New York loves Obama part 3!

New York loves Obama part 2!

New York loves Obama part 1!

Obama Takes Lead on Security Contractors

You've likely never heard of Blackwater USA and they'd like to keep it that way. First, watch this video produced by Sam Graham-Felsen, Obama for America blogger:

Senator Obama is taking the lead on reigning in this nefarious organization:

I was disturbed by recent press accounts describing a firefight in which Blackwater USA security contractors killed at least 9 people and wounded many others. According to the Iraqi government, last weekend’s incident is one of seven incidents in which the company’s employees have allegedly opened fire on Iraqi civilians.
[. . . ]
In February, I introduced the Transparency and Accountability in Military and Security Contracting Act (S. 674). This bill would require federal agencies to report to Congress on: the total number of security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan; the total cost of the contractors; the number of contractors killed or wounded; information about the military and safety equipment provided to contractors; and a description of disciplinary action taken against contractors. The bill also would improve coordination between security contractors and U.S. armed forces by requiring the issuance of rules of engagement, clarify the legal status of contractors, and require investigation of criminal misconduct committed by contractors.

Once again, Senator Obama sees the forest for the trees, attacking the larger issue of transparency and accountability in our government. He is also taking head-on national security, again dismantling the "experience " argument.

Believe in America again...Vote Obama 08!

Another great video by lovingj1:

Iraq Speech Dust Settling

Last week in a major speech, Senator Obama announced his plan for ending the war in Iraq. Predictably, Obama has again set the standard for other candidates as each now look to issue their own Iraq policy statement. Just as predictably, he has taken incoming fire from both Democrats and Republicans alike -- which, in the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign, seems to be a cost of leadership.

For Democrats like Chris Dodd, the fact that Obama will not unequivocally state he is against any war funding bill going to Bush which does not contain timelines for withdrawal makes the plan a non-starter. From the other side of the aisle, any plan which presents Iraq withdrawal scenarios is tantamount to renouncing the War on Terrorism and a global surrender to Al-Qaeda. Appeasement. Capitulation.

Both sides, however, seem to be overlooking Obama's strategic point, which is mainly to provide cover for Republicans signing up onto his plan, exploding the current grid-lock over troop withdrawals, and providing a veto-proof majority. How?

Republicans have operated with three major objections to drawing down troops from Iraq:

1. Surrenders the Iraqi battlefield to Al-Qaeda, exposing the US to the possibility of having to re-engage a stronger enemy in Iraq than it left behind
   
   
2. Establishing a "date-certain" for withdrawal telegraphs to the enemy precisely how long they have to hold out
   
   
3. Manipulating troop levels essentially amounts to micro-managing the war effort, by depriving on-the-ground commanders with personnel resources that may be needed to execute various tactical plans
   

Obama's plan brilliantly undercuts these reservations, paving the way for the 67 votes needed to institute a veto-proof withdrawal plan.

Firstly, the battlefield is not surrendered, even after the final combat batallion has returned home in late 2008. Under Obama's plan, the US would maintain a sizable contingent of special-ops forces to help maintain "over-the-horizon" strike capability, in addition to providing training support to the Iraqi Army. US troops would no longer be used for routine patrol operations, but rather as supplemental muscle for Iraqi operations against Al-Qaeda.

If that government breaks down, the primary role of US forces are to try and keep the conflict from spreading over the border and destabilizing the whole region. This is an entirely different mission from nation-building, a role US military officials have distinctly tried to avoid, but in the current situation have it thrust upon them. Once a new government emerges from the conflict, the US support role will be no different than it was with the previous Iraqi government.

Secondly, no "date-certain" is established for the withdrawal of US troops. While regular combat troops are projected to be out of Iraq by late 2008, the US is expected to maintain a significant military capability within the region. The new American capability carries a much smaller footprint than today's force, leading to virtually zero-presence of US personnel on Iraqi city streets (other than Embassy protection). With the label of "occupier" invalidated, propoganda campaigns against US presence lack traction, credibility, and targets.

Lastly, Obama's responsible, phased withdrawal plan (1-2 combat batallions per month) results in troops being redeployed no faster than Bush's currently-proposed plan up to June, 2008. Consequently, there can be no calls of "micromanagement" before next summer that could not similarly have been levelled at Bush's plan. The difference is Obama's plan continues the slow drawdown beyond that date, while Bush has made no such commitment.

No one would contend that if Bush's plan has yielded no measurable progress by summer 2008 (e.g. no measurable progress in the Iraqi government arriving at the political accomodations necessary to insure the well-being of all Iraqis), that enough Republicans would vote to "continue the course" to save a presidential veto of troop drawdowns in the next round of funding (only 17 out of 49 Republican signatures needed). So, from the micromanagement standpoint, there is effectively no difference between Bush's current plan to reduce to pre-surge levels by the summer and Obama's plan. The pace of the withdrawals have to be agreeable to Republicans, while the goals of the plan have to be agreeable to Democrats.

Obama has removed the typical Republican resistance points, so they can sign on with a clear conscience and Dems can get some sort of genuine veto-proof withdrawal underway. It's not an extreme solution that folks like Kucinich or Richardson are calling for, but it's a workable solution that both sides of the aisle can get on board with and feel like they came away with something.

Vintage Obama.

From The "Tell Us Something We Don't Know" File

Still, the messenger is important, nonetheless:

Instead, notes former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, who served in that influential role from 1987 to 2006: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." The Federal Reserve Board chairman oversees the United States' Federal Reserve Bank system; Greenspan, who was appointed to his powerful post by Ronald Reagan, went on to serve under several presidents. A self-described "libertarian Republican," he makes his observation - and others that are sure to upset the Bush gang - in his much-anticipated memoirs, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. The book is being published today in the U.S. (In Britain, the Daily Telegraph will begin serialzing excerpts from it tomorrow.) (Daily Telegraph; see also Radio Canada, French-language service)

But, Mr. Greenspan...but...Weapons of mass destruction...and...blah blah blah:

"I thought the issue of weapons of mass destruction as the excuse was utterly beside the point."

. . . Oh . . .

GOP losing its grip on Miami's Cuban-Americans

A job well done by fellow Florida Obama supporter Giancarlo Sopo...

When Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama took the same stage last month to address a crowd packed with Cuban-Americans he rebuked the Bush administration for tightening the embargo, a move Bush had made to appease Cuban-American hardliners.

If he became president, Obama said, he would grant "unrestricted" travel for Cuban-Americans to visit family and send remittances to the island.

In the audience was Giancarlo Sopo, a 24-year-old government and economics student, who carried a poster saying "Cubanos con Obama" despite a political pedigree that is thoroughbred Republican.

His father participated in the Bay of Pigs, and both parents were staunch Reaganites. Sopo, 24, supported Bush in 2000, though he was too young to vote then.

"I was a Bushie," he says over coffee near where he grew up in Miami's Little Havana. "I was following the traditional lineage of my family's politics."

He puts his conversion down to a confluence of factors, including Obama's inspirational life story. He also likes his humanitarian Cuba policy.

But mostly it was a factor he thinks could swing many young Cuban-American voters away from their traditional Republican party roots in 2008.

"What tipped me over? It was the Iraq war," he says.

Read more here.

And the endorsements keep coming in...

Join Barack at the Harkin Steak Fry

Hot off the presses...

Hillary's "Experience" In Foreign Affairs

The most prevalent meme out of the Clinton camp is that she is the candidate of experience. This is a farce. A lie. And, indeed, the narrative dichotomy of this campaign has already been determined: we must choose between the experienced candidate (apparently Clinton) and the candidate who will turn the page (clearly Obama). That is a rather narrow depiction of this race, but it's the one we've got right now. While the Obama meme is accurate, Clinton's is patently and demonstrably false. That doesn't stop her from trying, though. Especially in foreign affairs, where she routinely touts she's visited 82 countries. Well, that tired line doesn't fool anyone, in particular Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Carter National Security Adviser:

"I would say my travel agent has probably been to more than 82 countries," Brezezinski said with a smile, "but that doesn't qualify my travel agent to be secretary of state or president."

No, it certainly doesn't. Neither does being married to the president. When people talk about Hillary's experience, they evidently include the eight years she was First Lady. Being married to the guy who knows and does stuff is not the same thing as knowing and doing stuff. It doesn't show a grasp of policy and ability to courageously lead as, say, correctly opposing a war when it is politically unpopular to do so. Brzezinski understands that and draws the distinction between Obama and Clinton:

Being First Lady is not the same thing as showing, on her own, that she understands what is really at stake in a situation, and to understand it early on, and not to understand it when a lot of other people have belatedly reached the same conclusion.

Amen.

Obama Questions General Petraeus on Iraq

Watch it. Rate it. Share it.

A Message From Barack On This Sad Anniversary

Six years ago, on a bright and beautiful Tuesday morning, a new kind of enemy came to America's shores.

We will never forget the images of that terrible day -- the planes vanishing into buildings, the thick black clouds of smoke, and the haunting pictures of the missing.

On this anniversary, we pause to remember each and every victim of those attacks.

We celebrate the lives that were tragically cut short. We grieve with the families and friends who lost loved ones. We honor the service and sacrifice of the emergency responders who set an example to the whole world that in America we are our brother's keeper and our sister's keeper.

And we pause to honor the brave men and women of the United States military -- and their families -- who have borne such a heavy burden for the last six years.

We also remember how Americans were stirred to a common purpose. On the lines to donate blood or the candlelight vigils that stretched across our country, there was no red America and there was no blue America. We were united in our grief for our fellow citizens. We were united in our resolve to stand with one another and to stand up to terror. We were united as Americans.

Six years later, the threat to America has only grown. Al Qaeda has reconstituted a new safe-haven where it trains recruits and plots attacks. Al Qaeda's top two leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, continue to disseminate their hate-filled propaganda and inspire legions of followers. Like-minded extremists have struck in scores of countries. The war in Iraq continues to fuel terror and extremism. A Taliban insurgency rages on in Afghanistan. In too many disconnected corners of the world, hate is casting a shadow over hope.

Our calling today remains the same as it was on 9/11. We must write a new chapter in American history. We must bring justice to the terrorists who killed on our shores. We must devise new strategies, develop new capabilities, and build new alliances to defeat the threats of the 21st century. We must extend hope to the hopeless corners of the world and reaffirm our core values to counter the hateful message of the extremists. And we must secure a more resilient homeland.

To write that new American story, we must recapture that sense of common purpose that we had on September 11, 2001.

America is bigger than the challenge that came to our shores. Let us honor the legacy of those we lost by coming together anew. Let us always mark this day by affirming that hope will triumph over fear, and that a new generation of Americans will seek a safer, freer, and more perfect union.

Barack Obama

9/11 to Today

Well, today is the anniversary of the day we all have come to remember as the beginning of the end as the life we knew. I remember being at work and hearing that a plane had hit the Trade Center. I knew in that moment it was terrorism. People told me it wasn't, but it was a clear day in New York, and it couldn't have been a mistake. Then, the second plane hit. I was sure of my first inclination. It didn't take too long, and we were on our way to Afghanistan. Then out of no where, we jumped into Iraq, had our constitutional rights taken away, and our current administration tried to force us into a box life of fear and submission. That may have worked 50 years ago, but today, we are a nation of truth seekers, and those days of absolute obedience are over. We are free thinkers. We have been accused of not being patriotic because we question our administration's motifs, but I say we are more than patriotic because we do question. We are trying to protect ourselves and others from the misguided notion that we must give up rights in order to be safe. In fact, it is just the opposite. The more we hunker down, and give into fear, the more we are vulnerable to dictatorship, and history tells us how well that turns out. This government, our government, was based on the rights of its citizens to speak out against injustice. The Constitution is our law. So, today, on this day, we remember not only to mourn for the loss of the lives on 09-11-01, but we should remember to live and fight for the people that are still being victimized by 9/11. This tragedy has taught me that we need to always be vigilant. Not only in regard to the situation at hand, but to also keep looking behind the scenes. Especially when it comes to selecting leaders. We must select leaders with integrity and honor. They must always be true to what is in the best interest of the American people. I have found this in Barack Obama. He is who I have chosen to be the leader of the United Stated of America.

This Just In: Morons Work For Fox News

I apologize for the non-Obama blogging, but this was too confounding to pass up. I was watching Faux News yesterday (sometimes I tune in to recreationally hate it) and a makeup-caked Shepard Smith delivered this gem:

"'......[quoting latest Osama Bin Laden video] neo-conservatives such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle.....'[Smith interjects] You remember Richard Perle, the Wall Street Journal journalist who was killed over there."

To review: Richard Perle is one of the neo-conservative architects of the Bush foreign policy. Daniel Pearl was the assassinated American journalist in Pakistan. And Shepard Smith is an idiot.

Kos' Selective Memory

Kos temporarily (possibly, but that remains to be seen, I guess.) takes leave of his senses, or conveniently forgets facts, as he waxes moronic:

So where are the two "front runner" candidates on Iraq? Have they conquered their fear and actually said something of substance regarding the pre-emptive capitulation bill?

There's more, of course, but you can read it for yourself. Basically, Kos accuses Obama (and Clinton) for not being aggressive enough on Iraq and credits (naively) John Edwards and Chris Dodd for their brave leadership.

Well, it's easy for a guy who isn't in the Senate (who, by the way, voted FOR this mismanaged, immoral war against his better judgment) and a Donahue-coiffed guy who doesn't have a shot. It's much more difficult to speak out on a controversial issue when it's politically unpopular to do so. Kos asserts there's a dearth of information about Obama's stance on Iraq on his campaign's website, but he apparently missed this. Oh, and this, too. Obama has done more than most on this subject. His stance has been unwavering. That's leadership.

The "O" Factor

I'm talking about Oprah this time and her potentially huge positive effect on the Senator's campaign, both financially and culturally:

Here's one way you can measure what Oprah Winfrey's endorsement means for Democrat Barack Obama: the fund-raiser she's throwing for him Saturday at her Santa Barbara mansion will likely raise some $3 million.

But as Oprah herself noted when she explained her first-ever presidential endorsement to CNN's Larry King, money may not be biggest asset she brings.

"I think my value to him, my support of him, is probably worth more than any check that I could write," she said.

Quite right. And what's more:

"She's got not just a TV show where she reaches over 40 million viewers a week, she has a Web site ... she's got magazines ... and she's been at it for years so she's built quite, not just a fan base but a following, and that's key," said Elizabeth MacDonald, a senior editor for Forbes Magazine. "It's not just that she has viewers, people act on what she says."

With her daily talk show, Oprah can put books on the best seller list and start fashion, diet and exercise crazes. She has also been talking to, and with, Americans about the most intimate aspects of their lives.

And she got me to read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, which surprised even me. So I don't doubt her influence.

Former Clinton Cabinet Member Endorses Obama

Booyah!:*

Former Clinton Cabinet member Federico Peña says he is endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

A formal announcement is scheduled later Friday.

Peña was secretary of energy and secretary of transportation under President Bill Clinton. He was mayor of Denver from 1983 to 1991 and is now a managing partner of a Denver investment company.

Obama, an Illinois senator, trails Hillary Clinton in most polls.

In a written statement, Peña praised Obama's judgment and leadership.

Asked for further comment about his support for Obama, Peña added, "He has better suits, too."

*People don't still say "booyah," do they?

Obama leads in campaign web site visits

I already knew that Obama is dominating onlne. It will just take the media a little longer to catch on:

Obama leads in campaign Web site visits

by John McCormick

Sen. Barack Obama is leading all presidential candidates in campaign Web
site visits, The Nielsen Company reported today.

Obama's web site had the most unique visitors in July, with 717,000,
according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Fellow Democrats Sen. Hillary Clinton had
437,000 unique visits, followed by 348,000 for former North Carolina Sen.
John Edwards.

To read the rest of the article, click on:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/09/obama_leads_in_campaign_web_si.html

A message to the O-Train Team from Frank Sanchez

Dear O-Train members and Barack Obama supporters,

By the time you read this, you will likely already know that, for the time being, Barack Obama is going to abide by the DNC ruling and not campaign actively in any of the states that have been found to be in violation of moving up their primary elections earlier than February 5th. This includes Florida. The Obama campaign also urged states in danger of violating DNC rules to adjust their plans to comply with the DNC's calendar, so that every state contributes delegates to the nominating process. As of last weekend's ruling, there is still a 30 day window to try to work out a solution to lift the penalty and allow Florida delegates to be seated at the National Democratic Convention. While Barack will not be doing active political campaigning, he will make his commitment to be in Tampa Bay later this month. Therefore, we will still have Senator Obama in the Tampa Bay area on September 30th for the planned fundraising events.

I know this situation is extremely frustrating and disappointing to many people. Here is the reality: Barack is between a rock and hard place. No candidate from either party has ever won the nomination without winning at least two of the early states. If Barack ignored the DNC he risks alienating early states. If he made Florida happy and campaigned here, he likely would lose the early states and almost be guaranteed to lose the nomination. I don't like what is happening with the DNC. But I also want Barack to win the nomination and then the general election. I'm supporting him to be President of the United Sates not just to be a candidate in the Florida Primary. Am I pleased with this situation? NO! Still, I'm going to cut Barack some slack because I'm keeping my eye on the prize: putting Barack Obama in the White House. That is the O-Train's mission. As supporters in Florida, there are still plenty of things that we can do get him elected. We are not limited by the Florida border. Our O-Train team can support the campaign efforts in the early states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

In the coming weeks, we will be discussing the activities that we, as strong supporters of Barack Obama, can continue to do, so that he wins the nomination and ultimately wins the White House in November 2008. I, along with our Chair, Co-Chairs and Executive Committee, look forward to seeing everyone at the next O-Train Meeting, where we will be able to answer any of your questions regarding this.

Thank you for your continued support on behalf of Senator Barack Obama. It is an honor to work with each and every one of you.

Frank Sanchez
Obama For America Finance Chair Tampa Bay
National Finance Committee