Thursday, September 4, 2008

Corndog

Sen. Cornyn: Tax Workers On Health Insurance Received From Employers

U.S. Senator John Cornyn, who is running for reelection this year, endorses Republican Presidential Nominee John McCain's proposal to shift employer provided health insurance from being an untaxed employee benefit to an insurance policy that Americans must purchase in the private marketplace for themselves and their families. "There's no reason today to have health insurance policies tied to employers," Cornyn told reporters on Monday.

McCain's plan, that Cornyn supports, would tax workers on the value of any health insurance they continue to receive from their employers. Under McCain's plan employees would have to report as income any insurance premiums paid by their employers. In contrast, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama says he wants to expand Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, and require employers to either provide health insurance to their workers or contribute to a newly created public insurance program.

Dallas Morning News
McCain's health insurance plan: More radical than Democrats'

North Texas employers are not saying they would drop employee coverage altogether if Mr. McCain's plan were enacted. But some do say the plan, which Mr. McCain detailed in July, would encourage young and healthy workers to forgo company coverage, purchasing insurance on their own rather than paying income taxes on the benefit. That would leave employers with only the costly sick workers to insure. And that, they said, could eventually lead to the death of company-provided health plans.

Rick Noriega, the Democratic Candidate running for the U.S. Senate seat against Cornyn, supports guaranteed coverage through partnerships between the federal government, states, employers, and private health care providers.

Dallas Morning News Blog
Rick Noriega Assails John Cornyn's Embrace of McCain Health Care Plan

Rick Noriega's Senate campaign has harshly criticized freshman Republican Sen. John Cornyn for seconding John McCain's plan to wean Americans off employer-provided health insurance and push them to buy their own coverage. Noriega spokesman Martine Apodaca called McCain's plan "radical."

Apodaca predicted that treating the employer health [benifits] as wages, as McCain proposes, will price families out of health insurance because the Arizona senator's $5,000 tax credits won't make up for the new burden they absorb. "Cornyn thinks forcing Texas families to fend for themselves in the individual insurance market is better than the employer based health care system.

But people don't choose to be sick like they choose to buy a car or a pair of shoes," Apodaca said. "Under the Cornyn scheme, the majority of Texans would be paying higher taxes, paying more for less coverage and employers would lose incentives to offer health insurance to their employees"

The Sarah Palin Smokescreen

The Nation
The Sarah Palin Smokescreen

by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 09/04/2008


"Here's the deal: Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction," Bob Herbert wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Tuesday. "She's meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign--the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions."

Herbert's right on target. Barack Obama honed in on that point in Denver too, "If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things."

On cue, Sarah Palin attempted to paint an absurd caricature of Obama in her speech at the Republican Convention last night: "What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world."

More than anything, this election should be about the big issues of our time--ending a disastrous war, restoring America's reputation in the world and building an economy that works for more than just the very rich. The challenge for Democrats is to frame these issues in a way that connects with traditional American and progressive values, exposes Republican callousness and extremism, and in doing so trumps the GOP's political marketing which cynically and cleverly plays on symbolism. As George Lakoff wrote, "Just arguing the realities, the issues, the hard truths should be enough in times this bad, but the political mind and its response to symbolism cannot be ignored..... Democrats, in addition, need to call an extremist an extremist: to shine a light on the shared anti-democratic ideology of McCain and Palin, the same ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They share values antithetical to our democracy."

Read the rest of the story

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Rock The Vote In 2008

From now until Election Day November 4th your Democratic friends and neighbors will be working in your neighborhoods to Get Out The Vote.

The objective of GOTV is to get more Progressive voters to the polls in Collin County this year than ever before by reminding them again and again why it is so important for them to vote in 2008; This is what "Get Out The Vote" is all about.

When the Democratic Party has a strong GOTV effort, our Democratic Candidates have a much better chance of winning. Your Democratic neighbors are already working hard with all our Democratic Candidates to Get Out The Vote in 2008 by Registering Voters, Phone Banking and Block Walking.

This year early voting starts on October 20th and continues until October 31st and Election Day falls on November 4th. We need Democrats to line up to vote starting at 7 A.M. on October 20th and keep lining up to vote until 7 P.M. on November 4th.

Please be a good Democratic friend this year and help your neighbors get out and vote starting October 20th. To sign up to help Get Out The Democratic Vote all across Collin County send an email to the GOTV coordinator, Barb Walters, at this email address: gotv@collindems.us. Barb Walters is working closely with the County Chair and all Precinct Chairs of the Democratic Party of Collin County as well as the campaign staffs of all the candidates whose name will appear on Collin County ballots on November 4th to Get Out The Vote.


Our Democratic candidates running for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, Rick Noriega, Tom Daley and Glenn Melançon, need our support! President Barack Obama will need all the help he can get in Congress when he takes office January 20, 2009!!

PLEASE, please help send Rick Noriega, Tom Daley and Glenn Melançon to Washington to help President Obama quickly turn our country onto the right road to a 21st century America!!


And, don't forget -- Other State of Texas and Collin County Democratic Candidates will appear on Collin County Ballots for the 2008 General Election too. They must also have your support!! For a list of all our local Democratic Candidates Click Here.

Please go to any or all of the candidate's websites and contribute any money and any volunteer time to their campaigns you can spare to help them get elected.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Undecideds Don't Like The Palin Pick

Andrew Sullivan The Atlantic Magazine:

The headlines are about the broad polling reaction to Palin. But the most fascinating part of the first Rasmussen poll on the matter is how those who are currently undecided in the election feel. They, after all, are the votes both campaigns are trying to win over with their veep picks. The key data is in the cross-tabs, which have been missed in some of the coverage so far.

On the critical question, "With Palin As Vice-Presidential Nominee, Are You More Or Less Likely To Vote For McCain," there's a striking result. . . among the critical undecideds, the Palin pick made only 6 percent more likely to vote for McCain; and it made 31 percent less likely to vote for him. . . among undecideds, 59 percent said Palin was unready to be president.

. . .Palin has helped McCain among Republicans, left Democrats unfazed, but moved the undecideds against him quite sharply.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

GOP Seeks To Outlaw Right To Choose Even Contraception

John McCain together with all of his spokespersons, which too often includes the established news media, are "marketing" McCain as a "Maverick Centrist Republican." In truth, when the vote really counts, McCain has always voted with other far-right conservatives in the U.S. Senate to enact the far-right conservative philosophy into federal law and to confirm far-right conservative judges for the U.S. Federal and U.S. Supreme Courts. His own home state paper, The Arizona Republic concluded, after researching McCain's Senate votes over the past decade that, “McCain almost never thwarted his party’s objectives.” This is particularly true on issues of women's rights.

McCain has repeatedly stated that he opposes Roe v. Wade and that, if elected, he would appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark court decision from the 1970s that legalized abortion. In picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, an ardent evangelical Protestant, for his VP running mate, McCain again clearly demonstrates his extreme right-wing position on women's rights.

Palin is as ardently opposed to pro-choice rights as John McCain, and perhaps even more extreme in her position than John McCain has so far publicly stated; Palin is on record as opposing pro-choice rights for women even in cases of rape and incest. Palin is also on record as advocating abstinence-only birth control eduction for teens during her 2006 Alaska gubernatorial race. Palin believes that the pregnancy safeguards afforded by contraceptives are not subjects that should be taught to teens.


While Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska Palin’s administration began charging rape victims for so called rape kits. (Video) (Palin’s signature is on the budget.) Rape kits containing the medical supplies necessary to collect forensic evidence that is required to identify and prosecute the rapist. Rape kits includes an emergency oral contraceptive that reduces the likelihood that a woman will become pregnant as a result of the rape. Many conservatives are strongly opposed to dispensing oral contraceptives, even to rape victims, that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting to form a pregnancy.

We know McCain, his evangelical Republican base, and his VP pick Sarah Palin will eliminate a woman's individual and private right to choose whether or not to bare children by reversing Roe v. Wade.

It is becoming apparent that evangelical Republicans will not stop at just reversing Roe v. Wade. Next on their list is to overturn or circumvent Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruling that guarantees the right of men and women to use birth control. The 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut ruling overturned a Connecticut law that outlawed the use of contraceptives by married couples.

It is the Griswold v. Connecticut ruling that also gives explicit voice to the implicit concept that the U.S. Constitution grants a "right of privacy to Americans" to make private individual decisions about family and our own bodies. This includes but does not stop with the private right to choose when or whether to have children. The Griswold decision is one of the foundation blocks for the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling.

In case there is doubt in anyone's mind that Republicans want to ban the use of contraceptives like the birth control pill, consider the Bush Administration's attempt to "administratively" define contraception as a type of abortion.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal OnLine, "The Bush Administration's Department of Health and Human Services has written a draft regulation that defines most birth-control pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus." Evangelical Republicans define a fertilized egg, from the "moment of conception," as human live with full civil rights. Any human interruption to the natural processes that might allow the fertilized egg to implant in the uterus and develop into a full term birth is murder.

The draft regulation, as written, defines the common contraception approaches in use today as "destroying the life of a human being." By its expansive definitions, the draft furthers a key goal of Evangelical Republicans - to define single-cell fertilized eggs as legal people with full legal rights from the "moment of conception." McCain's VP running mate Palin is on record as advocating abstinence-only birth control eduction for teens. Does she also believe that abstinence-only is the only form of birth control that should be practiced by married couples?


Palin and McCain should be asked by reporters if they support the Bush administration's attempt to define common contraception, that prevents fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus as a form of abortion. They further should be specifically queried if they believe that married couples should be allowed to use birth-control pills and intrauterine devices that prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus.
If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, it is conceivable that even the common birth control pill and IUD device could eventually be ruled a type of abortion by a very right leaning Supreme Court of the United States.

The next President will likely appoint as many as three new Supreme Court Justices to the bench. The three Justices who are likely to retire during the next President's term of office are the only remaining "centrist" judges left on the Supreme Court who believe the U.S. Constitution grants an inherent right of privacy for Americans to make personal choices about their own families and their own bodies. Long after the next president is gone, his appointments will be sitting on the bench, making decisions that impact our rights and liberties.

McCain has repeatedly stated that he opposes Roe v. Wade and has said that he would appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. The three evangelical-right leaning Supreme Court Justices that John McCain would appoint, joined by the very right leaning Justices already on the court, very likely will not only overturn Roe v. Wade, but they likely will also overturn Griswold v. Connecticut too. John McCain's Supreme Court likely will outlaw a woman's right to make a choice about whether to bare children beginning with her choice to use contraceptives.

Even more serious than eliminating the choice to bare children or to use contraceptives, as if that were not enough, overturning Griswold v. Connecticut would also weaken the concept that Americans have a constitutional right to privacy to make private individual decisions about family and their own bodies. Without this constitutional "right to privacy" protection same sex partners could also find that the door has been once again opened for states to pass laws attempting to control what happens in the privacy of their homes. The Griswold decision is also one of the foundation blocks for the Supreme Court overturning sodomy laws and other such same sex statutes that were on the books of many states until the 1970's.

Texans going to their polling places to vote on November 4th should remember that John Cornyn, the incumbent Republican Senator for Texas, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with John McCain and George Bush on this issue - Women do not have a right to choose, even contraceptives.

Rick Noriega, the Democratic candidate running for the U.S. Senate seat against Cornyn, supports Barack Obama's and the Democratic Party's postion that Americans should have a guarenteed right of privacy and constitutional protections against government intrusions into private family and personal decisions. Which candidate for the U.S. Senate do you want to send to the U.S. Senate to voting on the next President's Supreme Court nominees?? The choice is up to you - the voter!


Which Presidential candidate do you want to nominate the next three Supreme Court Justices for U.S. Senate consideration and confirmation? John McCain or Barack Obama?? The choice again is up to you - the voter!


A message from Cecile Richards,
President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.


It seems like the [other] person who doesn't want to discuss this issue is Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt. A few days ago, health care blogger Scott Swenson asked Secretary Leavitt whether it will be "HHS policy that the 98 percent of Americans who use contraception at some point in their lives are terminating rather than preventing pregnancy." Leavitt's reply: no comment.

We deserve answers from Secretary Leavitt on this secret plan to radically change family planning funding rules, and we need you to help us get those answers. Here's what you can do:
  • First, leave a comment on Secretary Leavitt's blog urging him to respond to Swenson's question and growing concerns that the Bush administration's proposed rule would severely threaten women's health care. Just leave a comment on his most recent blog post. Leavitt uses his official blog to communicate about government policy — it's time he came clean on this issue.
  • Second, let us know you left a comment. Because the blog comments are moderated, some may be blocked from visitors to the site. We need a way to keep track of the growing outcry about the Bush administration's proposed attack on women's health care — we can't let them keep this quiet.
Please, help us stop this proposed rule change before it can harm the people who most desperately need access to quality, comprehensive health care. The first step is to get straight answers from Secretary Leavitt. And don't forget to tell us what you said to Secretary Leavitt.

Thank you for standing with us, and please keep an eye out for future updates on this vital issue.

P.S. Our best chance of stopping this assault on the fundamental health care rights of women is to raise a massive public outcry. Help us get a head start by urging your friends to contact President Bush. Click here.

Cecile Richards interview on MSNBC

Hurricane Gustav Timed For The Republican Convention?

The video below is just one of several possible storm tracks projected for Hurricane Gustav. (Track modeled early on Aug. 27 by the National Weather Service.) If Gustav does take this particular track, it will hit the New Orleans area around the same time that the Republican National Convention begins in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

On Saturday August 30 the National Hurricane Center upgraded Gustav to a Category Four storm, with maximum sustained winds near 145 mph, making it the strongest Atlantic storm of 2008. However, by 4 P.M. CDT Sunday afternoon Hurricane Gustav had dropped to Category 3 strength and is not expected to reach Category 4 strength again before hitting the U.S. Gulf Coast sometime Monday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

It could strike the U.S. coast anywhere from Mississippi to Texas, but the storm track remains centered on the Louisiana coast west of New Orleans as of 4 P.M. CDT Sunday afternoon. Whatever its exact landing point, a Category 3 storm surge can still cause serious damage throughout the region, including the City of New Orleans.

Republican officials are actively considering delaying the start of the GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul because of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is on track to hit the Gulf Coast, and possibly New Orleans, as a Category Four to Five hurricane early next week.

ABC News' Karen Travers reports: In an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace that will air Sunday morning, Sen. John McCain indicated that the GOP convention could be suspended because of Hurricane Gustav. A Republican convention official tells ABC News, however, that at this point, there are no plans to cancel the convention. This official says the Republican National Convention Committee is "still moving forward with opening the convention on Monday" as planned and notes that there is official business that has to happen at the convention, like the actual nomination of John McCain and the platform ratification.

McCain Out Of Touch On The Economy

McCain out of touch on the economy video

Friday, August 29, 2008

Please Help Spread the Word About Our Democratic Candidates!

Please email the link for this blog to all your friends and neighbors!!! From now through election day we will be blogging about all of our Democratic candidates whose name will appear on the election ballots in Collin County. We will also highlight the positions and voting records of our Democratic candidate's Republican opponents too.

Blogging is the Internet age version of block walking and phone banking to Get Out The Vote. While other Democratic volunteers are busy Getting Out The Vote (GOTV) by block walking and phone banking we will be doing our GOTV part by blogging. If you would like to author postings (like letters to the editor) for this blog, please email me at the blog editor's address given in the top block of the left-hand sidebar.

Remember, our Democratic candidates running for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, Rick Noriega, Tom Daley and Glenn Melançon, need our support! Please contribute your much needed dollars as well as your volunteer time directly to these candidates. They also need our support to help get the Democratic message out to the voters. Blogging to get out the message is another way to support our candidates.

President Barack Obama will need all the help he can get in Congress when he takes office January 20, 2009!! PLEASE, please help send Rick Noriega, Tom Daley and Glenn Melançon to Washington to help President Obama quickly turn our country onto the right road to a 21st century America!!

And, don't forget -- Other State of Texas and Collin County Democratic Candidates will appear on Collin County Ballots for the 2008 General Election too. They must have your support too!!! These local Democratic Candidates include:
Please go to their websites and contribute any money and any volunteer time you can spare to help them get elected. Even a dollar or two or an hour or two a week will help, if that is all you can spare!

And please, help us spread the word about our Democratic candidates by forwarding the link for this blog to your friends!

American Prayer by Dave Stewart

By Special Request
We Post The Following
Barack Obama Music Video
"American Prayer by Dave Stewart"

McCain Selects Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin As His VP Pick

In what was initially report to be an explicit appeal to disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters, GOP Presidential candidate John McCain announced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. Gov. Palin, took office as the governor of Alaska little over a year ago. The former Miss Alaska runner-up previously served as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. At 44 she is three years younger than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Gov. Palin is such a political novice that the news media knew virtually nothing about her political positions when McCain first announce his VP pick.

As Palin's positions on several social issues are becoming known it is now looking like McCain picked Palin, an evangelical Protestant, to appeal to conservative evangelical Republicans rather than Senator Clinton's supports. Palin is as ardently opposed to women's pro-choice rights as John McCain. Palin is on record as opposing pro-choice rights even in cases of rape and incest. Palin says she does not believe that using human activities and fossil fuel use causes global warming and she believes in teaching creationism in public schools. In picking Palin for the VP slot McCain may be looking to energize evangelical Republicans in Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and other states where Senator Obama is showing increasing voter support. And, if McCain can pick up a few disaffected Clinton supporters as well, so much the better.

Barack Obama Campaign Spokesman Bill Burton responds to John McCain's VP choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin saying, "Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same."

Rawstory.com post on Palin:

The Associated Press reports, "More recently, she has come under the scrutiny of an investigation by the Republican-controlled legislature into the possibility that she ordered the dismissal of Alaska's public safety commissioner because he would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper."

The commissioner, Walt Monegan, was fired on July 11, because Palin "wanted to take the department in a new direction," according to Bloomberg. "Monegan than alleged that he had been pressured to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who was married to Palin's sister and was involved in a contentious divorce, according to the Anchorage Daily News."

The Bloomberg story continues, "Palin has denied any wrongdoing. The state Legislature voted on July 28 to hire an independent investigator to probe whether Palin, her family or members of her administration had pressured Monegan to fire Wooten, according to the Daily News."

Last month a Democratic official told the Wall Street Journal that Palin was facing possible impeachment.

Next Rawstory.com post on Palin:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) spoke by phone to NBC's Andrea Mitchell on Friday morning about Senator John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Wasserman Schultz was a strong backer of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries and is known for her interest in women's issues. She told Mitchell, "If John McCain thinks that he can substitute Sarah Palin for Hillary Clinton in the minds of Hillary Clinton supporters he's sadly mistaken. I know Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton."

"She's been governor of Alaska for eighteen months, and before that she was the mayor of a town of 8,000 people," Wasserman Schultz continued. "She's already under investigation by her state's legislature. ... They voted to spend $100,000 on an investigation, because she is accused of firing a state commissioner who refused to fire her sister's husband. ... This is not the kind of change that we need."

Mitchell pointed out that there may have been "some family abuse" on the part of Palin's sister's husband and that "she might have been protecting a victim who needed help" in firing the commissioner.

Mitchell then asked, "What about the pull of gender politics? Will there be a ... large number of women -- independents, Republicans, people who you all wanted to bring into the Democratic tent -- in suburban towns and cities around this country, who will like the idea of a woman on the ticket?"

"Women in this country don't want a candidate on the ballot just because of the parts that she has," Wasserman Schultz replied. "They want a woman candidate running for president or vice president because they support equal work for equal pay, they support a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices, they support access to children's health care, they want to make sure that we improve the quality of public education. Sarah Palin is against all of those things. So it's not just electing a woman for the sake of getting a woman in there."

Mitchell then quoted from the official McCain campaign announcement, which calls Palin a "tough executive [who's] ready to be president ... has a record of delivering on change and reform [and] has challenged the insolence of the big oil companies while fighting for new energy sources."

"Sarah Palin is inexperienced, unethical and wrong on all the issues that Americans care about," Wasserman Schultz replied. "Do we have the confidence that if, God forbid, something happens to John McCain that Sarah Palin is going to know what to do and is going to have her hands on the tiller of American foreign policy? What makes her ready to be commander in chief? This is just an example of colossally bad judgment on the part of John McCain."

"The other thing ... that's important to note," concluded Wasserman Schultz, "is there has been a culture of corruption hanging over the state of Alaska. ... Senator Ted Stevens, Congressman Don Young, Governor Sarah Palin, they are all cut from the same cloth. The last place we need to pull an elected official who wants to be vice president is the state of Alaska right now. They need to clean up their act."

Obama Watch Party at Prince Bistro Plano

Approximately three hundred people RSVP'ed to attend the Barack Obama acceptance speech party at the Prince Bistro Thursday evening, Aug 28th. To see the pictures click here.

Dan Dodd, Chair of the Democratic Party of Collin County, commented that he estimates approximately six hundred people in all attended or dropped by the event during the evening to pick up free candidate yard signs and bumper stickers. The signs and stickers were made available by the Democratic Party of Collin County and the Texas Democratic Women of Collin County organization.

The official capacity of the Prince Bistro is three hundred and the restaurant was packed to capacity from 7 P.M. until well after Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama finished speaking.

The restaurant was noisy during the first part of the evening as attendees got know their Democratic neighbors and freely talked politics. Health care and the economy were the most popular topics of discussion, but energy, the environment, education, college tuition, national security, foreign policy, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were all topics of discussion during the evening.

Several of the Democratic candidates, whose names will appear on Collin County election ballots on November 4th, attended the event to meet the voters. In the picture to the left, from left to right are Victor Manuel, Collin County Commissioner Precinct 3 candidate - Tom Daley, U.S. Congress candidate for the 3rd Congressional District - and Glenn Melançon U.S. Congress candidate for the 4th Congressional District.

In the picture to the right Jean Power, Collin County Commissioner Precinct 4 candidate joins Victor, Tom and Glenn.

Attention increasingly turned to the convention speakers through the evening. Attention noticeable turned to the big screens as the citizens, one by one, took the podium at the Invesco Field stadium to to tell their personal stories and express their support for Barack Obama, Joe Biden and all their local Democratic candidates running for office this November.

When Al Gore began to speak at the convention, the political chatter in the restaurant began to noticeably drop off. The crowd became attentive to Gore as he talked about the environmental challenges facing America and the world. Just as Gore was applauded and cheer at the Invesco Field Stadium in Denver, so was he applauded and cheered by the people watching the big screens at the Prince Bistro.

Barack Obama received loud cheers and applause in the restaurant as he took the podium to give his nomination acceptance speech. All during his speech all attention was focused on the big screens as Senator Obama spoke. Frequent loud applause erupted as Obama gave sharp criticism of Senator McCain, and the George Bush policies that McCain has repeated stated he will continue, and as he went on to lay out his road map for an era of progressive change in America.

The loudest cheers and applause came when Obama said, "The change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington, Change happens because the American people demand it -- because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time."

38 million viewers watched the Thursday evening convention broadcast of Senator Barack Obama accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, according to Nielsen Media Research. The four-night 2008 Democratic convention ranks as the most-watched party convention of either party, Democratic or Republican, since Nielsen began measuring conventions in 1960. Nielsen did not estimate how many people watched Obama on PBS, C-SPAN and direct Democratic Internet video stream out of the convention on Thursday night, so Obama's audience might well be much higher than the 38 million that Nielsen Media Research estimates.

U.S. News: Following Obama's speech analysts and media commentators generally praise Obama's speech.

USA Today describes the speech as "filled with promises of generational change and a better America," and the New York Times refers to Obama's "cutting language" and to the "cheers that echoed across the stadium." McClatchy notes "an estimated 84,000 people jammed the football stadium," and adds Obama "tied McCain squarely to President Bush." The Washington Times refers to Obama's "soaring oratory," with "the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop." In another front page story, the Washington Post says that the speech yesterday "proved the greatest testament yet to the intensity of Barack Obama's support and the enthusiasm for his candidacy that his party hopes will carry him to the White House."

David Gergen said on CNN that the speech "opened up an important and legitimate debate the Republicans will carry on about issues," but "as a speech, I was deeply impressed. In many ways it was less a speech than a symphony." Carl Bernstein, on CNN, called it a "transformational speech, maybe the greatest I've ever heard at a convention since Kennedy." Keith Olbermann, on MSNBC immediately after the speech ended said, "Vote for him or do not, but take pride that this nation can produce men and speakers such as that."

Watch the slide show of all my pictures taken throughout the evening at the Prince Bistro. (See the right sidebar of this blog page) Click on the picture to go to the album where the pictures have descriptive captions.

Barack Obama Convention Speech Video

Obama's 2008 Convention Speech As Prepared For Delivery

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Kucinich: Wake Up America!

Speaking at the Democratic Convention in Denver, Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Rep. from Ohio, called on Americans to "Wake Up" in an audience rousing speech!

Kucinich declared from the podium of the Convention, "In 2001 the oil companies, the war contractors and the neocon-artists seized the economy and added $4 trillion of unproductive spending to the national debt. ... Trillions of dollars for an unnecessary war paid for with borrowed money."

"We cannot afford another Republican administration," Kucinich said. "Wake up, America; the insurance companies took over health care. Wake up, America; the pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing. Wake up, America; the speculators took over Wall Street. ... Wake up, America; we went into Iraq for oil."

"This administration can tap our phones -- but they can't tamper our creative spirit," he said. "They can open our mail, but the can' t open economic opportunities. They can track our every move, but they lost track of the economy while the cost of food, gasoline, and electricity skyrockets. Now, they have skillfully played our post 9/11 fears, and they've allowed the few to profit at the expense of the many."

Watch his short, but rousing speech

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Ohio Prepares for 80% Voter Turnout in November

From RawStory.com

DENVER -- As many as 80 percent of Ohio's registered voters could turn out on Election Day, says the state's top election official.

"Looking at the interest in this election, we think it's highly probable," Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said during a panel discussion on election reforms.

Brunner addressed controversy in the state over use of electronic voting machines in the past.

While she was unwilling to force counties to completely abandon DRE machines, she said all voters would have the option to vote on a paper ballot and officials were implementing more stringent security procedures in the 53 counties that still used electronic machines.

Read the Rest of the Story

Sunday, August 24, 2008

No Citizens Attend Plano City Council's Public Tax Hearing

Plano Star Courier Newspaper
August 22, 2008

A public no show at tax hearing

All the members of the Plano City Council were present Thursday night to hear comments regarding the city’s tax rate with the exception of Place 3 Council Member Mabrie Jackson

No Plano residents were in attendance to the public hearing.

Thursday’s public hearing was the first of two on a proposal to increase total tax revenues from properties on the tax roll in the preceding tax year by 5.20 percent.

The Plano City Council voted a week ago to establish not to go higher than the current tax rate of 47.35 cents. Even though the city-wide tax rate may stay the same, Plano residents could potentially see a change in tax charges.

“Since property values are changing, that could positively or negatively affect an individual resident’s total tax bills,” said Karen Rhodes, director of Plano’s Budget and Research Department.

The public hearings were scheduled in compliance with the Open Meetings Act as designated by Vernon’s Texas Codes Annotated, stating that city governments are to hold public hearings when considering changing the tax rate.

The second public hearing will be held at 7 p.m. on Aug 25, at the council chambers in the Plano Municipal Center. Immediately following the public hearing, the City Council will hold the regularly scheduled preliminary open meeting and regular meeting.

Plano Star Courier article link

Saturday, August 23, 2008

As Democrats Gather, Liberal Positions Gaining In Popularity

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

DENVER — As they meet for their national convention Monday through Thursday, Democrats are poised to shift their party's course — and the country's.

They're turning to the left — deeply against the war in Iraq, ready to use tax policy to take from the rich and give to the poor and middle class, and growing hungry, after years of centrist politics, for big-government solutions, such as a health-care overhaul, to steer the nation through a time of sweeping economic change.

They are, in short, more liberal than at any time in a generation and eager to end the Reagan era, which dominated not just the other party, but also their own, for nearly three decades.

"Every generation . . . there are changes in people's relationship with government," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. This, he said, is such a time.

The shift of the party also reflects a change in much of the population — evidenced in the policy positions advocated by rank-and-file voters as well as the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

What changed? Several things:
  • The Iraq war lasted longer, cost more lives and money, and proved deeply unpopular. A few years ago, Obama was a rare voice in the party opposing the war; today he's one of a chorus.
  • Anxiety about a slowing economy resurrected fears about American jobs and paychecks in the global economy.
  • Promises to change trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement punctuated the [2008] Democratic primaries.
  • Obama promises a dramatically different tax policy, one that would raise taxes on the wealthy, cut taxes for the middle class and offer new "refundable" tax credits to the working poor that would wipe out tax liabilities and deliver anything left over in the form of checks.
  • Obama also wants to tax oil companies and use the money to give checks to the poor to pay for high fuel costs, or anything else.
  • Many Americans recoiled at the weak federal government response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
  • Republican George W. Bush turned into one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history.
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It's Biden As Obama's VP Pick

Barack Obama selected Senator Joe Biden of Delaware late Friday to be his vice presidential running mate.

Since being elected to the Senate at the age of 29 in 1973 Biden has served in the Senate he has been at various times not only as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but also the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. It is the Senate Judiciary Committee that has jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation, Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues. Biden, 65, who has himself twice run for the office of President of the United States, is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, has a progressive voting record and has a reputation as a hard hitting debater and orator.

Recent Biden Interview on ABC News

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Anyone Who Owns 7 Home Will Think The Economy Is Great!

"Yesterday, Senator John McCain was asked again what do you think about the economy, he said I think the economy is fundamentally strong," said Senator Barack Obama. "Now this puzzled me. I was confused what he meant. But then there was another interview where somebody asked John McCain how many houses do you have and he said 'I'm not sure. I'll have to check with my staff.' True quote. 'I'm not sure ill have to check with my staff.' So they asked his staff and they said, 'at least four.' At least four. Now think about that. I guess if you think that being rich means you make $5 million and if you don't know how many houses you have then it is not surprising that you think the economy is fundamentally strong. But if you are like me and you've got one house, or if you are like the millions of people struggling now to keep up with your mortgage payments, you might have a different perspective. By the way the answer is John McCain has seven homes."

Obama Campaign Ad