President Obama Addresses the Republican Corporate Power Grab
(Castigating GOP Leadership for Blocking Fixes for the Citizens United Decision)

This vital issue confronting the United States sits at the heart of freedom and democracy like a blistering sore. Supreme Court decision, applying citizens rights to corporations in order to relieve restrictions on their ability to fund and contribute to political campaigns, is absurd. Even if some of these corporations exist and operate outside of the USA. Foreign companies can own the elected officials with i.o.u's because they donate so much to political campaigns. How can we expect elected officials to act and vote in the best interest of actual average citizens, when they are beholding to billionaire corporations and their interests, often at the expense of citizens like you?

(Transcript, is available at www.whitehouse.gov)
(Video from President's Weekly Address: Sat., Sept. 18, 2010)

  Negotiating with Terrorists?
Bill Clinton's 2009 trip to North Korea to meet with problematic leader Kim Jong-Il and broker the release of two US journalists was judged to be poor political strategy by some. What do you think?

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Should Supreme Court Judges be selected to intentionally balance culture, race and gender on the bench? Should they wait to see who's the next President before he/she resigns, in order to be replaced by another liberal or conservative?

Has Obama Lost his "Barack"?
                                            by: Arthur Blankfoot

Where was his firm position throughout the Healthcare reform debate -- demanding what he promised during his presidential campaign; a public option forcing down cost by providing competition for private insurers? Obama's personal effort to garner bi-partisan support on the issue, while leading the way to TRUE reform, was publically lacking. He was intimidated away from true healthcare insurance reform, much the same way he was intimidated into it as a payback to Ted Kennedy for support during the 2008 campaign. It was as if his humble nature which allows people like Rahm Emanuel and the DAVID CONNECTION: Axelrod and Plouffe to front his thought process, has crept into the core of his very being. Now healthcare insurance will cost more, vary by state, be mandatory and make drug and private insurance companies even more profitable. Expecting CONGRESS to adequately reform HEALTHCARE without bending over for lobbyists and special interest was a pipe dream. Even pork-barrel back-door deals were cut to benefit congressional hardliners and their constituents, while America at-large is really no better off.

Speaking of barrels; there is the BP fiasco. British Petroleum is 100 years old, the fourth largest company in the world and the UK's largest coprporation. They boast the familiar arrogance and swagger of all the oil-drenched money-bags who turn their noses up at us suckers who depend on the petro-milk to survive. Obama took as long as seemingly possible to lather-up and get tough on the perpetrators. The government's lax position on off-shore drilling emboldened BP's adventures and carelessness. The leader of the free world concerned about the same assholes who, when asked by Congress when gas was $4 per gallon in the USA in 2008, why they have oil prices so high, responded: "Because we can". >> stay tuned*

This leads many to question whether the state of political flux in the Middle East and North Africa will encourage the US to adopt changes in its foreign policy.

World-renowned author/ historian Tariq Ali and former US ambassador to the United Nations, Iraq and Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad speak freely. (via Al Jazeera English / Riz Khan - February 28, 2011).

Barack - No Exchange, No Refund! (continued from main page)

It was all happening so fast! White America LOVES Oprah Winfrey! She boasts a twisted yet convenient sense of confidence mixed with insecurity that has become the America we live with and befits what was about to happen. She represents the very sense of confusion and inexplicable goodwill that WAS Barack Hussein Obama. She had forced the hand of middle and progressive America unto her own pulse for years and had them right where she wanted them. Women across the world continue to be mesmerized by Oprah, for almost no clearly identifiable reason at all. If Oprah supports it, it can’t be bad! Less we forget; this is how Obama got pushed unto the stage like a talented but reluctant classmate who some people knew could sing but who was too shy to sign-up for the talent show initially. Like many, Oprah had fallen in love with the rhetoric in Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, his sensible opposition to war in Iraq and that disc-jockey-like voice ringing firm with confidence was hard not to get behind.

Biden opposed war in Iraq too, with the clarity of longevity and a robust understanding of what had been going on Capitol Hill and in the White House for decades. He was set to derail the Clinton locomotive full of female voters and loyalists who had waited long enough for their dream candidate, but Hillary had voted FOR the war. She was a carpet-bagger representing New York State and didn't have nearly as much on-the-job experience. Many of her fringe and crossover supporters weren’t sure that they wanted Bill back in the White House in ANY capacity.

By the time the dust settled, Barack Obama had defeated an old confused Capital Hill lifer whose over-emphasized stories of military valor had worn out its welcome in the minds of those of us who had just about enough war-talk. Arizona Senator, John McCain’s verbal stumbles and ridiculous choice of running-mate had been deluged by the MOVEMENT.

2010... as waves of moderate Republicans, right leaning Democrats and middle America in general awake from the coma, they rub their eyes in somewhat perplexing realization that a Black man sits atop the hill, dolling out international justice while leaders of other nations remain, teenagers in love. President Barack Obama, in the midst of managing to enact sweeping legislations called for by the very masses who voted him into office, is slowly becoming a subject of buyer’s remorse for many; some of whom are jumping ship so sporadically that they are getting swept up by the inauspiciously accumulating waves of the “Tea-Party”… a newer MOVEMENT,  sweeping across the landscape of U.S. politics like an enraged marching band, bearing rifles instead of trombones.

Let’s be honest. Some people voted for Barack, thinking he didn’t have a chance, but wanting to be able to live with themselves in knowing that a President McCain would be recipe for disaster. Many did it out of anger at the Republican Party for navigating the nation and much of the world into a ditch (to paraphrase the President himself). Many more did it because they felt he was the brightest, most progressive choice to lead a lost world in a positive direction. Obama spoke mostly of WAR in his Nobel PEACE Prize speech and continues to wage war in the Middle East in the effort to protect America, yet some say he’s not enough of a warrior. He ends the combat mission in Iraq and puts a deadline on the offensive in Afghanistan, yet some say he’s turning out to be too much of a war-hawk.

The Obama administration has managed to put education at the forefront of the national agenda, pushed through healthcare reform (though imperfect) against overwhelming odds, made incredible strides in Israeli-Palestinian relations, saved General Motors and continue to garner monetary profits from it, passed legislation to control the madness on Wall Street, extended unemployment benefits in desperate times, significant tax credit for first time home buyers, tax incentives for small businesses, pro consumer credit card legislation, dealt with the earthquake in Haiti, managed the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and on and on. In fact, studies show that this administration has a higher legislative success rate than any in memorable history and it’s only been around for less than two years.

Still, we hear rumblings about how dissatisfied people are, even in his own party. One gets the sense that if there was a presidential election tomorrow, Obama would be hanging on by a thread. As Vice President Joe Biden, the man who had to settle for the second seat, so aptly put it: “Stop Whining”. If you believed in the movement then, believe in it now. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the honeymoon can only last so long.

With a now Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, gridlock may be the new reality until 2013. How about you cherish the good and continue to support your cause while you wait for more returns on your investment, instead of trying to return the product that you’ve already bought and used?

911 Terrorists: NYC Courts or Military Tribunal?

                                                                                          by: Stacy Upenga
To see and hear the GOP Propaganda Pimps and Hypocrites seize upon the opportunity to criticize right at the onset, was disappointing, yet expected.  Eager to posture themselves as "active opposition", some politicians who linger on the outskirts of the current American political scene reacted like flies on sh-t before reason could set in.  Without taking a breath to contemplate the situation, they reacted from gut. The possibility of their being right was buried in the pile with their careers. The decision by US Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder and the Obama Administration, to try the infamous mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on American citizens in New York City (NYC), has drawn criticism from a variety of sources. While the decision is debatable, it should not be used to pump up anti-Obama political fodder, unless the concerns being expressed are legitimate, and with good reason.

Former NYC Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who was in office on September 11, 2001 when the attacks took place, addressed the issue on CNN's Sunday morning program, State of the Union with John King, two days after Holder made the decision public. Giuliani basically contradicted himself while condemning the decision. He insisted that Khalid Skeikh Mohammed and others should be tried by the military. Military Tribunals, he said; suggesting that trial by the judicial system is tantamount to treating people like Mohammed as common criminals. 

To suggest, as Giuliani and former Arkansas Governor and failed ex-presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee do, that the decision was careless, is simply preposterous. To insinuate that the US Department of Justice made a hap-hazard decision, regarding such an obviously sensitive issue, is careless. After-all, this is not the Bush/Cheney administration. If it was a Republican AG sending Khalid Mohammed to NYC for trial, they'd say GOOD, bring him back to the scene of the crime--Let New Yorkers ultimately decide his fate.  Giuliani for one has supported such a process in the past, and if you know Giuliani's history, and we do, then you will know that if he still held his one-time post as NY top prosecutor, he would insist on trying these goons in NYC himself. He would go on about how NYC is strong, deserving and prepared to handle the situation.

As for Huckabee, who rendered the decision "absurd", stating that "the Obama administration will be as much on trial as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed" and "God help us if they get off on a technicality" well, as a man of God, how dare him use the opportunity to plant his evil seed in a field already littered with the bodies of fellow Americans. Huckabee also cheaply uses the opportunity to attempt to undermine the intelligence and integrity of the Obama administration's decision, basically hoping that something goes wrong, because it may enhance his chances as a re-run republican candidate for president in 2012. All this begs the question: What is really important to these jerks..., their lame political aspirations, or the heart and soul of an entire nation--and the world at large--which still carries the scars, raw nerves and reality that Bin Laden and many of his apprentices are still at large?

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the young Nigerian national who intended to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, carrying 290 people on Christmas Day 2009, pleaded not guilty to U.S. criminal charges. Miriam Siefer, chief counsel for the taxpayer-funded Federal Public Defender’s office in Detroit is his defense attorney. There is stark irony in the fact that US taxpayers foot the bill to try these rabid animals. One can understandably argue that Constitutional rights to a fair trial should not apply to terrorists, especially when they intend to or successfully mass-murder Americans. The argument that there is legal precedence set by federal criminal trials of terrorists such as "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid, and Oklahoma City bomber, Tim McVeigh, provides no comfort to those who oppose such standard of innocent until proven guilty being applied in these cases. One can also argue that a criminal is a criminal, regardless of the crime or intent. It is obvious, however, that for some people, patriotism rides shotgun with politics.

The 1 good point Giuliani did make, is that a NYC trial will cost millions in extra security. This may be avoided if the trials were held in a less dense, less targeted, less volatile venue.  A good point can always be watered down by hypocritical poli-tricks.