The Richardson Betrayal and Obama supporters blind faith.

Last Friday when Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico endorsed Barack Obama, it was a clear betrayal of trust to the Clintons. Bill Richardson would not have a political career if he was not ambassador to the UN under Bill Clinton’s administration. It is clear that Bill Richardson is jumping on the band wagon to try to get a cabinet seat in a possible Obama administration. It is a clear betrayal of “political trust”.

Barack Obama supporters are going to rallies, contributing money, voting for him, caucusing for him, under a system of blind faith. Senator Obama has not shown a consistent voting record; of missing key votes, like the resolution which called the Iranian revolutionary guard a terrorist group. What can Barack Obama bring to this country? Change? Hope? The simple answer is he does not have the experience to bring such hope and change, when Senator Clinton has the perfect experience to bring such hope and change. But sadly the country has turned to a new cult or faith also known as Barack Obama.

Mike Gravel is a Libertarian now?

I have supported Mike Gravel for a long time now. I have always admired his willingness to call out the liars within the Democratic establishment. I have supported the National Initiative for Democracy, which is an idealistic and romantic idea of how the system should work. Gravel’s Fair Tax is also idealistic and romantic, however, the problem with the Fair Tax is that it is unfair, but really that is another matter.

Quite a few times throughout his campaign I have wondered why Senator Gravel has done certain things. Some of them do come across as crazy and a little bit wacky. In one video Gravel is seen on a street corner with Ron Paul supporters trying to set up a debate with Paul and another time Gravel dressed up as Santa Claus for a special holiday musical video. Neither of these times, was I really concerned that Mike Gravel did not deserve my support.

However, last night Senator Gravel announced that he would be switching parties and joining the Libertarians.

I wanted to update you on my latest plans before news gets out. Today, I am announcing my plan to join the Libertarian Party, because the Democratic Party no longer represents my vision for our great country. I wanted my supporters to get this news first, because you have been the ones who have kept my campaign alive since I first declared my candidacy on April 17, 2006.

I completely agree with the criticisms about the Democratic Party, however the Libertarian Party is the wrong direction to go. It is said that the two pillars of the Libertarian Party are “greed and weed.” I am a Liberal, I believe in helping the working poor. So really, I could never support a candidate who entered the same party Ron Paul shied away from. I don’t know who I will support now, I may stick with Gravel. The other options are a celebrity speech reader and a famous wife of a famous president. Nader of course, is a possibility, but maybe that is too cliché.

Bill Clinton: We’ll Play Illegally

The Clinton machine apparently has more below the belt tricks to pull, and Bill Clinton said he doesn’t mind getting dirty, according to the CNN Political Ticker:

“If a politician doesn’t wanna get beat up, he shouldn’t run for office,” the former president said in Parkersburg, West Virginia. “If a football player doesn’t want to get tackled or want the risk of an occasional clip he shouldn’t put the pads on.”

For the football illiterate people like me, clipping is an illegal move in football where a player tackles a defensive player from behind or below the belt.

I once admired the Clintons and was willingly to defend them from Republican attacks. But now they’ve turned into a Republican attack machine, cannibalizing their own party. I know some of you Clinton supporters will be quick to comment that Obama has gone negative too. But as Bill Clinton said “If a politician doesn’t wanna get beat up, he shouldn’t run,” then they shouldn’t complain when the hope candidate makes them look dirty for running a dirty campaign.

So Bill, let’s have a civilized debate about the issues, where we stand and how we want to confront him. But Bill, occasional comments made by a candidate’s pastor doesn’t necessarily mean he shares those same views. Bill, a candidates middle name  doesn’t have anything to do with running for office. And Bill, what’s wrong with a man dressing up in the garb from his native country?

If you want to talk experience, affordable versus universal health care, and foreign policy then let’s sit down for a debate. I expect attacks over issues like this and have no problem with it. I do have a problem with race baiting, swift boating, and other dishonest forms of politics which do nothing to fix issues, but rather polarize Democrats at a time when we’re fighting for America’s future, and at time when America doesn’t need one more issue to be angry over.

A vote for Obama is a vote for no change.

When the infamous 3 Am ad was playing, Obama supporters did not think it was fair. Some even called it racist, but it is the sad truth. If Senator Obama is elected President of the United States, he will not be able to run the country as well as Senators Clinton and McCain would. This may seem a radical statement but before you vote you should have to take a mandatory IQ test to see if you are a intelligent voter. Not someone who will vote or not vote for someone because of race or religion.

Senator Obama has had three years of legislative experience, Clinton has had 16 (which includes her White House years.) In every single speech by Obama he talks about hope and change but never talks about how to bring it about. Senator Clinton has attempted and succeeded in some of these issues. We need Change with Experience.

At 3am Emergency Hillary Was Running for Senate

After some of the first reviews of Hillary Clinton’s schedules it seemed the press was obsessing about the formers first ladies whereabouts when her husband was having his affairs. But now some more substantive details have emerged. Apparently at 2:18am on October 12th 2000, the USS Cole was bombed. Bill left for the white house, but where did Hillary go? To the campaign trail says the New York Times:

In October 2000, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton were enjoying a quiet weekend at their new home in Chappaqua, N.Y., when word came that the Cole, an American destroyer, had been attacked in a Yemen port. Mr. Clinton rushed back to the White House to deal with the crisis. Mrs. Clinton returned to the campaign trail in her run for the Senate.

But that’s not all the press has found. Despite her claims of having advised her husband (which she certainly did), at those 3am moments she seized upon, it turns out she also was watching plays and having a photo shoot:

When the World Trade Center was attacked for the first time on Feb. 26, 1993, President Bill Clinton flew to New York to be briefed on the attack and the response by city, state and federal authorities. According to newly released White House calendars of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s time as first lady, Mrs. Clinton stayed behind in Washington to attend a photo shoot with Parade magazine and a performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

But that’s not the only evidence that leaves serious questions about her true role in foreign policy decisions. Now that a video has surfaced and after questions were raised about her account, Hillary Clinton’s campaign acknowledged today that she may have misspoken when she described flying into Bosnia under sniper fire, and running to her convoy. It turns out that her 1996 trip to Bosnia was much more peaceful than that:

Now that a video [link] has surfaced and after questions were raised about her account, Hillary Clinton’s campaign acknowledged today that she may have misspoken when she described a harrowing visit to Bosnia while first lady.

“I remember landing under sniper fire,” she said last week as she sought to burnish her commander-in-chief credentials. “There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

The Clinton campaign does acknowledge embellishments, but still maintains it was too dangerous for the president to travel in. If that’s true, Bill Clinton was one cowardly commander-in-chief, sending his wife, daughter, and entertainers to a zone he felt to dangerous to personally travel in.

Ferraro Attacks Obama’s Conciliatory Remarks

Having Obama “Equate what I said with what this racist bigot [Jeremiah Wright] has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” said Geraldine Ferraro. Obama even tried to dismiss Ferraro’s original comment saying, “We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card.” But she decided to pounce on another part of his speech referring to a quote in which Obama said Americans should ignore racist comments made from both camps:

In one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap . On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

This has pretty much confirmed my earlier positions that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was behind the nearly incessant loop of the Reverend Wrights comments. But that’s not all Ferraro said, “What this man is doing is he is spewing that stuff out to young people, and to younger people than Obama, and putting it in their heads that it’s OK to say `Goddamn America’ and it’s OK to beat up on white people.”

Not one time has Wright encouraged young black men to beat up white kids. Wright wasn’t even saying “God damn America” because he doesn’t like this country. While I will admit his comments where inappropriate they’re not the end of the world. Here’s what he said in more relevant context, “The government gives [blacks] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people.”

He could have said God save America, but it’s fully understandable that a black man born in 1941 is angry with the system. He lived about thirty years of his life in overt racist oppression, and just as no one expect Jews from concentration camps to forgive Germans that sat back and allowed Antisemitism and the Germans that fully embraced Nazism, it also ridiculous for Wright to forget the oppression he grew up with.

Cross posted at my personal site, Joshua Davis Photography.

2005 Bush Inauguration Violated Protesters Rights

A judge ruled that the Bush administration violated protesters rights of assembly and speech by keeping the protesters far at bay reports the Washington Post:

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman found that the National Park Service violated its own regulations by giving the inauguration’s private organizers preferential treatment and extraordinary control over access to Pennsylvania Avenue. The Presidential Inaugural Committee roped off most of the parade route and allowed only those with tickets inside.

Protesters were limited to small, specific areas, leading to a lawsuit by antiwar activists.

“The inauguration is not a private event,” Friedman said in his ruling. “The National Park Service, on behalf of the PIC, cannot reserve all of Pennsylvania Avenue for itself, leaving only the Ellipse and the northern part of John Marshall Park to protesters.”

This ruling could be overturned if it’s appealed. If it’s not protesters will have greater access to the presidents inauguration.

If you can remember Bush’s 2005 inauguration was more like the induction of communist hardliner. Fences kept everyone except for Bush donors and supporters from being near the event. Meanwhile snipers “guarded” the protesters, and tall metal fences blocked access to many parts of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Inside the event Bush spent tens of thousands on a bomb proof cage thrown. At least we have only 9 more months of Bush’s invasion of American freedoms and his wasteful spending.

Hillary Can Say Goodbye to Black Support

A Rasmussen poll shows that Hillary Clinton can only capture 55% of a key Democratic voting block, African Americans. Likewise Obama only gets 36% of votes from white males. Such identity politics plays right into the hands of John McCain, the same article even said “McCain currently leads Barack Obama 49% to 42% and Hillary Clinton 51% to 41% margin.”

I won’t blame this on Hillary Clinton, or on African Americans. The Hillary campaign has done it’s share of race baiting. But the media is one of the main culprits, running inflammatory comments over and over again to cause controversy and in turn get more viewers.

Nor is this the fault of blacks either. For about 150 years we’ve been voting for white men. We don’t have a problem if Obama looses to his only Democratic opponent. Where the problem stands is if he looses because of race baiting, and if he looses it certainly will look that is true.

For one Hillary’s campaign has used the race card (I won’t yet call her a racist) to gain votes. They are perfectly fine with loosing the black vote in the primaries, to gain a larger share of votes from people on other spectrums of the hue. Some think because eighty to ninety percent of blacks vote for him suggests that his campaign is somehow racist because the vote doesn‘t break down more evenly.

Second, if you’ll recall the Clinton campaign used the race card in South Carolina too. But then it seemed they backed down after they realised the element of the white vote that was racist, would go for John Edwards. But as soon as Edwards dropped out we saw this creeping back into the campaign.

The real issue is how will this affect the Democratic party beyond 2008? I’m starting to wonder if Hillary would rather see a Democrat loose in 2008 so she can run again in 2012. The poll certainly makes November look ominous for Democrats in November. But if Hillary is successful in using her race based politics, and then continues those same policies to ensure she’s still president until 2016 America might see a new coalition of progressive thinking Democrats and blacks.

The whole Reverend Wright controversy is of particular concern. I believe that Hillary was behind the timing. Why hasn’t she made any comments denouncing the press’s obsession with his comments, several of which where reported out of context? I remember when the New York Times ran the whole McCain affair story, Mike Huckabee simply denounced it as “politics.” I’m not asking Clinton to endorse Reverend Wrights inappropriate comments, but merely the way the media is using race baiting and distorting the comments to manipulate voters as if they where kids.

I for one was still willing to ignore the racist campaign in South Carolina and vote for Clinton in a general election. But now I can’t justify my people being used as a disposable pawn throughout this cycle. If Obama doesn’t win I’ll probably be voting for Ralph Nader. My mother has said she would write Obama’s name in. Meanwhile my dad and grandmother both feel Clinton would be better over McCain. With so much attention focusing on swing states, shouldn’t key demographics be viewed as important too?

Cross posted on my personal blog, Joshua Davis Photography.

The Press Cares More About a Blue Dress than the Campaign

When Hillary’s white house calendar was released some hoped it would clear up details. Like how much she was actually involved in legislation and diplomacy. But what are the first items the press goes after? Where Hillary Clinton was during Bill’s Lewinsky affair. Here’s what ABC news had to say for their irrelevant”initial” review:

Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been in the White House when it happened, according to records of her schedule released today by the National Archives.

The public schedule for Sen. Clinton on Feb. 28, 1997, the day on which Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress would become stained by the president, shows the first lady spent the morning and the night in the White House.

But it wasn’t just ABC, the front page of CNN’s Political Ticker also featured the story. The real news in the release was meanwhile buried. At least the LA Times had an article:

Federal archivists Wednesday released 11,000 pages of schedules from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s eight years as first lady, but the material offered little to support her assertion that her White House experience left her best prepared to become president.

What does the “blue dress” incident have to do with her campaign? Surely the press isn’t concerned that Hillary won’t know everything occurring in the 132 room, 55,000 square feet building. This type of story only distracts from the real news, like McCain repeatably and incorrectly claiming Iran was fueling Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Obamas Speech Attempts Unification of America

Cross posted on my personal site, Joshua Davis Photography. 

Obama’s campaign has so far tried to ignore race, but in the past couple of weeks supporters of both Hillary and Obama injected it into the campaign. But his speech has far superseded a summary of black history, or him distancing himself from blacks. He transcended mere hues and instead showed that all of us middle class, lower class, and even the rich liberals should not let the few selfish divide us, the masses, with the same petty sidetracks:

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Without alienating his pastor he condemned the mans remarks without condemning the man, which shows his campaign can even reach out to the person, without endorsing their ideas. He even seemed to condemn the harsh reaction to Geraldine Ferraro’s racial comments, “We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction.”

He also finally challenged some of those comments that he wasn’t black enough:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

It was really an amazing speech that didn’t play the race card, and hopefully didn’t further alienate anyone from his campaign. You can read the entire transcript at his website.

Hillary’s original 3 A.M. Ad!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge8afD3q7yA[/youtube]

 

Above is the original cut of Hillary Clinton’s (in)famous 3 A.M. ringing phone ad. It was recently discovered on the cutting room floor, and you can only see it here at ThinkYouth.Org!

 

Sun. March 16th Live Podcast: Episode 24: Clinton vs. Obama Debate

Co-hosted by Dan Solis, Thomas Senecal, Jeff Pritchard, and Johnny Camacho.

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[Download MP3]

Obama vs. Clinton? A fight to the death?

Can Clinton and Obama supporters find common ground throughout all this mess? Can we end the show on a good note without anyone getting angry? We discuss the issues and controversies that are shaping the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama death-match, as well as try to clear the smears about these candidates.

Obama: My Pastor is not my Political Adviser

Obama has come out strong against denouncing comments his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made, including saying “The government gives [blacks] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon.

Obviously Obama doesn’t hold these views, but just to remind people of that, he’s written a post over at HuffPost defining his relationship with his pastor:

Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

This is the exact sort of thing McCain should have said when a pastor endorsed him who believes we should invade Iran to start Armageddon.
Read more

President Bush Calls War “Romantic”

President Bush seems to have changed a bit since his days essentially dodging the draft for Vietnam. The Huffington Post reports that he recently said that fighting in Afganistan is “in some ways romantic.”

“I must say, I’m a little envious,” Bush said. “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.”

“It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You’re really making history, and thanks,” Bush said.

There isn’t too much to say to that. Bush seems to fancy himself a general for toy soldiers. In reality, he has somehow become the commander-in-chief of a real army made of real men. In response, I would like to remind people of Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est.” Here is the end of the poem.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Bush has not been to war. When he knew that his name would soon be called and it would soon be his time to serve, he ran. Now, he says that he sees a good fight that he would be glad to take part in.

No. He doesn’t. He sees a game that he would like to play, and he wants more toy soldiers so that he can keep playing. War is not romantic, and it seems an insult to the brave men and women of the armed services to suggest that it is anything but hard gruesome work which should be avoided.

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