Obama garners youth with social website

Just visited Barack Obama's presidential website and it's definitely youth oriented. At the bottom are links to facebook.com, a social website like MySpace; YouTube, the infamous video stash of everything there is to find on the net that hasn't been removed because of copyright; and Flickr, the picture portal. Obama for America has even set it up so supporters can create a member ship at "my.barackobama.com" where they can blog, meet others interested in campaigning and even create their own personal online fund raiser. Decent, nice job Obama camp.

Obama Criticizes Australian Prime Minister

Barack Obama rips Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, after Howard suggests Obama would be popular among terrorist leaders because of his promise to recall troops from Iraq if he wins.

The Democratic presidential hopeful said if the Australian prime minister was "ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq," he needs to send another 20,000 Australians to the war.

"Otherwise, it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric," Obama said.

In addition, Australian political opponent Kevin Rudd warned Prime Minister Howard that he should take care not to strain the 65 year alliance that has existed between the U.S. and Australia. Kevin Rudd. The ACNielsen poll in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers has found Mr Rudd is the most popular Opposition leader in the past 35 years.

Criticism toward Howard has come from both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S.

Senator Jon Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said Howard should have kept quiet. "I would prefer that Mr. Howard stay out of our domestic politics, and we'll stay out of his domestic politics," Cornyn said. Ron Wyden, Democratic Senator from Oregon said "We'll make our own judgments in this country with respect to elections" after saying Howard's comment is at best "bizarre".

I'm disgusted a world diplomat would assume directive in a situation where his contributions, even as "significant" as he claims them to be, are meager compared to the 140,000 troops the United States has allocated to Iraq. Australia currently has 1,400 troops in and around Iraq, mostly in non combat roles. Even at the height of the Iraq war Australia had fewer soldiers than we've had die in Iraq to date.

Howard tried to claim 1,400 troops is significant considering the Australian population. Unfortunately he understands ratios just as well as he understands staying out of another country's politics. We a population of 300 million people vs his 20,000,000. 15:1 ratio right? We have 140,000 troops to his 1,400. 100:1 ratio. Does anyone see me not smiling? He owes us 8,000 more troops before I'll declare a "significant contribution". Even that won't be enough after Bush's surge.

Howard doesn't seem to understand that he is interfering with the election process of the United States. When critics from his own country said it was inappropriate for the Prime Minister to comment as he did Howard mistakenly drew parallels to Opposition criticism of George Bush in 2003, when he was already an established national leader. Considering the Prime Minster's ties to George Bush, his similar lack of discerning and status as a national leader, he has no business making comments pertaining to our elections.

The Prime Minister of Australia Criticizes Barack Obama

The Prime Minister of Australia criticized, wait? Australia? The Prime Minister of Australia....The Prime Minister of Australia...The Prime Minister of Australia..The Prime Minister of... Australia?

What does the Prime Minister of Australia have to do with American elections? I think he's supposed to butt out and pay attention to what's actually happening with his own country. Everyone knows he's chummy chum with George Bush on the Iraq war and anyone with that type of mindset has no credibility anyway.

If Mr. Prime Minister is interested in letting the few number of people he has provided to occupy Iraq get shot at, go ahead. But stay out of the United State's business. Australia? Really?

Is The US Ready To Elect A Female President

I was trolling around a forum where a lot of people were asking rhetorical questions and I decided to answer one of them. Actually I am still answering them. This answer had a bit more substance than the others so I graduated it to the blog. I've also included a link at the bottom to HillaryClinton.com and Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy because I can.

***

Yes, a woman can become president and that woman is Hillary Clinton. When asked who registered voters would be most likely to support for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 Hillary Clinton overwhelmed the other eleven candidates listed with 34% responding in her favor. Her closest competitor, Barack Obama, had 18%. Hillary Clinton was the front runner in the latest Nationwide ABC News/Washington Post Poll (Jan 16-19) where she edged out Rudy Giuliani 49 to 47 percent and beat John McCain 50 to 45. Every major polling on the Democratic presidential nomination for 2008 showed Clinton ahead of her nearest competitor by double digits. She took the New York Senate seat with double digits (12%) and though it may be closer in polls for the presidential election it must be noted she has been more than competitive. Among potential candidates for the 2008 election Hillary Clinton has even been compared to Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt and Reagan, two of the most popular presidents of both major parties past. Hillary Clinton maintains number power behind her and that is not the only evidence of her ability to win.

Clinton not only has the numbers on her side. She has the Clinton ‘War Room‘ in addition to other political powerhouses that have served in suppressing the Republican machine that unjustly tore down so many Democratic candidates before her. Clinton entered an electoral battlefield in New York where $60,000,000 was spent to defame and defeat her and she emerged on top. She has the aid of James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, and Mark Penn, advisers who have worked on the only two successful Democratic presidential campaigns in the past couple decades. Howard Dean’s grass roots 50 State Strategy can do nothing but aid Mrs. Clinton by embracing people on a more personal level. In addition, she has the greatest living US presidential speaker in her husband Bill Clinton. On top of this non comprehensive list, her War Room is stocked and well oiled with money. Ten million dollars has been in reserve since the 2006 election and as soon as Hillary Clinton declared ‘I’m in’ last Sunday millions more were put in queue.

Even dismissing everything previously said another factor appears to have been overlooked. A presidential candidate is not just ‘a man’ or ‘a woman’ (Though that ‘basic principal’ would have been truer in the past). The presidential candidate is a mass of supporters, a complex set if ideals and ideas and personality that, by the evidence the numbers suggest, attract more than ‘the woman’s vote’, ‘the pro-life vote’, or even the ‘anti-Bush vote’, the last of which will sadly be weaker upon the joyous departure of Bush 43. Hillary Clinton is a former First Lady, a United States Senator, an author, attorney and an active champion for family welfare who fought for women’s rights, expanded child care and early education and in fighting for universal health care she led the creation and design of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which has provided millions of children with health insurance. It is all of this and more that contribute to the ultimate decision of the nation. But most important of all these identities is that she is a Democrat.

A virtual unknown can be placed in either major political party and garner a majority of the nation's votes *cough*recent governor from Arkansas*cough*. What we have here is a Democrat with star power who has spent her life helping people. Short of Jesus giving her an endorsement you’re not getting anything better in politics. The elections were won in 2000 and 2004 by George Bush largely because of an appeal to Hispanics and WOMEN. The increase in women’s support accounted for roughly 2.5% of the 3.5% margin George Bush won by last election. Who better to be empathetically in touch with women, who make up 54% of all voters, than a woman’ Hillary Clinton can easily reverse that advancement that had been so crucial to the Republican Party in recent elections past by taking the edge on the women’s vote away. Especially in this polarized political atmosphere, Hillary Clinton can carry the same states Kerry did and along with one or two others that were marginally won by Bush (if actually at all) in the 2004 presidential race and take the White House to (finally) become our first woman president.

Jay,
Aspiring Incitement

Democratic National Party
Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy


Hillary Clinton for President

Hillary Clinton Officially Announces '08 Run

Six years after making history by winning a United States Senate seat as first lady, Mrs. Clinton has set her sights on breaking yet more political barriers in her extraordinary and controversial career.

We all knew she was going to run and now that it's official it's time to see the Clinton machine take down the Republican machine.

Democrats in '08

Rumsfeld was their ONLY problem. Riiiiiiiight.

Rumsfeld didn't cost the Republicans the elction by himself. All too quickly the phrase "The PARTY of Corruption" has been forgotten. "Page" Foley, "Grease-the-wheel" Abramoff, "Flip-flop Schwarzenegger", "Fetus" Santorum, "Video Diagnosis" Frist, Katherine "Cruela" "Steal an Election" Harris, Dick "Shooter" Cheney, George "Macaca" Allen, Michael "Misinformation" Steele, "Stay the Course, Adapt and Change" Rove and Dumb Dubya among many others were responsible for the change in course in this country. Getting rid of Rumsfeld would not have gotten rid of the larger cancer evident in the Republican party.

Furthermore, Ed Shultz brough up a good point about the Republican party's stance on Rumsfeld. No one spoke out July, August, September or even early November against Rumsfeld. Not until after the stunning loss in the election did the Republican party start grasping for straws and playing the blame game.

Jim Webb wrote me a letter

Dear (Jay_MMS), Thank you for your incredible support! Thank you. When we started this general election campaign, we were facing an opponent with tens of millions of dollars. He had won two statewide races already. He had the power of incumbency on his side, and also the awesome power that comes with the backing of an incumbent President. We had, at the moment, not a lot of money, a candidate who had never run for office, and 2,500 rag-tag rebels who had volunteered for what many thought was a hopeless, quixotic journey. At that time, I said: I like those odds, actually. It'll make us all work a little harder. It fits with one of my favorite films, Cool Hand Luke -- one of the great lines in that movie: "Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand!" On Tuesday, against huge odds, you carried our campaign to victory, and I cannot express how grateful I am to you for helping us make history in this election. As you know, I made two promises to myself when I started this campaign. The first was that I was not going to trade anything I believed in order to get a vote or a dollar, and I did that. I’m walking into the U.S. Senate with the independence to represent the people who have no voice in the corridors of power, and I intend to do that. The second promise that I made was that as much as humanly possible, we were not going to run a negative campaign. And I thank all of you for helping me to make sure that we did that. We have a situation in Virginia where Mark Warner began a journey. Tim Kaine has added on to it. We are going to add onto it even more. We’re going to work hard to bring a sense of responsibility to our foreign policy that will, in my view, result soon in a diplomatic solution in Iraq. We’re going to work very hard on issues of economic fairness in a country that has become divided too much by class in an age of the internationalization of corporate America, where corporate profits are at an all time high while wages and salaries are at an all time low. I look forward to joining my fellow Senators in voting very soon to increase the minimum wage. And finally, we’ve had a situation where, as a result of this Administration’s policies post-9/11, we’ve had far too much power gravitate to the Presidency at the expense of the power of the Legislature. With your help, we now have the opportunity to put this country back on the track where it needs to be. Thank you for everything you have done for our campaign and our country. Remember, folks: the Revolution started here... Sincerely, Jim Webb

Look at that. Isn't that freakin sweet. I get his signature and he sent me a picture and everything. I feel special and all warm inside. (And not in a Mark Foley/Page kinda way.) It looks even better in my Yahoo! inbox.

Subpoena Power Won't Be Used To Witchhunt :-(

I must admit I was feeling pretty bloodthirsty on the morning of November 8, 2006. I was thinking about all the investigations that would be taking place. I was thinking about the resignation of Rumsfeld and about all the others that might fall afterward. Then I read an article from the November 6 issue of The New Republic by Michael Crowley called "Subpoena Envy".

In the article Crowley claims House Democrats John Dingell (MI) and Henry Waxman, while respectively poised and giddy, are not going to target people or behave in a vengeful manner. They contrast this to the Newt Gingrich, Dan Burton and company who sought investigations during the Clinton years.

Dan Burton "issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to 141 different Clintonites." He asked whether Christmas cards were used for political purposes and "in one case, Burton's investigators managed to subpoena the wrong man. In his low point in 1998 "Burton released misleadingly edited transcripts of secretly recorded phone conversations conducted in prison by former Clinton associate Webb Hubbell."

In 1997 Republican Representative Gerald Solomon of New York notified the FBI that Democratic National Committee fund-raiser John Huang may have sold U.S secrets to the Chinese, prompting an FBI investigation and wide press coverage. Two years later, FBI files released to Congress showed that Solomon's charge had been based on a cocktail-party conversation with a Senate staffer who claimed to have heard the scoop from an unnamed employee of the Commerce Department , where Huang had worked. Solomon couldn't remember his name --- only that he was "a male in his thirties or early forties, approximately five feet ten inches tall with brownish hair." (That narrowed things down to roughly half the federal government's employees) - Subpoena Envy, Michael Crowley

Yes, this is what Nancy Pelosi wants to avoid. She doesn't want to be a "Left-Wing Gingrich". I kinda understand. I still want to remind everyone the jugular vein of the Republican Party is wide open. *whistle's innocently*

One Word. One Congress. I <3 America

Click for full resolution version.

New Beginnings. Welcome 109th Congress

Remember Derek Fisher's 0.4 second game winner in game 5 of the 03-04 Western Conference Semifinals? Fisher caught an inbound pass, turned 180 and made the clencher. Immediately, he ran off the court in celebration followed by ecstatic teammates. "I just wanted to get out of there and not give them an opportunity to think that we didn't believe it went in," Fisher said. Just as a boxer raises his hands in victory at the end of 12 rounds the victorious show confidence in the outcome even before it's called.Last night, McCaskill raised her arm in victory at the end of the 12th hour even though the votes were not finalized.

This is the new democrat. They are sure of victory despite Rove's "fuzzy math", Bush's baseless rhetoric and having to fight the party of corruption and scandal. McCaskill, Clinton, Kerry, Gore, Dean and Pelosi are leading America in a new direction.

p.s. Nah-nah, nah nah nah nah . Hey-ey-ey. Goo-ood bye.
Say it with me now
Nah-nah, nah nah nah nah . Hey-ey-ey. Goo-ood bye.

Foley-O loves boys, loves boys

Congressman Mark Foley resigned in disgrace last Friday after his sexually charged IMs with a 16 year old page were exposed by investigative journalist Brian Ross of ABC News.

The 52 year old former Congressman of Florida ironically co-chaired the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and helped write the laws he may be prosecuted by. E-mails and IM's (gag, I haven't read all of them. I'm not sure I want to continue reading his tripe. Must... think of good thoughts... not 52 year old men preying on children) sent by Foley were inappopriate at the least and didn't raise an alarm despite a page seing them as "sick" and forwarding them to an aid in Rep. Rodney Alexander's (R-LA) (thanks media matters) office. No one in the page program had the foresight to pin Foley as the indecent man he is.

The man needs to be sent to Singapore and caned. I don't know of any punishment that will set him straight. We already know he is a liar. He's used the following excuses:
1. I'm gay
2. I was molested by a clergyman
3. I was drunk
4. It's the Democrats fault
and we know 2 out of 4 of these are a lie. We're still waiting for confirmation on him being straight and the name of the mysterious non-existent cleryman. He is no good.

George Allen had to respectfully decline the Thurgood Marshall award because the committee was threatening to withhold funds. Still editing
JCLH

Illegal Voting Machines Used in Busby/Bilbray Election

Voting Integrity

I just needed to store the article somewhere.