All I can say is I’m heartbroken, especially for his wife and children.
From the desk of Lewis Blain:
Some of you might not care….Let’s take a closer look at who’s really qualified and or who’s really working for the good of all of us in the Senate. Obama or Clinton.
Senator Clinton, who has served only one full term – 6yrs. – and another year campaigning, has managed to author and pass into law – 20 – twenty pieces of legislation in her first six years.
These bills can be found on the website of the Library of Congress but to save you the trouble, they are posted here for you.
1. Establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site.
2. Support the goals and ideals of Better Hearing and Speech Month.
3. Recognize the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
4. Name courthouse after Thurgood Marshall.
5. Name courthouse after James L. Watson.
6. Name post office after Jonn A. O’Shea.
7. Designate Aug. 7, 2003, as National Purple Heart Recognition Day.
8. Support the goals and ideals of National Purple Heart Recognition Day.
9. Honor the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton on the bicentennial of his death.
10. Congratulate the Syracuse Univ. Orange Men’s Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.
11. Congratulate the Le Moyne College Dolphins Men’s Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.
12. Establish the 225th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemorative Program.
13. Name post office after Sergeant Riayan A. Tejeda.
14. Honor Shirley Chisholm for her service to the nation and express
condolences on her death.
15. Honor John J. Downing, Brian Fahey, and Harry Ford, firefighters who lost their lives on duty. Only five of Clinton’s bills are, more substantive.
16. Extend period of unemployment assistance to victims of 9/11..
17. Pay for city projects in response to 9/11
18. Assist landmine victims in other countries.
19. Assist family caregivers in accessing affordable respite care.
20. Designate part of the National Forest System in Puerto Rico as protected in the wilderness preservation system.
There you have it, the fact’s straight from the Senate Record.
The following are those of Obama. The list is too substantive, so they are categorized.
During the first – 8 – eight years of his elected service he sponsored over 820 bills. He introduced
233 regarding healthcare reform,
125 on poverty and public assistance,
112 crime fighting bills,
97 economic bills,
60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills,
21 ethics reform bills,
15 gun control,
6 veterans affairs and many others.
His first year in the U.S. Senate, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427. These inculded **the Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006 – became law, **The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act, – became law, **The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, passed the Senate, **The 2007 Government Ethics Bill, – became law, **The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill, In committee, and many more.
In all, since entering the U.S. Senate, Senator Obama has written 890 bills and co-sponsored another 1096.
An impressive record, for someone who supposedly has no record according to some who would prefer that this comparison not be made public.
He’s not just a talker.
He’s a doer.
Obama is the HYPE!
Pass it on….people need to know.
Transcript:
“It’s 3am and your children are safe and asleep.
But there’ s a phone in the White House and it is ringing.
something is happening in the world
your vote will decide who answers that call.
whether it is someone who already knows the world’s leaders,
knows the military
someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.
its 3am and your children are safe and asleep.
Who do you want answering that phone?”
This is inadvertent but former Pres. Bill Clinton just showed why his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), is not only not the person you want answering the phone, she might not even answer it if she gets the opportunity.
Mrs. Clinton has mentioned often in this campaign her “35 years of experience,” which she says has put her “across the threshold” to be commander-in-chief. Well, the phone rang in 1994 regarding Rwanda. It rang. And rang. And rang. And rang. No one answered.
Bill Clinton spared no effort trying to stop genocide in the former Yugoslavia republics. This was admirable. But close to a million people were killed in the genocide when Hutus decided to kill Tutsis in that African nation.
Bill Clinton said his wife had urged him to take military action to stop that genocide. History will record that, even if it is true that Mrs. Clinton did offer that advice, and there is no record whatsoever to prove she did, she was in ineffectual. Mrs. Clinton was just as ineffectual trying to ram a health care overhaul through the U.S. Congress.
That was when she became a full-time touring first lady. She visited many countries. This is part of the experience that she says qualifies her to be president and commander-in-chief. It is the lifetime of experiences that she says qualifies her and Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ), to be president but not Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL).
If we know anything at all about Bill Clinton, besides the fact that he’s a political animal, it is that he is an inveterate and pathological liar. This advice that he remembers Mrs. Clinton giving him is clearly a political memory that he’s fantasizing now to help his wife’s candidacy.
Sen. Clinton, in her many statements lately, is also showing herself to be power-hungry.Not only did Sen. Clinton cross a threshold that qualifies her to be president, whatever that means, but she broke a golden rule of politics when she gave Republicans ammunition to use against Sen. Obama, should he be the party’s nominee.
I come late to the William F. Buckley eulogy party, a full week as a matter of fact. I was going to skip it entirely but I finally read my Newsweek magazine, which devoted precious newshole to the passing of the conservative icon.There was the long retrospective on his career by Evan Thomas, accompanied by a couple of respectful appreciations by Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, the country’s premier liberal magazine, and Michael Gerson, George W. Bush’s exceptional speechwriter who sups now at the trough of several publications, Newsweek and the Washington Post included.Before I go any further, I should get this out of the way: among his many admirable qualities, Mr. Buckley was a very charming man and he gave great parties.Douglas Martin began his obituary in The New York Times this way:
William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died on Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82.
No purpose will be served rehashing all the encomiums Buckley’s passing garnered. He was a great guy. A great writer. A great wit. Founded a magazine. He was the father of the conservative movement.Some of his eulogizers lamented what has become of the conservative movement he founded. Current crop of conservatives just don’t have the style, the civilized manner of Buckley. David Brooks, a protégé of Buckley who now occupies valuable real estate on The New York Times op-ed page, lamented the return of the haters and rabble rousers long after Buckley thought he had banished them from his movement.Brooks and others, as quoted by Newsweek, on Buckley:
For more than a half century, William F. Buckley Jr., who died last week at 82, largely inspired and held together the conservative movement that is collapsing today. The Wall Street Journal editorialized: “Several generations of conservatives grew up (in more than one sense) with Bill Buckley. Now they have—well, there is no one like him.” “He changed the personality of conservatism,” Brooks says. “It had been sort of negative, and he made it smart and sophisticated and pushed out all these oddballs and created a movement.” More recently, says Brooks, conservatism has “lost something.” In the conservatism spawned by talk radio and TV, the haters and know-nothings are back, ranting about immigrants and liberals. “It was a lot more philosophical under him,” he says. At those nightly salons, Buckley liked to talk and argue about ideas and literature and the nature of man; politics was rarely mentioned. “The new conservatives are not as intellectually creative as those dealing with communism and socialism,” says Brooks. Buckley tolerated some disreputable ideas, including segregation; but he had the capacity to change.
And vanden Heuvel had this to say early in her appreciation of Buckley:
And while he ceased to argue that Africans will be ready to run their own affairs “when they stop eating each other,” neither he nor his magazine ever fully repudiated the poisonous role it played in stoking white supremacists’ anger against the civil-rights movement.
The same Mr. Buckley called author Gore Vidal a “queer” and threatened to punch him out on his television show, The Firing Line. Charming indeed.
I’m sorry, Mr. Buckley might have had nicer manners but how is this any better than any of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter’s serial assault on common-sense and decency?
William F. Buckley was an unreconstructed racist who comforted segregationists everywhere, including the purveyors of the long discredited policy of apartheid in South Africa. Buckley and the pages of the National Review provided ballast to the Reagan administration as it resisted all entreaties to help topple that evil regime.
That this man was welcomed in respectable society when he was alive was bad enough. That he was, on his death, further celebrated in the pages of respectable mainstream publications is both tragic and shameful.
A friend, Lewis Blain, sent on these questions:
After yesterday’s outcome I feel the urge to remind everyone of our past and what we need to do to get ahead.
1) Why is it that a Black Man can
create a tiny piece called a filament(electric light – Lewis Latimer) That allows people to see in the dark But can’t be seen fit to lead a country to the true light.
2) Why is it that a Black Man can
create an instrument (clock – Benjamin Banneker) That all People use to tell time? But people don’t think it is time for him to run a country.
3) Why is it that a Black Man can
design a place for the high authoritiesto meet in & a place for the President to live in (The Capital & the White House Phillip Reid–a slave–& Â Pierre L’Enfant)?But not good enough to lead these meetings or live in himself.
4) Why is it that a Black Man was
brilliant enough to do the first openheart surgery (Dr. Daniel Hale Williams)And show the world how to get and preserve plasma (Dr. Charles Drew)? But not good enough to put a program in place where everyone can afford this surgery.
5) Why is it that a Black Man was
creative enough to design an instrument (traffic light – Garrett Morgan) To bring multiple people (traffic) to a halt?But not seen creative enough to design a plan to bring all this unnecessary and worthless Fighting between countries to an end.
6) Why is it that a Black Man could
create the soles (shoes – Jan Matzeliger) that people Walk on everyday? But not seen good enough to fill the shoes of a bad president.
7) Why is it that a Black Man was
smart enough & brave enough to teach himself (Fredrick Douglas & Thomas Fuller – both slaves) and others how to read, write and/or calculate math?
But not seen (as) smart enough and bold enough to calculate a platform to be President to a country That sure needs another first by us.
So you see my Brothers and Sisters what I am saying is let us not forget our past, Which led us to our present and can definitely be the backbone to our future.
We were good enough,
smart enough, creative enough, and bold enough then, so Lets all give Obama the chance to show that we are still these things and more.
We all are as strong
as our weakest link, so don’t be that weak link that denies
Our people that chance to
show we still can OVERCOME & BE THE FIRST
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), scored comprehensive wins in Ohio and Texas. She also won in Rhode Island. Her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), won in Vermont. The wins helped stanch Mrs. Clinton’
s string of 11 straight losses since her big night on Super Tuesday.
The next ‘fight of the century’
figures to be in Pennsylvania in late April. And, as she did before last night, she may have to sustain another string of losses to Sen. Obama in the race to be the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States before that primary.
Thus it always is with the Clintons, drama, emotions, whether real or cooked up.
There can be no doubt anymore that the Clintons will do whatever it takes, including damaging the eventual Democratic Party nominee, to win this nomination. For Sen. Clinton, the nomination is destiny. For former Pres. Bill Clinton, it is redemption.They are not about to stand by and let Sen. Obama, soaring rhetoric or not, get in the way of that. What Mr. Obama has to show now is how he fights.
This kind of infallible logic is exactly how you become a big city newspaper columnist.
Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), has won 11 straight Democratic Party primaries and caucuses in the contest with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), for the presidential nomination. During the past month, Mr. Obama has won states big and small, won some of them by landslide. He has won so-called ‘blue’ and ‘red’ states. In other words, he has won in every way imaginable.
This puts Sen. Obama exactly where Sen. Clinton wants him, according to New York Daily News political columnist Michael Goodwin:
You hear it everywhere: Tuesday is Hillary Clinton‘s last stand. If she can’t win Ohio and Texas, she’s history.
True, mostly. But it’s not the whole story. The rest goes like this: This is Barack Obama‘s third chance to knock her out. If he can’t close the deal this time, maybe he can’t close the deal, period.
Either the third time is the charm for him, or it could be strike three against him. Any result tomorrow that doesn’t finish her off lets her argue that Democratic voters’ love affair with Obama was just one of those flings. She’ll say buyer’s remorse has set in, and it’s time to get serious about winning the White House.
This must be a natural extension of the Clinton campaign’s weekend argument that Obama not only has win all contests on Tuesday because he spent more money than she did, but that he has to win all contests by comfortable margins. Why? Because she’s the underdog and he’s spent more money than she did.
Talk about turning weaknesses into strength.
This is one of them.
My mother was about 15 when she got pregnant with me. My father was 18.
Terrified to go to her own family, she approached my father’s sister and told her of her predicament. The two young women hatched a plan to make the problem, me, go away. They would procure an abortion for my mother.
I forgot to mention this was in Africa and in the early 1960’s.
Just imagine what the practice of abortion was like in this country in the 1960’s and you’ll understand that undergoing the procedure in Africa then would have ended in certain death for my mother.
But my mother’s biggest fear was realized. Her father found out about the pregnancy and ended the talk of abortion.
I was born and my early childhood was spent in my grandfather’s compound in Accra, Ghana. The consequences of those decisions set the course of my life. My mother never finished high school (she was fond of telling I was her high school diploma until I made her stop). Attendant to that was crushing poverty that ruled much of my life.
The good news, however, was that my mother did not die and I lived.
Bates for News
Six-month-old Daniella broke the hearts of New Yorkers everywhere when Sailema claimed she was left in his cab.
I reminisce about this now because of little Daniella, the 6-month-old that a few people are in a whale of trouble for trying to make sure she is safe. Cabby Klever Sailema turned her over to Queens firefighters, claiming a fare had abandoned the infant in his cab. That story turned out not to be true.
Klever Sailema spoke to the Daily News from his lawyer’s office in the Bronx.
Now he’s going to be punished. So will Daniella’s father, Carlos Rodas, 27, when cops catch up with him.
I was taken by the age of the mother, 14, and the insanity of punishing her and any of the people (well, Rodas does deserve sanction for taking advantage of a child) for trying to think of a way to make sure Daniella is safe and cared for. She was not much younger than my own mother was when she faced the same questions. The plan they hatched was, at best, hare-brained.
But, if the hoped for outcome is adoption, what exactly is wrong with that?
This story could have had a tragic ending. We’ve heard and seen too many times little children like Daniella being killed by the hands of their ward?
Maybe Sailema, a 45-year-old father of three from Elmhurst, Queens, does not deserve a hero’s medal but I’m not sure he deserves the charges against him either. What good is served by punishing Maria Siavichay, 21, Daniella’s aunt, who may have cooked up this ‘solution’?
I see this whole incident as a distress call for our community. Our sex education program is sorely lacking. A good sex education program does not, of course, mitigate statutory rape. But Daniella’s 14-year-old mother should have had better information to cope with her situation every misbegotten step of the way. And she should have had better resources after becoming pregnant. Our entire child welfare system failed her.
Here’s another thing: Our society does not aid families. We don’t help young families.
Here’s my question: What should Sailema and Siavichay have done?
Alex Moni of New Jersey was working for the Obama campaign in Corpus Christi.
Photo: Michael Stravato for The New York Times
At the end of the day, I like the profile of the Obama Democratic Party. It is young, diverse, resourceful, and self-generating. That bodes well for the future of the party. If Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), ends up the party’s nominee, she is going to have to harness the energy of the primary to govern.
The fear, of course, is that we’re going to be so busy fighting old Clinton wars, including whatever Bill is up to this time around, that we won’t have time to address and of the issues facing the nation.
Anna Scott of Montana, the Bowie County campaign field coordinator for Barack Obama, helped Ruth Blackwell, 83, with her e-mail address last week in Texarkana, Tex.
I have to give Mrs. Clinton props for how well she has fought back in the last few days. It has not been an easy campaign for her and people are so quick to see fault and write her off. Many of the problems are of her making. She seems to be coming back from them, however.
I hope she puts some of the lessons learned to good use if she ends up the nominee.
Last August, a bridge fell in Minneapolis and we learned it would cost $225 billion a year for the next 50 years just to maintain America’s crumbling roadways and bridges.
A new report just out says African Americans still lag behind white Americans significantly in income, education and other measures of well-being.
Healthcare in America is abysmal. Education is even worse. The health index for America’s children is worse than in many third world countries.
Remember that illegal war that we lied our way into? It’s still going on and America’s service men and women are still dying for lack of proper gear.
Another new report says one in every 100 American is now behind bars, a new record.
Every indication is that the American economy is cratering, on the verge of collapse.
And I am sure there are even more serious problems plaguing our nation that I am overlooking. At least I know the men and women that we elected to the United States Senate and the House of Representative are hard at work tackling those problems.
Why, just yesterday, a Congressional subcommittee held a hearing where it threatened to impose on America’s major sports cartel testing for performance enhancing drugs.
A different committee has asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate whether an athlete lied in his testimony trying to refute allegations of PED use made by a former friend of his, an admitted serial liar.
News flash! Congress to investigate pitching great Roger Clemens for perjury.
Members of Congress, mostly Democrats, especially Henry Waxman, want the United States Justice Department to investigate whether Clemens was telling the truth when he appeared in a farcical hearing that even Waxman found embarrassing and wished he had not held.
This was a hearing where gas bag politicians, not prosecutors, were questioning Clemens about the testimony from an inveterate liar, a drug dealer, and date rapist Brian McNamee that he had injected Clemens with steroids and other substances. No one has any other testimony other than McNamee’s.
They would seek to use the words of Yankee pitching great Andy Pettitte to buttress McNamee’s shaky testimony.
This is not going to end well. For Congress. And the Justice Department. Also, I have a feeling that this nation faces far more serious problems than this trumped up drama.