Dean is first--if the sequencing holds.

wow, that is a lot of work!!!!!!!!!!

12:21 PM EST

looks like the sequencing did not hold

12:23 PM EST

Rhode Island - McCain already there, Clinton coming on Sun 2/24, is Obama coming ?:

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/homepage/x866627773

Hillary Clinton to visit Rhode Island Feb. 24

Feb 15, 2008 @ 11:51 AM

AP

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -

...

The Clinton campaign says the senator and former first lady will be in Rhode Island a week from Sunday, on Feb. 24.

...

Clinton’s last public appearance in Rhode island was in 2006, when she came here to campaign for Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in his race against Lincoln Chafee for Senate. Chafee lost, and yesterday endorsed Clinton’s rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Rhode Island’s presidential primary is March 4, and with such a close race, candidates have started campaigning here.

Republican candidate John McCain was in Warwick yesterday.

There’s no word yet on possible visits from the Obama campaign.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1829

 From instigator to victim. It was a Dem who introduced the early primary bill in Florida.

12:23 PM EST

Austin City Limits:

http://www.kltv.com/global/story.asp?s=7878461

02/15/08 - Austin

...

Austin Mayor Will Wynn threw his support today to Barack Obama's Democratic presidential bid.

Wynn chairs the Energy Committee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and worked on energy-efficiency grant legislation. He praises Obama's commitment to an energy policy that protects the environment.

...

OK, today I am definitely going to write up something about the flyboys.  But, first, just need to remind that the Huckster is being bankrolled by the same people who brought you the Bushes and the Clintons.  I am not meaning to be into conspiracacies, but the one world government people have a definite interest.  It's not that they think it would be more efficient or peaceful, but that doing away with sovereign states would enable them to rule without question and interference.  

You see, they have all these good intentions.  And intentions, after all, are what count.  There are some people who think that if you follow a good process, the results will be automatically good.  I disagree.  I do agree that if your process is bad, the results are bound to be, whatever your intentions.  In any event, intentions aren't enough.

 But that's what these people believe.  Everybody's looking for a magic bullet and they think they've found it by substituting intent for agency--wishful thinking for doing.  That's the essence of the faith-based revolution.  If you believe hard enough, reality will follow.  Iraq is a good example.

12:33 PM EST

http://www.kxxv.com/global/story.asp?s=7878380

Rocker to Huckabee: 'I've been ripped off, dude'

Associated Press - February 15, 2008 12:13 PM ET

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The founder of the band Boston has more than a feeling that he's being ripped off by Mike Huckabee.

Songwriter Tom Scholz has written to the Republican presidential candidate, complaining that Huckabee is using his 1970s hit "More Than a Feeling" without his permission. A former member of Boston who left the group more than 25 years ago has appeared at Huckabee rallies and played the song with the candidate's band.

Scholz, who says he supports Democrat Barack Obama, objects to the implication that the group has endorsed Huckabee.

...

Hi again,

Barack Obama is the new version of Howard Dean.  For instance, an individual's right to own a gun, but background checks. Common sense applies in his comments about the Northern Illinois University shooting.

I had to laugh, Obama's victory speech after the Potomac contests was Howard Dean's though Barack didn't have to shout over a microphone to a crowd, didn't have the media eager to ridicule and destroy him.

Barack Obama has that same common sense and recognition of the different interests in a multi-ethnic country as Howard Dean had.

Furthermore, after the Clinton machine colluded in trying to invalidate Dean, wouldn't it  be something if the grassroots and DFA won with Obama over the Clinton-insider group?

Even Lao Tze, the author of the Tao Te Ching, talks about the leader becoming invisible because the people choose  the way.  It comes from the bottom up, the best kind of leadership.

1:05 PM EST

the Big tent:

http://www.dailyamericannews.com/articles/2008/02/15/editorial/editorial02.txt

Demographics don't tell Obama's story of success

Friday, February 15, 2008 11:38 AM CST

GateHouse News Service

It's time to recognize that the race for the Democratic nomination for president isn't a matter of simply reaching different voting blocks.

...

Pundits over the past couple weeks have been saying that Obama must find a way to appeal to white women, working-class Democrats and Hispanics in order to win the nomination. Conventional wisdom says he should start speaking to the issues those groups care most about. In short, promise them lots of stuff.

But it doesn't appear that Obama is playing by the old set of rules. His message of change and political cooperation doesn't pander to any one group. It speaks to Americans rather than to groups apportioned by age, sex or race.

That's perhaps why he's won eight straight elections in the Democratic contest. With Tuesday's victories in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., Obama is finally showing that his growing wave of support is larger than previously defined voting blocks. Last weekend, he won Louisiana, Washington, Nebraska and the Virgin Islands.

One could argue, as did talk-show pundits Sunday, that these states favor Obama because they have an abundance of the kind of voters who support him.

But the margins of victory are disproving that theory. In the past eight elections, Obama has taken more than 60 percent of the vote in all but Louisiana (57 percent) and Maine (59 percent). Here are Obama's numbers: Washington, D.C., 75 percent; Maryland, 60 percent; Virginia, 64 percent; Maine, 59 percent; Louisiana, 57 percent; Nebraska, 68 percent; Virgin Islands, 90 percent.

Those are convincing wins in states that appear to have little in common demographically.

Are we to believe that 60 percent of Maine Democratic primary voters are not working class, are not women and are not over age 50? Are 60 percent of the population well-educated, black and/or young?

According to the 2000 Census, Maine is 51 percent women, 96 percent white and only 23 percent of the population has a bachelor's degree or higher. Yet Obama took nearly 60 percent of the vote.

It simply doesn't add up.

Here's an idea. It's not about demographics. It's about the candidates and how voters are reacting to them.

...

1:19 PM EST

Jim Hightower for Obama:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?pid=285141

TEXAS POPULIST BOOST FOR OBAMA FROM HIGHTOWER 

...Before he was America's best-known populist, author and activist Jim Hightower was the elected Agriculture Commissioner for the state of Texas.

In that capacity, he rewrote the political playbook and made a relatively low-profile statewide post into a bully pulpit for taking on the corporate special interests that warped both the Democratic Party and federal, state and local policy making.

One of the great moments in American politics came when Hightower, wearing his cowboy hat and spouting the old-school economic populist gospel, joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition" campaign of 1988. Their campaign events in Texas were epic celebrations of what a politics that saw beyond lines of race and ethnicity to the fundamental issue of class might look like.

...

Texas is supposed to be Hillary Clinton country. She's got what are referred to as "demographic advantages." Translation: The large Hispanic population in the Lone Star state is expected to back her on March 4 when Texans follow their traditional two-step process of voting in a day-time primary and then caucus in the evening.

Hispanic support has been critical to Clinton's viability, helping the New York senator to carry California, Arizona and other key states on Super Tuesday.

But Hightower thinks Obama can compete in Texas by building a coalition that looks a little like the "rainbow" of old -- and a lot like the coalitions that just gave the senator big wins in Maryland and Virginia. The Obama campaign is listening. Indeed, the candidate has started slipping references to the state into his campaign speeches. Obama plans to play in Texas, as he will do so with Hightower at his side.

"The Obama campaign is a phenomenon," says Hightower, who will make his formal endorsement soon but spoke this week with Laura Flanders and this writer on Radio Nation.

"Í am impressed with the tone of his campaign and, most of all, I am impressed with the people who have surged behind his campaign –- especially the young people," the Texan says of Obama.

...

Ultimately, says Hightower, part of the responsibility for making Obama stronger on specific issues lies with progressives who back the Illinois senator.

"The thing that really matters about the Obama campaign is the 'change' message," says the Texan. "This has more staying power."

"That makes it incumbent upon progressives – and this new force that is emerging is a progressive force – to make demands," adds Hightower. "Franklin Roosevelt did not campaign on the New Deal. The people that elected him made Roosevelt give them a New Deal."

The people who elect Obama, says Hightower, can assure that Obama's 'change' message translates as "progressive change."

And one of the people electing Obama -- or, at the very least, doing his damnedest to carry Texas for the senator -- will be Jim Hightower.

IT'S OFFICIAL

SEIU ENDORSES BARACK OBAMA.

Eat your heart out Clinton.

Let me see if I can get this at the bottom this time.

IT'S OFFICIAL

SEIU ENDORSES BARACK OBAMA.

Eat your heart out Clinton. This is a HUGE endorsement as we know. Should help Obama in Ohio, Texas, PA, and even Wisconsin.

The only time Obama got off message was when Oprah started to make it about him instead of us Pat.His speeches in Wisconsin have been right on, but Hightower is right it is up to us to drive the change not the candidate. That is the teamwork that wins all elections. I have re-read his book and find p148-149 to be well said in particular. He does understand the danger of the present course of globalization.

once again I will bring up the need for mental health parity, the shooter in Illinois was off his meds

and no way should have been able to buy a gun, the background check system is broken

Obama closing the gap as usual.

Hi Phil,

My husband and I agreed that so much of what Obama says makes sense.  He seems to be able to analyze an issue and bring common sense to it.  I read the large print version, so I don't think the pages coordinate with the ones you've given, but there was virtually nothing he said that I could disagree with.  He seems to have not only the ability to see a variety of perspectives, but also to lay out a means by which to deal with them.

A friend remarked that we should be able to monitor the mentally ill perhaps by some device that shows whether or not they are taking their meds.

I tutored students at the Ypsilanti State Hospital when I was a student at U. of M. The hospital was a dreadful place: many people sitting around with nothing to do; the buildings themselves gray, bleak, like old high schools.  

Now, we have them on the streets, and since we've lost community, no one knows what's going on with them.  In small towns, you still had things like this happen, but not as often.  People knew who needed medication, monitoring, and help.

I can think of at least ten people I know who are mentally ill.  Some are taking medications, often sporadically.  Sometimes they end up in jail, emergency rooms, on the street, or in rural areas near starving.  We can do better than this and must.  

I hadn't thought about Oprah's performances with Barack, Phil.  I'm not much of an Oprah fan so don't pay attention.  What you've said sounds accurate.

I was thinking that Barack's brilliance and charisma and John Edwards' passion for the underdog both resonate in Dean. 

Please sign Pat Leahy's letter to go to senators and congresscritters re: FISA bill

http://ga3.org/campaign/fisa?rk=tdw4nVpqwEW2W

1:59 PM EST

having cake and eating it too:

http://media.www.reflector-online.com/media/storage/paper938/news/2008/02/15/Opinion/Clinton.Begins.Sore.Loser.Talk-3212372.shtml

Pat

Howard got off track too when he was on the cover of Rollingstone and it turned into a cult of personality for a few weeks and threw him off his message that it was about us (you have the power). It was what turned off voters in New Hampshire this time but Obama was quick to recover.It takes a big ego to think you can be the leader of the free world(as they used to say) yet be ego less enough to be one with a movement and to make it about community. because Obama's humility is what gives him his charisma he can get away with his intellect without talking down to voters.

http://www.wellstone.org/

2:08 PM EST

I'm glad that Obama is being challenged by Clinton so thoroughly in this dem primary election cycle.  It prepares him much better for the general election.

The last time, in 2004, after IA and NH, it was essentially a cakewalk for Kerry, in sowing up the dem nomination.   As a result, when it came time to the general election, he IMO wasn't ready because he hadn't gone up against a political machine before he encountered the Bush/Rove machine.

Hillary Clinton is the Pete Rose of politics and Obama is the Hank Aaron in personality and approach to the game. let the voters decide who gets into the Hall of Fame

 If Clinton receives a nomination in this manner, it would be the first time superdelegates ever determined a nomination in the Democratic National Convention

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Superdelegates got that title by being in tune with voters. It is unlikely they would veto the voters choice this time. One thing is sure they have a better chance of voting than Florida delegates and bashing them is bad politics since they will indeed vote. Obama supporters should be a little careful of the enemies they make, as the critters are also needed to pass an Obama agenda after he gets in.

University Police: Illinois Campus Shooter On “Medication”

Kurt Nimmo
Truth News
February 15, 2008

As suspected, the Illinois campus shooter, identified as Stephen Kazmierczak, was on medication, although ABC News reports at this time it is unknown what sort of medication.

In the last few weeks, Kazmierczak’s

behavior had become erratic, according to [NIU campus Police Chief Donald Grady], and it is believed the Kazmierczak had stopped taking his medication. The chief declined to specify the type of medication the gunman was on.

As was revealed soon after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui was taking the anti-depressant Paroxetine, which he took from June 1999 to July 2000. Seung-Hui’s “doctor stopped the medication because Mr. Cho had improved,” the New Yorks Times reported on August 30, 2007. why do all the shooter take meds? trust the goverment they love you!

it has been clear since '04 that we had to win the dispute between the clinton Dem Party, and the Dean Dem Party.

That means that if Obama is the only other choice on the ballot, he must be elected, and we'll deal with whatever that brings later, as we would with any choice.

However, we all know Howard Dean, Howard Dean is a friend of ours, and Obama ain't no Howard Dean.

This is worth a read on looking behind the rhetoric of who is Obama? From a 1995 article in the Chicago Reader that identifies what makes obama tick....impressive. Has he remained the same?

Obama, whose political vision was nurtured by his work in the 80s as an organizer in the far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Gardens, proposes a third alternative. Not new to Chicago--which is the birthplace of community organizing--but unusual in electoral politics, his proposal calls for organizing ordinary citizens into bottom-up democracies that create their own strategies, programs, and campaigns and that forge alliances with other disaffected Americans. Obama thinks elected officials--even a state senator--can play a critical catalytic role in this rebuilding.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/obama/951208/

Daniel

 the NRA needs to get a dose of common sense to go along with their passion in defense of the Second Amendment

it has been clear since '04 that we had to win the dispute between the clinton Dem Party, and the Dean Dem Party.

That means that if Obama is the only other choice on the ballot, he must be elected, and we'll deal with whatever that brings later, as we would with any choice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

word

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/15/123445/033/220/457448

what manager wouldn't want both Pete Rose and Hank Aaron (look 'em up young folk) on their roster? Howard Dean has to be looking forward to the voter lists being generated by the two campaigns to use in Congressional races in previously uncontested spots

the longer this is competitive the better for the party in a lot of ways (as long as both sides remain civil)

Auto Repossessions Headed for Record High

Chris Woodyard
USA Today
February 16, 2008

Car and truck repossessions this year are headed for the highest level in at least a decade, thanks to easy credit and a faltering economy, says an economist for one of the largest wholesale auto auction services.

So many vehicles are being snatched from owners who stop making payments that some repo operators and auto auctioneers say lots are overflowing.

This year’s predicted 10% rise in vehicle repos to 1.6 million would be a third higher than 10 years ago, says Thomas Webb, chief economist for a unit of Atlanta-based Manheim, which sells cars to dealers worldwide. The increase comes atop a 10% rise in repos last year.

Webb blames overly “generous” auto loans in the past couple of years as a key factor in driving up defaults that lead to repossessions.

I've been thinking about Daniel's post this morning about how we all have two people we'd take a bullet for. I suppose if you have kids they would be your two by default. Which two lol. But if you have no kids, who would your two be? I think my two are Barry Manilow and Rene Pape b/c they bring so much joy to the world. And I'm not real sure about them :~). Certainly no politician alive today I can think of. Obama may or may not prove to be such a politician. No relative, not counting the 'grands.' My Mom dead 30 years instilled in us a deep obligation to family. Can't think of anyone else.

I'm dreaming baseball when is the first pre-season game? Three of my fantasy all time picks are Reds Bench, Morgan, and Rose. and the greatest hustler was a guy you couldn't stand even as you wanted your kids to play like him

high negatives

polarizing

do anything to win

you would still want him on the field, like him or not

but if you were down a couple of runs you would want Aaron up

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Other ways you can help:

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Rule by Fear or Rule by Law?

Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg
Global Research
February 13, 2008

“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”

— Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of “an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.”

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees. so what is all this for? ask ourself what are they planning? not here! i love america we have freedom and are goverment will give us health care there too summmer camp! google fema camps, the nazis are not dead.

Hey Phil, I was just reading the rules for the state convention. I think I just may run for the DNC spot this year.

What do ya think??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GgWrV8Tb... cops V.S. skateboarder cUc&eurl=http://www.infowars.com/?p=205

Sheriffs Dehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX2nCT-cO...://www.infowars.com/?p=216puty Dumps Paralyzed Man from Wheelchair

new thread

http://blogforamerica.com/view/23890#com...

Phil....32

Word?/

And Audrey,

You're no Dan Quail.  

Sorry, couldn't resist.  ; . ) 

Phil Specht
Fri, 02/15/08

Reply to this

Daniel

the NRA needs to get a dose of common sense to go along with their passion in defense of the Second Amendment


do some histoy on the nra you will find they really are gun control group they have back all gun bills they have sold out gun owners. most members are find, there ran by corp america big money who wants to disarm us! dig a little deeper phil. they control it all phil down to the last detail find the beginning of the group there it will be. if not a gun? it would be a bomb, your car is more dangerous! but no one think about that? if you knew people have gun on campus you would go there shooting?