Tag: Barack Obama

Obama at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner

I keep hearing more and more about how Sen. Barack Obama wowed the crowd in Iowa Saturday night.
I’ve heard bits and pieces and finally heard the entire speech this afternoon. The video’s received over 84,000 views on YouTube.

Michelle Obama said her husband was truly in his element Saturday night in an e-mail sent to supporters today.

I’ve known Barack a long time, and it’s clear to me when he’s in his element.
Years ago, after we first met, he took me to an organizing meeting in a small church basement in Chicago. He was so comfortable and genuine speaking to folks in the community about the issues they faced that it moved me.
He moved me again last Saturday in Iowa.
This is exactly what he should be doing — talking to ordinary people about the kind of change America needs, and encouraging everyone to come to the table to make it happen.

From Obama’s speech:
“We were promised compassionate conservativism and all we got was Katrina and wiretaps. We were promised a uniter and we got a president who could not even lead the half of the country that voted for him. We were promised a more ethical and efficient government and instead we have a town called Washington that is more corrupt and more wasteful than it was before. And the only mission that was ever accomplished was to use fear falsehoods to take this country into a war that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged.”

“This party… has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people when we led not by polls but by principal. Not by calculations but by conviction. When we summoned the entire nation to a common purpose, a higher purpose. And I run for the presidency… because that is the party that America needs us to be right now.”

“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbiest that their days in setting the agenda in Washington are over… they have not funded my campaign, they will not work in my white house and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”

“I am in this race… to protect the American worker. To fight for the American worker.”

“I want to stop talking about the outrage of 47 million American’s without health care and start actually doing something about it… I will make certain that every single American in this country has health care they can count on… and I will do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States of America.”

“You will not be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is OK for America to torture because it is never OK!”

“I don’t want to pit red America against blue America, I want to be the president of the United States of America.”

“I am running in this race because of what Dr. King called the fierce urgency of now. Because I believe there is such a thing as being too late and that hour is almost upon us. I don’t want to wake up four years from now and find out that millions of Americans still lack health care because we couldn’t take on the insurance industry. I don’t want to see that the oceans have risen a few more inches… because we couldn’t find a way to stop buying oil from dictators. I don’t want to see more American lives put at risk because no one has the judgment or courage to stand up against a mis-guided war before we send our troops in to fight. I don’t want to see homeless veterans on the streets. I don’t want to send another generation of American children to failing schools.”

“The only reason I’m standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky, stood up when it was hard, stood up when it wasn’t popular and because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up and then a few thousands stood up and then a few million stood up. And standing up with courage and clear conscious they some how managed to change the world. That’s why I’m running. To give our children and our grandchildren the same chances that somebody gave me.”

Candidates debate Social Security

Barack Obama wants to tax the wealthy, those over $200,000, to help improve Social Security. Sucks for the wealthy – but sure sounds good to the middle class (like myself) or the poor. Other Democratic candidates say they back that idea. But Hillary Clinton won’t address her plans publicly. She said she won’t address or advocate any specific fix until the budget was balanced.
Fred Thompson said he has his own ideas for Social Security, like price indexing. Other GOP candidates want to allow private investment accounts and while NPR didn’t address it, Mike Huckabee (and myself) wants to fund Social Security with the money raised from the FairTax. Abolish the income tax and pay for Medicaid and Social Security with sales tax rather than money from my pay check. When the 78 million baby boomers end up on Social Security, they’ll be paying into the system just like everyone else everytime they go buy a loaf of bread or a new car.
Here’s an interesting stat as to why Social Security is going bankrupt…
The first person to receive a Social Security benefit was Ernest Ackerman, who paid 5 cents into Social Security during one day of work. He retired the next day and was paid 17 cents for his retirement in January 1937. This was a one-time, lump-sum pay-out, which was the only form of benefits paid during the start-up period January 1937 through December 1939. The first person to receive monthly retirement benefits was Ida Mae Fuller of Brattleboro, Vermont. Her first check, dated January 31, 1940 was in the amount of US$22.54.
I think Ackerman got one heck of a deal. That’s more than 3 times the return on an investment. Sign me up -except that the system is going bankrupt any day now.

Are politicians cut from the same cloth?

From NPR:

Sen. Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney are distant cousins. President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have dozens of shared relatives. Megan Smolenyak, chief family historian at ancestry.com, talks to Alex Cohen about tracing back the family tree.

Looks like Walt Disney is also George Bush’s 13th cousin, once removed… interesting.
Better get back to work on my family tree.

Mission Accomplished

From the Barack Obama campaign:

I’m leaving the Tonight Show studio and I wanted to share something.
Jay Leno just asked if it bothers me that some of the Washington pundits are declaring Hillary Clinton the winner of this election before a single vote has been cast.
I’ll tell you what I told him: Hillary is not the first politician in Washington to declare “Mission Accomplished” a little too soon.
We started this week $2.1 million behind the Clinton campaign — a lead they built in large part with contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs.
We don’t accept money from federal lobbyists or PACs. But we’ve already cut that advantage in half with small donations from people like you.

Cheney ‘the black sheep of family’

From the AP/NPR:

Though they may spar across the political aisle, Vice President Dick Cheney is close enough to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama to call him “cousin.” Eighth cousin, that is.
Lynne Cheney, the vice president’s wife, revealed this tantalizing bit of political trivia during a television interview Tuesday.

Apparently Cheney’s wife discovered the link while researching her memoirs.
A spokesman for the Obama Presidential Campaign said, “obviously Cheney is the black sheep of the family.”
Gotta love family history. I’ve had a lot of fun tracing our family history back using Geni and other online services. I’m interesting in finding out more about the Pendleton pedigree, which is on my mom’s side of the family.

According to her spokeswoman, Sen. Obama, D-Ill., is a descendent of Mareen Duvall. This French Huguenot’s son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650’s from England, said Ginny Justice, a spokeswoman for Lynne Cheney.

Got any interesting history in your family tree?