No matter how much I ask for sanity and calm on here, Hillary's supporters continue to post attacks. Their virulence is disgusting. Someone calling Obama a racist just sent me nuclear.

I guess I misjudged the party builder site as a place to build the party. I'm getting really discouraged. Should I stay on here or not? I hope someone can give me a reason, otherwise I'm outa here.

I have been reading a lot lately how Obama's supporters are slinging mud around about Clinton, but I don't think that is the case. So far today I have read nothing that would suggest that; quite the opposite. It has been Clinton's supporters slinging mud against Obama.

I am a fair man, and I would not say this if it didn't ring true. I invite anyone to prove me wrong. Process stories do not count; merely saying Obama leads is not mudslinging. Talking about Rezko and Wright is.

Now to my main reason for posting this. Trash and mud will not decide the general election. We have so many issues to talk about against the repubs that they won't be able to beat us with mudslinging.

Dear Marcus, Just when you think it can't get any worse, the Bush Administration finds a new way to shock the conscience. Yesterday, ABC News reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chaired explicit White House discussions about which torture techniques should be used on prisoners. They "were so detailed" that "some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic."1 This is the first time that we have evidence that senior officials, "not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them". Given these new revelations, Condoleezza Rice can not continue as Secretary of State.    Read More »

Obama Spends 3 Hours with Chicago Press to Chat about Rezko
By Paul Kiel - March 17, 2008, 12:47PM

Late last week, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) sat down with The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times for 90 minutes each to answer questions about all things Tony Rezko.

As a result, the Tribune's editorial board pronounced themselves satisfied:

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama waited 16 months to attempt the exorcism. But when he finally sat down with the Tribune editorial board Friday, Obama offered a lengthy and, to us, plausible explanation for the presence of now-indicted businessman Tony Rezko in his personal and political lives.

The most remarkable facet of Obama's 92-minute discussion was that, at the outset, he pledged to answer every question the three dozen Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him. And he did.

The outcome of the more combative Sun-Times interview seemed similar, so that near the end, there was this exchange:

Q: Comparing the benign-ness of the fact pattern and the trouble it's caused you, do you think you've mishandled this at all?

A: I think that running for president is a series of gauntlets you have to run. And I think that we could have - setting aside the initial mistake which I deserve some blame for, I have acknowledged publicly - I think that understanding that there would be heightened interest in me, that Rezko had been finally indicted and arrested, that there was gonna be a need for us to do this again, I think was, it probably would have been good for us to do earlier. There's no doubt about it.   Read More »

I was born in 1942. I was raised in a very racist household and community. My family is a collection of virulent racists. I was raped at the age of 11 by a homosexual black teenager. All of this should mean that I would, myself be racist. I am not. Why?

It's because I insist on logic and reason. Races are simply a reflection of outside influences on evolution. They are not even reflected in DNA. We all originated in Africa. Go back 30,000 years and you will find no characteristics that would be called racial. Race is a terrible indicator for the things that make us human.

My godson (I use that term loosely) is half black. he is a marvelous 16 year old with the looks of a Greek god. He excels in three sports; football, wrestling and baseball.

He experiences little if any racism in his hometown of Oroville, Ca. His generation is so far ahead of even his mother's generation that it's very encouraging. Yet there is still racism in America. The older generations (including mine) will probably never give up their preconceptions.

That means to me that we have a lot of work to do.

Battle Creek, Michigan was the home of Sojourner Truth and the northern terminus of the underground railroad. It is also the home of Kellogg Foods. My wife is the great granddaughter of W.K. Kellogg.

In 2004 we were invited to attend the 75th anniversary of the Kellogg Foundation. We as family members were the dogs and ponies in a dog and pony show.

One night the foundation held a concert and fireworks display for us and the community. They placed several rows of chairs up front for family members and guests for the concert. Much of the front row of chairs was left vacant after everyone was seated.

I got up to go to the restroom early in the concert. On my way back I was approached by three black men who asked very courteously if they would be allowed to sit in the almost empty front row. I answered "of course". They then proceeded to that front row with their families. I went back to my seat but kept an eye on them to make sure they weren't forced to move.

Sure enough, after only a few minutes I saw a security guard approach them. I quickly got up and went to see what was happening. I heard the guard say that several people had objected to them taking the seats and that they had to move.

I immediately sat down beside them and told the guard they were my guests. The guard mumbled something I couldn't hear and went away. I spent the next hour or so in the company of a very delightful group of families. Their kids were very enthusiastic yet well behaved.

After the concert was over, the three men hugged me an thanked me profusely. That little incident was the highlight of my trip.

Yes, there is still racism in America.

America started out as an agrarian nation. Beginning in the late 19th century Americans began moving off the farm into urban areas and taking jobs in factories. These factories were nothing but sweat shops. Their working conditions were horrific.

These conditions led to the labor wars of the 1930s and the growth of labor unions. The Democratic Party aligned itself with unions early on, and the two entities shared many issues in common.

These common ideals led to the social engineering of the 20th century Democratic administrations. An example of this is Johnson's War On Poverty. The republican backlash led to the Reagan election and his attack on unions.

Since the Reagan years unions have continued this decline. The manufacturing sector has become increasingly dominated by companies who negotiate their own deals with employees. That has led to a net loss of benefits; principally medical and pension benefits.

Unions now are mostly in more monopolistic sectors such as the public school system and government. What is the answer? better organizing would help as would more strikes and labor actions. The latter probably won't happen in this insecure recession and its aftermath.

The current emphasis on free trade in this election presents a good time to have a debate about free trade.

I will begin by saying that free trade is in our best interests long term. The consumer and the producer will both benefit from free trade. Our huge agricultural industry (the biggest in the world) is the hope of the world. Without it the world would starve. Any attempt to restrict trade would immediately impact the American farmer.

The mistake we have made is to fight a war on credit. This has put us in debt to our major competitors, and weakened our ability to negotiate trade deals. As democrats we have to question our party's position on trade restrictions. While we should be cognizant of labor and human rights issues in other countries, using trade as a way to influence these issues is counter productive.

It is much better for us to lead by example. In order to do this we have to clean up our own act. We have many abuses in our own country. I will be covering some of these in upcoming posts.

I abhor abortion. I wish it was never necessary. Despite this, I support a woman's right to choose. Why this seeming contradiction? Here are the reasons.

First, a woman's body is her own. No one should be able to force her to bear an unwanted child. There are many reasons why a pregnancy would be unwanted, and they are mostly all valid. Especially for a teenager, having a child is more than just inconvenient. Many studies have shown that teenagers and their children are at extreme risk of failure to thrive.

Secondly, birth control information and devices are not always available. In third world countries they are virtually nonexistent.

Third, many women are impregnated by people either raping or using their dominant positions to get sex. These women should not be expected to bear a child conceived in this way.

I know this controversial, but not in my household. We are very much in favor of choice. This issue will be an important one in this election.

History

In United States politics and government, caucus has several distinct but related meanings. One meaning is a meeting of members of a political party or subgroup to coordinate members' actions, choose group policy, or nominate candidates for various offices. The term is frequently used to discuss the procedures used by some states to select presidential nominees, such as the Iowa caucuses, the first and largest in the modern presidential election cycle, and the only occasionally relevant Texas caucuses. Since 1980 such caucuses have become, in the aggregate, an important component of the nomination process. Because such caucuses are infrequent and complex to organize, there is a practice version called a maucus, a portmanteau of mock caucus.

In early American history, the Congressional nominating caucus and legislative caucus were influential meetings of congressmen to decide the party's nominee for President and party platforms. Similar caucuses were held by the parties at state level.

End quote.

Until 1824, these caucuses were the only method of choosing presidents and vice presidents. After 1824 more states began using state conventions; still not democratic.

History

There is no provision for the role of political parties in the United States Constitution. Before 1820, Democratic-Republican members of Congress would nominate a single candidate from their party. That system collapsed in 1824, and since 1832 the preferred mechanism for nomination has been a national convention.

Delegates to the national convention were usually selected at state conventions whose own delegates were chosen by district conventions. Sometimes they were dominated by intrigue between political bosses who controlled delegates; the national convention was far from democratic or transparent. Progressive Era reformers looked to the primary election as a way to measure popular opinion of candidates, as opposed to the opinion of the bosses. In 1910, Oregon became the first state to establish a presidential preference primary in which the delegates to the National Convention were required to support the winner of the primary at the convention. By 1912, twelve states either selected delegates in primaries, used a preferential primary, or both. By 1920 there were 20 states with primaries, but some went back and from 1936 to 1968, 13 or 14 states used them.

The primary received its first major test in the 1912 election pitting incumbent President William Howard Taft against challengers Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt proved the most popular candidate, but as most primaries were non-binding "preference" shows and held in only fourteen of the-then forty-eight states, the Republican nomination went to Taft, who controlled the convention.

Seeking to boost voter turnout, New Hampshire simplified its ballot access laws in 1949. In the ensuing "beauty contest" of 1952, Republican Dwight Eisenhower demonstrated his broad voter appeal by out polling the favored Robert A. Taft, "Mr. Republican." Also, Democrat Estes Kefauver defeated incumbent President Harry S. Truman, leading the latter to decide not to run for another term. The first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary has since become a widely-observed test of candidates' viability.

The impetus for national adoption of the binding primary election was the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vice President Hubert Humphrey secured the nomination despite primary victories and other shows of support for Senator Eugene McCarthy, running against Humphrey on a strong anti-Vietnam War platform. After this, a Democratic National Committee-commissioned panel led by Senator George McGovern recommended that states adopt new rules to assure wider participation. A large number of states, faced with the need to conform to more detailed rules for the selection of national delegates, chose a presidential primary as an easier way to come into compliance with the new national Democratic Party rules. The result was that many more future delegates would be selected by a state presidential primary. The Republicans also adopted many more state presidential primaries.

With the broadened use of the primary system, states have tried to increase their influence in the nomination process. One tactic has been to create geographic blocs to encourage candidates to spend time in a region. Vermont and Massachusetts attempted to stage a joint New England primary on the first Tuesday of March, but New Hampshire refused to participate so it could retain its traditional place as the first primary. The first successful regional primary was Super Tuesday of March 8, 1988, in which nine Southern states united in the hope that the Democrats would select a candidate in line with Southern interests.[14]

Another trend is to stage earlier and earlier primaries, given impetus by Super Tuesday and the mid-1990s move (since repealed) of the California primary and its bloc of votes�"the largest in the nation�"from June to March. In order to retain its tradition as the first primary in the country (and adhere to a state law which requires it to be), New Hampshire's primary has moved forward steadily, from early March to early January.

As most of you have divined by now, I am a veteran of the police action in Vietnam. That is the true definition of that "war" as no war was ever declared.

My service in the Army in Vietnam was a defining part of my life, and not in ways you may suspect. I don't see myself as any kind of hero. I did what I was trained and told to do. I tried, with the best of my ability, to fight the war as well and judiciously as possible. I led those young pilots under my command to respect the lives of the Vietnamese we came into contact with.

I cared about only one thing; the safety of those young pilots. I never cared about the cause we were supposed to be fighting for. Does this make me a hypocrite? That is the question that has dogged me for the past 39 years.

I often face those I killed in my dreams. I wonder what their lives would have been like had I not killed them. This is the basic warrior's question. I have more in common with warriors on the other side than civilians who don't understand what we warriors always go through.

Yes, I call myself a warrior. That implies nothing other than the fact that I went to war. That's all it ever should mean. It isn't about being a hero. The following is a version of The warrior's creed that was written following the war in Vietnam:

I am an American Soldier.

I am a member of the United States Army -- a protector of the greatest nation on earth.

Because I am proud of the uniform I wear, I will always act in ways creditable to the military service and the nation it is sworn to guard.

I am proud of my own organization. I will do all I can to make it the finest unit in the Army.

I will be loyal to those under whom I serve. I will do my full part to carry out orders and instructions given to me or my unit.

As a soldier, I realize that I am a member of a time-honored profession--that I am doing my share to keep alive the principles of freedom for which my country stands.

No matter what the situation I am in, I will never do anything, for pleasure, profit, or personal safety, which will disgrace my uniform, my unit, or my country.

I will use every means I have, even beyond the line of duty, to restrain my Army comrades from actions disgraceful to themselves and to the uniform.

I am proud of my country and its flag.

I will try to make the people of this nation proud of the service I represent, for I am an American Soldier.

This is the creed I lived by my whole Army career. It is what I'm proudest of. This creed means more to me than any medal I was awarded.

No, the war in Southeast Asia was not worth fighting. That is what history will say about it. My buddies among those 58,000 who died and are on the wall died for no clear reason. That will haunt me the rest of my life.

By training and temperament. Like many warriors before and after me, I am against war. No true warrior could ever support unnecessary war.

In 2002, when whispers first started about the Bush administration planning war on Iraq I did my homework. I read all I could get my hands on as regards the history of the region and our influence there.

I concluded that another war in that region would be catastrophic. I read the arguments that had been made by those who decided we shouldn't go on to Baghdad in the first gulf war. Those arguments made by none other than Dick Cheney were that we would get bogged down in a disastrous occupation.

I remembered when Eisenhower refused to intervene when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and his reasons for that decision.

I also remembered that we created Saddam Hussein. It was our CIA who enabled him to take over Iraq. When he attacked Iran in 1980, we supplied him with arms and training.

After Kuwait began slant drilling into Iraq's huge oil reserves, Hussein thought he had our permission to invade Kuwait. That was the message given to him by our ambassador. After the invasion, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia began an intense public relations campaign to convince us to stop Hussein.

After getting many other countries aligned in a coalition we sent Hussein back into Iraq. After this war and a promise to Shiites to back them in a revolt (which we reneged on), we bottled him up with inspectors and no fly zones.

That's why the whole "imminent danger" argument for the invasion rang hollow with me. There was no imminent danger of attack from Hussein and he had absolutely nothing to with the 9/11 attacks.

I am very opposed to discretionary war. War for defense, yes, but not preemptive war. If I was able to arrive at these conclusions in 2002, why weren't other democrats? I'll tell you what I think. I think they were afraid of being called "weak on defense", one of the most ridiculous arguments available to the American electorate.

How can we be weak on defense when we are against disastrous wars which weaken our defenses? If you Hillary supporters can explain to me her support of the authorization to go to war in Iraq, I would be glad to hear it.

I am a retired Army Officer who managed to get a BS in business administration and a minor in economics. I got that degree mostly for the fun of it. I have always been interested in learning, and that still holds true.

I am saying this as a prelude to this little essay on what I think we need to do to get out of this recession.

First, we need to realize that we won't get out of it without some more suffering. No matter what we do the recession will deepen. Why is this? Because there is no wriggle room for the massive deficit spending that would be necessary.

We are over $9 trillion in debt, and trying to get out of debt would entail massive tax increases. These tax increases would take too much out of the GDP. The best we can do is to temporarily increase our debt. This increase is extremely dangerous, however, because of its negative affect on the dollar.

We need a $600 billion deficit. What would we do with this money? Build and rebuild roads, bridges, schools, water and sewer facilities, solar and wind power projects, and power transmission lines. This would have the immediate advantage of increasing jobs that have been recently lost; especially among construction workers. Construction spending has a 9 to 1 multiplier.

My real inspirations in this are John Kenneth Galbraith
and John Maynard Keynes; two twentieth century economists who advocated the use of deficit spending to recover a bad economy. Keynes was one of FDR's advisers and Galbraith was an adviser to JFK.

The stopgap stimulus package recently enacted will help some, but does nothing to correct the basic problem; one of stupefying irresponsibility of the credit markets. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was the beginning of this bubble. This repeal gave banks the right to invest in very questionable securities. this led to the virtual collapse of the system.

We need to correct this immediately. Outlawing the types of securities that got us into this mess would be a good first step in this. These securities are called "derivatives", which means they are based on the value of the underlying securities, not on assets and profits.

It took us twenty years to get into this mess, and will take at least that long to get us out of it.

SurveyUSA interviewed 600 registered voters in each of the 50 states. A total of 30,000 interviews were completed. If John McCain faces Barack Obama, Obama wins 280 to 256. McCain carries 26 states. Obama carries 24 states plus the District of Columbia … and then there is Nebraska, which divides its electoral votes based on which candidate wins each of the state’s congressional districts. McCain wins Nebraska 45% to 42%, but loses in two of the state’s three congressional districts, which results in Barack Obama taking two of Nebraska’s five electoral votes.

Facts are inconvenient things. They tend to get in the way of what one "knows" to be true. I have long been a believer in facts. I use their finding to dismiss my biases and preconceptions.

These facts have made me skeptical of such things as conspiracies, ghosts, extraterrestrials, gods, and many other things. I have to be convinced by facts, not conjecture.

This is the approach I used when selecting which candidate to support in this presidential campaign. I used the same approach when I decided to work with a local Republican rancher and county commissioner on water issues. I am not bound by party, only facts.

Facts, as inconvenient as they are, are what matters in this campaign.

In 1907, the Senate and the House of Representatives both passed legislation, known as the Tillman Act, which declared it “unlawful for any national bank, or any corporation organized by authority of any laws of Congress, to make a money contribution in connection with any election to any political office.” It specified that no corporation, including any that was state-chartered, was to contribute money for the election of presidential and vice-presidential electors or members of the U.S. House or Senate.

The Tillman act is still the law of the land and has been found constitutional. Corporations have been partially successful at getting around it by the use of so called "soft" money, which can not be used directly in campaigns but can be used to make "issue" ads.

They still cannot donate directly to campaigns. The amounts listed by internet sites talking about how much each candidate has received are those amounts raised from employees of those corporations.

CNBC has a long article about how corporations have donated to the campaigns. Down at the very bottom the posted the following truth:

"The center's analysis of campaign giving by business sector includes donations by political action committees and donations from individuals giving more than $200 based on employment."

This is the clue that you need in order to understand how there can be a law against corporate giving and yet they "seem" to be giving.

I will look up the law in question next.