By any means necessary: Rolling in bed with the GOP

[suedanim]

If power corrupts absolutely, it should be apparent to all by now that the GOP and the Clintons will stop at nothing to win. Quite frankly, I believe the GOP would be happy with Hillary Clinton in the WH. That way, business and political assasination from both sides can continue, the status quo unaffected and all can breath a sigh of relief.

Barack Obama professes to be antithesis to all the ol skool GOP establishment and the Clintons have allied themselves to protect. Lobbyists, the special interests command both. They take their marching orders from power brokers that have no commitment to the American people, but to the rich and foreign interests.

I do not want to believe that the Clintons and their campaign advisors are rolling in bed with Karl Rove and the GOP, but it appears to me that is exactly what is going on. imo... this onslaught of repetitive TV and radio commentary and negative attack ads based of fearmongering and any tidbit of anything potentially negative they can find to malign Obama. The GOP-Clinton tag team smear machine against Obama is obvious.

Rove and the Clintons have sunk to McCarthyesque assassination attempts with fearmongering that Obama is secretly plotting against the white race, a secret Islamic and NOW, a Communist. This is outrageous and I cannot believe the American people will not see it for what it is.

Begs the question, why hasn't Hillary Clintons shady past and plethora of her OWN scandals been used against her YET by Obama's campaign and the GOP?

[suedanim]

Clinton Backer Distributes Essay On How GOP Would Link Obama To '70s Radicals (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/18/clinton-backer-distribute_n_97525.html)



April 18, 2008 11:46 PM



http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/19182/thumbs/s-BARACK-OBAMA-large.jpg

About Thomas B. Edsall

Thomas B. Edsall is the political editor of the Huffington Post. He is also Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. From 1981 to 2006, he was a political reporter at the Washington Post. He is the author of Chain Reaction and Building Red America. Tom can be reached at edsall@huffingtonpost.com (edsall@huffingtonpost.com).




A high-ranking labor supporter of Hillary Clinton (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/hillary-clinton) is distributing to union leaders and to Democratic strategists a document detailing the radical activities of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, two former members of the '70s group the Weather Underground (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/weather-underground), who decades later, in Chicago, crossed paths with Barack Obama (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/barack-obama).

The document - a three-page emailed essay by Rick Sloan, communications director for the International Association of Machinists as Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) -- takes both literary and political license to outline what Sloan believes would be the thrust of a hypothetical Republican campaign against Obama (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/barack-obama) focusing on his tangential connection to Ayers and Dohrn.

The goal of the essay appears to be to discredit Obama as the prospective Democratic presidential nominee.

The most damaging new material cited by Sloan appears in a link (http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm) to an FBI Freedom of Information web site -- where a viewer can examine hundreds of pages of a study of the Weather Underground and its leaders, written in 1976 by the Chicago FBI office, just at the group was disintegrating at the end of the Vietnam War.

Sloan contends that the purpose of his document is to outline what he conjectures will be the tactics of Republican operative Karl Rove (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/karl-rove), an informal adviser to John McCain's campaign, if Obama is the nominee. The title of Sloan's paper is: "What Is Rove Up To?"
Sloan argues that Rove will use Ayers and Dohrn for 'red-baiting' attacks on Obama. Rove's "target is Barack Obama (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/barack-obama)'s signature slogan 'Change We Can Believe In.' Rove wants to redefine it as revolutionary change, change driven by an alien ideology, change no patriotic American could stomach. And he intends to do so by channeling Senator Joseph McCarthy."

Sloan bases his conjecture on two Rove appearances on Fox's Hannity & Colmes, April 8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JishkSYhx34) and April 14 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351331,00.html.). During one appearance, Rove referred to Ayers and Dohrn thus: "Are there ways to find out the relationship between Ayers and Obama that are visual, that give it power and force?" During the other appearance, more obliquely, Rove described as "almost Marxian" Obama's controversial remarks about "bitter" small town Pennsylvanians.

Sloan, an aide to IAMAW International President R. Thomas Buffenbarger, builds most of the case against Obama on material he has collected from different sources, which he footnotes.

The FBI material supplied by Sloan includes the first Weather Underground "statement" (http://foia.fbi.gov/weather/weath1c.pdf)issued May 21, 1970, delivered by Dohrn and titled "A Declaration of a State of War." Dohrn's reading of the declaration opened as follows:
Quote:
"All over the world, people fighting Amerikan imperialism look to Amerika's youth to use our strategic position behind enemy lines to join forces in the destruction of the empire. Black people have been fighting almost alone for years. We've known that our job is to lead white kids into armed revolution....Kids know the lines are drawn; revolution is touching all of our lives. Tens of thousands have learned that protest and marches don't do it. Revolutionary violence is the only way."
Sloan, in turn, writes:
Quote:
"Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn founded the Weather Underground Organization [in 1970]. According to Weatherman communiqués and papers compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into a 403 page summary, Ayers and Dohrn toed the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line. They were hardcore Communists bent on world revolution."
In 1996, Ayers and Dohrn, who are married and live in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, hosted a fundraiser for Obama who was then running for State Senate. Ayers and Obama served together on the board of the Woods Foundation in Chicago.
The fundraiser and service on the Woods Foundation took place decades after Ayers and Dohrn's involvement with the Weather Underground. Indeed, Obama was 8 years old at the time of Ayres and Dohrn's radical activities. Since then, both Ayres and Dohrn have become professors and are active in Chicago community affairs. Ayers in 2001 published a memoir, "Fugitive Days", and in an interview about the book published in the New York Times on September 11, 2001 (an interview conducted before the 9/11 attacks), Ayers was quoted saying, "I don't regret setting bombs....I feel we didn't do enough." Just hours after publication, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center.
Sloan predicts that,
Quote:
"The drip, drip, drip of Republican opposition research will continue throughout the summer. At the Republican Convention, speakers will joke about a color spectrum of light pink to deep red. And the GOP attack machine will publicize the visual that Rove believes will give that Ayers-Obama link 'power and force.'

"Rove's frame for the fall campaign will be filled with revolutionary figures -- Marx, Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. His audio tapes of Ayers, Dohrn and other Weathermen will provide the screams of revolution. The bombing of the US Capitol, the Pentagon and the US State Department will serve as b-roll for his television ads that will have one final visual as
the announcer gravely intones 'Their Change -- Not What You Had In Mind'."
Sloan sent his anti-Obama material out in an email to 40 political and communications officials of key unions supporting Clinton. The unions include American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the American Federation of Teachers; United Farm Workers; Amalgamated Transit Union; and the Office and Professional Employees. Sloan said he also sent it to a number of Democratic operatives, but he declined to identify them.
Sloan said he wrote the document on his own, using a union email list which is deployed regularly to send out messages to promote the Clinton campaign. "The memo is clearly my work. It was not done for or at the request of the Clinton campaign," Sloan said.
Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, referred all questions about the Ayers-Dohrn material to Sloan. "It's not our document," Wolfson said in a brief email.
Asked to describe the document, Sloan said:
Quote:
"This is the case against Obama that Karl Rove is developing. He's been pushing the Ayers-Obama link on FOX. . . . Most labor folks, myself included, wouldn't know Ayers if we tripped over him. But the FBI summary does contain some absolutely shocking examples of hardcore Communist ideology. With friends like these, who needs enemies....And given what they [Republicans] did four years ago, Democratic strategists ought to be alarmed that Rove is back to his old tricks."
The 1976 FBI material, stemming from the Bureau's investigation of the Weather Underground, was released under a Freedom of Information request and is now posted on the Internet:
Quote:
"Knowledgeable analysts who have followed the growth of Weathermen, or as it is now called, the Weather Underground Organization (WUO), are well aware of the foreign influences on the collective thoughts and actions of these revolutionaries who have consistently carried out the Marxist-Leninist conception of armed struggle in the U.S. The WUO investigation is an excellent example of the native born American who adopts the faith of an alien ideology and, in behalf of his beliefs, commits acts of armed violence, the purposes of which serve to acknowledge his revolutionary obligations to the international communist movement and at the same time create the conditions for revolution in the mother country."

[Alonzo]

Rove and the Clintons have sunk to McCarthyesque assassination attempts with fearmongering that Obama is secretly plotting against the white race, a secret Islamic and NOW, a Communist. This is outrageous and I cannot believe the American people will not see it for what it is.

Ummm... no the Clintons haven't done that.

But if I were her and I knew I could win, and therefore be able to influence the country in the way I feel is best, by working with the GOP, you better believe I'd do it.

[PostmodernProphet]

Barack Obama professes to be antithesis to all the ol skool GOP establishment and the Clintons have allied themselves to protect. Lobbyists, the special interests command both. They take their marching orders from power brokers that have no commitment to the American people, but to the rich and foreign interests.


Sue, why aren't unions "special interest groups".........

[Alonzo]

Though, honestly, you vote both for a candidate and the chance they have of winning. It's foolish not to look into what may be used against him that could affect his chance of winning.

[AlanC]

Well see this is the major problem here. What Obama professes.

Barack Obama professes to be antithesis to all the ol skool GOP establishment and the Clintons have allied themselves to protect. Lobbyists, the special interests command both. They take their marching orders from power brokers that have no commitment to the American people, but to the rich and foreign interests.


That is what he professes, but the more people look, the more he seems to be a politician in the same mold or even more so.

He doesn't take money from lobbyists, he takes it from their law firms so it doesn't look like he's taking it.

He caters to special interests, perhaps some different ones, but special interests all the same.

His record in the Illinois Senate is a politically manufactured one, engineered by political allies and power brokers.

He seems to be aligned with or beholden to some foreign interests himself.

The more one gets a look at Obama, the less different he seems to be. Now its true, he doesn't seem to be very close to the GOP. But then in reality, neither is Hillary.

[suedanim]

Ummm... no the Clintons haven't done that.

But if I were her and I knew I could win, and therefore be able to influence the country in the way I feel is best, by working with the GOP, you better believe I'd do it.

Well yeah, Hillary Clinton HAS cast doubt (http://mediamatters.org/items/200701200003) on Obama's Christian faith in (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/05/rep-ellison-clinton-try_n_90024.html)TV interviews, spoken out against his choice (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_558930.html) to stay with his church and Pastor and is using the opportunity to insert into the conversation an association between Dorhn and Obama (http://themoderatevoice.com/at-tmv/newsweek-blogitics/19054/clinton-supporter-spreads-info-alleging-obama-link-to-70s-radicals/).

Blame the GOP or give them fodder, either way, the connection between the two appears clear.

[ECW]

It seems that Hillary has learned a lot from the ten year assault on her family by Rove and the right-wingers....

be just as disgusting as the rightwingers are.

Obama represents the break with the BS of this mindset. Hopefully, people are so fed up with the last 7 years and the continuation of that crap that McCain and Clinton represent that they will not accept Hillary's or the GOP's revisionist history.

It's Willie Horton, the Pledge of Allegiance and the ACLU campaign of 1988 all over again.

[suedanim]

Sue, why aren't unions "special interest groups".........

Well! You're right, a union would be a special interest group, but the way I look at that is that workers unions represent the people, average citizens, not the rich, not the war machine, not big oil/energy, not AIPAC.

So no, I really don't have beef with unions endorsing or contributing to a candidates campaign, but agree they would be a special interest. imo.. its way past time that the common folk take back government away from the bigger, more powerful groups with far deeper pockets.

[Wndrtch]

If power corrupts absolutely, it should be apparent to all by now that the GOP and the Clintons will stop at nothing to win. Quite frankly, I believe the GOP would be happy with Hillary Clinton in the WH. That way, business and political assasination from both sides can continue, the status quo unaffected and all can breath a sigh of relief.

The past is littered with names of politicians, who "stood for change".
"Change" in the Barack Obama sense, is an empty campaign slogan, born of ignorance and elitism.

For "change" to happen, one must first live within the historic structure of the system to learn how it works, before one can ever think realistically about changing things. Obama hasn't been in congress long enough to learn where the bathrooms are, let alone understand the system enough to ever be effective at changing it. It's the reason he's being eaten alive right now, no experience, just "awe, common, guys, leave me alone...Wahhh!"

Barack Obama professes to be antithesis to all the ol skool GOP establishment and the Clintons have allied themselves to protect. Lobbyists, the special interests command both. They take their marching orders from power brokers that have no commitment to the American people, but to the rich and foreign interests.

I'll take Exxon and Halliburton over Rev Wright and "Weatherman" Ayers any day of the week.

I do not want to believe that the Clintons and their campaign advisors are rolling in bed with Karl Rove and the GOP, but it appears to me that is exactly what is going on. imo... this onslaught of repetitive TV and radio commentary and negative attack ads based of fearmongering and any tidbit of anything potentially negative they can find to malign Obama. The GOP-Clinton tag team smear machine against Obama is obvious.

I said earlier, that if Clinton is going to lose the nomination, should would become McCain's best ally, simply because she will want to keep her chances alive for another bid in four years. If Obama wins, and she is not the VP, it will be 16 years before she will get another shot through the DNC process.

Rove and the Clintons have sunk to McCarthyesque assassination attempts with fearmongering that Obama is secretly plotting against the white race, a secret Islamic and NOW, a Communist. This is outrageous and I cannot believe the American people will not see it for what it is.

So, it has nothing to do with the fact the he sat their for 20 years listening to that rot-gut racism filth from his "friend"/"adviser"/"confidant", yet didn't "hear" anything that was controversial? How about Ayers? How do you square that one?

Begs the question, why hasn't Hillary Clintons shady past and plethora of her OWN scandals been used against her YET by Obama's campaign and the GOP?

That's easy.

Because of Obama's lack of any experience, and his unadulterated naiveté, he thinks he can run a campaign without throwing any punches, which is why Hillary is pounding away at him mercilessly.

The Republicans are just saving their money to hit him closer to November. Why spend any money now, given that the DNC hasn't decided on a front-runner, and Hillary is doing a marvelous job at smashing Obama down with her own campaign funds.

[PostmodernProphet]

Well! You're right, a union would be a special interest group, but the way I look at that is that workers unions represent the people, average citizens, not the rich, not the war machine, not big oil/energy, not AIPAC.

So no, I really don't have beef with unions endorsing or contributing to a candidates campaign, but agree they would be a special interest. imo.. its way past time that the common folk take back government away from the bigger, more powerful groups with far deeper pockets.

/shrugs...so what it boils down to is that you are okay with special interests lobbying candidates as long as they are special interests that you like......

[suedanim]

Well see this is the major problem here. What Obama professes.



That is what he professes, but the more people look, the more he seems to be a politician in the same mold or even more so.

He doesn't take money from lobbyists, he takes it from their law firms so it doesn't look like he's taking it.

He caters to special interests, perhaps some different ones, but special interests all the same.

His record in the Illinois Senate is a politically manufactured one, engineered by political allies and power brokers.

He seems to be aligned with or beholden to some foreign interests himself.

The more one gets a look at Obama, the less different he seems to be. Now its true, he doesn't seem to be very close to the GOP. But then in reality, neither is Hillary.

Care to back up your claims with PROOF?

Obama didn't go along with the Iraq war... That speaks volumes about just how different he is than the rest... Democrat and Republican. He is about change, but not radical change or upheaval as the fearmongering hordes of people from both parties claim. They just are terrified of losing their position of authority.

But, just to agree with one of your statements.. There ARE NO politicians whose record is not politically manufactured or engineered by allies and brokers.

If you can point to one whose record is not politically motivated.... DO share.

[suedanim]

/shrugs...so what it boils down to is that you are okay with special interests lobbying candidates as long as they are special interests that you like......

I like the American people, don't you? So yeah, you could say that.

My own pet special interest groups would be... children, elderly, disabled, generational poverty stricken, wrongly convicted and/or sentenced ie justice system overhaul, hardworkng poor people who still believe there even IS an American Dream.

[Trish]

Perhaps Senator Obama isn't quite as distanced from the influence of the lobbyists and the rich as he professes to be.

"The number one industry supporting the Obama presidential bid, according to the widely respected, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, is "lawyers/law firms" (most on Wall Street's payroll), giving a total of $11,246,596.

This presents three unique credibility problems for the yes-we-can, little-choo-choo-that-could campaign: (1) these are not just "lawyers/law firms"; the vast majority of these firms are also registered lobbyists at the Federal level; (2) Senator Obama has made it a core tenet of his campaign platform that the way he is gong to bring the country hope and change is not taking money from federal lobbyists; and (3) with the past seven ignoble years of lies and distortions fresh in the minds of voters, building a candidacy based on half-truths is not a sustainable strategy to secure the west wing from the right wing.

Yes, the other leading presidential candidates are taking money from lawyers/law firms/lobbyists, but Senator Obama is the only one rallying with the populist cry that he isn't. That makes it not only a legitimate but a necessary line of inquiry…

Additionally, looking at Public Citizen's list of bundlers for the Obama campaign (people soliciting donations from others), 27 are employed by law firms registered as federal lobbyists. The total sum raised February 16-29, 2008 by bundlers for Obama from these 27 firms: $2,650,000. (There are also dozens of high powered bundlers from Wall Street working the Armani-suit and red-suspenders cocktail circuits, like Bruce Heyman, managing director at Goldman Sachs; J. Michael Schell, vice chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup; Louis Susman, managing director, Citigroup; Robert Wolf, CEO, UBS Americas. Each raised over $200,000 for the Obama campaign.)

Senator Obama's premise and credibility of not taking money from federal lobbyists hangs on a carefully crafted distinction: he is taking money, lots of it, from owners and employees of firms registered as federal lobbyists but not the actual individual lobbyists. But is that dealing honestly with the American people?..”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/ind...=548&Itemid=34

[suedanim]

The past is littered with names of politicians, who "stood for change".
"Change" in the Barack Obama sense, is an empty campaign slogan, born of ignorance and elitism.

For "change" to happen, one must first live within the historic structure of the system to learn how it works, before one can ever think realistically about changing things. Obama hasn't been in congress long enough to learn where the bathrooms are, let alone understand the system enough to ever be effective at changing it. It's the reason he's being eaten alive right now, no experience, just "awe, common, guys, leave me alone...Wahhh!"



I'll take Exxon and Halliburton over Rev Wright and "Weatherman" Ayers any day of the week.



I said earlier, that if Clinton is going to lose the nomination, should would become McCain's best ally, simply because she will want to keep her chances alive for another bid in four years. If Obama wins, and she is not the VP, it will be 16 years before she will get another shot through the DNC process.



So, it has nothing to do with the fact the he sat their for 20 years listening to that rot-gut racism filth from his "friend"/"adviser"/"confidant", yet didn't "hear" anything that was controversial? How about Ayers? How do you square that one?



That's easy.

Because of Obama's lack of any experience, and his unadulterated naiveté, he thinks he can run a campaign without throwing any punches, which is why Hillary is pounding away at him mercilessly.

The Republicans are just saving their money to hit him closer to November. Why spend any money now, given that the DNC hasn't decided on a front-runner, and Hillary is doing a marvelous job at smashing Obama down with her own campaign funds.

Hardly worthy of a response, except to say... ALL Sean Hannity, all the time. Are you capable of independant thought?

But, its comforting to know that I was right about how GOPers think of the Clinton smear machine working in tandem with GOP talking points and planning to use them should they McCain face Obama in the general election.

Before you'll be able to even HOPE to win in November against Obama OR Clinton you need to get a better candidate than the elderly, cancer patient, John McInsane.

[Alonzo]

Well yeah, Hillary Clinton HAS cast doubt (http://mediamatters.org/items/200701200003) on Obama's Christian faith in (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/05/rep-ellison-clinton-try_n_90024.html)TV interviews, spoken out against his choice (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_558930.html) to stay with his church and Pastor and is using the opportunity to insert into the conversation an association between Dorhn and Obama (http://themoderatevoice.com/at-tmv/newsweek-blogitics/19054/clinton-supporter-spreads-info-alleging-obama-link-to-70s-radicals/).

Blame the GOP or give them fodder, either way, the connection between the two appears clear.

Umm...... choosing a pastor like Wright is a valid question since the pastor he chooses, and the man he wants as his pastor, is indicative of what he will view as acceptable. Being friendly with, while it's overblown, a terrorist is also an acceptable thing to discuss.

Saying someone "would not be my pastor" has nothing to do with rejecting someones faith, it has to do with saying you wouldn't have a crazy bigot as your pastor.

These are all valid issues, and you'd be foolish to think they would never arise and would have no impact on electibility. Anything that impacts the votes they get matters in making a choice.

[AlanC]

Care to back up your claims with PROOF?

Obama didn't go along with the Iraq war... That speaks volumes about just how different he is than the rest... Democrat and Republican. He is about change, but not radical change or upheaval as the fearmongering hordes of people from both parties claim. They just are terrified of losing their position of authority.

But, just to agree with one of your statements.. There ARE NO politicians whose record is not politically manufactured or engineered by allies and brokers.

If you can point to one whose record is not politically motivated.... DO share.


Well Trish posted some of the information on his back door support from lobbyists.

His financial support also comes from the largest single lobbying group in the country, the Trial Lawyers Association.

You have admitted his courting of Union's support and the financial support attached to that. Even though you couch it in terms of support by the working people, it is not that. It is the support of Union officials and their lobbyists, which often have no relation to their rank and file.

Here is a link on how he was actually a do nothing in the Illinois Senate until his last year in which a record was created for him by the majority leader of the Senate. It is a good read if you take the time to.

Link to article by Todd Spivak (http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/print)

One of the more interesting bits of information.

The white, race-baiting, hard-right Republican Illinois Senate Majority Leader James "Pate" Philip was replaced by Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American known for chain-smoking cigarettes on the Senate floor.

Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama's. He became Obama's *kingmaker.

Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio *program.

I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"

"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"

"Barack Obama."

You can read the article if you want the context, but it is an interesting read.

The question is not if Obama is a "made politician" .. it is rather who made him ..and for what purpose?

[Wndrtch]

Hardly worthy of a response, except to say... ALL Sean Hannity, all the time. Are you capable of independant thought?

You write "Rove and the Clintons have sunk to McCarthyesque assassination attempts", and you have the gall to say I don't have an original thought? Using McCarthy to scare people away from Republicans is THE oldest trick in the book. Where's your "Independent thought", pal? :grrrr:

But, its comforting to know that I was right about how GOPers think of the Clinton smear machine working in tandem with GOP talking points and planning to use them should they McCain face Obama in the general election.

And you inadvertently stumbled into the main reason why Republicans are better to deal with International terrorists, than Democrats. We do what it takes to get the job done, and don't run away and cry when things get tough.

Before you'll be able to even HOPE to win in November against Obama OR Clinton you need to get a better candidate than the elderly, cancer patient, John McInsane.

Wonderful! Keep being an age-bigot! Should go over well with the largest and most aggressive voting bloke there is, the elderly. Keep hitting McCain for his age, and you should disenfranchise the elderly, as well as blacks and women! Then, it will be a total collapse of the DNC in November, and we can all have some fun watching DNC heads roll!

[Truth_and_Power]

Though, honestly, you vote both for a candidate and the chance they have of winning. It's foolish not to look into what may be used against him that could affect his chance of winning.

Why don't they just shoot him and get it over with. Then they can continue with their policies of what is best for this country.

[suedanim]

And you inadvertently stumbled into the main reason why Republicans are better to deal with International terrorists, than Democrats. We do what it takes to get the job done, and don't run away and cry when things get tough.

Please don't call me "pal".

Wonderful! Keep being an age-bigot! Should go over well with the largest and most aggressive voting bloke there is, the elderly. Keep hitting McCain for his age, and you should disenfranchise the elderly, as well as blacks and women! Then, it will be a total collapse of the DNC in November, and we can all have some fun watching DNC heads roll!

Let me set you straight. First... I am a woman.. 58 yo, have an 80 yo Mother, married for 20 years to a black man and with biracial aka black children. Put that in your pipe and spin it. And yes... we experience racism firsthand, overt and covert.

You'll find me to be fiercely proactive when it comes to womens, poc, elderly, children and disabled issues.

I just happen to believe John McCain is not in top form to handle the Presidency. Melanoma is a particularly aggressive cancer. That it is in remission...so they say... is great. But, it can rear its ugly head at any time.

Now... on to your claim:

And you inadvertently stumbled into the main reason why Republicans are better to deal with International terrorists, than Democrats. We do what it takes to get the job done, and don't run away and cry when things get tough.

Like the Keystone cops? Clowns in a circus? Thats just the point. Your heros Bush and Cheney didn't get the job done.

Hello??? The international terrorists were in Pakistan and northern Afghanistan...but we invaded Iraq like a train wreck.

[PostmodernProphet]

I like the American people, don't you? So yeah, you could say that.

My own pet special interest groups would be... children, elderly, disabled, generational poverty stricken, wrongly convicted and/or sentenced ie justice system overhaul, hardworkng poor people who still believe there even IS an American Dream.

so do I, but we are talking about special interest groups that spend money to buy politicians....and there are as many of those on the left side of the aisle as there are on the right.....

[suedanim]

Well Trish posted some of the information on his back door support from lobbyists.

His financial support also comes from the largest single lobbying group in the country, the Trial Lawyers Association.

You have admitted his courting of Union's support and the financial support attached to that. Even though you couch it in terms of support by the working people, it is not that. It is the support of Union officials and their lobbyists, which often have no relation to their rank and file.

Here is a link on how he was actually a do nothing in the Illinois Senate until his last year in which a record was created for him by the majority leader of the Senate. It is a good read if you take the time to.

Link to article by Todd Spivak (http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/print)

One of the more interesting bits of information.



You can read the article if you want the context, but it is an interesting read.

The question is not if Obama is a "made politician" .. it is rather who made him ..and for what purpose?

Thanks... I'll digest the info the two of you provide and get back to you on my pov regarding this whole special interest group affiliation issue. Perhaps in another thread.


The question is not if Obama is a "made politician" .. it is rather who made him ..and for what purpose?


Well I guess its time for the tinfoil hat factory to gear up production for the overly paranoid, eh?

Those questions could be posed for just about all politicians really. Don't worry, Obama isn't the antichrist. The black helicopters aren't coming back from the 90's to shoot transponders into us.

[suedanim]

Why don't they just shoot him and get it over with. Then they can continue with their policies of what is best for this country.

What do you mean "best"?

Though I am sure you didn't actually mean that Obama should be shot.... Perhaps that sentiment will become a reality. Certainly, Americans have great access to guns and some of our countrymen are A-1 nutjobs, capable of doing just that.

[4Reaganomics]

calling Sirhan Sirhan's cousin, where art thou

[brien]

"A high-ranking labor supporter of Hillary Clinton is distributing to union leaders and to Democratic strategists a document detailing the radical activities of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, two former members of the '70s group the Weather Underground, who decades later, in Chicago, crossed paths with Barack Obama.

The document - a three-page emailed essay by Rick Sloan, communications director for the International Association of Machinists as Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) -- takes both literary and political license to outline what Sloan believes would be the thrust of a hypothetical Republican campaign against Obama focusing on his tangential connection to Ayers and Dohrn.

The goal of the essay appears to be to discredit Obama as the prospective Democratic presidential nominee."

************************************************** **************

Ummmm.... It was Bill Clinton who pardoned the other "Weathergirls". Pot calling the Kettle black here? Even worse imo... I have never seen such hypocrisy in all my life observing American politics. I wonder how much Clinton charged them for the pardons....a bundle for sure..


http://goldsea.com/804/18facts.html

" Obama struck back by calling attention to Bill Clinton's decision to grant clemency to two former Weather Underground members who _ unlike Ayers _ had been convicted of crimes from that era.

President Clinton's actions freed women who had been serving sentences of 40 years and 58 years after convictions on weapons, explosives and related charges. "

[Truth_and_Power]

What do you mean "best"?

Though I am sure you didn't actually mean that Obama should be shot.... Perhaps that sentiment will become a reality. Certainly, Americans have great access to guns and some of our countrymen are A-1 nutjobs, capable of doing just that.

by "best" i mean the same thing as Zo when he used it.

[Alonzo]

Why don't they just shoot him and get it over with. Then they can continue with their policies of what is best for this country.

Too bloody. Maybe slip something into his drink?

[Alonzo]

And you inadvertently stumbled into the main reason why Republicans are better to deal with International terrorists, than Democrats. We do what it takes to get the job done, and don't run away and cry when things get tough.


Haven't republicans whined that Hillary is too ruthless?

[Wndrtch]

Haven't republicans whined that Hillary is too ruthless?

When did we do that? I must have missed the memo.

[DamnYankee]

Hillary is doing a marvelous job at smashing Obama down with her own campaign funds.

Isn't it great. I can't wait to watch the liberal convention.

[Wndrtch]

Isn't it great. I can't wait to watch the liberal convention.

I'm hopeing to see cops in riot gear and tear-gas clouds! I wasn't old enough to see the 68 convention. I heard the Abby Hoffman types were throwing dog sh1t at the cops, and Mayor Daily refused to let the cops do anything about for three days, then finall gave in, and gave the order to arrest the smelly crowd.

[Elrathin]

It's nice to see such Patriots of America hoping for riots.

[Wndrtch]

Please don't call me "pal".

Ok, milady.


Let me set you straight. First... I am a woman.. 58 yo, have an 80 yo Mother, married for 20 years to a black man and with biracial aka black children. Put that in your pipe and spin it. And yes... we experience racism firsthand, overt and covert.

You'll find me to be fiercely proactive when it comes to womens, poc, elderly, children and disabled issues.

Fair enough. Glad to meet you.

I just happen to believe John McCain is not in top form to handle the Presidency. Melanoma is a particularly aggressive cancer. That it is in remission...so they say... is great. But, it can rear its ugly head at any time.

I'm sure he appreciates your concern for his health, but you did lead your attack with "the elderly", cancer patient, McInsane.

So, the guy has survived cancer, and 5 years of REAL torture in Vietnam, and you think that disqualifies him to be President? Some would call that "True Grit". What has Obama endured, beyond a nasty hang-nail at the peticurists? Has he ever had someone re-break his arm every week, just to make sure the pain level is high? Has he ever had to endure cancer treatment? I don't recall him ever speaking about any hardcore racism he was faced with growing up, ecept the filth he had to endure from his own pastor, but I doubt you count that the same way.

Like the Keystone cops? Clowns in a circus? Thats just the point. Your heros Bush and Cheney didn't get the job done.

Hello??? The international terrorists were in Pakistan and northern Afghanistan...but we invaded Iraq like a train wreck.

Didn't get the job done? Huh?

Last week, USA Today reported that since June 2003, the U.S. military in Iraq has kept a count of insurgents killed, injured and detained. Those figures were later released by the military to Stars and Stripes.

Through August 2007, those figures show, 18,832 suspected insurgents had been reported killed, 5,196 injured and 119,752 arrested by U.S. and coalition forces.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56702&archive=true

U.S. Thwarts 19 Terrorist Attacks Against America Since 9/11

http://www.heritage.org/research/HomelandDefense/bg2085.cfm


Keystone Cops: Bill Clinton

Never responded to Saddam's airspace violations...

Never pursued leads from the 1993 WTC bombing...

Never responded to the 1993 WTC bombing...

Made it damn near impossible for agencies to communicate criticle information with local authorities...

Never responded to the Kobar Tower bombings...

Never responded to Mogadeshu...

Never responded to the USS Cole bombing...

Bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade...

Bombed an aspirin factory, again by mistake...

[Wndrtch]

It's nice to see such Patriots of America hoping for riots.

A bit hollow, given that the rioters want AmeriKKKa to lose in Iraq and in the GWoT.

[Elrathin]

A bit hollow, given that the rioters want AmeriKKKa to lose in Iraq and in the GWoT.

The difference is I don't want to see riots, you do.

[Troubadour]

If power corrupts absolutely, it should be apparent to all by now that the GOP and the Clintons will stop at nothing to win.

Indisputably. Hillary Clinton is now virtually John McCain's running mate.


Quite frankly, I believe the GOP would be happy with Hillary Clinton in the WH.

As in literal terms, the GOP benefits from a perpetual state of political war: As long as the conflict is vacuous, they will flourish. This is how Republicans sabotage the balance mechanisms of our democratic institutions - turn the debate into meaningless bickering between irrelevant or false alternatives while actual problems remain unsolved, serious issues are ignored, and no attention is paid to their real agenda. Hillary is their designated straw man candidate - the opponent they would choose to face, because she stands for nothing and disagrees with them primarily by expediency. With a demoralized American electorate convinced they have no real choices, the institutions of our republic in general are neglected and can be attacked with renewed vigor by their enemies. This illustrates the true nature of the Republican Party as pathogenic.


Barack Obama professes to be antithesis to all the ol skool GOP establishment and the Clintons have allied themselves to protect. Lobbyists, the special interests command both. They take their marching orders from power brokers that have no commitment to the American people, but to the rich and foreign interests.

Precisely. Hillary is not a Democrat, but a Republican who supports some liberal social issues simply because it suits her - but her philosophy, her underlying attitude toward American governance and the values of this country, is starkly conservative. They hate her not because she's a liberal as they claim, but she's one of them who has gone rogue and tried to set up her own empire without "The Team." Bill is somewhat the same, though complicated by his deep personal need to be liked by everyone.


I do not want to believe that the Clintons and their campaign advisors are rolling in bed with Karl Rove and the GOP, but it appears to me that is exactly what is going on. imo... this onslaught of repetitive TV and radio commentary and negative attack ads based of fearmongering and any tidbit of anything potentially negative they can find to malign Obama. The GOP-Clinton tag team smear machine against Obama is obvious.

Yes, it's pretty blatant - the Clinton campaign is directly coordinating their anti-Obama attacks with the RNC. If nothing else illustrates just how sinister the Clintons and their DLC minions are, that should be it - to regard their own victimizers as allies in the face of a candidate in their own party who has done more for it than anyone in decades. All because doing otherwise would mean that Hillary has to wait. How low are these people?


Rove and the Clintons have sunk to McCarthyesque assassination attempts with fearmongering that Obama is secretly plotting against the white race, a secret Islamic and NOW, a Communist. This is outrageous and I cannot believe the American people will not see it for what it is.

The American people do see it for what it is. Barack Obama will easily become America's next President - that's why attempts to get him now are so desperate. John McCain can't handle him, and they all know that.


Begs the question, why hasn't Hillary Clintons shady past and plethora of her OWN scandals been used against her YET by Obama's campaign

The answer to that question is the beginning of the end of the Republican era.

[Alonzo]

troubador, do you actually believe what you write or is this just some little game you're playing?

[Troubadour]

troubador, do you actually believe what you write or is this just some little game you're playing?

I am not a Republican. When I say "the sky is blue," I mean the sky is blue, not that I own stock in a company that sells blue paints for rendering sky images. Capice?

[Alonzo]

I am not a Republican. When I say "the sky is blue," I mean the sky is blue, not that I own stock in a company that sells blue paints for rendering sky images. Capice?

That's nice, but it seems to skirt around my question.

[Troubadour]

That's nice, but it seems to skirt around my question.

You didn't ask a question, you made a statement. A completely meaningless one that didn't address a single aspect of what I said.

[Alonzo]

Troubador, how exactly is this not a question:

troubador, do you actually believe what you write or is this just some little game you're playing?

Is it the "Do you" part or the "?" part that's confusing you?