impressive list!
Iraq
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi (May 2004 - April 2005)
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari (April 2005 - May 2006)
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (April 2006 - Present)
President Jalal Talabani (June 2005 - Present)
Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani (June 2005 - Present)
Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani (March 2006 - Present)
Israel
Prime Minister Golda Meir (March 1969 - June 1974)
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (July 1992 - November 1995)
Prime Minister Shimon Peres (November 1995 - June 1996)
Prime Minister Menachem Begin (June 1977 - October 1983)
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (October 1986 - July 1992)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (June 1996 - July 1999)
Prime Minister Ehud Barak (June 1996 - July 1999)
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (March 2001 - April 2006)
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (April 2006 - Present)
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (January 2006 - present)
Palestinian Territories
Chairman Yasser Arafat (September 1993 - November 2004)
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (November 2004 - Present)
Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad (June 2007 - Present)
Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei (October 2003 - March 2006)
Jordan
King Hussein (August 1952 - February 1999)
King Abdullah (August 2005-Present)
Egypt
President Hosni Mubarak (October 1981 - Present)
President Anwar Sadat (October1970 - October 1981)
Libya
Prime Minister Col. Muammar Qaddafi (March 1977 - March 1979)
Lebanon
Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri (October 1992 - December 1998)
Prime Minister Najib Mikati (April 2005 - July 2005)
Bahrain
Crown Prince Shaikh Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa (March 1999 - Present)
Syria
President Bashar al-Assad (July 2000 - Present)
Turkey
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (March 2003 - Present)
President Ahmet Sezer (May 2000 - August 2007)
Prime Minister/President* Abdullah Gul (November 2002 - March 2003, Current President)Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit (January 1999 - May 1999)
Prime Minister Demirel (November 1991 - June 1993)
Greece
President Kostis Stephanopoulos (March 1995 - March 2005)
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis (March 2004 - Present)
Prime Minister Kostantinos Mitsotakis (April 1990 - October 1993)
Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou (October 1981 - July 1989)(October 1993 - January 1996)
Cyprus
President George Vassiliou (February 1988 - February 1993)
President Glafcos Clerides (February 1993 - February 2003)
Afghanistan
President Hamid Karzai (December 2001 - Present)
Pakistan
President Asif Ali Zardari (September 2008 - Present)*
Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani (March 2008 - Present)
President Pervez Musharraf (June 2001 - August 2008)
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (December 1988 - August 1990, October 1993 - November 1996)
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (November 1990 - July 1993, February 1997 - October 1999)
India
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (May 2004 - Present)
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (May 1996 - June 1996)(March 1998 - May 2004)
Sri Lanka
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe (May 1993 - August 1994)(December 2001 - April 2004)
Russia
President Vladimir Putin (May 2000 - May 2008; current Prime Minister)
President Boris Yeltsin (July 1991 - December 1999)
Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev (March 1990 - December 1991)
Soviet Union President Andrei Gromyko (July 1985 - October 1988)
Premier of the Soviet Union Alexey Kosygin (October 1964 - October 1980)
Premier of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev (May 1960 - July 1964)
France
President Jacques Chirac (May 1995 - May 2007)
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin (May 2005 - May 2007)
President Francois Mitterrand (May 1981 - May 1995)
U.K.
Queen Elizabeth (February 1952 - Present)
Prime Minister Tony Blair (May 1997 - June 2007)
Prime Minister John Major (November 1990 - May 1997)
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (May 1979 - November 1990)
Ireland
Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (June 1997 - Present)
Prime Minister John Bruton (December 1994 - June 1997)
Prime Minister Albert Reynolds (February 1992 - December 1994)
Prime Minister Charles Haughey (December 1979 - June 1981)(March 1982 - December 1982)(March 1987 - February 1992)
Germany
Chancellor Angela Merkel (November 2005 - Present)
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (October 1998 - November 2005)
Chancellor Helmut Kohl (October 1982 - October 1998)
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (May 1974 - October 1982)
Italy
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (June 2001 - May 2006)(May 2008 - Present)
Prime Minister Romano Prodi (May 2006 - May 2008)
Prime Minister Cossiga (July 1989 - April 1992)
Serbia
President of Serbia Boris Tadic (July 2004 - Present)
Prime Minister of Serbia Vojislav Kostunica (March 2004 - Present)
Prime Minister of Serbia Zoran Djindjic (January 2001 - March 2003)
President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic (May 1989 - July 1997)
Yugoslavia
Premier of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito (January 1953 - May 1980)
Croatia
President of Croatia Franjo Tudjman (May 1990 - December 1999)
Slovenia
Prime Minister of Slovenia Janez Drnovsek (December 2002 - Present)
President of Kosovo Ibrahim Rugova (March 2002 - January 2006)
President of Slovenia Milan Kucan (October 1991 - December 2002)
Bosnia and Herzegovina
President of Bosnia Haris Silajdzic (November 2006 - Present)
President of Bosnia Sulejman Tihić (October 2002 - November 2006)
President of Bosnia Alija Izetbegovic (March 1992 - October 2000)
Kosovo (as an independent nation)
President Fatmir Sejdiu (January 2008 - Present)
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci (January 2008 - Present)
Poland
President Lech Walesa (December 1990 - December 1995)
Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz (October 1993 - March 1995)
Czech Republic
President Vaclav Havel (February 1993 - February 2003)
Hungary
Prime Minister Gyula Horn (July 1994 - July 1998)
President Arpad Goncz (August 1990 - August 2000)
Prime Minister Viktor Orban (July 1998 - May 2002)
Finland
Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen (April 1995 - April 2003)
Romania
President Ion Iliescu (December 1989 - November 1996)
Georgia
President Mikheil Saakashvili (January 2004 - Present)
President Eduard Shevardnadze (October 1995 - November 2003)
Kazakhstan
President Nursultan Nazarbayev (December 1991 - Present)
Ukraine
President Viktor Yushchenko (January 2005 - Present)
Canada
Prime Minister Paul Martin (December 2003 - February 2006)
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (September 1984 - June 1993)
NATO
Secretary General Lord George Robertson (October 1999 - January 2004)
Secretary General Javier Solana (December 1995 - October 1999)
Secretary General Manfred Woerner (July 1988 - August 1994)
Secretary General Lord Peter Carrington (June 1984 - July 1988)
China
President Jiang Zemin (March 1993 - March 2003)
Premier Zhu Rongji (March 1998 - March 2003)
Hong Kong
Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa (July 1997 - March 2005)
Taiwan
President Chen Shui-Bian (May 2000 - Present)
Korea
President Kim Dae Jung (February 1998 - February 2003)
Singapore
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (June 1959 - November 1990)
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong (November 1990 - August 2004)
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (August 2004 - Present)
Indonesia
President Megawati Sukarnoputri (July 2001 - October 2004)
President Bambang Yudhoyono (October 2004 - Present)
Australia
Prime Minister John Howard (March 1996 - December 2007)
Prime Minister Paul Keating (December 1991 - March 1996)
Philippines
President Gloria Arroyo (January 2001 - Present)
President Fidel Ramos (June 1992 - June 1998)
Vietnam
Prime Minister Phan Van Kai (September 1997 - June 2006)
East Timor
President Ramos Horta (May 2007 - Present)
Tibet
The Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso (1950 - Present)
Colombia
President Alvaro Uribe (August 2002 - Present)
President Andres Pastrana (August 1998 - August 2002)
President Cesar Gaviria (August 1990 - August 1994)
Mexico
President Vincente Fox (December 2000 - December 2006)
President Ernesto Zedillo (December 1994 - November 2000)
Bolivia
President Jaime Paz Zamora (August 1989 - August 1993)
South Africa
President Thabo Mbeki (June 1999 - September 2008)
President Nelson Mandela (April 1994 - June 1999)
Liberia
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (January 2006 - Present)
Lesotho
Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan (July 1965 - January 1986)
United Nations
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (January 2007 - Present)
Secretary General Kofi Annan (January 1997 - January 2007)
Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali (January 1992 - January 1997)
Vatican City
Pope John Paul II (October 1978 - April 2005)
Slovakia
President Rudolf Schuster (June 1999 - June 2004)
Turkmenistan
President Saparmurat Niyazov (October 1990 - December 2006)
*Senator Biden met with leader before he or she became head of state.

McCain " Cuts & Runs " from debate with Obama.

By Steve Holland NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Wednesday he will break off from campaigning to help on a Wall Street rescue plan and asked that a Friday debate with Democrat Barack Obama be postponed. What is afraid off?

read more | digg story

Obama Rejects McCain’s Call to Delay Their First Debate

Barack Obama said that Friday’s debate should go ahead after John McCain issued a call to delay the event to deal with the financial bailout package.



read more digg story

Schoolhouse Rock- How a Bill Becomes a Law

Schoolhouse Rock- How a Bill becomes a law. Enjoy.



read more digg story

Election Collection, What's Your Affection?

I remember watching this as a kid!



by Vera H-C Chan - I'm just a bill. Yes, I'm only a bill, and I sit here on Capitol Hill. If those words have triggered an incessant yet pleasurable hum in your brain, you belong to a generation exposed to Atari video games, Shaun Cassidy, jelly sneakers (when they appeared the first time around), and "Schoolhouse Rock."

read more digg story

CaglePost: She's Clueless; He's Worse


Cartoon by Pat Bagley- Comment on the cartoon


We have a great collection of cartoons called "Wall Street Collapse" LOOK!

She's Clueless; He's Worse
by Robert Scheer -
Comment on the column

Ignorance is bliss, which perhaps explains Gov. Sarah Palin being so confidently wrong about the root cause of the federalization of most of the nation's mortgage market. But what is Sen. John McCain's excuse? Both act as if the financial meltdown of the U.S. economy has nothing to do with the policies of the political party they represent - but she at least may not know any better.


Distracted momentarily from her campaign revelries of maverick opposition to the "bridge to nowhere," which she had supported until it became a public relations debacle, and congressional earmarks for which she, as a small-town mayor, had hustled piggishly at the federal trough, Palin made the mistake of dealing with an unscripted subject.


Referring to the government's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Palin opined that the two had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers," displaying abysmal ignorance of the fact that only now will those privately owned banks become a huge taxpayer obligation, as the federal government takes them over. Nor can the meltdown of home values be traced to those two beleaguered institutions, because they did not make the original subprime mortgage commitments.


The housing bubble was the result of the Ponzi-scheme antics of those other financial entities: commercial banks, stockbrokers and hedge funds, which were allowed in a GOP-deregulated market to get into the "swap" business. Through the rampant reselling of loans, the obligation to collect on a loan was divorced from the act of selling it in the first place, so who cared if the recipient of the loan was not at all qualified or the appraisal of the property value was inflated, as long as the paper was traded away, or insured, before the moment of foreclosure?


As with any Ponzi scheme, the perps, who included the legislators as well as the bankers who exploited the loopholes they provided ... READ MORE


Follow Daryl each day on Twitter at: twitter.com/dcagle


Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Ahmadinejad: 'American empire' nearing its end


In a blistering speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed "a few bullying powers" for creating the world's problems and said the "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road."

read more digg story

Democrats reject $700 billion blank check

Congressional Democrats worked Monday to reshape the lame-duck Bush administration's jaw-dropping request for an additional $700 billion and unprecedented authority to buy distressed assets to prevent a financial meltdown.

read more | digg story

Vote No Bailout!


Demand that the Bailout Legislation Be Rejected
We are witnessing a bankers' coup d’etat. In the name of saving the economy from a crisis created by their own greed and immense profits, the biggest bankers have taken a country and a people hostage.

“Give us your money and tear up what’s left of your Constitution or we will sink your economy,” is the message from Wall Street and the Bush Administration. “Give us the power and money we demand or you will be left jobless from a new economic depression."


Under the pretext of the banking crisis, the Bush Administration is changing the way this country operates. This is not simply taking trillions of dollars from the people and giving it to the richest bankers to do with as they see fit.


Click here to send your letter to Congress


Congress is poised to vote to give the Executive Branch of government, and specifically the White House’s political appointees in the Treasury Department, the absolute right to take our money and give it to domestic and foreign banks and corporations without any oversight of elected officials, from the courts, or from the people.


The new legislation states: “Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” The Legislation allows the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars.


We will not stand by and let the Bush Administration formalize its vision of a “government of, by and for the richest bankers."


The new system institutionalizes theft on a grand scale. Lehman Brothers bankers will receive $2.5 billion in bonuses after their company went bankrupt last week, but the new dictatorial authority under the White House and Treasury Department has ruled out any relief for the millions of working families who are being foreclosed.


We live in a $15 trillion annual economy. Instead of taking our tax dollars and giving it to the already rich and powerful, these funds should be used provide to decent paying jobs, affordable housing, health care and a good education for our children. There is another way!


Now is the time to hear the voice of the people. A spineless Congress authorized Bush’s illegal war in Iraq and rubber-stamped the Patriot Act. Now they are being herded like sheep again to give the White House and Wall Street dictatorial control over the people’s money.


Send a letter to Your Congressional Representatives by clicking on the link below...


Vote No Bailout!


6 Brainwashing Techniques Being Used on You This Election

Brainwashing doesn't take any sci-fi gadgetry. There are all sorts of tried-and-true techniques that anyone can use to bypass the thinking part of your brain and flip a switch deep inside that says 'OBEY.' Here are six that have probably been used on you already today.

read more | digg story

"Slacker Uprising" Download Now Available For Free

blip.tv is providing streaming right from slackeruprising.com, free of commercials and advertising - Amazon Video on Demand will provide a higher resolution version of the above stream for people with lots of bandwidth. It will be available in a few hours iTunes will make it easy for you to download "Slacker Uprising" Also MPEG4, DivX...

read more digg story

Here's the trailer for "Slacker Uprising" by Michael Moore...

Oil and tyranny

Keeping it off the radar

Equatorial Guinea - Part One

Equatorial Guinea - Part Two

Equatorial Guinea - Part Three

McCain's best buddies

Wherever oil is drilled corruption, tyranny and ecological devastation follows and the oil companies and their allies in Washington DC grease the wheels.
"They're looking for a stable regime so they can do their business."
Americans who think this doesn't effect them should take note as the media pumps up the demand to drill for oil in Alaska and off the coasts of California and Florida and extract gas from New York State.
Keeping these issues off the radar is one of the things that keeps the game going.
There is an alternative:
Why gasoline never was and is not now necessary to power motor vehicles

Oil and tyranny

Court orders release of Pentagon prisoner abuse pics

A federal appeals court on Monday ordered the Bush administration to hand over photos depicting abuse of prisoners held by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, handing the American Civil Liberties Union a victory in an ongoing public records lawsuit filed against the Pentagon...

read more | digg story

McCain conference call questioning media BACKFIRES /w video

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record. But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception....



read more digg story

Paulson and Bernanke push bailout as Lehman assets sold

By Jason Szep NEW YORK (Reuters) - The architects of a $700 billion bailout for the U.S. financial system tried to head off opposition to the plan in the U.S. Congress, while Japan's largest brokerage agreed to buy Lehman Brothers' European arm as...

read more | digg story

Iran president blames Wall Street turmoil on U.S. military

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Monday that the turmoil on Wall Street is rooted in part in U.S. military intervention abroad and voiced hope that the next American administration would retreat from what he called President Bush's "logic of force."

read more | digg story

Ahmadinejad: 'Who Exactly Is The Provocateur?'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting the United States and the United Nations — where he is expected to confront the U.S. over its policies. But in an interview with NPR, Ahmadinejad disputed that view — up to a point.

read more | digg story

Ahmadinejad: Most support Iran's nuke program

TEHRAN, Iran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted Tuesday as saying that the majority of the world supports Iran's nuclear program — despite the U.S.-led drive to impose more sanctions on the Persian nation over its uranium enrichment.

read more | digg story

British Airlines suspends flights after bombing

British Airways has suspended "indefinitely" flights to and from Pakistan in the wake of a bomb attack on a hotel in the capital, Islamabad.

read more | digg story

Crumbling Financial Institutions

Crumbling Financial Institutions

By Nick Anderson, The Houston Chronicle
From the Cartoonist Group.

Crumbling Financial Institutions

10 Things You Should Know About Bush's $1 Trillion Fleecing

Here's a roundup of what opponents to the Bush plan are saying...The Bush administration's proposal to bail out some of Wall Street's biggest players with an unprecedented transfer of public wealth to the private sector sent shock-waves throughout the nation.

read more | digg story

Reject Baldwin's VIEW of Parental Alienation

 

Last year, ABC's  The View stooped to a real low - inviting Alec Baldwin on during sweeps week to make excuses for his abusive phone call to his daughter Ireland.  Now, they're about to do it again.  On Wednesday September 24, The View will invite Alec Baldwin back onto The View to promote his book and the junk science abuse excuse of Parental Alienation.

Parental Alienation is used as a legal strategy to get abusers off the hook, by urging the court to ignore allegations of abuse and instead believe that the parent making the allegations is being vindictive. 

(read more about parental alienation here )

Women - the main audience of The View - deserve better than this.  Every day, in family courts all across this country, protective mothers are losing custody to abusers and pedophiles based on the bogus theory of Parental Alienation.

ACT NOW!  Tell Bill Geddie, the Executive Producer of The View to practice responsible journalism by having experts on the show who can challenge Mr. Baldwin's dangerous propoganda and provide information that will help keep women and children safe. 

Please sign the petition by clicking the link below...

Stop Family Violence

Lesson from Alec Baldwin: Alienation Begins With You

One would think that Alec Baldwin would be pretty clear on why his daughter hates him. When you go about leaving messages calling your child a "rude, thoughtless little pig" who needs you to "straighten your ass out" -- well, that's pretty good grounds for hatred right there. After all, while it's possible that Baldwin got angry with his daughter

read more | digg story

Let's Stop the Greatest Theft in the History of Humankind

The Bush administration is adamant in it's opposition to government regulation of corporate America, insisting the "market" regulates itself. Now self-regulation has horribly failed, rather than let the market correct itself, they want to use taxpayer money to buy the toxic "securities" the market created, at higher prices than the market will pay.

read more | digg story

Monday, September 22, 2008

A challenge to McCain?

 A challenge to McCain?

All too real

This video captures better than anything I've seen yet the reality of the quality of presidential candidates Americans get to choose from.
I believe it was made before Palin was picked to run as VP proving that satire often does a much better job of predicting reality that sober analysis.
Moose-eating, go-go boot wearing, oil company-lovin' Sarah...
No one could make this stuff up if they tried.

A challenge to McCain?

Bootlicking Mayor Drops Charges On Reporters Arrested At RNC

He added, “At the scene, the police did their duty in protecting public safety. In this decision, we are serving the public’s interest to maintain the integrity of our democracy, system of justice and freedom of the press.”Beating and arresting people to protect freedom of the press!Another milestone in American Civil liberties.

read more | digg story

The $700 Billion Bailout: One More Weapon of Mass Deception

The administrations purposed bailout is as bogus as the WMD's in Iraq. Let's not fall for this deception this time. Just say no to the government bailout of rich guys private playground for the past 8 years. Say NO!

read more | digg story

Unpeeling the Layers of Our (Your) Financial Crisis

Bush's unprecedented plan to bail out a tanking financial sector is only part of the story...Bush wants to fleece us for hundreds of billions in the financial crisis, but that's just the first layer of a more fundamental economic problem.

read more | digg story

Scary: US generals adapting military for resource wars

The US military sees the next 30 to 40 years as involving a state of continuous war against ideologically-motivated terrorists and competing with Russia and China for natural resources and markets, writes Tom Clonan

read more | digg story

Fox's Cavuto blames loans to blacks for financial crisis

Neil Cavuto, host of Fox News' Your World, conflated giving home mortgages to minorities with risky lending practices, suggesting that efforts to increase homeownership among minority borrowers contributed to financial problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

read more | digg story

Mysterious Activity In Marriott Hotel Pakistan by US Marines

Though it would never be confirmed, the fire on the fifth and fourth floor of the hotel broke out because those floors were housing mysterious steel boxes under the heavy guard of United States Marines and no one -- including the Pakistani security forces and the hotel security men -- were allowed to go near them. [Lori Price (comment) has more -

read more | digg story

Torture Memo Derails Senate Hearings

What was to be a Senate Judiciary Committee consensus approval of five Ddistrict court judge nominees and the nominee for solicitor general collapsed in disarray Thursday in a fight for disclosure of interrogation memos from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

read more | digg story

Wall Street bonuses for the big 5 investment banks last year

Those 2007 bonuses were paid even though the shareholders in those firms last year collectively lost about $74 billion in stock declines — their worst year since 2002.

read more | digg story

Congress Urged To Approve Nuclear Deal With India

The Bush administration is pressing Congress to approve a nuclear cooperation deal with India. It's one of the top foreign policy goals of the White House. Some lawmakers are cautious, and not eager to ease a requirement that it should have 30 days to consider the deal before ratifying it.

read more | digg story

Pakistani troops fire on intruding U.S. choppers


By Augustine Anthony ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani troops fired on two U.S. helicopters that intruded into Pakistani airspace on Sunday night, forcing them to turn back to Afghanistan, a senior Pakistani security official said on Monday.

read more digg story

A week of Iran war cries, sanctions talk and protests begins

A perfect storm of controversy and uproar over Iran's nuclear program is coming together this week, with three big events coinciding that could dramatically escalate tensions in the Middle East.

read more | digg story

WSJ.com - Pakistan Sees al Qaeda Links in Hotel Blast

Pakistani officials said the suicide blast at the Marriott Hotel bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda. A senior official said the country's top leaders were to dine at the hotel over the weekend but changed their plans at the last minute.

read more | digg story

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Indefinite Detention Of U.S. Citizens

WASHINGTON The American Civil Liberties Union today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Bush administration's authority to indefinitely imprison a legal resident of the United States without charge or trial. The case was filed on behalf of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who has been detained in solitary confinement at a Navy brig in South Caro

read more | digg story

7 Classic Kid's TV Shows Clearly Conceived on (Bad) Acid

Most children's TV producers know that to get kids to watch, you have to terrify the little bastards. Looking back at the weird-ass shows they've cranked out over the decades, it's a wonder that we all grew up to be such, stable, well-adjusted adults.

read more | digg story

Pakistan Hotel Bomb Attack Captured on CCTV

The Pakistani government has released security camera video footage of a suicide attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad that claimed the lives of 52+ people.



read more digg story

The Evolution of Fairy Tales into Sanitized Disney Stories


Something important is lost when a child's introduction to fairy tales comes in such whitewashed form. It's not just Rapunzel: In toys, movies, and books, the old fairy tales are being systematically stripped of their darker complexities. "Fairy tale" may be our shorthand for castles and happy endings, but these classic stories have villains, too.

read more digg story

Golden Parachutes Are Unpatriotic

They probably don't want to give up their Town Cars waiting at curbside or their houses in the Hamptons or their hookers and blow, either, but fellahs, the times are a-changin'. There are even more more poison pills available. The pissed-off American public, tired of bailing your sorry asses out at the end of every GOP administration, is your new-

read more | digg story

Are U.S. troops learning from cultural blunders in Iraq?

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave that bottle of water in the vehicle,” Captain Adam Canon told me as I got out of the Humvee. We were about to meet some Iraqi army officers in the northern city of Mosul, one of Iraq’s insurgent hotspots. “It’s because it’s Ramadan. The men we’re about to meet haven’t had anything to drink in this heat the whole day and there’s still three hours to go.”

read more digg story

Israel Unleashes First 'Skunk Bomb'

Possibly because of excitement over the Russia-Georgia conflict last month, little attention was given to a new development in chemical warfare – the first use by the Israeli police of a new, smelly weapon to disperse demonstrators:

read more | digg story

Army Awards Contract for "Thought Helmets" AKA Tinfoil Hat


From the "how the hell did we miss this" department comes word that the U.S. military is hard at work creating "thought helmets" for its soldiers. If fully realized, this mind-interfacing piece of gear would allow for what plebeians would call magic, and Arthur C. Clark would call basic telepathy.

read more digg story

Pundits slam McCain for economic befuddlement

How did McCain look during the financial meltdown on Wall Street this week?

read more | digg story

Obama Ad: McCain Camp Sleazy, Extreme On Abortion

Democrat Barack Obama is airing a new ad in New Mexico and Ohio that defends his abortion rights record and says Republican rival John McCain backs a party platform that would deny abortions to victims of RAPE and INCEST. Sarah Palin wants you to BURN.

read more | digg story

Obama On Bailout:

"First, there must be no blank check when American taxpayers are on the hook for this much money."...Speaking at a rally in Charlotte Sunday, Obama addressed the issue of how the government should respond to the financial crisis. He began by stressing that Washington must recognize "that economic recovery requires that we act, not just to address the crisis on Wall Street, but also the crisis on Main Street and around kitchen tables across America." Obama also criticized the Bush Administration's lack of a plan to combat the problem:

read more | digg story

Alaskans Angry That Palin Is Suddenly Off-Limits

And hiding from Questions.

read more | digg story

Make Stuff Up, Bomb Iran - Israel on the Warpath Again

Caroline Glick, deputy editor at Murdoch’s Jerusalem Post and fellow of the neoconservative Center For Security Policy, is back on the Iran warpath in an article she entitles “It is time to act“. She writes that “Iran is just a heartbeat away from the A-bomb”, and to justify this claim she begins with three untruths.

read more | digg story

Will International Law Reach Bush?

Will International Law Reach Bush?By Peter DyerSeptember 21, 2008Q: What do Radovan Karadzic, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, and George W. Bush have in common? A: Each lives under the slowly growing shadow of a body of international criminal law.

read more | digg story

Will International Law Reach Bush?

Will International Law Reach Bush?By Peter DyerSeptember 21, 2008Q: What do Radovan Karadzic, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, and George W. Bush have in common? A: Each lives under the slowly growing shadow of a body of international criminal law.

read more | digg story

Real MIT course: How to Stage a Revolution

"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous." - Mao Zedong, 1927

read more | digg story

Incredible Documentary Footage of Mass Arrest in St. Paul

Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing.



read more digg story

Sign The Troopergate Petition

Help Alaska Hockey Moms For Obama set the record straight on Palin. America deserves to know the truth about Paln BEFORE the election - without any interference from the GOP, delays, or conditions of any kind. Digg this story and sign the petition if you believe America has the right to know the truth before the election!

read more | digg story

Truthiness Stages a Comeback

By using the Rovian political strategies to envelope the presidential race in a fog of truthiness, McCain-Palin is being sold like the White House sold the war.

read more | digg story

Record number of suicides in US Army.

The U.S. Army is nearing a grim statistic: The number of soldiers who committed suicide this year is on pace to be an all-time high: 115 soldiers committed suicides in 2007. They will be a lot more to come when soldiers come back home with post traumatic stress disorder and in the middle of a recession. How can Bush and Cheney sleep at night?

read more | digg story

SNL SKEWERS McCain and His Sleazy Lies

The skit accurately roasts McCain's willingness to sacrifice any shred of decency to win an election with his ridiculously specious attack ads.It evens throws in this likely McCain ad: "Barack Obama fathered TWO black children IN WEDLOCK."



read more digg story

Larisa Alexandrovna: Welcome to the final stages of the coup

The door has been opened to Fascism...In 2000, the long fought for and long admired democracy of the United States of America began a slow and steady decline toward fascism - a Bush family tradition - with the installment of a president - a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected (although the funny math told a still believed myth) - by a few corrupt judges on the US Supreme Court. That coup is now nearly complete and checkmate is all but unavoidable.

read more | digg story

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Study Finds Possible Biological Basis for Political Position

People who startle easily in response to threatening images or loud sounds seem to have a biological predisposition to adopt conservative political positions on many hot-button social issues, according to unusual new research being published today.

read more digg story
****Personally, I find this rather funny. I always knew that conservatives had no clue. Now that I know it is a genetic defect I can tell conservative acquaintances that if they weren't so afraid of stem cell research we could cure them....;-)
Peace...

Former Publisher of "National Review" Backs Obama

Wick Allison, founder, publisher and editor In chief of D Magazine in Dallas, has written a short essay in support of Barack Obama's candidacy. D is a glossy "city read" full of restaurant reviews and ads, as well as the occasional in-depth article. As for Allison, he's a lifelong conservative, and he starkly lays out his bona fides in the piece.

read more | digg story

The truth about Obama and Taxes

First the lie...

Lie:

A rapidly spreading email is tricking thousands—if not millions—of Americans with outrageous lies and misrepresentations about Barack Obama's tax policies.

The email has taken a few different forms, but the most common subject line says:

“Important read - Taxes INTERESTING DATA JUST RECEIVED ON TAXES”

The email starts innocently enough, but the warning signs are there:

Spread the word.....

This is something you should be aware of so you don't get blind-sided. This is really going to catch a lot of families off guard. It should make you worry.

Then it goes on to distort Barack’s “Proposed changes in taxes after 2008 General election” including:

  • Capital gains tax
  • Dividend tax
  • Income tax
  • Inheritance tax
  • New taxes on things like water
and here's the truth...

Truth:

Barack Obama wants the tax code to favor honest, hard-working people, and he has proposed a $1,000 tax cut for middle class families.

But that hasn’t stopped anonymous smear-mongers from starting misleading rumors like this one.


FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit voter advocate group, debunked this email point-by-point:

FactCheck.org

“This widely distributed message is so full of misinformation that we find it impossible to believe that it is the result of simple ignorance or carelessness on the part of the writer. Almost nothing it says about Obama's tax proposals is true. We conclude that this deception is deliberate.” (emphasis added)

Read the Article


Download a campaign memo (PDF) to learn the facts about Obama and McCain's economic plans.

Fight the Smears | The truth about Obama and Taxes

YouTube - Protests Interrupt McCain

"CBS News RAW": Sen. John McCain was interrupted at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by a group of protesters. Demonstrators were immediately shouted down, and escorted out of the arena.

YouTube - Protests Interrupt McCain

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Another US attack in Pakistan: Playing with fire?

By Kamran Haider ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A U.S. missile strike killed five militants in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, a Pakistani official said. This strategy of the Bush administration of operating in Pakistan without this country approval will backfire.

read more | digg story

Video: Barack Obama Saw it Coming!

Obama this morning threw down the gauntlet on McCain, pointing out McCain's lack of leadership on the current economic crisis, using McCain's own words.



read more digg story

Verizon Refuses To Help Locate Body Of Missing Woman 4 Days

Verizon, which has no problem helping the government spy on its customers, suddenly turned stupid in June when a police department asked them for help finding the body of a woman who had been abducted on camera.

read more | digg story

Are Americans still a nation of " whiners "?

Phil Gramm,one of McCain's key advisers in economy ( on the short list for Secretary of Treasury),stated last June that Americans had become a nation of whiners and that the " recession was psychological". McCain admitted that the economy wasn't his area of expertize. With our financial and economical turmoil we can't afford McCain to be elected.

read more | digg story

Candidates Bite Hands That Feed Them

Presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama are both slamming Wall Street for its "unbridled greed" (as McCain put it) and for "an economic philosophy that has completely failed" (as Obama said) — strong words for two candidates who have accepted millions of dollars in campaign contributions from Wall Street.

read more | digg story

David Foster Wallace - All literary flags at half-mast

Mark Morford honors the recently deceased writer...Let me, if you will, merely add my name to the chorus of the shocked, distraught and saddened sighs going out in response to the news of David Foster Wallace's apparent suicide. Let me do so with reverence, and humble gratitude.

read more | digg story

Hyperinflation, Bailouts and Moral Hazard

Watching the future of America as debts pile up,Unloading US dollars could be detrimental to the economy, efforts to manipulate gold continue, 100 billion in losses already written off, South America heats up the Cold War, Saudi walks out of OPEC

read more | digg story

McCain Campaign Clamps Down, Obstructs Justice in Alaska

GOP VP candidate Palin is turning over questions about her record as Alaska's governor to John McCain's political campaign, part of an obstructionist Republican strategy working to derail the pending ethics investigation in Alaska, limit any embarrassing disclosures and carefully shape her image for voters in the rest of the country.

read more | digg story

Bush administration to offer $121 million in energy aid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration plans to release $121 million in aid to eligible low-income households to meet their energy needs as the winter approaches, the White House said on Wednesday. ''The money is being released now so that...

read more | digg story

Australia issues first license to clone human embryos

By Michael Perry SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Australian government has issued its first license allowing scientists to create cloned human embryos to try and obtain embryonic stem cells. The in vitro-fertilization firm Sydney IVF was granted the license...

read more | digg story

Homeless SF State Students Struggle to Stay in School&Loaded

Collects his things, and strides toward some abandoned buildings, where he hoists himself atop a second fence, climbs onto a rooftop, and walks ten feet. He steps off the roof onto the branches of another tree and swings down into a courtyard between the buildings. Used hypodermic needles litter the ground, and Rex picks one up.

read more | digg story

5 Ways to Keep Bisphenol A, or BPA, Out of Your Food

With yesterday's study linking bisphenol A—a chemical in hard plastics and the linings of food and beverage cans—to diabetes and heart disease, you may be wondering what you can do to minimize your exposure. Here are some good rules of thumb for reducing your intake of BPA.

read more | digg story

Get Your Free MomsVote '08 Bumper Clinger!

Move Over Al Gore, McCain created the BlackBerry

Al Gore may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain created the BlackBerry.A top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain's work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, "You're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create."

read more | digg story

Police Return Pot To Patient Three Years Later

Jim Spray giggled with glee as he tore into brown paper bags as if they were presents. These bags, however, were filled with jars of his medical marijuana and other paraphernalia that had been stored for nearly three years at the city's police department. A court order today forced officials to give it back.

read more | digg story

Obama campaign files suit over “voter-foreclosure” plans

The Obama campaign and the DNC have filed a lawsuit in federal court in Michigan over the Michigan GOP’s plan to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters at the polls... noted that in July alone 11,000 Michigan residents received foreclosure notices. The McCain campaign “wants to add insult to injury” by denying those residents their right to vote

read more | digg story

Naomi Wolf: The Battle Plan

History shows that when an army of citizens, supported by even a vestige of civil society, believes in liberty -- in the psychological space that is "America" -- no power on earth can ultimately suppress them.

read more | digg story

Air Force Plans To Pull Out Big (uh, Little) Guns

It may look like a futuristic arcade game, but it's a scene from an official Air Force animated video: Bad guys of indiscernible origin being shadowed, from a careful distance, by small robotic drones designed to resemble birds and insects.

read more | digg story

Will There be Environment-Driven Population Shifts?

By the year 2100, global warming likely will cause the extinction of numerous species by eliminating the climate zones in which they are able to live. But not only will animals be forced to migrate or die, people will be faced with this same dilemma as well.

read more | digg story

Government drug advisers review ecstasy's class A status

The government's drug advisers will begin a review of the classification of ecstasy next week, raising the prospect that the drug could be downgraded from class A.Ecstasy remains the third most popular illicit drug in Britain, with 5% of young adults aged 16 to 24 saying they have used it in the last year.

read more | digg story

Palin won’t cooperate with legislative investigation?

Governor Sarah Palin is being investigated by lawmakers in her home state of Alaska. At issue: Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan and whether he was fired because he refused to pink slip a state trooper who divorced Palin’s sister.

read more | digg story

Official: US Embassy in Yemen hit by car bomb

SAN'A, Yemen - A car bomb exploded at the front gate of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital Wednesday, killing six Yemeni guards and four civilians, officials said. No American personnel were reported hurt.

read more | digg story

ETFs: The real reason for the Fed’s AIG bailout

"We can’t say we’re surprised. While workers at Lehman might feel somewhat aggrieved, it seems the Fed decided that AIG really was too big to fail." — John Stepek

read more | digg story

Nightmare on Wall Street.

The Economist take on what is already one the worst week in Wall Street history. The fall of Lehman yesterday and the Merrill Lynch buy out by Bank of America is shaking the world wide financial market. Next on the list is insurance giant AIG. The Feds are not in the mood to bailout private companies any longer.

read more | digg story

Angel Dust Was the Inspiration For a New Schizophrenia Drug

When scientists learned that PCP can cause every single symptom of schizophrenia, they wondered if chemicals that have the opposite effect could fight mental disorders. That insight led to them to discover a new class of antipsychotic medications.

read more | digg story

Know Your Stuff, Obama Supporters

ShadowSD has written up an excellent guide to all the reasons to support Barack Obama over John McCain. It's comprehensive, well-structured and well-linked (and quite long). Recommended reading for everyone, whether you are already a supporter, or just curious as to what makes people support Obama.
ShadowSD's diary :: ::
During the primary, McCain ditched every difference he had w/Bush to get nominated
McCain went from voting with Bush for 90% of the last 8 years to 100% this year
Many of McCain’s top campaign staff ran Bush’s campaign; his ‘town halls’ staged like Bush's
The last time the GOP tried to package someone as a reformer during an election, it was Bush
McCain never split w/Bush on Rumsfeld/Cheney, he said he would have hired them himself
Obama bucked his party during the primary, opposing health care mandates, addressing the future Social Security solvency crisis, and advocating teacher merit pay
Obama is endorsed by a long list of high profile conservatives and elected Republicans
Not one high profile progressive or Democrat endorses McCain (CT Dems booted JL in 06)
Obama bucked many of his own big donors during the primary to support the writers strike
Obama worked across the aisle in the Senate with Republicans like Dick Lugar and Tom Coburn
Obama pushed through strict ethics reforms against the will of many in both parties
Obama has the strongest reform record of any candidate in modern history
Obama pushed through the strongest ethics reform in his state for decades, The Gift Ban Act
Obama pushed through the strongest ethics reform at the federal level in decades, The Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act, co-sponsoring and authoring numerous other reform bills
McCain's single ethics reform accomplishment in 25 years is the McCain-Feingold bill
McCain says he has never requested an earmark, but he asked for and received a $10 million earmark in 2006 and a $14.3 million earmark in 2003
Obama pushed through a bipartisan bill making every earmark public knowledge
Obama will cut taxes for 95% of Americans; his middle class tax cut is 3 - 8 times bigger than McCain’s according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center
Obama’s budget adds up better than "we’ve seen in a Presidential candidate in a very long time"; his plan will leave 1.2 trillion dollars less debt than McCain’s (non-partisan TPC)
McCain had to check with his staff when asked how many houses he owns and what kind of car he drives; he spends $250,000 a year on house servants alone
US Troops overseas donated 6x more to Obama; our troops prefer his Iraq plan by 30 pts
Obama always urged focus on Al Qaeda in Afg/Pak while McCain/Bush focused on Iraq/Iran
Obama correctly predicted that invading Iraq would increase terrorism; Obama, alone among all candidates in urging focus on Pakistan last year, was vindicated by the recent turmoil there
Non-partisan Disabled Veterans of America scorecard: McCain 20%, Obama 80%
The Obama Presidential campaign is the first in living memory where average Americans own the biggest share: more than 50% of donations to Obama have been $25 or less, 80% have been $100 or less, and 93% have been $200 or less
"You would have to go back a century and a half to name an incoming president with so few debts to repay"
Obama and the DNC accept no federal lobbyist or PAC donations; McCain and the RNC do
McCain has 133 lobbyists working for his campaign; his top staff is mostly DC lobbyists
McCain got 10x more Top CEO donations than Obama in return for corporate tax breaks
McCain's flip in favor of drilling was rewarded immediately with big donations from oil execs
Obama has served 12 yrs at the federal and state level (4 yrs US Sen + 8 yrs IL Sen)
Obama co-sponsored 15 bills that became federal law and co-sponsored 570 bills
Obama sponsored 823 bills and cast over 4000 votes in the IL Senate
Obama would be the first President with 10+ yrs experience as a Constitutional Law Professor
Obama spent 3 years as the executive in charge of a budget that went from $70K to $400K while serving as a local community organizer in Chicago
Obama had 80 editors under him as President of the Harvard Law Review
Obama's runs a campaign with over 2000 employees, more than the White House staff
Obama got an International Relations specialty in college, later served 4 yrs on Sen Foreign Rel
Obama's combined time either in public service, studying foreign policy, or directly pertaining to Constitutional Law adds up to twenty-five years, as long as McCain has been in office
Obama’s record of experience is more diverse and in touch with America than McCain’s, as Obama understands how things work at the local, state, and federal level; McCain has zero local or state experience, with all his experience in office taking place in Washington DC

read more digg story