Obama Donates To Clinton Campaign

It looks like the two major Democratic candidates may be coming together finally. Barack Obama got out his personal checkbook last night and donated the maximum of $2300 to help Hillary Clinton retire the $22 million debt her campaign had piled up. His wife Michelle then donated the same amount.

Following the lead of Obama, his national finance chairman, Penny Pritzker and her husband each donated the same maximum amount. Now these four checks won't put much of a dent in Clinton's debt, but the symbolic value is enormous. In addition, Obama has asked his top contributors to pitch in and help Clinton retire her campaign debt.

For her part, Clinton will appear with Obama at a rally in Unity, New Hampshire. The town is perfectly named for their first appearance together. In addition, it is a community that gave them a tie in the New Hampshire primary.

It's good to see the candidates coming together to help each other. I think they're both loyal Democrats who see the critical need to elect as many Democrats as possible -- from the top of the ballot to the bottom.

Block Walk For Matula

Just a reminder that the Matula campaign in doing some block walking this weekend in the Bay Forest area (precinct 306). If they can get enough volunteers, they hope to finish this area this weekend.

Volunteers should meet at Matula headquarters at 5:30pm for a short training session. They will then walk the precinct between 6:00pm and 8:00pm on both Saturday and Sunday. If you can help either day (or both), it would certainly be appreciated. You don't even need any experience. They'll be happy to show you how to do it, and this is your chance to get in on some ground-floor politics.

Matula has a very good chance of grabbing this seat away from the Republicans in House District 129. Come on out and do your part to change America for the better. You'll be glad you did (and you'll probably have a lot of fun doing it).

Matula headquarters is located at 17300 Saturn Road, Suite 105, in Houston.

Supreme Court Is "On Target"

The United States Supreme Court has issued three very important decisions in the last few days, and for the first time in a long time, I agree with all three decisions. All of the decisions were reached by a 5-4 vote. I wish the votes had been a little more lop-sided, but I guess you can't have everything.

Last week, the court restored habeas corpus rights to the Guantanamo detainees. This restored the "rule of law" by guaranteeing that anyone in U.S. custody can appeal their detention to a United States court. No one can be detained indefinitely without justification. This was a much-needed step in restoring America's reputation as a nation based on laws, rather than the whim of a ruling dictator.

Two days ago, the court struck down the penalty of capital punishment for child rape. They made it clear that the death penalty would only be tolerated in cases where there was a loss of life. Child rape is a heinous crime, but it can be handled with very long prison sentences.

This decision may actually save the lives of the abused children. If an offender already faced the death penalty, what would stop them from taking the life of the young witness? Now, if they take that young life, they will know their sentence can be upped to the death penalty.

Yesterday's decision cleared up a long-standing argument over whether the second amendment gave individuals the right of gun ownership, or whether that right was reserved to a militia. The court came down on the side of the individual. They said the opening phrase of the amendment (regarding militias) simply gave one of the reasons why individual citizens are guaranteed the right of gun ownership.

As the victim of a gunshot wound during the commission of a crime, I am not crazy about the ease with which criminals can get guns. I would be personally happy if all handguns were to disappear tomorrow. But I can read, and I believe it's pretty obvious the court made the right decision -- the Constitution gives the right to own guns to individuals (so they can form a militia if needed).

Some people were worried that this decision would erase all our nation's gun laws, but the majority on the court did not make their decision that far-reaching. Speaking for the majority, Justice Scalia said, "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

This decision leaves in tact such laws as denying guns to convicted felons and the mentally ill, mandating a waiting period for a gun purchase, the registration of guns, requiring a license to carry a gun and the outlawing of guns such as machine guns. I'm sure that some will try to contest these laws, but I don't think they will get far. This decision was about guaranteeing the right of ownership, not about the invalidation of reasonable laws.

The court guaranteed Americans the right to own a gun, but it did not give them permission to be stupid and abuse that right.

Nader Now A Pathetic Caricature

I have to say that I've always been an admirer of Ralph Nader. As a crusading consumer advocate, he has probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives (if not millions). If it were not for him, our automobiles would still be rolling death traps.

He also understood the danger that the modern corporatocracy poses for our democratic freedoms. In fact, I am one of those who voted for him in 2000 and again in 2004. That's why I was so disappointed in his latest utterance. He told the media that Obama wasn't addressing the problems of African-Americans because he was trying to "talk white".

What a stupid thing to say! Does he think Obama should be "rapping" his speeches in Hip-Hop parlance? Does he want him to use "ebonics"? Or does he just think an African-American candidate should only deal with the problems of the urban ghetto?

The truth is that Barack Obama is an educated man with a marvelous ability to use the English language. His mastery of the language reminds me of the legendary Barbara Jordan, and that is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I just wish I had that kind of control over our language!

As far as what issues he is discussing, he is running for president of the United States. It would be stupid for him to only discuss urban problems. A president must be conversant with the problems of ALL Americans, and Obama is.

All Nader did was make himself look like a pathetic has-been, who doesn't know when to quit. Please Ralph, stop this nonsense and go home. Let us remember the heroic crusader that you were, and not the doddering fool you have become.

For a Naderite like myself, this is sad.

WTF ?

Good grief! I think some people just go out of their way to find things to be offended about. The above picture is of part of a North Carolina license plate. It seems that North Carolina officials have just learned that these letters may be offensive to some people.

I guess they've been living in a cave somewhere. I surprised that there's anyone left in America that's not familiar with the phrase these three letters stand for. But evidently these NC officials are just a bit slow.

They were recently informed by a 60 year-old teacher of the meaning the letters have in e-mail and texting. Sadly, she had to be told by her teenage children.

They have now decided that the letters are suddenly "offensive", and they are going to replace up to 10,000 plates free of charge to any offended person.

Personally, I'm offended by the stupidity. Couldn't they find a real problem to spend this money on?

Why House Dems Knuckled Under On FISA

A few weeks ago, I was very proud of House Democrats. They had stood up to the president and refused to give the Telecom companies immunity for breaking federal surveillance laws. The president had wanted that immunity included in the new FISA bill and he wanted that immunity to be retroactive. It looked like we might finally discover just how widespread Bush's illegal spying on Americans had been.

But then a couple of days ago, everything fell apart and dozens of Democrats knuckled under once again. They voted with Republicans to give the President the telecom immunity that he wanted. Why did they do it? How could they have given in to a president with only a 23% approval rating? It seems unbelievable.

As near as I can figure, there seems to be three main reasons for the Democrats gutless behavior. And none of the three will stand up to scrutiny.

The first reason is that the Dems who knuckled under were afraid to look weak on defending our country with an election coming up. In other words, they were willing to vote for a bill they knew was bad so they could get re-elected. How pathetic is that?

But that vote did not make them look like strong defenders of this country. Instead, it made them look like the weak and spineless politicians that they really are. How can we believe they'd have the courage to stand up and defend our country, when they can't even stand up to the most unpopular president in history? Who could possibly believe they'd stand up to terrorists after watching them knuckle under to Bush?

This is exactly why people didn't want to vote Democratic in the past -- because many elected Democrats showed a stunning lack of political courage. Why would anyone want to vote for a politician who doesn't have the courage to vote his convictions?

The second reason given is to assure cooperation from the telecoms. They said they were afraid the telecom companies might not cooperate in the future if they weren't given immunity now. This is a totally bogus reason.

Isn't the new bill supposed to assure that a warrant would be obtained before spying would be done in the future? No telecom could refuse to cooperate with a duly issued warrant. If they did, they would be in serious legal trouble. The Dems who voted for immunity just let the telecoms con them!

The third reason is an appalling lack of leadership among Congressional Democrats. Both Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid refused to stake out a Democratic position on the FISA bill. This made it easy for the separate members to vote as they wished -- after all, there was no party position! How could the Democratic leadership not have a party position on one of the most important bills of the year?

It's not like they didn't know how rank-and-file Democrats felt about the illegal spying. It's been obvious for years that a huge majority of Democrats opposed the illegal spying and opposed granting immunity to the telecoms.

This has made it painfully clear that the Democrats need new Congressional leadership. Both Pelosi and Reid have demonstrated that they are not capable of exercising the responsibility they have been given. When the new Congress meets after the election, both of them should be replaced.

Justice Department Violated Hiring Laws

This shouldn't surprise anyone who has followed the pitiful job done by our Justice Department in the last few years. According to an investigative report released by the Inspector General of the Justice Department, Glenn Fine, the department consistently violated federal law with their hiring practices between 2002 and 2006.

For that period of time, the department used political beliefs as a criteria for hiring or refusing to hire new employees. It did not matter how good their grades were or how qualified applicants were, if Justice Department officials believed they were liberals, then they were not hired. They hired only those applicants who were conservatives or Bush loyalists.

It all started in 2002, when John Ashcroft (pictured above) changed the procedure for hiring. Before that time, each department head did his own interviewing and hiring and politics was not a consideration. But Ashcroft changed the procedure to have political appointees involved in the hiring process. These political appointees made conservative political beliefs a requirement for hiring. Alberto Gonzales continued the Ashcroft procedures.

Current Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he has changed the hiring procedure. He said, "I have also made clear, and will continue to make clear, that the consideration of political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees is impermissible and unacceptable."

I hope he is telling the truth, but the Bush administration has told so many lies that it's very hard to believe any of his appointees anymore.

Moment Of Silence

From the Charlotte Observer (06/24/08)

Consumer Confidence At 16 Year Low

It looks like it's beginning to sink in to most people what a mess the Bush administration has made of our economy. The Consumer Confidence Index fell for June to a lowly 50.4. This was even more than the analysts' had predicted. It was expected to fall from May's figure of 57.2 to around 56.5.

Last July, the CCI stood at a healthy 111.9, but now it is at the lowest point in the last sixteen years. With the perception that we're in a recession, the freefall of home valuations, the record number of foreclosures of homes, the rapidly growing inflation of food and gasoline prices and the growth of unemployment numbers (officially 5.5%, but probably higher), it's easy to see why consumers have little confidence in the economy.

Even the Federal Reserve is unsure of how to handle the economy. Normally, an economy in recession will have falling prices, and the "Fed" would lower interest rates to stimulate economic activity. To handle inflation, the "Fed" would raise interest rates to slow economic activity.

But we're in a rather unique economic mess. We're being hit with recession and inflation at the same time. Because of this, the "Fed" is expected to neither raise nor lower interest rates when it meets this week. After all, if you fight the inflation then you make the recession worse, and vice versa.

There doesn't seem to be much hope of either situation getting better in the near future. It's become very clear that we must vote the Republicans and their disastrous economic policies out of office this coming November.

Matula Headquarters To Open

Sherrie Matula, candidate for House District 129, will begin moving into her headquarters this weekend at 17300 Saturn Road, Suite 105 in Houston. They could use some help. If you can help them move, give John a call at 281-536-2457. I'm sure he'll appreciate any help he can get!

The headquarters will officially open on July 12th. In the meantime, there are some items the campaign still needs. Here is the list:

Soft drinks, bottled water

Snacks

Microwave

Coffee supplies

Coffee pot

Plastic forks/spoons/knives, plastic cups and plates, napkins, paper towels

Pens, staplers, staples scissors, highlighters, sharpies, pencils, pencil sharpeners, tape, pushpins, stickies, binder clips, file folders etc

In and out boxes

Name tags

Paper for printers – we need lots!

Fans

Large Texas flag

Small Texas flags

General Decorations

American and Texas flags for outside

Hand soap

Toilet paper

Kleenex

Vacuum cleaner

Call Martha (281-773-5863) or John (281-536-2457), if you have items you can donate or let them borrow.

They're also going to do some block walking in precinct 306 (Bay Forest) on Saturday and Sunday from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. Those willing to help should meet at the headquarters at 5:30pm for a short training session.

Obama Not Perfect - But He's our Candidate

In the last couple of days, Obama has disappointed many progressives. His statement in support of the so-called "compromise" FISA bill was not something that most Democrats wanted to see. In fact, while I am a dedicated supporter of Obama, I have to say I was also disappointed and I hope he'll redeem himself when the bill gets to the Senate.

But I feel that a lot of bloggers have overreacted to the situation. They seem to be taking great delight in pointing out that he has flaws and proceeding to verbally slice him up. They want us Obama supporters to know that he is not "perfect". Well guess what, we already knew that.

I hate to inform some of you, but there were not any perfect candidates running on the Democratic ticket this year. There were a lot of good candidates, but they all had flaws (even the ones I liked and supported). In fact, I have never even seen a "perfect" candidate, and I doubt that I ever will.

No matter how good a candidate is, someday you will disagree with something he does or says.That's because they are human just like the rest of us, and humans make mistakes and have disagreements -- it's just human nature. The best we can do is find a candidate that we think will do a good job and support him or her.

Obama is not perfect, but he is all we have to prevent a third term for the Bush-Cheney policies. Even the most superficial examination of the candidates will show any real Democrat that he is now our best hope to change our country for the better.

I'm not saying that we can't disagree with him. After he is elected, I'm sure I will disagree with him as much as any Democrat, and I'll make my views known. But maybe we ought to put the knives away for now. Let's put our attention fully on the job ahead -- defeating the Republicans in every single race that we can, including the presidency.

Obama is not perfect, but he is 1000 times better than McCain.

Religious Poll Is A Surprise

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently conducted a survey of 35,000 Americans about their religious beliefs. Some of the results were a bit surprising. For the last few years, a lot of evangelical right-wingers have tried to shove their own religious views on mainstream America. That gave the impression that a majority of Americans believed their view of religion was the only acceptable one.

But that impression seems to have been a false one. It turns out that Americans are much more tolerant of other religions than was believed. According to the survey, America is a religious country. About 92% of respondents said they believed in God, 74% believe in life after death and 63% believe their religion's scriptures are the word of God. That's not surprising.

The surprise comes when they are asked about other religions. A full 70% of those with a religious affiliation said they believed that many different religions offered a path to eternal life. Also interesting is that 68% said there was more than one way to interpret the teachings of their own church.

Surprisingly, the tolerance of other religious teachings cut across a variety of religious lines and even included a majority of evangelicals. Here are some of the figures for those saying more than one religion offers a path to eternal life:

Mainline Protestants.....83%

Jews.....82%

Roman Catholics.....79%

Black Protestant Churches.....59%

Evangelicals.....57%

Muslims.....56%

Who would've guessed that tolerance was so widespread among religious people in America. It seems that we've been subjected to the rantings of a small minority for the last few years -- a minority of 30% or less.

Maybe it's time for our leaders to stop listening to this minority and act to protect real religious freedom for all Americans, including taking back our schools from this radical minority.

George Carlin

George Carlin 1937 - 2008.

Normally, I don't use "dirty words" on this site because many of my posts are picked up by news organizations and reposted. But they will just have to do without this one.

This is for you George, with the utmost love and respect:

SHIT - PISS - FUCK - CUNT - MOTHERFUCKER - COCKSUCKER - TITS

You made my world better and I will miss you.

Stepping On The Constitution

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (6/15/08).