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When you require to amount up your outfits taste, skirts from karen millen are definitely wonderful choices….

But it's not as powerful as we think it is because evidence — empirical and anecdotal — shows that it's not.

Look at the polls in West Virginia.

WEST VIRGINIA.

People are hurting so badly they will hold their noses and vote for a Black man against their bigoted interests because they can't risk what a McCain administration will bring them.

Even stupid people can excercise common sense when their backs are against the wall.

And with Barack, they have an OUT: he's half-White.

Don't ever forget that.

But it's not as powerful as we think it is because evidence — empirical and anecdotal — shows that it's not.

Look at the polls in West Virginia.

WEST VIRGINIA.

People are hurting so badly they will hold their noses and vote for a Black man against their bigoted interests because they can't risk what a McCain administration will bring them.

Even stupid people can excercise common sense when their backs are against the wall.

And with Barack, they have an OUT: he's half-White.

Don't ever forget that.

But it's not as powerful as we think it is because evidence — empirical and anecdotal — shows that it's not.

Look at the polls in West Virginia.

WEST VIRGINIA.

People are hurting so badly they will hold their noses and vote for a Black man against their bigoted interests because they can't risk what a McCain campaign will bring them.

Even stupid people can excercise common sense when their backs are against the wall.

And with Barack, they have an OUT: he's half-White.

Don't ever forget that.

http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/530761.html
Bush Took America Into Iraq To Make Them Look Like Us

COMPASS: Other points of view

By DARRELL KEIFER

Published: September 19th, 2008 12:27 AM
Last Modified: September 19th, 2008 03:29 AM

The most crucial question of this presidential campaign is the legitimacy of the Iraq war and the continuance of the U.S. occupation there. So much of the national discussion has skirted the real issues by framing the war with polarizing sports metaphors like victory, defeat, hit-'em-there, and surges. Americans must look beyond these and talk honestly about our country's approach to foreign policy.

he original reasons for the war: Saddam Hussein's ties to 9/11, the weapons of mass destruction, and the alleged support of terrorists, are nothing but a series of red herrings, abandoned even by the initiators. The unspoken reasons — access to the world's second-largest oil reserves and our supposed need for permanent bases to protect oil supplies — are authentic but secondary. The primary reason for the war comes from evangelical roots and is embodied in the Bush Doctrine — pre-emptive war.

After 9/11, Bush felt that the United States could not allow Islamic fundamentalism to spread in the Middle East, and if we Westernized a single Middle Eastern country, it would influence others and they would follow suit. The effort would not be missionary in the religious sense but cultural — not to convert Muslims to Christianity but to convert the country to a Western ideology.

This is wrong both theologically and practically. Islamic fundamental extremists do not represent the world's billion-plus Muslims anymore than the Timothy McVeighs of America represent fundamentalist Christians. The evangelical point of view, that the world is black or white, saved or not-saved, “with me or against me,” has put us on a path that is inconsistent with our own moral and ethical tenets — love, compassion, and understanding. One cannot love thy neighbor if one's starting point is: I'm right and you're wrong and I'm going to change you. Theologian Wilfred Cantwell Smith asserts that we urgently need to reconcile missionary theology and Christian ethics. For him, the study of how God reveals himself to others (Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus) has deepened his own Christian faith and understanding, not undermined it.

Bush's missionary-driven foreign policy includes imposing a free trade agreement on the Middle East, and the building of armies in Georgia along Russia's border. This represents a new colonialism that puts the United States on a collision course with anyone who is not-with-us. The Bush Doctrine is arrogant and morally unsound.

The administration has built permanent bases in Iraq and has plans for a long-term presence, as in Korea. America should abandon this policy and get out of Iraq as soon as practical. Americans need to let the presidential candidates know that permanent occupation is unacceptable.

Darrell Keifer lives in Anchorage.

This bears REPEATING as the LAME DUCK limps out the door!!

Obama-Biden '08!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/20/commen…
Commentary:Palin's Office Now Run By McCain Campaign

Gov. Sarah Palin has surrendered important gubernatorial duties to the Republican presidential campaign. McCain staff are handling public and press questions about actions she has taken as governor. The governor who said, “Hold me accountable,” is hiding behind the hired guns of the McCain campaign to avoid accountability.

Is it too much to ask that Alaska's governor speak for herself, directly to Alaskans, about her actions as Alaska's governor?

Read the whole story here.[In the article.]

To the question: Is it too much to ask. . . . ..
That would be YES!

I'm still sayin'. . . . . Receptive processing – NOT!!

Obama-Biden '08!

We must not allow Congress to give the Treasury Secretary absolute power in this farce of a bail-out. In fact, I've already contacted Schumer, Dodd, Pelosi, Boxer and Feinstein registering my vehement disagreement with the clause, as well as the bail-out.

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this, but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has written an exceptional, simply-worded manifesto – it is socialistic but then so is the bail out:

(1) The people who can best afford to pay and the people who have benefited most from Bush's economic policies are the people who should provide the funds for the bailout. It would be immoral to ask the middle class, the people whose standard of living has declined under Bush, to pay for this bailout while the rich, once again, avoid their responsibilities. Further, if the government is going to save companies from bankruptcy, the taxpayers of this country should be rewarded for assuming the risk by sharing in the gains that result from this government bailout. Specifically, to pay for the bailout, which is estimated to cost up to $1 trillion, the government should:

a) Impose a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for single taxpayers. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue;

b) Ensure that assets purchased from banks are realistically discounted so companies are not rewarded for their risky behavior and taxpayers can recover the amount they paid for them; and

c) Require that taxpayers receive equity stakes in the bailed-out companies so that the assumption of risk is rewarded when companies’ stock goes up.

(2) There must be a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages. Among many other areas, we can create millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and moving our country from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Further, we must protect working families from the difficult times they are experiencing. We must ensure that every child has health insurance and that every American has access to quality health and dental care, that families can send their children to college, that seniors are not allowed to go without heat in the winter, and that no American goes to bed hungry.

(3) Legislation must be passed which undoes the damage caused by excessive de-regulation. That means reinstalling the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down in 1999. That means re-regulating the energy markets so that we never again see the rampant speculation in oil that helped drive up prices. That means regulating or abolishing various financial instruments that have created the enormous shadow banking system that is at the heart of the collapse of AIG and the financial services meltdown.

(4) We must end the danger posed by companies that are “too big to fail,” that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need to determine which companies fall in this category and then break them up. Right now, for example, the Bank of America, the nation’s largest depository institution, has absorbed Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, and Merrill Lynch, the nation’s largest brokerage house. We should not be trying to solve the current financial crisis by creating even larger, more powerful institutions. Their failure could cause even more harm to the entire economy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/gia…
Giant Gaffe: McCain CONFUSES National Guard and Army – - And Palin's Son

http://blackpoliticsontheweb.com/2008/09/20/adv…
Advancement Project and ACLU Sue Michigan Secretary of State Over Unlawful Voter Purging

Today, Advancement Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Michigan and the law firm of Pepper Hamilton LLP filed a federal lawsuit challenging two statewide voter purge programs that could potentially disfranchise hundreds of thousands of Michigan voters in advance of the November 2008 presidential election. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Detroit against Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, Michigan Bureau of Elections Director Christopher M. Thomas, and Ypsilanti Clerk Frances McMullen.

“We have repeatedly advised Secretary Land’s office that these voter purge programs are unlawful, yet they have refused to bring their practices into compliance,” said Bradley Heard, senior attorney with Advancement Project. “Thus, we felt that filing this action was the only way we could ensure that the voting rights of thousands of Michigan residents would not be infringed upon during this important and historic presidential election, and beyond.”

Advancement Project’s previous requests for meetings with Director Thomas to discuss these issues were refused.
Under one voter removal program, the Michigan Department of State, which administers both driver’s license and voter registration records, immediately cancels the voter registrations of Michigan voters who obtain driver’s licenses in other states instead of issuing the appropriate confirmation of registration notices and following the other voter removal procedures required by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). According to the Department’s own estimations, over 280,000 voters per year are removed from the rolls in this manner.

Under the second voter removal program, a Michigan state law requires local clerks to nullify the registrations of newly-registered voters whenever their original voter identification cards are returned by the post office as undeliverable. Detroit elections officials report that nearly 30,000 voters per year in that city alone are removed from the rolls as a result of this state election law, which violates the NVRA and other federal and state laws. The NVRA permits voters to remain on the voter rolls for at least two federal elections after voter registration cards are returned.

“With Michigan set to be one of the most important battleground states in this election and turnout predicted to be the highest in state history, we are going to do everything we can to make sure that every vote counts and that nobody is illegally purged from the voter rolls,” said Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan.
The plaintiffs in the case are the United States Student Association (USSA) and the ACLU of Michigan. The parties have asked the federal court to schedule a hearing as soon as possible and to enter an immediate temporary injunction barring further purges under these programs.

Jonathan Doster, Michigan Field Organizer for USSA, explained that the purge programs being challenged in the lawsuit could have a devastating impact on many of the youth and college voters that his organization registers and for whom his organization advocates.

“Students and young adults generally are much more transient than older adults, are much more likely to have driver’s licenses from different states than their colleges, and are much more likely to live in multi-unit housing, such as dormitories and apartments. Anyone who has lived in these types of housing knows that the mail can sometimes be very unreliable and unpredictable. It’s just not fair to deny someone the right to vote just because they are an out-of-state student or they don’t get a piece of mail,” said Doster.

These voter removal programs could have a very detrimental impact in minority and low-income communities across Michigan. These communities tend to be more transient and to live in multi-family housing. Thus, voters of color are at risk of facing mass disfranchisement at the polls if something is not done now.

“The state of Michigan is breaking the law. By going forward with these unlawful purges, the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the state is trying to disfranchise voters,” said Meredith Bell-Platts, staff counsel with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. “With the election just weeks away, the effect of these undemocratic purges could make all the difference in deciding who becomes our next president. It is the fundamental right of every eligible voter to participate in that decision and must be protected from the whims of partisan politicians.”

“Purge programs of this type are a blatant violation of federal law barring the immediate removal of voters from the rolls based solely on information suggesting problems with their residence address,” concluded Heard. “The state of Michigan should afford these voters the protections that federal law requires.”

Attorneys in today’s case are Heard of Advancement Project; Bell-Platts and Neil Bradley of the ACLU Voting Rights Project; Moss and Michael Steinberg of the ACLU of Michigan; and Matthew J. Lund, Mary K. Deon and Deborah Kovsky of Pepper Hamilton LLP.

It truly takes a village of competent people to deal with the incompetent ones! And, actually, the term incompetence, in this case, for me, includes an evil attitude/motivation.

Country first!? I think NOT!!

OBAMA-BIDEN '08!!

I hear you, especially there are often strong institutional/structural counterpressures on teachers who are not white that undermine that structural power.

Clearly Hutchinson is not picking up on that.

Otherwise, definitely a very interesting article.

I think anti-intellectualism is definitely a problem on all sides – and Obama's “chess-strategy” style works for me.

A fixed debate. She might say something stupid. Too late for that.

I posted the wrong link earlier.

“This is insane, I cant believe this woman Palin is getting a free pass and anyone agreed to accomodate to this FARCE called Palin. am calling the Comission to file a complaint. I encourage anyone who feels the same to also call. Her nomination is a injustice to the American public , the woman hasnt even had a press conference in 3 weeks since her nomination. All the other candidates no matter party or views have been on the hot seat, scrutinized and paid dues and Palin is receiving special treatment. Its an outrage.
CPD at (202) 872-1020.”

The fact that they asked for special treatment is a testament of her incompetence and McSame lack of judgement in picking her.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Tenley

I say: Be concerned about Palin and attempts to have the public have very low expectations of her going into this. She plowed over the very popular Tony Knowles, incumbent Democratic governor, in the debates there. Alaskans say it was the debates that electrified the voters — most of whom had never heard of her. Please be careful of playing into the McCain campaign's attempts for there to be zero expectations for her in these debates.

That said, I hope she falls flat on her face and looks far worse than she has in even the most scripted and edited two national interviews she's given to date. But don't count on it. She's an actress as much as anything.

From a practical perspective (which I take because I know this kind of work from the inside) — his approach takes a huge amount of skill and wisdom to actually DO.

And speaking from my teaching experience, I can also say that there is one part of the article that is dead wrong. It's the analysis of Dennis Hutchinson, here:

Dennis Hutchinson, who also teaches courses on race and the law at Chicago, pointed out that Obama’s racial background gave him a certain advantage. “Let’s be frank,” Hutchinson, who is white, said. “If you’re black, and you are teaching a group of mostly white students about sensitive topics touching on race, then you’re controlling the class.”

Hutchinson is just dead wrong here. Hutchinson apparently doesn't understand that whatever control Senator Obama would have in this situation is based firmly in his structural position as teacher (which does carry real structural power) — certainly not his race. And in fact, there are often strong institutional/structural counterpressures on teachers who are not white that undermine that structural power.

I have carefully observed educational institutions and the structural power dynamics in them, and am kind of appalled at Hutchinson's total lack of comprehension of what he's talking about. It's sad that someone (Hutchinson) who is also a teacher has so little comprehension of the real dynamics of the actual context he is teaching in.

Anyway, this was a great great article — thanks for posting it, Anovelista