Carter Speaks Out On Wright, Obama, McCain
Obama is better-equipped to lead country through change it craves
By Chris Satullo
Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist
If you’re a Pennsylvania Democrat and today dawned with you still struggling, it could mean one of several things:
You could be one of those terminally indecisive people, for whom even ordering at Applebee’s becomes an hour-long agony.
More likely, it means you’re an earnest citizen who feels how momentous this choice is - but not a person who can resolve it through identity politics, the tug of “first woman” or “first black.”
Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
The Sad, True McCain Record on Veterans
McCain Refuses to Support Sen. Jim Webb’s and Chuck Hagel’s new GI Bill.
The bill, officially called the “Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007″, would establish a program of educational assistance for members of the Armed Forces who serve in the Armed Forces after September 11, 2001.
Sen. Jim Webb has called on McCain to sign on as a co-sponsor to his GI bill
The bill has 51 co-sponsors – including 9 Republicans – but needs 60 co-sponsors to make it filibuster proof.
McCain Voted Against $19 Billion for Military Hospitals, Choosing Tax Cuts for Wealthiest Earners over Veterans.
In February 2006, McCain voted against an amendment that would have provided for at least $19 billion for military health facilities, paid for by eliminating tax cuts for the wealthiest earners.
*Senate Amendment 2735, Amendment failed.
McCain Voted Against Legislation to Provide $2.8 Billion For Medical Care for Veterans.
McCain voted against a 2006 Democratic amendment that would have provided $2.8 billion to increase veterans’ medical care.
*Senate Amendment 149, Amendment failed.
McCain Voted Against Establishing $1 Billion Trust Fund to Provide Improvements to Military and Veterans’ Health Facilities
McCain voted against an Amendment to establish a $1 billion trust fund to provide improvements to health facilities that treat veterans and military personnel paid for by allowing dividends and capital gains tax breaks, for those with incomes greater than $1 million to lapse on December 31, 2006.
*Senate Amendment 2735
McCain Chooses Corporations Over Veterans, Voting Against Adding $1.5 billion to Veterans’ Medical Services in 2007 Budget by Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes.
McCain voted against an Amendment offered by Democrats to increase medical services funding to veterans by $1.5 billion in 2007, to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes.
*Senate Amendment 3007
McCain Voted Against Mandatory Funding of $6.9 Billion in 2007 Budget and $104 Billion Over Five Years for Veterans’ Health Care.
McCain voted against a Democratic amendment to provide a mandatory stream of funding of $6.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2007 and $104 billion over five years for veterans’ health care; paid for by restoring the pre-2001 top tax rate for incomes over $1 million and closing various corporate tax loopholes.
Senate Amendment 3141
September 2007: McCain voted against the Webb amendment calling for adequate troop rest between deployments.
The legislation would have provided minimum periods between deployment of units and members of the Armed Forces deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
*Senate Amendment 2909
April 2006: McCain one of only 13 Senators to vote against $430 million for Medical Services for the Department of Veteran Affairs for outpatient care and treatment for veterans.
Despite his vote against, it passed overwhelmingly, 84-13 (3 not voting). All 13 voting against were Republicans.
*Senate Amendment 3642
October 2003: McCain voted against an amendment offered by Senator Dodd that called for an additional $322 million for safety equipment for troops in Iraq.
*Senate Amendment 1817
April 2003: McCain voted against an amendment that would have provided more than $1 billion for National Guard and Reserve equipment in Iraq related to a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests.
*Senate Amendment 452
August 2001: McCain voted against increasing the amount available for medical care for veterans by $650 million.
*Senate Amendment 1218
Senator Clinton Misled Press About Penn.
He’s Still Very Much a Part of the Campaign. It was a Cynical Ploy to Placate the Unions by Changing His Title, But Not Firing Him.Mr. Penn “is still going to be very much involved,” a senior campaign official said.
The Democratic Party’s Fascinating Squalor
“In short, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, is systematically delegitimizing the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. I have never seen anything like it — and it is genuinely fascinating in all its paradoxical squalor.”
The Last Wish of Martin Luther King
Dr. King showed most profoundly that in an interdependent world, lasting power grows against the grain of violence, not with it. Both the cold war and South African apartheid ended to the strains of “We Shall Overcome,” defying all preparations for Armageddon. The civil rights movement remains a model for new democracy, sadly neglected in its own birthplace. In Iraq today, we are stuck on the Vietnam model instead. There is no more salient or neglected field of study than the relationship between power and violence.
We recoil from nonviolence at our peril. Dr. King rightly saw it at the heart of democracy. Our nation is a great cathedral of votes — votes not only for Congress and for president, but also votes on Supreme Court decisions and on countless juries. Votes govern the boards of great corporations and tiny charities alike. Visibly and invisibly, everything runs on votes. And every vote is nothing but a piece of nonviolence.
10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don’t):
1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”2
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3
4. McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”4
5. The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.5
6. He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.6
7. Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”7
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8
9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”9
10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10 John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be.
Sources:
Randi Rhodes Suspended for . . . What!?!
Since Rhodes was not doing the routine on air, why did Air America decide it had to censor her in a very public fashion? When the notoriously off-color Stern was fined by the FCC, it was, the agency explained, for using unacceptable language on air, according to the Smoking Gun.
Carter hints at support for Obama
“My children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama,” he said at a news conference, according to the Nigerian newspaper This Day. “As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for, but I leave you to make that guess.”
The Audacity of Hopelessness
After promising a cakewalk to the nomination — “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November — she was routed by an insurgency.
The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would “be over by Feb. 5,” Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year’s.
HILLARY CLINTON HEAVY INTO RIGHTWING RELIGIOUS POWER CULT
Clinton’s prayer group, the Fellowship, Prays To Jesus For The Elite To Rule The World. Aka “the Family”, it is a network dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them are recruited at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes.
HOW TO TELL CLINTON AND OBAMA APART
Favors healthcare individual mandates that would help insurance companies and banks but not citizens
Has the most number of foreign lobbyist contributors
Is even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain
Is most popular with K Street lobbyists
Has received the most funds from oil industry
Has received the most funds from health industry
Gave most number of evasive answers (250) to congressional inquiries
Submitted the largest false campaign finance report
So you wanna talk about nominees and drugs?
1994 - Writing in the Oct. 9 London Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote that Arkansas was a “major point for the transshipment of drugs” during the 1980s
From a police videotape of Roger Clinton during a 1984 cocaine sale, as reported in the just out Partners in Power by Roger Morris: “Got to get some for my brother. He’s got a nose like a vacuum cleaner.”
Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary.
Jan 20, 2006
AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) — I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It’s about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.
Take Action: Tell the media to live up to King’s dream
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther
King, Jr. - a tragic end to a life spent moving the nation
towards racial justice and reconciliation.
But in the last few weeks, instead of building on his legacy,
the news media has been in a feeding frenzy which plays on our
worst fears and demeans the prophetic tradition of the black
church.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright has preached for over 3,000 hours in the
course of his career, but the cable news networks have used a
handful of 30-second clips, often taken completely out of
context, to exploit racial fears and further divide this nation.
I just sent a message to these networks, telling them to honor
King’s legacy by covering racial issues in a way worthy of his
dream. Will you join me?
Just click HERE.
YES THEY CAN
Today is the 40th anniversary of the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and I want to share a video that reveals how far we’ve come and how much this campaign owes to Dr. King’s legacy.Students at a high school in the Bronx, who had no real interest in their government, have found new hope. They were surprised by their own excitement and engagement, but to me, they embody so many reasons why Barack and I decided to get into this campaign.
It’s truly moving to see young people inspired by a political leader — someone who gives them hope and reminds them that they can be anything they want to be if they work hard.
Watch what these kids have to say about politics and race in this country
It isn’t the homecoming they planned
An Ohio town never gave up hope that a young soldier abducted in Iraq almost four years ago would come back safely. Now it grieves after his remains are identified.
Batavia is the next community over from mine. I knew four years ago that Matt wasn’t coming back, but the Bush administration let the family hold onto hope for political reasons because the election was imminent. Is it a coincidence that now they find his remains? I am sad for his family. At least they don’t have to wonder any more.
