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Dropping Out

It’s February 2007, 17 months before the presidential election of 2008, and the race already has a casualty. The AP reports that Iowa’s former governor, Democrat Tom Vilsack is calling it quits.

“It is money and only money that is the reason we are leaving today,” Vilsack told reporters at a news conference, later adding, “We have a debt we’re going to have to work our way through.”

Vilsack, 56, left office in January and traveled to early voting states, but he attracted neither the attention nor the campaign cash of his top-tier rivals – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards. He even faced obstacles in his home state.

In the most recent financial documents, Vilsack reported raising more than $1.1 million in the last seven weeks of 2006 but only had around $396,000 in the bank. Some campaign finance experts contend candidates will need $20 million by June 2007 to remain viable.

The money, in what analysts say will be the most expensive presidential campaign in history, is separating the coulda-beens from the also-rans even before some candidates have even declared their intention to run.

Greens? Libertarians? Are you fundraising yet???

But where did Vilsack’s million go? Check out: www.tomvilsack08.com

Dropping Out

It’s February 2007, 17 months before the presidential election of 2008, and the race already has a casualty. The AP reports that Iowa’s former governor, Democrat Tom Vilsack is calling it quits.

“It is money and only money that is the reason we are leaving today,” Vilsack told reporters at a news conference, later adding, “We have a debt we’re going to have to work our way through.”

Vilsack, 56, left office in January and traveled to early voting states, but he attracted neither the attention nor the campaign cash of his top-tier rivals – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards. He even faced obstacles in his home state.

In the most recent financial documents, Vilsack reported raising more than $1.1 million in the last seven weeks of 2006 but only had around $396,000 in the bank. Some campaign finance experts contend candidates will need $20 million by June 2007 to remain viable.

The money, in what analysts say will be the most expensive presidential campaign in history, is separating the coulda-beens from the also-rans even before some candidates have even declared their intention to run.

Greens? Libertarians? Are you fundraising yet???

But where did Vilsack’s million go? Check out: www.tomvilsack08.com

Obama Isn’t Black?? Part 3


Imani Perry raises some good points in a recent Afro-Netizen article:

I don’t believe the authenticity problem lies with African Americans. The authenticity problem lies with white Americans. The real question is: Why have White pundits, journalists and newscasters been so eager to comment on Obama’s being biracial and the son of an immigrant, rather than his history of civil rights activism or his long time involvement in African American social and political communities? Does it reveal a desire, among whites, that he not be authentically black (whatever that means), but somehow “different?”

The fixation on Obama as “different” appears to be an effort to exceptionalize him. He is seen as acceptable, in part, because he is considered to be unlike other African Americans, and in particular, African American men, who have been so widely commented upon as a “social problem” in the most prestigious news media in recent months. Joe Biden got in trouble for saying what many Americans are thinking, and that is a much bigger problem than a foot in the mouth.

While there is no particular tradition of African Americans being suspicious of immigrant political activists and leaders, there is a long tradition of African Americans being suspicious of Black leaders who seem to be eagerly touted by Whites as the “next best thing.” Why, we wonder, do people who seem to hold animosity for us as a group, make an exception for this individual?

Good question… Why is Obama being treated as if he is the second coming?

I’m still not drinking the Kool-Aid…

Click HERE to read all of Imani’s post

Obama Isn’t Black?? Part 3


Imani Perry raises some good points in a recent Afro-Netizen article:

I don’t believe the authenticity problem lies with African Americans. The authenticity problem lies with white Americans. The real question is: Why have White pundits, journalists and newscasters been so eager to comment on Obama’s being biracial and the son of an immigrant, rather than his history of civil rights activism or his long time involvement in African American social and political communities? Does it reveal a desire, among whites, that he not be authentically black (whatever that means), but somehow “different?”

The fixation on Obama as “different” appears to be an effort to exceptionalize him. He is seen as acceptable, in part, because he is considered to be unlike other African Americans, and in particular, African American men, who have been so widely commented upon as a “social problem” in the most prestigious news media in recent months. Joe Biden got in trouble for saying what many Americans are thinking, and that is a much bigger problem than a foot in the mouth.

While there is no particular tradition of African Americans being suspicious of immigrant political activists and leaders, there is a long tradition of African Americans being suspicious of Black leaders who seem to be eagerly touted by Whites as the “next best thing.” Why, we wonder, do people who seem to hold animosity for us as a group, make an exception for this individual?

Good question… Why is Obama being treated as if he is the second coming?

I’m still not drinking the Kool-Aid…

Click HERE to read all of Imani’s post

Martial Law: Coming to America

I was minding my own business, just driving to a meeting when I heard a brief headline on Democracy Now:

In news from Capitol Hill, Congress is coming under criticism for approving a little noticed provision last year that makes it easier for President Bush to declare martial law and to send US troops into American cities. At the administration’s request, Congress approved the changes to a law known as the Insurrection Act without ever holding a public hearing.

Under the new law, the president now has the authority to use both active-duty armed forces and the National Guard on American soil – not just during a rebellion – but also a natural disaster, terrorist attack, pandemic or other chaotic situation.

All 50 of the nation’s governors have opposed the rule changes. Earlier this month Senators Patrick Leahy, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, and Republican Christopher Bond introduced legislation to repeal the changes Congress approved last year.

WHAT??? Wait, how did I miss this?

Oh, yeah. This bill was signed into law on the same day as the infamous Military Commissions Act of 2006. I was so outraged that my Democratic Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow had voted “Yes” on that measure that I didn’t notice this other law. While I was writing Stabenow a heated letter telling her that she had lost my vote forever, the Bush regime was getting away with murder… again!! Continue reading

Martial Law: Coming to America

I was minding my own business, just driving to a meeting when I heard a brief headline on Democracy Now:

In news from Capitol Hill, Congress is coming under criticism for approving a little noticed provision last year that makes it easier for President Bush to declare martial law and to send US troops into American cities. At the administration’s request, Congress approved the changes to a law known as the Insurrection Act without ever holding a public hearing.

Under the new law, the president now has the authority to use both active-duty armed forces and the National Guard on American soil — not just during a rebellion — but also a natural disaster, terrorist attack, pandemic or other chaotic situation.

All 50 of the nation’s governors have opposed the rule changes. Earlier this month Senators Patrick Leahy, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, and Republican Christopher Bond introduced legislation to repeal the changes Congress approved last year.

WHAT??? Wait, how did I miss this?

Oh, yeah. This bill was signed into law on the same day as the infamous Military Commissions Act of 2006. I was so outraged that my Democratic Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow had voted “Yes” on that measure that I didn’t notice this other law. While I was writing Stabenow a heated letter telling her that she had lost my vote forever, the Bush regime was getting away with murder… again!! Continue reading

Obama Isn’t Black?? Part 2

The cards are on the table.

Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential candidacy is going to be about race. I’m sure he doesn’t want it that way, but that is how it’s going to play out.

Already his ethnicity is being attacked from all sides. I’ve blogged previously about Black folks like Debra Dickerson of Salon.com who say Obama isn’t Black.

Now the darling of race-baiting conservatives, Rush Limbaugh, encourages the biracial Obama to renounce his Blackness and declare that he is white. Continue reading

Obama Isn’t Black?? Part 1

Originally posted by Nadir at LastChocolateCity.com

Let me start by saying that I am not sipping the Barack Obama Kool-Aid. I agree with Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report who calls the junior Senator from Illinois “…an imperialist at heart who offers George Bush at least another year or two to wage war in Iraq, while warning Iraqis that they can expect no more American ‘coddling’”.

But when people like Debra Dickerson say “Obama isn’t Black”, it just confuses the issue.

According to Dickerson’s Jan. 22 article on Salon.com:

“Black,” in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can’t be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won’t bother to make the distinction. They’re both “black” as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally Black, as we use the term.

Hogwash. Continue reading

Obama Isn’t Black?? Part 2

The cards are on the table.

Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential candidacy is going to be about race. I’m sure he doesn’t want it that way, but that is how it’s going to play out.

Already his ethnicity is being attacked from all sides. I’ve blogged previously about Black folks like Debra Dickerson of Salon.com who say Obama isn’t Black.

Now the darling of race-baiting conservatives, Rush Limbaugh, encourages the biracial Obama to renounce his Blackness and declare that he is white. Continue reading

Obama Isn’t Black?? Part 1

Originally posted by Nadir at LastChocolateCity.com

Let me start by saying that I am not sipping the Barack Obama Kool-Aid. I agree with Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report who calls the junior Senator from Illinois “…an imperialist at heart who offers George Bush at least another year or two to wage war in Iraq, while warning Iraqis that they can expect no more American ‘coddling’”.

But when people like Debra Dickerson say “Obama isn’t Black”, it just confuses the issue.

According to Dickerson’s Jan. 22 article on Salon.com:

“Black,” in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can’t be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won’t bother to make the distinction. They’re both “black” as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally Black, as we use the term.

Hogwash. Continue reading

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