Peace Be With You And Yours
I don't know what is giving me a better headache right now the brain freeze from my one scoop of Ice Cream I am allowed a week or the bickering I read on this blog. Come on where is the civility at?
It is pretty much agreed that as Democrats we all believe in, value, support and defend "Civli Rights" and "Civil Liberties" then why is it so difficult for people that believe in a Civil Society governed by equal protection, fairness and yes "Civii Rights" and "Civil Liberties" to be "Civil" towards each other is it just rhetoric? or do we practice what we preach?
Just a thought anyway.
Peace to you and yours
I have to go to supper but listen to this the link will be in the comments
R - E -S - P - E - C - T
Sorry true believers it ain't happening this is from the Chicago Daily Observer since there is no other reputable group reporting on this non-existent move.
DNC Headquarters at 233 N. Michigan, Chicago IL, 60601
Occasionally, I think it is bats to have maps associated with stories, some of which have nearly no geographic significance (those show up at 307 N. Michigan, the host of the Chicago Daily Observer, by the way). However, there are many stories where the location is a key to the story, such as this one from the Washington Post announcing that the Democratic National Committee Headquarters is moving to Chicago. Chicago is a big place, so drilling down a bit we find that the DNC Headquarters will be somewhere in the Loop.
Politico thinks the headquarters will be somewhere ”near Barack Obama’s Headquarters”. I just called the DNC in Washington DC, where a bored (and boring) phone answerer told me that they only had a P.O. Box, no street address for the DNC Headquarters. Our pals over at Everyblock have 50 Restaurant inspections near DNC Chicago Headquarters, (where surprisingly Sbarro passed), a case of credit card fraud, and a couple of reports of Block 37 being a mess, but no signs of the DNC Headquarters moving to Chicago.
So, to set it straight, I called the DNC Headquarters in Chicago, where I was 1/2 informed that the DNC will be co-located at Sen. Obama’s campaign headquarters. She wouldn’t tell me where that is at, but I have edited news from at least 100 releases from Sen. Obama, all coming from….233 N. Michigan (look at the map on the left for a flag of the location of 233 N. Michigan)
Yes, 233 N. Michigan, site of 2 Illinois Center the 1972 Dirk Lohan Skyscraper with amenities such as Banking, Conferencing Facility, Fitness Center, Food Service, Hotel, Property Manager on Site is the home of the DNC Headquarters in Chicago. It is a very pleasant building and I am sure the DNC employees will appreciate the short trip to Sbarro’s in the foodcourt.
Searching for DNC Headquarters (and variants) on the Tribune Website draws a blank, as does the Sun-Times so this probably is not a event worth covering for our tireless local media, as the R Kelley trial still has some life in it and there are a lot of photos of Cub’s/Sox fans to look at.
Read More »
Obama pledges to push Israel-Palestinian peace talks
AMMAN (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged on Tuesday to work to reach a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians from his first day in office but said it would be difficult.
"The Israeli government is unsettled. The Palestinians are divided between Fatah and Hamas. And so it's difficult for either side to make the bold move that would bring about peace," Obama told reporters in Amman before visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who faces a corruption probe that could force him from office, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost his hold on the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists a year ago, launched peace talks last November.
They set the goal of reaching a statehood agreement before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in January, but disputes over Jewish settlement building and violence on both sides have marred the negotiations.
"My goal is to make sure that we work, starting from the minute I'm sworn into office, to try to find some breakthroughs," Obama said, adding that it was unrealistic to expect a U.S. president to "suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace".
Obama attracted attention in June when he told a pro-Israeli lobby group that Jerusalem must remain Israel's undivided capital -- only to amend his stance to say the issue should be negotiated by all parties.
Obama, who has sought to reach out to Jewish voters, said the United States would remain a "strong friend" of Israel regardless of who wins the upcoming election.
(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
"Golden Girls" star Estelle Getty dies at 84
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Emmy-winning actress Estelle Getty, best known as a wise-cracking octogenarian on the popular 1980s and '90s sitcom "The Golden Girls," died on Tuesday. She was 84.
Getty, who spent four decades toiling in show business before winning fame and critical recognition as Bea Arthur's sassy, 80-year-old mother on the hit show, had been suffering from dementia.
"As of 5:35 this morning surrounded by her family in her Hollywood Hills home, Estelle Getty passed away peacefully in her sleep of natural causes," her longtime manager, Alan Siegel, said in a statement.
"Her family and close friends thank everyone for being so loving and supportive of Estelle in her last few years," Siegel said.
Born Estelle Scher in New York City in 1923, Getty wanted to be an entertainer from an early age, despite her small size and the initial objections of her Polish immigrant parents.
She got her start as a comic at resorts in New York state's Catskill mountains and pursued her dream as an actress in regional theater and off-Broadway productions while raising two sons and working office jobs to make ends meet.
She won a breakthrough role in a production of "Torch Song Trilogy" that brought her to the attention of Hollywood. She was ultimately cast as the oldest of four female retirees living together on "Golden Girls" even though she was slightly younger than her screen daughter.
Getty won two Emmys for her role as Sophia Petrillo on the show.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Eric Beech)
Nissan to test electric cars in Tennessee
By Kevin Krolicki
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co has formed a partnership with Tennessee to study the infrastructure needed to support the roll-out of electric cars starting in 2011, Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said on Tuesday.
"We are forming a partnership with the state of Tennessee to promote zero-emission mobility," Ghosn said at the opening of the Japanese automaker's new headquarters in Nashville.
The tie-up will include the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally controlled utility that ranks as the nation's largest, supplying electricity to residents in seven states.
Nissan, which trails Japanese rivals Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co in hybrid technology, has made it a priority to become a leader in the still emerging market for fully electric vehicles.
By 2010, Nissan plans to start testing an all-new electric car being developed in Japan. It is aiming for global sales of the still-unnamed, battery-powered car by 2012.
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen said state agencies would look at how to support Nissan's electric car development efforts, including the possibility of setting up charging stations.
The partnership is one of several between automakers, electric power utilities and government agencies. Ford Motor Co and General Motors Corp both have tie-ups with the utility industry to cooperate in electric vehicle development.
Ghosn signed a similar deal earlier this month with Portugal that would create a national recharging network. Nissan and its French alliance partner Renault SA also have similar tie-ups with Israel and Denmark.
Read More »
Lonesome George may end bachelor days on Galapagos
By Alonso Soto
QUITO (Reuters) - After decades of solitude, "Lonesome George" may finally save his species of Galapagos giant tortoise from extinction, his keepers said on Monday.
George, a Pinta island tortoise who has shown little interest in reproducing during 36 years in captivity, stunned his keepers by mating with one of his two female companions of a similar species of Galapagos tortoise.
Park rangers found a nest with several eggs in George's pen and placed three in incubators. It will take about four months to know whether the eggs bear George's offspring.
"Even if these three eggs are fertile and the born tortoises survive it will take several (genetic) generations to think of having a Pinta purebred ... even centuries," the park said in a statement.
After trying almost everything from artificial insemination to having George watch younger males mate, his keepers had nearly lost hope. At 60 to 90 years old, George is in his sexual prime and should be able to reproduce.
Scientists found a distant relative of George on another island last year, sparking hopes of another male for mating with some Pinta genes.
The visual differences of tortoises from different islands were among the features of the Galapagos that helped British naturalist Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution.
George, considered by many the world's rarest creature and a conservation icon, was thought to be the last of his kind after fishermen and pirates slaughtered his species for food
Read More »
By Mary Milliken
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rita Boyadjian wishes she were in a better mood to celebrate the weddings of fellow gay friends after California began legally marrying same-sex couples last month.
But her partner of six years is a German woman whose U.S. student visa runs out soon. Even if they were to legally marry in California, Margot (not her real name) could not stay in the United States because the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriage for immigration purposes.
This month the well-to-do couple and their nine-month-old baby will move to Germany so they can stay together.
"It's a little bittersweet, I have to be honest," said Boyadjian, 38, a first-generation American who owns a Hollywood entertainment marketing company.
"I am very happy for my friends and I do know a lot of people who are getting married this summer ... but I am sad that while the celebrations are going on, I have to leave."
Gay rights activists estimate that 40,000 binational gay and lesbian couples in the United States are caught in the same legal limbo. A solution, they say, is years away.
When California's Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay marriage in May, becoming the second state after Massachusetts to allow same-sex nuptials, Boyadjian said she was inundated with congratulatory calls from friends believing the couple's problems were solved.
But the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirms that nothing changes with the California court's ruling.
Read More »
By Joanne Morrison
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The trouble that began last summer in the financial markets raised the likelihood of a U.S. recession, but for America's middle class, the downturn has been under way for many years, experts plan to tell a congressional panel on Wednesday.
Hit with higher gasoline prices, declining home values, rising health-care costs and little or no income growth since 2007, the outlook for those in the middle class and those with even lower incomes is dire.
"In the post-war period, the country grew together. Now we are growing apart," said Kristen Lewis of the American Human Development Project, in testimony prepared for delivery on Wednesday to the congressional Joint Economic Committee.
A report showing the growing disparity in wealth in the United States was released recently by the American Human Development Project, a nonprofit project whose major backers include Oxfam America and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Citing Census Bureau data, Lewis told the Joint Economic Committee that in 2006, the average annual income in the top quintile of U.S households stood at $168,170 -- nearly 15 times the average income of $11,352 a year in the lowest quintile.
The richest 20 percent in the country earned more than half of the nation's total income.
"The American meritocracy, the foundation of the American Dream, is at risk. Social mobility is now less fluid in the United States than in other affluent nations," she said.
The top 1 percent of U.S. households possess a third of America's wealth and the bottom 60 percent only 4.2 percent, according to Lewis.
Read More »
Huge oil trading loss sinks energy trader SemGroup
By Robert Campbell
NEW YORK (Reuters) - SemGroup LP declared bankruptcy on Tuesday after $3.2 billion in oil trading losses torpedoed the formerly 12th-largest private U.S. company.
The Tulsa-based company racked up the massive losses as oil prices ran up record gains, undercutting short crude futures positions SemGroup bought to hedge against its 500,000 barrel-per-day trading business.
To meet obligations, SemGroup plans to sell off oil and natural gas gathering, transportation, and storage assets worth an estimated $6.14 billion that were purchased in a whirlwind of acquisitions since it was founded in 2000.
"We have determined that the best way to maximize value for our creditors is to undertake a sales process that will transition our valuable businesses to well-established companies," Terry Ronan, SemGroup's acting chief executive, said in a statement.
SemGroup took a $2.4 billion loss on July 16 after it transferred its New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures trading account to Barclays Plc, converting what they called "loss contingencies" into an actual loss.
Included in the NYMEX loss was $290 million owed to SemGroup by a trading company owned by co-founder and former chief executive Thomas Kivisto, who was placed on administrative leave on July 17.
Securities legislation limits publicly traded company executives from extensive dealings with their firms, but experts said privately held companies have more flexibility.
"They can't do anything illegal. But there is no particular disclosure to anyone apart from any contractual agreements that they may have with investors," said Kenneth Froewiss, a professor of finance at New York University.
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2227689520080722
Read More »
Testimony begins in Guantanamo war crimes trial
By Jim Loney
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver was so close to al Qaeda's inner circle he knew the target of the fourth hijacked jetliner in the September 11 attacks, a prosecutor said on Tuesday in the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.
Hamdan's lawyer said the Yemeni, who was held for nearly seven years before his trial, was simply a paid employee of the fugitive al Qaeda leader, a driver in the motor pool who never joined the militant group or plotted attacks on America.
Prosecutor Timothy Stone told the six-member jury of U.S. military officers who will decide Hamdan's guilt or innocence that Hamdan had inside knowledge of the 2001 attacks on the United States because he overheard a conversation between bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"Virtually no one knew the intended target, but the accused knew," Stone said.
Hamdan, a father of two with a fourth-grade education, entered a not guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism on Monday, the opening day of the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two. He could face life in prison if convicted.
United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania. U.S. officials have never stated it was shot down although rumors saying that abound to this day.
Prosecutors have said Hamdan had direct access to al Qaeda's leaders. Stone told the jury that Hamdan earned the trust of bin Laden during a trial period from 1996 to 1998 and helped him flee after attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the September 11 attacks.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2230096620080722?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Read More »
Fannie, Freddie rescue gets big price tag as House vote looms
By Kevin Drawbaugh and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Bush administration plan to bolster Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost U.S. taxpayers $25 billion, congressional analysts said on Tuesday in a report that triggered debate as Congress moved toward approving a major housing market rescue package.
Fannie and Freddie shares fell sharply on the report's release but later recovered, with Freddie stock ending higher and Fannie paring its losses.
Investors are concerned whether the two government-sponsored mortgage finance giants, which own or guarantee almost half of the nation's $12 trillion in outstanding residential mortgage debt and play an increasingly key role in the troubled American housing market, can weather a national housing slump.
New data on Tuesday showed home prices fell again in May, while Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson used a speech in New York and television interviews to push for passage of the plan as a way to restore financial stability to the markets.
"Now more than ever, we need Fannie and Freddie out there, financing mortgages," said Paulson, who wants to give Fannie and Freddie access -- if they need it -- to cheap, government capital in the form of loans and possible equity investments by the government.
Congress was pushing ahead on a 600-page housing bill that was expected to include Paulson's proposals, as well as measures to establish a new regulator for the companies and to help distressed homeowners refinance into new mortgages.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2141192720080722?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Read More »Dolly becomes hurricane, targets Texas
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (CNN) -- Dolly became a Category 1 hurricane Tuesday afternoon in the western Gulf of Mexico, prompting a weather official to urge anyone on Texas' barrier islands to consider leaving immediately.
Dolly, formerly a tropical storm, was heading toward southern Texas and northeastern Mexico and was expected to make landfall Wednesday morning, forecasters said.
"Anyone in the far South Texas barrier islands who don't want to ride out the rough conditions of a hurricane should be leaving now and not waiting until tomorrow," said Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center.
By Wednesday, Read said, it probably will be too late to escape the storm because roads could be "easily overwashed."
At 5 p.m. ET, the storm, with sustained winds near 75 mph and gusts of 90 mph, was centered in the Gulf of Mexico about 165 miles east-southeast of Brownsville, Texas, the hurricane center said. 
See Dolly's projected path »
A Category 1 hurricane carries sustained winds between 74 mph and 95 mph. Dolly was expected to strengthen before landfall, but the hurricane center was predicting it wouldn't be stronger than Category 1, Read said.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the Texas coast from Brownsville to Corpus Christi and for northeast Mexico from Rio San Fernando to the U.S. border. iReport.com: Are you ready for hurricane season?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/07/22/tropical.weather/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Read More »
I had to post this before I go to bed according to the CQ Politics which tracks several different polls at the same time here is the state in question
Texas: McCain leads Obama 43 percent to 38 percent in a Lyceum poll conducted June 12-20. The margin of error is 3.1 percent. However, the pollster says a significant number of voters say they haven't made up their minds. Seventy percent of Texans believe the country is headed down the wrong track and 78 percent said it was economically worse off than a year ago.
That is not bad numbers when a majority of Texans haven't made up their minds normally by now the Republican candidate would be at 55% or higher so Texas is still in play
Thats all for now :-)
The TDP's success over last two years would not have been possible without the support of our Texas Majority Builders. With their monthly contributions of $10, $15, $25 or more, Texas Majority Builders form the financial backbone of the Texas Democratic Party and help sustain our day-to-day operations.
Your consistent support enables us to continue taking the fight to the Republican's doorstep and work even harder to rid Texas of failed Republican leaders like John Cornyn, Rick Perry and Tom Craddick.
Monthly withdrawals from your checking account or credit card are safe and secure, and you can change your Texas Majority Builder membership at any time by calling us at (512) 478-9800
Link Will Be Provided In Comments
Posts