2008 election
McCain and Nuclear Disarmament
This week John McCain gave a speech on nuclear disarmament.
"Russia and the United States are no longer mortal enemies," McCain said in a speech that was interrupted at least four times by hecklers opposed to the Iraq war. "As our two countries possess the overwhelming majority of the world's nuclear weapons, we have a special responsibility to reduce their number. I believe we should reduce our nuclear forces to the lowest level we judge necessary, and we should be prepared to enter into a new arms control agreement with Russia reflecting the nuclear reductions I will seek."
This is one of the biggest issues that nobody talks about. Humanity collectively holds a gun to its own head year after year and yet we do nothing. We just get used to it, even though the longer we go on like this, the more countries acquire nuclear weapons... the more dangerous it gets. And our luck will run out eventually.
Save Darfur? End Global Poverty? Fight Global Warming?
What would YOU ask the next President to do On Day One of their Administration? That is the question and purpose of www.OnDayOne.org-- the Better World Campaign's 2008 election initiative.
Do YOU have a great idea On Day One? Then enter the On Day One youth video contest Y in the World: International Cooperation and My Generation.
Election Predictions
Where does it go from here? Good places, I think.
Depends on Clinton. I think she wins PA but not by much and bows out. The best case scenario is she leaves gracefully and gets behind Obama {kind of like Romney did McCain, but more strongly}. Bill comes out and campaigns for Obama and the whole Democratic Party reunites. This would be plenty enough resources to pull off one of the biggest landslides in history, and the first strong mandate for liberal ideas in decades.
Lettter to Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz
Congresswoman Schultz,
I'm from Plantation, Florida and thanks to your support a year and a half ago my district finally has a Democrat representative. I'm from the FL-22 district and Ron Klein is my congressman. I personally appreciate the help and endorsements you gave him when he ran and I'm happy to see that the DCCC is concerned about his re-election campaign this year.
Obama Speech on Race
Yeah, what he said..
[Posting it because 30 years from now, 8th graders learning about U.S. history will read a paragraph about this speech in their textbooks.]
Bush Endorses McCain
In yesterday's primary election contests, John McCain clinched the Republican nomination. Barring a math-defying comeback by Hillary Clinton, it looks like Obama vs McCain is the matchup for November. But unfortunately for him, President Bush threw a noose around his neck today.
With his low poll ratings and an unpopular war on his shoulders, Bush could hurt McCain with some groups, while helping with others.
"If my showing up and endorsing him helps him — or if I'm against him and it helps him — either way, I want him to win," the president said. "This is an age-old question that every president has had to answer, and there is an appropriate amount of campaigning for me to do. But they're not going to be voting for me."
Amen to that, Chimpilisimo! Too bad you've tied your successor's hands. Whatever legacy history ultimately imposes on this man cannot possibly do justice to the horrors he's created.
Nader and Clintons (REMEMBER 2000)
I like Ralph Nader. He's a good fighter and a passionate advocate for consumers. But he'll always be remembered for taking 5% of the vote in Florida in 2000, depriving Al Gore of liberal votes that could have saved us from these dark ages we call the Bush years.
Change
Where does it come from? Does it flow from the top or seep up from the bottom? Is it measured by pieces of legislation, or societal benchmarks, or events, or hearts and minds? What causes it? Anger? Hope? Desperation? Fear? You could answer yes to any of these and be right. The fact is that change is a very amorphous concept. It's difficult to define because there are so many types. We've all noticed how Democratic presidential candidates are falling over themselves to prove how much they can bring. They're doing it because it's the message we want to hear; otherwise, they'd emphasize other things, like John Kerry dwelled on Vietnam and George W. Bush constantly tried to scare us. In other words, our demand for change is driving the narrative of this election. This very desire is significant in itself. What's equally significant is how we express it.
No matter what happens with the nomination, we can take comfort how far we've come as an electorate. The incessant fearmongering and lying of the Bush administration didn't numb and dumb the American people into submission; we rebelled, recognized evil when we saw it and are now trying to fix our mistake. We're using new and evolving tools at our disposal, most notably the Internet, which I'd argue has turned from background noise into a driving force.