Obama Delivers Killlllller Speech In Iowa Tonight (5/20) archived
You're right about the pissing people off part, but if Obama had half as many years in politics as Hillary has, he surely would be the same way. Don't forget, he's wet behind the ears. He's only in the Senate a few years.
Everyone (including Hillary) will say ANYTHING you want to hear just to be elected. If Obama does win the election, I hope he proves me wrong and is as honest and on the up and up as he says.
Everyone (including Hillary) will say ANYTHING you want to hear just to be elected. If Obama does win the election, I hope he proves me wrong and is as honest and on the up and up as he says.
He DOES have half as many years as she has! He is a first term senator, and she is a second term senator. That is one of the big disingenuous things she pulled in this campaign...Schumer or Nunn or Hatch (p'tui!) would have a right to make a big deal about his relative inexperience...she hasn't earned that yet.
So, while you kvell about your candidate, the future is now:
Will we be next?
From Ms. Philips, of course.
Dig the Monty Python reference!!!
The Islamisation Of Britain
MONDAY, 26TH MAY 2008
The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali has been getting some stick for suggesting that Christians should try to convert British Muslims to Christianity. Dr Nazir-Ali, who previously received death threats for suggesting there were Muslim no-go areas in Britain, has been outstanding as a rare voice within the Church of England speaking out against the erosion of Britains Christian culture and traditions under the cultural onslaught from radical Islam. But now his concerns are echoed in a striking cri-de-coeur by the Church of England newspaper. In its editorial, it writes:
At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departs national and local. A Muslim Home Office adviser, for example, was responsible for Baroness Scotlands aborting of the legislation against honour killings, arguing that informal methods would be better. In the police we hear of girls under police protection having the addresses of their safe houses disclosed to their parents by Muslim officers who think they are doing their religious duty.
While men-only gentlemens clubs are now being dubbed unlawful, we hear of municipal swimming baths encouraging Muslim women only sessions and in Dewsbury Hospitals staff waste time by turning beds to face Mecca five times a day a Monty Pythonesque scenario of lunacy, but astonishingly true. Prisons are replete with imams who are keen to inculcate conservative Islam in any inmates who are deemed to be culturally Muslim: the Prison service in effect treats such prisoners as a cultural block to be preached to by imams at will. Would the Prison service send all those with C of E on their papers to confirmation classes with the chaplain?! We could go on. The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates.
Indeed. Britain is being steadily Islamised and hardly a word is being breathed about it.
Will we be next?
From Ms. Philips, of course.
Dig the Monty Python reference!!!
The Islamisation Of Britain
MONDAY, 26TH MAY 2008
The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali has been getting some stick for suggesting that Christians should try to convert British Muslims to Christianity. Dr Nazir-Ali, who previously received death threats for suggesting there were Muslim no-go areas in Britain, has been outstanding as a rare voice within the Church of England speaking out against the erosion of Britains Christian culture and traditions under the cultural onslaught from radical Islam. But now his concerns are echoed in a striking cri-de-coeur by the Church of England newspaper. In its editorial, it writes:
At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departs national and local. A Muslim Home Office adviser, for example, was responsible for Baroness Scotlands aborting of the legislation against honour killings, arguing that informal methods would be better. In the police we hear of girls under police protection having the addresses of their safe houses disclosed to their parents by Muslim officers who think they are doing their religious duty.
While men-only gentlemens clubs are now being dubbed unlawful, we hear of municipal swimming baths encouraging Muslim women only sessions and in Dewsbury Hospitals staff waste time by turning beds to face Mecca five times a day a Monty Pythonesque scenario of lunacy, but astonishingly true. Prisons are replete with imams who are keen to inculcate conservative Islam in any inmates who are deemed to be culturally Muslim: the Prison service in effect treats such prisoners as a cultural block to be preached to by imams at will. Would the Prison service send all those with C of E on their papers to confirmation classes with the chaplain?! We could go on. The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates.
Indeed. Britain is being steadily Islamised and hardly a word is being breathed about it.
What is the relevance of this day?
Here is a hint:THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
MONDAY, 26 MAY 2008
A song for the season
by Julia Ward Howe and William Steffe
Memorial Day is here or Decoration Day, if youre a real old-timer, a day for decorating the graves of the Civil War dead. The songs many of those soldiers marched to are still known today The Yellow Rose Of Texas, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Dixie. But this one belongs in a category all its own:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored...
In 1861, the United States had nothing that was recognized as a national anthem, and, given that they were now at war, it was thought they ought to find one a song that would inspire Americans to patriotism and military ardor. A 13-member committee was appointed and on May 17th they invited submissions of appropriate anthems, the eventual winner to receive $500, or medal of equal value. By the end of July, they had a thousand submissions, including some from Europe, but nothing with what they felt was real feeling. Its hard to write a patriotic song to order.
At the time, Dr Samuel Howe was working with the Sanitary Commission of the Department of War, and one fall day he and Mrs Howe were taken to a camp a few miles from Washington for a review of General McClellans Army of the Potomac. That day, for the first time in her life, Julia Ward Howe heard soldiers singing:
John Browns body lies a-mouldring in the grave
John Browns body lies a-mouldring in the grave
Ah, yes. The famous song about the famous abolitionist hanged in 1859 in Charlestown, Virginia before a crowd including Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth.
Well, no, not exactly. By a strange quirk of history, wrote Irwin Silber, the great musicologist of Civil War folk songs, John Browns Body was not composed originally about the fiery Abolitionist at all. The namesake for the song, it turns out, was Sergeant John Brown, a Scotsman, a member of the Second Batallion, Boston Light Infantry Volunteer Militia. This group enlisted with the Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment and formed a glee club at Fort Warren in Boston. Brown was second tenor, and the subject of a lot of good-natured joshing, including a song about him mouldring in his grave, which at that time had just one verse, plus chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
They called it The John Brown Song. On July 18th 1861, at a regimental march past the Old State House in Boston, the boys sang the song and the crowd assumed, reasonably enough, that it was inspired by the life of John Brown the Kansas abolitionist, not John Brown the Scots tenor. Last week, we were discussing lyrics featuring real people. But, as far as I know, this is the only song about a real person in which posterity has mistaken it for a song about a completely different person: John Browns Body is about some other fellows body, not John Brown the somebody but John Brown the comparative nobody. Later on, various other verses were written about the famous John Brown and the original John Brown found his comrades musical tribute to him gradually annexed by the other guy.
Sergeant Brown died during a Union retreat: when the enlistment of Colonel Websters Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment expired in July 1864, only 85 of more than a thousand men were left to return home to New England. That statistic alone tells you the difference between the Civil War and Iraq. Huge crowds in Boston greeted the survivors with cries to sing John Browns Body but, as one report commented, the brave heroes marched silently to their barracks and the Websters passed into history.
When the lads from the Boston Light Infantry cooked up their John Brown song, they used an old Methodist camp-meeting tune, Brothers, Will You Meet Us? So where did that come from? Well, back in the 1850s, a Sunday school composer, William Steffe of Richmond, Virginia, was asked to go and lead the singing at a Georgia camp meeting. When he got there, he found there were no song books and so improvised some words to one of those tunes that like most of the others in those pre-copyright days was just sorta floating in the ether. Steffes lyric, like the original John Brown song, had one verse Say, brothers, will you meet us? and one chorus: Glory, glory, hallelujah
And somehow this combination an improvised camp-meeting chorus with an in-joke verse about a Boston Scotsman became the most popular marching song of the Union forces, the one bellowed out as Shermans men marched through Georgia in 1864. According to William Hubbards History Of American Music:
Lieutenant Chandler, in writing of Shermans March to the Sea, tells that when the troops were halted at Shady Dale, Georgia, the regimental band played John Browns Body, whereupon a number of Negro girls coming from houses supposed to have been deserted, formed a circle around the band, and in a solemn and dignified manner danced to the tune. The Negro girls, with faces grave and demeanor characteristic of having performed a ceremony of religious tenor, retired to their cabins. It was learned from the older Negroes that this air, without any particular words to it, had long been known among them as the wedding tune. They considered it a sort of voodoo air, which held within its strains a mysterious hold upon the young colored women, who had been taught that unless they danced when they heard it played they would be doomed to a life of spinsterhood.
There doesnt seem to be a lot of evidence to support that last fancy. But, whatever the tunes origin, when Julia Ward Howe heard the song for the first time that fall day, John Browns Body was already famous. She loved the martial vigor of the music, but knew the words were inadequate for a lasting hymn. So her minister, Dr Clark, suggested she write some new ones. And early the following morning at her Washington hotel she rose before dawn and on a piece of Sanitary Commission paper wrote the words we sing today, casting the war as a conflict in which one side has the advantage of Gods terrible swift sword:
I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
She finished the words and went back to bed. It was published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. They didnt credit Mrs Howe and they paid her only four dollars.
Julia Ward Howe came from a distinguished lineage. Her forebear Richard Ward was Royal Governor of the British colony of Rhode Island and his son Samuel Ward was Governor of the American State of Rhode Island. Her husband, like his friend, the poet Lord Byron, had played an important role in helping the Greeks win independence from the Turks. Mrs Howe herself wrote many poems, Broadway plays and newspaper columns. But The Battle Hymn Of The Republic is her greatest achievement. Henry Steele Commager called it the one great song to come out of the Civil War, the one great song ever written in America.
Whether or not thats true, most of us understand it has a depth and a power beyond most formal national songs. When John F Kennedy was assassinated, Judy Garland insisted on singing it on her TV show the producers werent happy about it, and one sneered that nobody would give a damn about Kennedy in a months time. But its an extraordinary performance. Little more than a year later, it was played at the state funeral of Winston Churchill at St Pauls Cathedral. Among those singing it was the Queen. She sang it again in public, again at St Pauls, for the second time in her life at the service of remembrance in London three days after September 11th 2001. That day, she also broke with precedent and for the first time sang another countrys national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner. But it was Julia Ward Howes words that echoed most powerfully that morning as they have done since she wrote them in her bedroom in Washington 140 years earlier:
As He died to make men holy
Let us die to make men free
While God is marching on.
Here is a hint:THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
MONDAY, 26 MAY 2008
A song for the season
by Julia Ward Howe and William Steffe
Memorial Day is here or Decoration Day, if youre a real old-timer, a day for decorating the graves of the Civil War dead. The songs many of those soldiers marched to are still known today The Yellow Rose Of Texas, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Dixie. But this one belongs in a category all its own:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored...
In 1861, the United States had nothing that was recognized as a national anthem, and, given that they were now at war, it was thought they ought to find one a song that would inspire Americans to patriotism and military ardor. A 13-member committee was appointed and on May 17th they invited submissions of appropriate anthems, the eventual winner to receive $500, or medal of equal value. By the end of July, they had a thousand submissions, including some from Europe, but nothing with what they felt was real feeling. Its hard to write a patriotic song to order.
At the time, Dr Samuel Howe was working with the Sanitary Commission of the Department of War, and one fall day he and Mrs Howe were taken to a camp a few miles from Washington for a review of General McClellans Army of the Potomac. That day, for the first time in her life, Julia Ward Howe heard soldiers singing:
John Browns body lies a-mouldring in the grave
John Browns body lies a-mouldring in the grave
Ah, yes. The famous song about the famous abolitionist hanged in 1859 in Charlestown, Virginia before a crowd including Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth.
Well, no, not exactly. By a strange quirk of history, wrote Irwin Silber, the great musicologist of Civil War folk songs, John Browns Body was not composed originally about the fiery Abolitionist at all. The namesake for the song, it turns out, was Sergeant John Brown, a Scotsman, a member of the Second Batallion, Boston Light Infantry Volunteer Militia. This group enlisted with the Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment and formed a glee club at Fort Warren in Boston. Brown was second tenor, and the subject of a lot of good-natured joshing, including a song about him mouldring in his grave, which at that time had just one verse, plus chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
They called it The John Brown Song. On July 18th 1861, at a regimental march past the Old State House in Boston, the boys sang the song and the crowd assumed, reasonably enough, that it was inspired by the life of John Brown the Kansas abolitionist, not John Brown the Scots tenor. Last week, we were discussing lyrics featuring real people. But, as far as I know, this is the only song about a real person in which posterity has mistaken it for a song about a completely different person: John Browns Body is about some other fellows body, not John Brown the somebody but John Brown the comparative nobody. Later on, various other verses were written about the famous John Brown and the original John Brown found his comrades musical tribute to him gradually annexed by the other guy.
Sergeant Brown died during a Union retreat: when the enlistment of Colonel Websters Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment expired in July 1864, only 85 of more than a thousand men were left to return home to New England. That statistic alone tells you the difference between the Civil War and Iraq. Huge crowds in Boston greeted the survivors with cries to sing John Browns Body but, as one report commented, the brave heroes marched silently to their barracks and the Websters passed into history.
When the lads from the Boston Light Infantry cooked up their John Brown song, they used an old Methodist camp-meeting tune, Brothers, Will You Meet Us? So where did that come from? Well, back in the 1850s, a Sunday school composer, William Steffe of Richmond, Virginia, was asked to go and lead the singing at a Georgia camp meeting. When he got there, he found there were no song books and so improvised some words to one of those tunes that like most of the others in those pre-copyright days was just sorta floating in the ether. Steffes lyric, like the original John Brown song, had one verse Say, brothers, will you meet us? and one chorus: Glory, glory, hallelujah
And somehow this combination an improvised camp-meeting chorus with an in-joke verse about a Boston Scotsman became the most popular marching song of the Union forces, the one bellowed out as Shermans men marched through Georgia in 1864. According to William Hubbards History Of American Music:
Lieutenant Chandler, in writing of Shermans March to the Sea, tells that when the troops were halted at Shady Dale, Georgia, the regimental band played John Browns Body, whereupon a number of Negro girls coming from houses supposed to have been deserted, formed a circle around the band, and in a solemn and dignified manner danced to the tune. The Negro girls, with faces grave and demeanor characteristic of having performed a ceremony of religious tenor, retired to their cabins. It was learned from the older Negroes that this air, without any particular words to it, had long been known among them as the wedding tune. They considered it a sort of voodoo air, which held within its strains a mysterious hold upon the young colored women, who had been taught that unless they danced when they heard it played they would be doomed to a life of spinsterhood.
There doesnt seem to be a lot of evidence to support that last fancy. But, whatever the tunes origin, when Julia Ward Howe heard the song for the first time that fall day, John Browns Body was already famous. She loved the martial vigor of the music, but knew the words were inadequate for a lasting hymn. So her minister, Dr Clark, suggested she write some new ones. And early the following morning at her Washington hotel she rose before dawn and on a piece of Sanitary Commission paper wrote the words we sing today, casting the war as a conflict in which one side has the advantage of Gods terrible swift sword:
I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
She finished the words and went back to bed. It was published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. They didnt credit Mrs Howe and they paid her only four dollars.
Julia Ward Howe came from a distinguished lineage. Her forebear Richard Ward was Royal Governor of the British colony of Rhode Island and his son Samuel Ward was Governor of the American State of Rhode Island. Her husband, like his friend, the poet Lord Byron, had played an important role in helping the Greeks win independence from the Turks. Mrs Howe herself wrote many poems, Broadway plays and newspaper columns. But The Battle Hymn Of The Republic is her greatest achievement. Henry Steele Commager called it the one great song to come out of the Civil War, the one great song ever written in America.
Whether or not thats true, most of us understand it has a depth and a power beyond most formal national songs. When John F Kennedy was assassinated, Judy Garland insisted on singing it on her TV show the producers werent happy about it, and one sneered that nobody would give a damn about Kennedy in a months time. But its an extraordinary performance. Little more than a year later, it was played at the state funeral of Winston Churchill at St Pauls Cathedral. Among those singing it was the Queen. She sang it again in public, again at St Pauls, for the second time in her life at the service of remembrance in London three days after September 11th 2001. That day, she also broke with precedent and for the first time sang another countrys national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner. But it was Julia Ward Howes words that echoed most powerfully that morning as they have done since she wrote them in her bedroom in Washington 140 years earlier:
As He died to make men holy
Let us die to make men free
While God is marching on.
Silly. Great Britain has an "Establishment of Religion" an official State Church, the Church of England. What I see described is just Freedom of Religion and Religious tolerance.
Oh, so smart, so smart.
here is a website worth reviewing, and topical
http://obamawtf.blogspot.com/
here is a website worth reviewing, and topical
http://obamawtf.blogspot.com/
well, you get the gist:
I am censored because I put up an url with "wtf" in it, not words, just something factually driven, and about Obama.
Seems like the left won.
I will try again.
I am censored because I put up an url with "wtf" in it, not words, just something factually driven, and about Obama.
Seems like the left won.
I will try again.
add wtf to obama, and follow up.
And, I agree with Imus that Hillary is Satan.
So, this is neutral, unbiased, just the truth.
And, I agree with Imus that Hillary is Satan.
So, this is neutral, unbiased, just the truth.
I got censored for referring to supporters of the President as Bu*****es.
"As He died to make men holy
Let us die to make men free
While God is marching on."
I thought the lyric was "Christ" not "God", but you may be right. Of course if this Christian Hymn were to be sung by Christians in Syria or Iraq in their native tongue, the word would be "Allah".
Let us die to make men free
While God is marching on."
I thought the lyric was "Christ" not "God", but you may be right. Of course if this Christian Hymn were to be sung by Christians in Syria or Iraq in their native tongue, the word would be "Allah".
Posted By: jdranoveSo, this is neutral, unbiased, just the truth.This is getting too stark-raving insane to believe anymore.
Posted By: LOST"As He died to make men holy
Let us die to make men free
While God is marching on."
I thought the lyric was "Christ" not "God", but you may be right. Of course if this Christian Hymn were to be sung by Christians in Syria or Iraq in their native tongue, the word would be "Allah".
I've always heard it sung "God", not "Christ". However, I've also always heard the middle line sung as "Let us LIVE to make men free". Have I just been hearing a "revisionist" version?
I like LIVE better, whether it is original or not!
This is from the link I posted which has all the lyrics:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free;
[originally let us die to make men free]
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.
So it is "God" and the original is "die".
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free;
[originally let us die to make men free]
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.
So it is "God" and the original is "die".
Obamastan, from sistertoldjah, (and back to not today):
Barack Obama wants people to think hes the anti-lobbyist candidate, and runs around the country dissing both Hillary Clinton and John McCain for supposedly being beholden to lobbyists. However, as with most things he says, the rhetoric doesnt match reality. Ive documented his hypocrisy on this issue numerous times, but Newsweek reported something today that pretty much seals the deal on just how hypocritical and duplicitous the Obama campaign has been on this issue:
When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a California-style energy crisis if the rate increase wasnt approvedbut without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known. Its corporate money trying to hoodwink the public, the states Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice thenbut may soon get more scrutinyis that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama.
Last week, Obama hit John McCain for hiring some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington to run his campaign; Obamas aides say their candidate, as a foe of special interests, has refused to take money from lobbyists or employ them. Neither Axelrod nor his partners at ASK ever registered as lobbyists for Commonwealth Edisonand under Illinoiss loose disclosure laws, they were not required to. Ive never lobbied anybody in my life, Axelrod tells NEWSWEEK. Ive never talked to any public official on behalf of a corporate client. (He also says no one ever denied that Edison was the principal funder of his firms ad campaign.)
But the activities of ASK (located in the same office as Axelrods political firm) illustrate the difficulties in defining exactly who a lobbyist is. In 2004, Cablevision hired ASK to set up a group similar to CORE to block a new stadium for the New York Jets in Manhattan. Unlike Illinois, New York disclosure laws do cover such work, and ASKs $1.1 million fee was listed as the largest lobbying contract of the year in the annual report of the states lobbying commission. ASK last year proposed a similar political campaign style approach to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. One part of its plan: create a grassroots group of medical experts capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position, according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didnt get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world. Theres no way with a straight face to say thats not lobbying, says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency.
The importance and significance of this news cannot be overstated. Axelrod isnt just some low-level aide or advisor for the Obama campaign; hes its chief strategist - the brains behind it the whole thing. I should also note that Axelrod is the same chief strategist who ran Deval Patricks successful 2006 campaign for Massachusetts governor and who apparently thought it was ok for Obama to borrow some of Patricks 2006 campaign rhetoric.
Weve all heard Obama repeatedly say, whether its on the stump, in a victory speech, or in interviews, how much he decries the influence of lobbyists. He and his campaign have been dogging McCain for the last couple of weeks on this issue because McCain was engaged in purging his campaign of anyone who could be considered a lobbyist or tied to lobbying, instead of being engaged in something more meaningful, like oppo research that could have lead to the discovery of the news that Newsweek broke this weekend. Yet Obamas own chief strategist, the guy behind Obamas message, is the senior partner for a consulting firm that does the very thing the O-man claims to detest.
The Captain gets to the heart of the matter:
Obama has run on health-care issues to create universal health-insurance coverage to do exactly the opposite of what ASK proposed. Axelrods firm wanted to set up another phony front group to oppose that same policy, attempting to fake the public into thinking that the grassroots effort had nothing to do with the hospitals themselves. Axelrods firm had so much success with their front group for the energy company that they planned to duplicate the same dishonest structure in health care and in both cases, on behalf of opponents of Obamas professed policies today.
Axelrod says he isnt a lobbyist because he doesnt do business in DC, but Exelon certainly does, as Newsweek points out. Exelon execs have pumped almost a quarter-million dollars into Obamas campaign, too. The state of New York considers ASK a lobbying firm, too. More importantly, the business ethics of his firm call into serious question Obamas pledge of New Politics. Is he serious, or is this merely another Axelrod public-relations Trojan Horse?
I wrote earlier that all of the brouhaha over lobbyists is overblown and ridiculous. Lobbyists exist to represent citizens before Congress, an exercise explicitly protected by the First Amendment. However, Obamas campaign decided to make this an overarching theme, and now they can live with the consequences. Will Obama fire Axelrod, or will he admit that he has been a hypocrite for questioning McCain for his connection to lobbyists lobbyists who didnt resort to creating fraudulent front groups for their clients?
Barack Obama wants people to think hes the anti-lobbyist candidate, and runs around the country dissing both Hillary Clinton and John McCain for supposedly being beholden to lobbyists. However, as with most things he says, the rhetoric doesnt match reality. Ive documented his hypocrisy on this issue numerous times, but Newsweek reported something today that pretty much seals the deal on just how hypocritical and duplicitous the Obama campaign has been on this issue:
When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a California-style energy crisis if the rate increase wasnt approvedbut without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known. Its corporate money trying to hoodwink the public, the states Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice thenbut may soon get more scrutinyis that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama.
Last week, Obama hit John McCain for hiring some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington to run his campaign; Obamas aides say their candidate, as a foe of special interests, has refused to take money from lobbyists or employ them. Neither Axelrod nor his partners at ASK ever registered as lobbyists for Commonwealth Edisonand under Illinoiss loose disclosure laws, they were not required to. Ive never lobbied anybody in my life, Axelrod tells NEWSWEEK. Ive never talked to any public official on behalf of a corporate client. (He also says no one ever denied that Edison was the principal funder of his firms ad campaign.)
But the activities of ASK (located in the same office as Axelrods political firm) illustrate the difficulties in defining exactly who a lobbyist is. In 2004, Cablevision hired ASK to set up a group similar to CORE to block a new stadium for the New York Jets in Manhattan. Unlike Illinois, New York disclosure laws do cover such work, and ASKs $1.1 million fee was listed as the largest lobbying contract of the year in the annual report of the states lobbying commission. ASK last year proposed a similar political campaign style approach to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. One part of its plan: create a grassroots group of medical experts capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position, according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didnt get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world. Theres no way with a straight face to say thats not lobbying, says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency.
The importance and significance of this news cannot be overstated. Axelrod isnt just some low-level aide or advisor for the Obama campaign; hes its chief strategist - the brains behind it the whole thing. I should also note that Axelrod is the same chief strategist who ran Deval Patricks successful 2006 campaign for Massachusetts governor and who apparently thought it was ok for Obama to borrow some of Patricks 2006 campaign rhetoric.
Weve all heard Obama repeatedly say, whether its on the stump, in a victory speech, or in interviews, how much he decries the influence of lobbyists. He and his campaign have been dogging McCain for the last couple of weeks on this issue because McCain was engaged in purging his campaign of anyone who could be considered a lobbyist or tied to lobbying, instead of being engaged in something more meaningful, like oppo research that could have lead to the discovery of the news that Newsweek broke this weekend. Yet Obamas own chief strategist, the guy behind Obamas message, is the senior partner for a consulting firm that does the very thing the O-man claims to detest.
The Captain gets to the heart of the matter:
Obama has run on health-care issues to create universal health-insurance coverage to do exactly the opposite of what ASK proposed. Axelrods firm wanted to set up another phony front group to oppose that same policy, attempting to fake the public into thinking that the grassroots effort had nothing to do with the hospitals themselves. Axelrods firm had so much success with their front group for the energy company that they planned to duplicate the same dishonest structure in health care and in both cases, on behalf of opponents of Obamas professed policies today.
Axelrod says he isnt a lobbyist because he doesnt do business in DC, but Exelon certainly does, as Newsweek points out. Exelon execs have pumped almost a quarter-million dollars into Obamas campaign, too. The state of New York considers ASK a lobbying firm, too. More importantly, the business ethics of his firm call into serious question Obamas pledge of New Politics. Is he serious, or is this merely another Axelrod public-relations Trojan Horse?
I wrote earlier that all of the brouhaha over lobbyists is overblown and ridiculous. Lobbyists exist to represent citizens before Congress, an exercise explicitly protected by the First Amendment. However, Obamas campaign decided to make this an overarching theme, and now they can live with the consequences. Will Obama fire Axelrod, or will he admit that he has been a hypocrite for questioning McCain for his connection to lobbyists lobbyists who didnt resort to creating fraudulent front groups for their clients?
Mark Steyn doesn't have a sense of humor???:confused:
Nohero, did you ever think there is a possibility that you just don't get his sense of humor.
Wait, I am talking about nohero....so it must be Steyn...:thumbup:
-SLK
Nohero, did you ever think there is a possibility that you just don't get his sense of humor.
Wait, I am talking about nohero....so it must be Steyn...:thumbup:
-SLK
May 26, 2008 at 1:20pm Edited
There's a difference between public relations and lobbying. The long piece reprinted above doesn't seem to recognize that.
As for Mark Steyn, maybe you could identify which parts are supposed to be funny.
As for Mark Steyn, maybe you could identify which parts are supposed to be funny.
May 26, 2008 at 2:59pm Edited
Posted By: LOSTThis is from the link I posted which has all the lyrics:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free;
[originally let us die to make men free]
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.
So it is "God" and the original is "die".
OK - I understand now, with a little more context, why the original was "die". And am somewhat comforted to know that "live" is now apparently more usual, so that's why I remembered it that way.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on Memorial Day:
The following is an excerpt from a Memorial Day speech delivered at a Grand Army of the Republic post in Keene, NH on May 30, 1884 by Civil War veteran Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He served three years with the 20th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, going in as a LT, coming out as a brevet Lt. Col. Justice Holmes was wounded several times -- at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and elsewhere. This speech is famous for its "in our youth our hearts were touched with fire" phrase. In my opinon, these are personal, powerful, moving words. Here are the concluding paragraphs of the speech.
*********
"Comrades, some of the associations of this day are not only triumphant, but joyful. Not all of those with whom we once stood shoulder to shoulder--not all of those whom we once loved and revered--are gone. On this day we still meet our companions in the freezing winter bivouacs and in those dreadful summer marches where every faculty of the soul seemed to depart one after another, leaving only a dumb animal power to set the teeth and to persist-- a blind belief that somewhere and at last there was bread and water. On this day, at least, we still meet and rejoice in the closest tie which is possible between men-- a tie which suffering has made indissoluble for better, for worse.
When we meet thus, when we do honor to the dead in terms that must sometimes embrace the living, we do not deceive ourselves. We attribute no special merit to a man for having served when all were serving. We know that, if the armies of our war did anything worth remembering, the credit belongs not mainly to the individuals who did it, but to average human nature. We also know very well that we cannot live in associations with the past alone, and we admit that, if we would be worthy of the past, we must find new fields for action or thought, and make for ourselves new careers.
But, nevertheless, the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us. But, above all, we have learned that whether a man accepts from Fortune her spade, and will look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and cord, and will scale the ice, the one and only success which it is his to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart.
Such hearts--ah me, how many!--were stilled twenty years ago; and to us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year--in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life--there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death. Year after year lovers wandering under the apple trees and through the clover and deep grass are surprised with sudden tears as they see black veiled figures stealing through the morning to a soldier's grave. Year after year the comrades of the dead follow, with public honor, procession and commemorative flags and funeral march--honor and grief from us who stand almost alone, and have seen the best and noblest of our generation pass away.
But grief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death--of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring. As I listen , the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will."
The following is an excerpt from a Memorial Day speech delivered at a Grand Army of the Republic post in Keene, NH on May 30, 1884 by Civil War veteran Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He served three years with the 20th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, going in as a LT, coming out as a brevet Lt. Col. Justice Holmes was wounded several times -- at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and elsewhere. This speech is famous for its "in our youth our hearts were touched with fire" phrase. In my opinon, these are personal, powerful, moving words. Here are the concluding paragraphs of the speech.
*********
"Comrades, some of the associations of this day are not only triumphant, but joyful. Not all of those with whom we once stood shoulder to shoulder--not all of those whom we once loved and revered--are gone. On this day we still meet our companions in the freezing winter bivouacs and in those dreadful summer marches where every faculty of the soul seemed to depart one after another, leaving only a dumb animal power to set the teeth and to persist-- a blind belief that somewhere and at last there was bread and water. On this day, at least, we still meet and rejoice in the closest tie which is possible between men-- a tie which suffering has made indissoluble for better, for worse.
When we meet thus, when we do honor to the dead in terms that must sometimes embrace the living, we do not deceive ourselves. We attribute no special merit to a man for having served when all were serving. We know that, if the armies of our war did anything worth remembering, the credit belongs not mainly to the individuals who did it, but to average human nature. We also know very well that we cannot live in associations with the past alone, and we admit that, if we would be worthy of the past, we must find new fields for action or thought, and make for ourselves new careers.
But, nevertheless, the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us. But, above all, we have learned that whether a man accepts from Fortune her spade, and will look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and cord, and will scale the ice, the one and only success which it is his to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart.
Such hearts--ah me, how many!--were stilled twenty years ago; and to us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year--in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life--there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death. Year after year lovers wandering under the apple trees and through the clover and deep grass are surprised with sudden tears as they see black veiled figures stealing through the morning to a soldier's grave. Year after year the comrades of the dead follow, with public honor, procession and commemorative flags and funeral march--honor and grief from us who stand almost alone, and have seen the best and noblest of our generation pass away.
But grief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death--of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring. As I listen , the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will."
I've decided that I want Joel to oppose my candidates. Because if he advocated my candidates, he'd do an awful sales job and would get people not to vote for them.
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My great hope for Obama is that he will be successful in reaching across the aisle, and getting this country moving again. For all of Hillary's intelligence and capability, she can't seem to stop pissing people off.