Understanding Veterans

Merry Christmas...

2011-12-23T17:04:00.000-08:00

It wouldn't be Christmas in a war zone without Bob Hope. I was in UTapao in 1969 when he brought his show through...

To those troops spending the holidays away from home whether it's states side or in the war zone this ones for you...

2011-12-13T21:39:00.000-08:00

Who would have thought that a monument could stir such emotion but if you have a heart at all you wont have a dry eye once you've made your way from end to end.

The crime is in the names that should be on that wall but will never be recognized for their sacrifice. Many men died over there, some we buried others were the walking dead. They came home but may as well have died there because that's where they left their souls

It is good that our troops today are being shown the respect they deserve unlike the reception we got when we came home. Never fault the soldier for doing what he's told only blame the Commander ordering him to do it!

My cousins name, Charles Arthur Davidson, should be on that wall, even though his date of death was just a few years ago. That war killed him just as much as if he'd taken an AK47 round to the heart because he was lost once came home. He died at an early age due to wounds he received in Vietnam, that shortened his life.

2011-09-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

The Wall!

I recently visited the Wall and I must say it was the most moving experience of my life. Rest easy Bros you will not be forgotten!

The Silver Rose Society

2009-06-01T10:50:00.001-07:00

If you know a veteran who is suffering from an Agent Orange related disease pass this along to them.

Our Mission ...

To recognize the courage, heroism, and contributions of American service personnel found to have been exposed to Agent Orange in a combat zone ... whose lethal exposure to Agent Orange resulted in internal, invisible wounds, which are revealed only by the passage of time.

http://www.silverrose.info/main%20menu%20page.html

A Prime Example of Swiftboating

2009-02-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

It's remarks like these, unfounded accusations, that make it so bad. These obsessive individuals who rant and rave without anything to prove their story. These individuals and forums who support them should be examined because it's one thing any veteran knows, when someone obsesses like this they are trying to take the heat off themselves. We most always find out they are the ones who are hiding a lie... :)

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Re: CONFIRMED: Acebass Fake Military Veteran!!!
Now Acebass/LibLaw has me wondering what an Edwards Democrat is like now that I fairly know what a wasted lying slug Ronnie is. Seriously. I really want to know!

Oh yeah, once again Acebass/LibLaw... your not a Vietnam Vet according to sources.

Does this also mean that you understand how other wannabes like you feel? How about you write a story about wannabes like yourself. Simply title it 'confessions'

Billy C from Cincinnati

Friendly Fire Deaths

2008-08-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

It wasn't until my involvement in the Vietnam war that I realized that not all casualties were from enemy fire. Of course common sense will tell you that mistakes happen and in war things get out of hand in a hurry, but it seems that it was more prevalent in the Vietnam war.

The 1 percent rate is well below that of Operation Desert Storm when 17 percent of all service members who died were killed by friendly fire. Rates for World War II, Vietnam and the invasions of Grenada and Panama were also higher than the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,90677,00.html

Examples of the Vietnam war;

Vietnam War: 8,000 (14%)
- USCGC Point Welcome was attacked by USAF aircraft, with two deaths resulting.
- USS Boston, USS Edson, USCGC Point Dume, HMAS Hobart and two U.S. Swift Boats, PCF-12 and PCF-19 are attacked by US aircraft on June 17 1968.^[13] Several sailors were killed and PCF-19 was sunk.^[14]
- On May 11, 1969, during the Battle of Hamburger Hill, Lt. Col. Weldon Honeycutt directed Cobra helicopter gunships, known as Aerial Rocket Artillery (ARA), to support an infantry assault. In the heavy jungle, the Cobras mistook the command post of the 3/187th battalion for a Vietnamese unit and attacked, killing two and wounding thirty-five, including Honeycutt. This incident disrupted battalion command and control and forced 3/187th to withdraw into night defensive positions.
- Sergeant Michael Eugene Mullen killed by American artillery on 18 February 1970.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire

It's a tragedy to for any war but then the Vietnam war had it's own unigue form of friendly fire deaths. There were some who were killed intentionally by those individuals who would take things into their own hands. A 2nd Lt. fresh out of OTS might find himself with an M16 round in his back should he be deemed hazardous to his platoon or worse on the receiving end of a frag grenade. There are no statistics to show how many were killed on purpose but it happened. I can imagine and only hope that the ones responsible are eventually held responsible if by no one then their own conscience.

The second classification is "murder" where friendly fire incidents are premeditated. During the Vietnam War, some officers who overtly risked the lives of their soldiers were murdered by those men in incidents known as “fragging.”^[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire

Any casualty of war is a tragedy, whether by friendly fire or by the enemy. Sometimes when trying to understand a veteran, specially a Vietnam Veteran, it might be well to consider that the person having problems with the war may be related to them having caused or being personally responsible for the death of one of your fellow soldiers. That would, to me, be something I would have a hard time dealing with.

PTSD

2008-07-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

This is something that until Vietnam we never really addressed but Vietnam was unigue in many ways. I found this article to be very informative.

So it is no surprise that when military personnel have severe difficulty getting over the trauma of war, their psychological difficulties have been described as "soldier's heart" (in the Civil War), or "shell shock" (in World War I), or "combat fatigue" (in World War II). After World War II, psychiatrists realized that these problems usually were not an inborn "mental illness" like schizophrenia or manic depressive illness, but were a different form of psychological disease that resulted from too much war trauma: "traumatic war neurosis" or "post-traumatic stress disorder" (PTSD). Most war veterans are troubled by war memories, but were fortunate enough either not to have "too much" trauma to recover from or to have immediate and lasting help from family, friends, and spiritual and psychological counselors so that the memories became "liveable." A smaller number, probably about one in twenty among World War II veterans now, had so much war trauma and so many readjustment difficulties that they now suffer from PTSD.

http://www.ptsdsupport.net/ptsd_symptoms_oldervets.html

However the Vietnam war wasn't popular and the veterans from that war were looked on with disdain and in some instances disgust. It was the first time in our history that a war veteran was not welcomed home with parades and thanks for a job well done. This made the pain of having gone to war that much worse.

Not only did the Vietnam veteran experience the horrors of war but returned home to an unfriendly nation at war with itself. Many Vietnam veterans couldn't cope and went over the edge, others buried it deep inside and let it fester. Most are still reliving their horrors even today despite efforts by some to make it right for them.

http://www.nationaloperationwelcomehome.com/index.htm

http://www.whvvd.org/whvvdwebsite/homepage/homepage.html

to name a few.

What is PTSD?

What is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

Anyone who has gone through a life-threatening event can develop PTSD. These events can include:

* Combat or military exposure
* Child sexual or physical abuse
* Terrorist attacks
* Sexual or physical assault
* Serious accidents, such as a car wreck.
* Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake.

After the event, you may feel scared, confused, or angry. If these feelings don't go away or they get worse, you may have PTSD. These symptoms may disrupt your life, making it hard to continue with your daily activities.

http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fact_shts/fs_what_is_ptsd.html

As you can see, by definition, it is not primarily a combat related illness but it is an illness none the less. War however is the primary cause of PTSD. The symptoms vary by the experience that brought on the PTSD.

There are four types of symptoms: reliving the event, avoidance, numbing, and feeling keyed up.

Reliving the event (also called re-experiencing symptoms):

Bad memories of the traumatic event can come back at any time. You may feel the same fear and horror you did when the event took place. You may have nightmares. You even may feel like you're going through the event again. This is called a flashback. Sometimes there is a trigger: a sound or sight that causes you to relive the event. Triggers might include:

* Hearing a car backfire, which can bring back memories of gunfire and war for a combat veteran
* Seeing a car accident, which can remind a crash survivor of his or her own accident
* Seeing a news report of a sexual assault, which may bring back memories of assault for a woman who was raped

Avoiding situations that remind you of the event:

You may try to avoid situations or people that trigger memories of the traumatic event. You may even avoid talking or thinking about the event.

* A person who was in an earthquake may avoid watching television shows or movies in which there are earthquakes
* A person who was robbed at gunpoint while ordering at a hamburger drive-in may avoid fast-food restaurants
* Some people may keep very busy or avoid seeking help. This keeps them from having to think or talk about the event.

Feeling numb:

You may find it hard to express your feelings. This is another way to avoid memories.

* You may not have positive or loving feelings toward other people and may stay away from relationships
* You may not be interested in activities you used to enjoy
* You may forget about parts of the traumatic event or not be able to talk about them.

Feeling keyed up (also called hyperarousal):

You may be jittery, or always alert and on the lookout for danger. This is known as hyperarousal. It can cause you to:

* Suddenly become angry or irritable
* Have a hard time sleeping
* Have trouble concentrating
* Fear for your safety and always feel on guard
* Be very startled when someone surprises you

What are other common problems?

People with PTSD may also have other problems. These include:

* Drinking or drug problems
* Feelings of hopelessness, shame, or despair
* Employment problems
* Relationships problems including divorce and violence
* Physical symptoms

http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fact_shts/fs_what_is_ptsd.html

and can last a life time.

What can you do?

What treatments are available?

When you have PTSD, dealing with the past can be hard. Instead of telling others how you feel, you may keep your feelings bottled up. But treatment can help you get better.

There are good treatments available for PTSD. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one type of counseling. It appears to be the most effective type of counseling for PTSD. There are different types of cognitive behavioral therapies such as cognitive therapy and exposure therapy. A similar kind of therapy called EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, is also used for PTSD. Medications can be effective too. A type of drug known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), which is also used for depression, is effective for PTSD.

http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fact_shts/fs_what_is_ptsd.html

The sad thing is we are creating a new crop of PTSD sufferers with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and we will have to have the treatment available for those men and women returning from this conflict. Maybe we've learned from Vietnam and we will be able to keep this new generation of Veterans from suffering what my generation has. At least I hope so.

Who's a Veteran?

2008-07-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

To start with I guess we should explain what a veteran actually is. Of course you can be a veteran without ever being in the military. Veteran just gives you a sense of purpose in what ever your a veteran in whether it be police, fireman, military, etc. It just highlights your experience.

Anyone who has been in the military for any length of time is considered a military veteran and then the military awards status according to where you were stationed and what you did while you were there. WWII, Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq/Afghanistan, the men and women who participated in them were known also by the added distinction of their particular conflict.

I'll discuss the Vietnam war because that was the one I was involved in. It was a war like this country had never seen before, brought into your living rooms nightly on the news and it seems to be tearing the country apart even to this day, some 35 years later, as it did then. I'm speaking of course about our current political campaigns and how anyone who served in the Vietnam war is suspect in using anything about their veterans status for an advantage. In fact I can't think of any other period in time when someone would have the gaul to guestion a candidates service to his country. Now we have coined a phase which should stand for honorable service but instead Swiftboats will have forever been cursed with the stigma of hate and lies.

The Vietnam war has also brought out a new phenomenon. In all the other wars up to Vietnam there was no distinction as to what your service included. If you stormed the beaches at Normandy or supported the aircraft in England you were considered a WWII veteran. Now it seems there is a small movement who insist that if someone claims to be a Vietnam vet they'd better be able to show their DD214 to prove it and you'd best have served in combat, and in country. I'm not sure what drives their reasoning maybe it was the divisive nature of the war, it's hard to tell. I wrote to a few veterans organizations about it and they confirmed that, to their amazement, some were trying to make the distinction.

To give you some insight into what I'm talking about. I personal served 6 months on Guam in 1968 and 12 months in Thailand at Utapao and Takhli RTAFB in 1969-70 all of these bases were considered as in the Vietnam Theater of operation. There are now some who would take offense at calling anyone who served in those country's as support of Air Operations in Vietnam supporting the troops on the ground, a Vietnam Veteran. It's petty, childish, unsubstantiated and divisive but that's what that war seemed to do best, divide us.

It should be interesting from now on though. McCain is the last of the Vietnam era vets that will take a shot at the Presidency. With the new crowd coming up there's not a lot of military experience to be a factor so maybe we can forget about swiftboats and let them rest. Then the "In Country" crowd can just drink beer, fart, and pound their chest all they want. "Ain't Nothin But A thing!"

Now that Johns out of the race

2008-07-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

I will admit it was a shock to hear my favorite candidate was no longer in the race. I know that had John stayed in he would have made a difference but such is politics. I was thinking of shutting this blog down but I decided not to for now. I still consider myself an "Edwards Democrat" and I'm a Vietnam Veteran so I'm thinking of some ways to let this site grow for veterans who feel as I do. I'm not sure where I'll take it but you can believe it will be positive because thats the kind of person I am. I will make it helpful for veterans of all wars and who knows maybe something good will come from this. Keep checking back as I plan to up date on a weekly basis.

My first installment will be the Vietnam war and how it has affected politics. Swiftboating, how that war more so than any other war divided a country and continues to do so to this day. Not only dividing the people but the veterans themselves. How some have been able to leave it behind and carry on with their lives while others still live it to this day.

I'll probably be changing the name of the blog but for now I'll keep it as it is so people can still find it. Be sure and tell your friends and leave any suggestions you might have. Thanks and I'll see you next week.

Whats it for?

2008-02-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

Some one made the comment last night what do I hope to gain? I had to laugh because that person just didn't understand an Idealist.

An idealist is this...

1 a: an adherent of a philosophical theory of idealism b: an artist or author who advocates or practices idealism in art or writing2: one guided by ideals; especially : one that places ideals before practical considerations

Now see if you understand

An idealist doesn't care about the outcome. Yes John has 26 delegates we hope to add to that total oblivious of the fact that there's not enough delegates left for him to win. What an idealist cares about is that they stood by what they believed in.

An idealist leads a small rag tag army across a frozen river in hopes of beating a much larger force. An idealist doesn't care they'll get in trouble for throwing tea in the harbor because they know they are right. And an idealist will stand their ground till they are able to place their flower in the barrel of a weapon that would blow them to pieces.

I'm an idealist. I know that Johns withdrawn and suspended his campaign but it hasn't suspended what I believe in. I believe in the same things John Edwards believes in. I plan to go to the polls here when I can and vote for John Edwards. It may be the only vote he'll get here in Kentucky but when it shows up on the screen know that it was me and know that I stood firm in my beliefs and I can rest at night knowing I did what I had to do.

A feeling of satisfaction. Thats what I hoep to get out of this. Thank you.

12% live in poverty

2008-02-07T00:52:00.001-08:00

12% live in poverty

user icon Acebass in Action Feed of
2/07/2008 at 2:32 AM EST

The last I heard that was the figure. Those are Americans I'm talking about. A former industrialized country, filled with hope and promise. 12% of the population lives in poverty. Thats a disgrace. So what do we do about it?

Don't get me wrong I don't begrudge a wealthy man anything he's rightfully earned, as long as he's willing to give back for his good fortune. Men like Warren Buffet, George Soros, John Yarmuth and John Edwards to name a few. However we still have 12% of our population living in poverty while the Forbes list of the wealthiest keeps growing larger.

The problem could be that the 12% who live in poverty don't even know we're here talking about them. They don't know they have a chance to change things. Remember, the Republican party has convinced them they are responsible for their lot in life. Having to work 3 jobs to make ends meet had nothing to do with higher cost of living and a shrinking wage scale.

These people may be able to stop and watch some television while they are lying on a table at the plasma bank giving blood. Chances are if it's news it's Fox News or their affiliate CNN. They may have time to read a paper but for the most part they get their politics from a co-worker at lunch break.

These people are the ones we need to reach. If you see someone driving down the street in an old beat up (insert car here), with a vote Bush sticker on their car, you need to touch that person. You need to educate them in what we are doing. Take them to a library and show them how to operate a computer.

Seriously, there are people, in their 30s and 40s who have never registered to vote. They have no idea they can make a difference, and change their lives. Those are the people we need to reach. I would propose that One Corp work on a project of neighborhood outreach centers to not only assist these people in learning how the system can work for them, but be proactive in contacting people so they at least have the opportunity to participate and an opportunity to make that choice.

John Edwards has my vote...

2008-02-02T12:10:00.001-08:00

Pass it On!

http://edwardshasmyvote.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/hello-world/#comment-344

This is Democracy!

2008-02-01T22:29:00.000-08:00

I've been at the Edwards blog all day as you can imagine. There have been many inspiring things happen since John decided to suspend his campaign.

We've seen all the true liberal candidates either drop out or made ineffective by a big money machine that is grinding their way albeit not as easy, I'm sure, as they would have first imagined it would be, to a Nomination that the DLC has anointed.

John Edwards was the reason it wasn't so easy. He sparked something in a lot of people that is not going to die. Like an ember glowing in the forest I feel this blaze sweeping across this country. Whatever happens on Feb. 5th John Edwards, and his voters will be a force to be dealt with.

This was posted by one of his supporters. I'm passing it on verbatim as I wouldn't change a word.

"One thing is clear... whichever candidate does get the nomination, his or her chance of victory will rest largely on the ideas Mr. Edwards brought to the campaign."

And so I marvel at the rush to judgment and all the whispering: "Who are the Edwards people going to vote for now?" And I marvel as I watch the "Important People" circling to endorse - like vultures picking over the carcass of Edwards' campaign.

But as an Edwards supporter, alive and still with my own mind, I'd like to say: Although I urge everyone to unite behind the Democratic nominee in November, no matter who he or she may be, what's more important now - in this primary, February 5th - is to vote your conscience. And if you believe in John Edwards, vote for John Edwards! Vote for him as a way to ensure that the ideas he and Elizabeth brought to the Party will endure.

The other candidates have honored his platform by using his words and ideas. But united, they could turn their back on his progressive agenda unless we hold their feet to the fire. We need to shore up what he stands for. We need to show Hillary and Obama that we, the Edwards People, are still a force to be reckoned with.

For although John Edwards is no longer a candidate, he - and those of us who believe in his ideals - are still voters in this election. And now more than ever, if we want to uphold grassroots democracy, it's important to show the money, the media, the Democratic Party - and especially the candidates - where we stand and what we expect them to honor as we go forward:

the ideas, ideals, passion and platform John Edwards brought to a failing system and a failing party.

This is our only chance and the only way we can show it. So if you believe in John Edwards and what he stands for, vote for him on Tuesday."

http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2008/2/2/1717/24934#6

MSM vs John Edwards

2008-01-31T17:43:00.000-08:00

McCamy Taylor Wed Jan-30-08 07:48 PM

The Press v. John Edwards Updated at 9:50 PM

One year ago, when CBS polled Americans to see where likely Democratic presidential candidates stood in the public eye, John Edwards came in a solid second to Hillary Clinton.

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/CBSNews_polls/jana-candid...

Thanks to her status as a former First Lady she had recognition similar to former Democratic candidates Gore and Kerry. Edwards was the most recognized Democrat who had never been a nominee. Obama’s recognition rates and favorability rates among Democrats and Independents were significantly lower than Edwards. Edwards’ unfavorability rating was better than Hillary’s, giving him a edge as a “uniter.”

How did the nation go from knowing who Edwards was to not even knowing that he was running for president ? Where did this idea that he was “phony” start? Why, in the last couple of weeks, did we start to hear that Edwards was some kind of communist anarchist?

It all started with the BFL, Big Fat Liars aka the corporate media.

Here is the excellent analysis (with piece charts and block graphs) that forced the mainstream media to admit what we all had seen----they had deliberately inflated their coverage of two of the candidates, Hillary and Obama, while deliberately shutting out Edwards, who actually ranked high in the polls.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/5/12286/27650/142/...

They did this for a solid year. One example of the way that this bias permeated every aspect of election reporting: one night on Countdown the guest was E.J. Dionne. Poll numbers from Iowa were shown. The Dems were in a a dead heat. KO asked Dionne to comment. He launched into a discussion of Hillary and Obama and never said a word about Edwards, who was neck and neck with the other two. KO did not even notice.

They did this even after Edwards came in second in Iowa, giving the lie to the Two Man Race Lie . Instead of suddenly noticing the Edwards campaign, as people across the country started to notice it, the MSM responded with another impromptu lie, which I call Who's On Second? because the pundits would talk about Obama's win and Hillary's third place finish while giving the impression that the old joke candidate Nobody for President must have taken second place. Or worse, television political reporters on all the news networks would announce that the Edwards campaign was finished, that he would resign soon. This at a time when his campaign was hoping to win new supporters and raise much needed cash. This had the effect of negating any boost his campaign might have received from the Iowa win. The lies that were told at this moment probably did more to destroy the Edwards campaign than any others.

In this interview on Countdown Keith Olbermann asks John Edwards why the press at MSNBC said that his second place finish meant that Edwards was in trouble and not Hillary. Edwards replied bluntly that the media had been trying to frame it as a two person race between Hillary and Obama. To Olbermann's credit, after that interview, he began to feature Edwards more often on his show. However, by then the damage was done.

http://takeaction.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/john-edwards... /

When the report described in the DailyKos link above came out there was a backlash. The mainstream media had been caught attempting to "fix" the Democratic Primary. That was not good. They still had to "fix" the race between Hillary and Obama.In an effort to restore their tarnished honor, we finally saw the TV news networks and the major newspapers like the Washington Past and the New York Times devote some coverage to the Edwards campaign before the South Carolina primary. It was too little, too late. After a solid year of mainstream media attacks and blackouts, one week of coverage will not resurrect a presidential campaign.

I have been writing about the corporate media conspiracy against John Edwards for almost a year in hopes the we, voters and consumers of the news media could put a stop to it. Looks like the CEOs at GE/NBC, NewsCorp./Fox, AOL/Time-Warner, Viacom-CBS, Disney-ABC won and we lost.

Today, I am writing so that we will remember, and also so that the media lap dogs, the individual journalists---no, let’s call them what they are---the whores will not get away with doing their masters’ dirty work. I got the idea when I re read The Press v. Al Gore a couple of years ago and realized that with the exception of one sacrificial goat, Ceci Connelly of the Washington Post, the reporters who created the lie Gore is a Liar have all done very well for themselves.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5920188/the_pres...

Google and see where journalists like Walter Shapiro, Richard Berke , Chris Matthews, George Stephanopoulos, Bill Turque, Bob Woodward, Margaret Carlson have ended up. Hmmm. Some of them will feature in this journal. Guess they learned from Gore is a liar that there is good pay off and no accountability for telling lies about Democratic candidates.

I recognized that the media fix was in a year ago. On February 7, 2007 I wrote a DailyKos diary called From the Corporate Media that Brought You Gore is a Liar, Edwards is a Phony When I got six responses, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle convincing people of what was going on.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/8/1319/06023/495/2...

A year ago the MSM blackout had not started yet. A year ago, it seemed like Edwards was getting more attention than all the other Dems combined, only it was not nice attention. John Solomon of the Washington Post lead the way with a series of article about Edwards house, his money, his hair, his hairdresser !!!! . Right wing sites began a coordinated action that seemed to be aiming towards “Edwards is a phony” and sure enough that is the word that they managed to get to stick. Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malikan were among the right wingers who were singling him out for special attention. And the MSM was already showing selective hearing in that it would not cover Edwards policy statements but it would make mountains out of any wild rumor that might cause a rift within his camp or between his camp and traditional members of the Democratic base (Read my DailyKos entry. The details are all there.)

John Solomon’s reputation was already trashed before he took this assignment, and after he finished Edwards is a phony no one would ever believe anything he wrote again. Certainly, no one would ever talk to him again. I guess that is why he had to take a job at the right wing ghetto of the Washington Times . So, one of the media whores has paid—sort of, if you count getting kicked upstairs into an editorial job retribution. I would rather see him working at a Thrifty Nickel .

Here is la crème de la crème of Solomon’s important political “reporting”, the interview with the man who gave Edwards’ some haircuts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

This story was printed in July, 2007, long after I and other people had begun to complain about the obvious partisan nature of the stories that Solomon was writing and the Washington Post was running about Edwards. I feel that it is necessary to add the editors and owners of the Washington Post to the list of participants in the inquisition against Edwards, because they are the ones who hired the notorious John Solomon to write this tabloid silliness disguised as political news. This story, with its implied subtext of the stalker hairdresser with his unrequited gay crush (getting on planes day or night to race halfway across the country to make his man look good) was probably the purple-est prose I have seen in years. It also plays up Ann Coulter’s infamous comment from last spring. Lord only knows what Joseph Torrenueva thought of the article. Now that the Edwards campaign is over, he should hire Edwards to help him sue the WaPo for libel.

If you think I am over reading the article, take a look at how the guys on TV spun it:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/over-tipping-by-...

Television gasbags have been gleefully recycling this Edwards nonsense all day, based upon the latest Soloman story and treating it like it's news. Matthews said "sometimes small stories can reveal big things." He pretends he's cleverly pointing out that Edwards is a phony populist for getting expensive haircuts but what he's really doing is pushing GOP propaganda that Edwards is effeminate and soft. Like all Democrats.

Fox's Major Garrett just did a huge piece on this "controversy" ending with this:
"The stylist said 'I try to make the man handsome, strong, more mature and these are the things, as an expert, that's what we do.' For sheer irony, that Edwards seems to believe he needs all three, might be the sharpest cut of all."

Here is a link about George Stephanopoulos giving the un newsworthy WaPo story more coverage.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh070607.shtml

“But even more than that, it seems a little callous to be sort of pushing off on the hairdresser. When the hairdresser comes back and says, “Wait a second, I was a friend of yours, I worked hard for you," it can't help. More—more haircut headlines are not good news for John Edwards.”

Neither is another television news pundit yakking about haircuts. What an ass.

Note that Chris Matthews and George Stephanopoulos are alumni from the Rolling Stone “Gore is a Liar” story, making them seasoned veteran media whores. Among Tweety’s many other Edward’s atrocities---after New Hampshire, when he wasn’t accusing the citizens of that state of being racists and E-vote hackers, he was accusing Edwards of being a spoiler who was costing Obama the race. This lie sounded so good to liberal commentator Lawrence O’Donnell that he destroyed his reputation by writing the unfortunate “John Edwards is a Loser” for the Huffington Post, proving that innocent liberals should never associate with former CREEP organizers like Pat Buchanan, who has been presiding over MSNBC the last few months like some kind of Ghost of Stolen Elections Past.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/john-ed...

Thumbs up to Media Matters for catching another print journalist Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle participating in the Edwards is a phony lie. Bonus points to Media Matters for spotting the fact that Carla also helped out big time with Gore is a liar making this reporter one of those seasoned veteran media whores I was talking about.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200706020001

Perhaps Marinucci was too modest to mention it, but that report by the Chronicle about Edwards' "hefty fees from university speeches" was written by ... Carla Marinucci. So we have a reporter who writes an article about a candidate, then two days later writes that "the pileup of headlines ... threatens to obliterate" the candidate's message -- without mentioning that she was responsible for one of those headlines that she uses as an example.

Oh my. Everyone, when you read anything by Carla Marinucci, remember to be skeptical for this may well be another John Solomon who hasn’t been tossed into the garbage heap of the Washington Times yet.

The same Media Matters piece mentions Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson and Dennis Miller as more vectors by which the newspaper’s Edwards is a phony lies began to get distributed to the public. Vectors is a polite, medical term for blood sucking insects that carry disease, like leeches or mosquitoes or ticks.

Here is article about Fox News’ John Gibson describing Edwards as a “phony” in August.

http://www.newshounds.us/2007/08/08/big_story_takes_a_s...

I could fill an encyclopedia with Edwards is a phony lies of the rich and famous. However, there is more. As I noted above, the press did not stop at slandering and libeling Sen. Edwards. When they were not bad mouthing him, they were denying him the free publicity which they lavished on the other two senators. Here is another link about the blacklist.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/11/wa...

After all, the same WaPo reporters who chose to describe Edwards' speech as an effort to "elbow" his way into the Hillary-Obama rivalry also chose to devote the first eight paragraphs of their piece only to what Hillary and Obama said. They chose to wait until the ninth graf to tell us what Edwards said. This despite the fact that the reporters also acknowledge that polls show that in Iowa the race remains "a competitive three-way contest."

So if by WaPo's own admission this is a competitive contest between all three candidates, why go to such extreme editorial lengths to frame it as a two-person race that Edwards is trying to "elbow" his way into?

This might not have been worth bothering with if it didn't perfectly capture a lot about what's been wrong with so much of the reporting on Campaign 2008. What's bizarre is how blatant this has become -- in cases like this no one even bothers to conceal how unabashedly manufactured the chosen narrative of the moment is.

Obama was elevated to Sen. Clinton’s level almost immediately, creating the fiction of the Two Man Race . Democrats were offered the Pyrrhic choice----pick the first woman and snub Blacks or pick the first Black and alienate women. And, just in case the two candidates might do the sensible thing and decide to run together, the mainstream media decided to mix things up and interject race into the race. (See my recent journals about the MSM’s attempts to position the Democrats into a circular firing squad). Since this journal is devoted to Edwards, I will not cite references to that other campaign here.

With the New Year, things began to change. The public's concern turned towards the economy---Edwards’ special issue—and the MSM was now unable to deny him coverage completely as they have done before without getting caught. Therefore, in recent weeks, the corporate media began to unleash new lies against Edwards. One was specifically directed at Republicans and Independents, the Edwards is a red lie. This one was meant to keep his numbers down in polls which match Dems versus Republicans head to head. Ability to win in a general election had been one of Edwards’ strongest campaign points, so the MSM created this lie to undercut his strength. Check out this video link of CNN’s Glenn Beck calling Edwards a communist:

http://broadcatching.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/glenn-bec... /

If the corporate media could paint Edwards as a “red”, far left of Hillary and Obama, an extremist who would strip Americans of their goods and reduce us all to Soviet era drudgery, then they could neutralize him as a general election contender.

A related lie is “Edwards is an anarchist”. This is where “Edwards is an angry white male” comes in. We have media whores like Wolf Blitzer to thank for this:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/01/02/john-edwards-a... /

What do you say to their criticisms that you are just running over around the state screaming and hollering and making a lot of noise, but you’re not ready to really get things done to work to get things done?

And some of them are able to combine all the lies together, as in Edwards is an angry, lying, phony by Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post writing this time for the National Review on-line

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDMxN2E1ZGYyOTYwZD...

Today he plays the avenging angel, engaged in an “epic struggle” against the great economic malefactors that “have literally,” he assures us, “taken over the government.” He is angry, embodying the familiar zeal of the convert, ready to immolate anyone who benightedly holds to any revelation other than the zealot’s very latest.

Nothing new about a convert. Nothing new about a zealous convert. What is different about Edwards is his endlessly repeated claim that the raging populist of today is what he has always been. That this has been the “cause of my life,” the very core of his being, ingrained in him on his father’s knee or at the mill or wherever, depending on the anecdote he’s telling.

You must understand: This is not politics for him. “This fight is deeply personal to me. I’ve been engaged in it my whole life.”

Except for his years as senator, the only public office he’s ever held. The audacity of the all-my-life trope is staggering. By his own endlessly self-confessed record, his current pose is a coat of paint newly acquired. His claim that it is an expression of his inner soul is a farce.

My! Such eloquence! This Krauthammer is a master of the anti-Democrat slur. Hmmm. I wonder if he has had practice. A quick Google will tell us the answer. (I really didn't know what he did back in 2000, but I started typing this as I was doing the on-line search because I had a pretty good hunch from the oiliness of the propaganda above. I have a nose for these things.)

Oh lookie! Here is what Mr. Krauthammer was up to in 2000.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

But someone else offended more grievously on last weekend’s Fox News Sunday. That was Charles Krauthammer, serving up a remarkable statement about Gore’s critique of the press. Gore had said that Fox, Rush and the Washington Times “are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party” (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/29/02). And Gore had said this: “Most of the media been slow to recognize the pervasive impact of this fifth column in their ranks—that is, day after day, injecting the daily Republican talking points into the definition of what’s objective as stated by the news media as a whole.”
Snip

Krauthammer decided to crawl in the slime. Try to believe that he said it:
LIASSON: But I think that’s a real kind of cry of frustration from Al Gore, and other Democratic leaders have said the same thing.
KRAUTHAMMER: Crying for help, you know. (LAUGHTER) I’m a psychiatrist. I don’t usually practice on camera. But this is the edge of looniness, this idea that there’s a vast conspiracy, it sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help.
What a slimy man Krauthammer turns out to be! Krauthammer—a former and now misbehaving shrink—thinks Gore’s remarks on the press are “loony.” What a slimy—and deeply dishonorable—man this Great Pundit turns out to be.

To paraphrase Krauthammer’s own words about Edwards: You must understand: This is not journalism for him. “This fight is deeply business to me. I’ve been engaged in it my whole (reporting) life.”

How did the Rolling Stone miss this guy? Be sure to note this name, Krauthammer (what a name!), so that you can take anything he writes about Democrats with a great big grain of salt. Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post veteran of the Gore is a liar and Edwards is an angry-phony Big Lies.

I could go on and on with this, but I am just too damned fed up with what passes for journalism in this country. The only solution is to bust apart the telecommunications monopolies that have turned television news stations and newspapers into propaganda organs for major corporations. MSNBC no longer needs to get ratings (except for the vanity of a few celebrities). Not for money, anyway. Its job is now to change the way that America votes in order to benefit the corporate coffers of parent company GE. The same goes for ABC and Disney, CBS and Viacom and all the others.

What we need is the US equivalent of the BBC, a fully funded independent set of public television channels that program news, entertainment for children and adults and educational program. Every industrialized country in the world except the U.S. has one. Everyone would pay a tax and no political party would have any control over it. We also need legislation to keep newspapers free of the influence of big money---like the $60million the US Chambers of Commerce have pledged to spend to defeat candidates who endorse “populists” issues this year.

In order to do this, we need to get rid of this industry pandering Republican FCC which allows unlimited telecom media mergers and expansions. We need to investigate and prosecute the current chairman for taking over Congress’s role in writing legislation that affects the media.

And most important of all, we need to protest and blacklist the individual media whores who do the dirty work for their corporate masters. I can not possibly keep track of or list all the individual players who have contributed to the lies Edwards is a phony , Two Man Race Edwards is a spoiler Edwards is a red . If you know of any specific “journalist” and can post a quote and link, please do so. I would love to see a hundred replies, each with the name of a different journalist caught in the act.

It is important to hold the press accountable for their actions. Reporters think that they can get away with it by claiming that they are just getting swept away in the general narrative or are incompetent or just making a joke or "dumb asses". This is bullshit. I am a story teller. I know that it takes work to tell a story and make it believable. Big Lies do not spring out of nothing fully formed. A lot of effort goes into creating propaganda.

It will do not good simply to accuse the press of attacking the John Edwards 2008 Campaign. They know what they did. They are gloating over their victory, counting their reward in advance while they flex their muscles, awaiting further orders from their corporate masters. As Goebbels wrote, those who create propaganda are not in search of a higher truth. They want results.

Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in the Pharus Hall . That is a matter of practice, not of theory.We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses.

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb54.htm

You can not shame them into stopping. So, the only way to fight this kind of opponent is to take away their ability to spread propaganda. That means revealing them to be liars in public, so that no one will talk to them to give them stories and no news consumer will believe them. Taking away the incentive of television news and newspapers to whore for big corporations also helps. And encouraging the public to become better consumers of the news by offering them alternative choices and by educating them to the signs of propaganda.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor

Poll on Democrats.Com

2008-01-26T13:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.democrats.com/presidential-primary-poll-5

* 2008 President
* Democrats.com Polls

Which Democrat Do You Support for President?

Joe Biden_____1% (6 votes)

Hillary Clinton________19% (87 votes)

Chris Dodd____1% (4 votes)

John Edwards_________________________________40% (186 votes)

Mike Gravel__0% (2 votes)

Dennis Kucinich_________________25% (116 votes)

Barack Obama__________12% (55 votes)

Bill Richardson__2% (10 votes)

Total votes: 466

Latest poll results

2008-01-24T23:25:00.000-08:00

EDWARDS CLIMBS AGAIN

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who won South Carolina during his failed 2004 presidential bid, has climbed steadily each day of the poll. He started at 15 percent and is now at 21 percent.

Edwards held a slight lead over Clinton among likely white voters at 36 percent to 33 percent. Obama had 18 percent.

"Edwards is in a battle for second place," Zogby said. "He's getting the lion's share of the undecideds.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080125/pl_nm/usa_politics_poll_dc_4;_ylt=AmvXL_jw7DXQ.B26168w6rAE1vAI

Please help John

2008-01-24T08:58:00.000-08:00

John Edwards needs help to get this message out. Please make a donation today, lets change things together!

Wake up America!

2008-01-23T21:43:00.001-08:00

This man deserves a listen...

Letter from Martin Luther King lll

2008-01-21T21:15:00.000-08:00

January 20, 2008

The Honorable John R. Edwards
410 Market Street
Suite 400
Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Dear Senator Edwards:

It was good meeting with you yesterday and discussing my father's legacy. On the day when the nation will honor my father, I wanted to follow up with a personal note.

There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of back and forth in the political arena over my father's legacy. It is a commentary on the breadth and depth of his impact that so many people want to claim his legacy. I am concerned that we do not blur the lines and obscure the truth about what he stood for: speaking up for justice for those who have no voice.

I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.

You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don't have lobbyists in Washington and they don't get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.

I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.

From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.

I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.

So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.

Sincerely,

Martin L. King, III

John Edwards

2008-01-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

Pass it on!...

From tonights debate

2008-01-16T00:05:00.000-08:00

John Edwards knows whats wrong with this country and how we can lead in the fight to save our environment...

John Edwards the Statesman!

2008-01-14T22:49:00.000-08:00

I have never been so proud to back a candidate as I am John Edwards...

Do we really want change?

2008-01-14T21:21:00.000-08:00

I got this letter in my e-mail from John Edwards campaign. I couldn't have said it better so I'm going to just copy it here...

Dear Edwards supporter;

The choice in this election is simple. If we want a president who will lead America to the big, bold changes we need and change the conversation in America, Democrats should choose the candidate who has led the field in ideas and shaped the conversation in this race so far.

In this campaign, John Edwards has led on the issues -- the other candidates have merely followed.

But don't take it from me -- let me share with you some of the things people are saying about John.

As Paul Krugman writes today in The New York Times:

"On the Democratic side, John Edwards, although never the front-runner, has been driving his party's policy agenda. He's done it again on economic stimulus: last month, before the economic consensus turned as negative as it now has, he proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures."
And as Christopher Hayes writes in The Nation:
"The fact remains that the Edwards campaign has set the domestic policy agenda for the entire field. He was the first with a bold universal health care plan, the first with an ambitious climate change proposal that called for cap-and-trade, and the leader on reforming predatory lending practices and raising the minimum wage to a level where it regains its lost purchasing power."
In this campaign, John Edwards has led the other candidates in standing up for progressive change.

As Ezra Klein writes in The American Prospect:
"Much more so than Obama, it was Edwards who forced a new style of politics, untethered by the fear and timidity of the 90s, adamant that liberalism was an electoral boon and economic justice a popular sentiment. Knowing they had to defend against his challenge, both Hillary and Obama edged closer to his appeal.

"It left the Democrats in a much stronger position overall, and forced them to argue for, and commit to, a much broader and more inspiring agenda than we otherwise might have seen."
In this campaign, the other candidates have followed John's lead in talking about the special interests -- but the special interests understand the difference between rhetoric and reality. That's why corporate lobbyists are united against John Edwards.

As Kevin Drawbaugh reports for Reuters:
"Ask corporate lobbyists which presidential contender is most feared by their clients and the answer is almost always the same -- Democrat John Edwards. One business lobbyist said an Edwards presidency would be a 'disaster' for his well-heeled industrialist clients.

'I think Hillary is approachable. She knows where a lot of her funding has come from to be blunt,' said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Stanford Group Co., a market and policy analysis group."
Want to help John's field-leading campaign for change? Then please take a moment to forward these quotes on to your friends and family who live in the 48 states that have yet to cast a vote for the Democratic nominee. Tell them that you are standing with John Edwards -- and ask them to join you.

Here's the bottom line in this election. We need a president who has the vision to put forth bold, progressive solutions to the challenges facing America in the 21st century. John Edwards has shown he has that vision -- and he has led on it throughout this campaign.

Thanks for taking action.

--Jonathan Prince
Deputy Campaign Manager, John Edwards for President
January 14, 2008

Why would John want to be our President?

2008-01-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here at my computer, just having read a very disturbing assessment of my favorite Presidential candidates prospects for success and wondering why. He's come in second and third in the only two primary's held so far and all ready they are sending him to the scrap heap. The MSM is buying into the DLC contention that there are only two, viable, candidates left so it's virtually impossible (no pun intended) to find a story, not even a blurb, about the one true hope for the Democratic party, that is John Edwards.

I'm thinking about the abuse he has taken, not for his message, but for his expensive hair cut, how he got his money and what he's done with it. Who he has consulted with in his private practice and even his sexual orientation, have come into question. Having lost a son, and who's wife is dying of cancer, this man, and his family, have shown great strength and courage in this endeavor. They campaigned hard and this man has stayed on his message.

He's surly not doing it for the money.His family was set to live very comfortably, something Johns Parents didn't enjoy. John came from the same roots you and I did, hard working middle class. Unlike other candidates, with similar backgrounds, John hasn't forgotten where he came from and the hard working middle class that made it possible for him to achieve what he has. He has given and given up more than he will ever make, monetarily, as our President. He says he just wants to give back and I believe him!

Is it for fame? Don't make me laugh. The John and Elizabeth Edwards family, aside from both being successful lawyers, are the most Mom and Apple pie family I know of in this race. This brings up a question that really bothers me. John is the average white man in the race. Not only that but a dreaded trial lawyer to boot. Is this the reason Johns message is not being heard? If John were a woman or black would that make a difference?

John is a statesman. He has proven that time and again. Although his questions and answers have been pointed at times, he has stayed above the fray when it comes to negatives and only pointing out the obvious when necessary. He was gracious in accepting that his former running mate chose to endorse Senator Obama. He has not wilted or even slowed down. He and Elizabeth are in this to the end, you can believe that. Why? Because he wants to be our President.

Support America, donate to John Edwards

2008-01-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

2008-01-04T10:02:00.000-08:00

I want to copy this article in it's entirety . It says so much about why I so support John Edwards.

Most Improved Candidate?
Edwards Reconsidered

By NORMAN SOLOMON
http://www.counterpunch.org/solomon01032008.html

There have been good reasons not to support John Edwards for president. For years, his foreign-policy outlook has been a hodgepodge of insights and dangerous conventional wisdom; his health-care prescriptions have not taken the leap to single payer; and all told, from a progressive standpoint, his positions have been inferior to those of Dennis Kucinich.

But Edwards was the most improved presidential candidate of 2007. He sharpened his attacks on corporate power and honed his calls for economic justice. He laid down a clear position against nuclear power. He explicitly challenged the power of the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical giants.

And he improved his position on Iraq to the point that, in an interview with the New York Times a couple of days ago, he said: "The continued occupation of Iraq undermines everything America has to do to reestablish ourselves as a country that should be followed, that should be a leader." Later in the interview, Edwards added: "I would plan to have all combat troops out of Iraq at the end of nine to ten months, certainly within the first year."

Now, apparently, Edwards is one of three people with a chance to become the Democratic presidential nominee this year. If so, he would be the most progressive Democrat to top the national ticket in more than half a century.

The main causes of John Edwards' biggest problems with the media establishment have been tied in with his firm stands for economic justice instead of corporate power.

Weeks ago, when the Gannett-chain-owned Des Moines Register opted to endorse Hillary Clinton this time around, the newspaper's editorial threw down the corporate gauntlet: "Edwards was our pick for the 2004 nomination. But this is a different race, with different candidates. We too seldom saw the positive, optimistic campaign we found appealing in 2004. His harsh anti-corporate rhetoric would make it difficult to work with the business community to forge change."

Many in big media have soured on Edwards and his "harsh anti-corporate rhetoric." As a result, we're now in the midst of a classic conflict between corporate media sensibilities and grassroots left-leaning populism.

On Wednesday, Edwards launched a TV ad in New Hampshire with him saying at a rally: "Corporate greed has infiltrated everything that's happening in this democracy. It's time for us to say, 'We're not going to let our children's future be stolen by these people.' I have never taken a dime from a Washington lobbyist or a special interest PAC and I'm proud of that."

But, when it comes to policy positions, he's still no Dennis Kucinich. And that's why, as 2007 neared its end, I planned to vote for Kucinich when punching my primary ballot.

Reasons for a Kucinich vote remain. The caucuses and primaries are a time to make a clear statement about what we believe in -- and to signal a choice for the best available candidate. Ironically, history may show that the person who did the most to undermine such reasoning for a Dennis Kucinich vote at the start of 2008 was... Dennis Kucinich.

In a written statement released on Jan. 1, he said: "I hope Iowans will caucus for me as their first choice this Thursday, because of my singular positions on the war, on health care, and trade. This is an opportunity for people to stand up for themselves. But in those caucuses locations where my support doesn't reach the necessary [15 percent] threshold, I strongly encourage all of my supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice. Sen. Obama and I have one thing in common: Change."

This statement doesn't seem to respect the intelligence of those of us who have planned to vote for Dennis Kucinich.

It's hard to think of a single major issue -- including "the war," "health care" and "trade" -- for which Obama has a more progressive position than Edwards. But there are many issues, including those three, for which Edwards has a decidedly more progressive position than Obama.

But the most disturbing part of Dennis' statement was this: "Sen. Obama and I have one thing in common: Change." This doesn't seem like a reasoned argument for Obama. It seems like an exercise in smoke-blowing.

I write these words unhappily. I was a strong advocate for Kucinich during the race for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. Two weeks ago, I spoke at an event for his campaign in Northern California. I believe there is no one in Congress today with a more brilliant analysis of key problems facing humankind or a more solid progressive political program for how to overcome them.

As of the first of this year, Dennis has urged Iowa caucusers to do exactly what he spent the last year telling us not to do -- skip over a candidate with more progressive politics in order to support a candidate with less progressive politics.

The best argument for voting for Dennis Kucinich in caucuses and primaries has been what he aptly describes as his "singular positions on the war, on health care, and trade." But his support for Obama over Edwards indicates that he's willing to allow some opaque and illogical priorities to trump maximizing the momentum of our common progressive agendas.

Presidential candidates have to be considered in the context of the current historical crossroads. No matter how much we admire or revere an individual, there's too much at stake to pursue faith-based politics at the expense of reality-based politics. There's no reason to support Obama over Edwards on Kucinich's say-so. And now, I can't think of reasons good enough to support Kucinich rather than Edwards in the weeks ahead.

If this man is not our candidate then we have settled for the Status Quo once again...

It's a long process I know

2008-01-03T23:43:00.000-08:00

I've got mixed emotions about today. On the one hand John probably spent a quarter of the money Hillary did and still beat her, but on the other hand he wasn't funded well enough to come out on top. That upsets me very much.

I've listened to Johns message and I've seen him in action. I've studied his record, in congress and the private sector, this man is for real. He is everything I could ask for in a candidate. He is running this campaign the way I would want all campaigns run, but in doing so he is putting himself at risk of not being heard. That is a disgrace.

We have created an industry out of getting elected. Lights, Camera, Candidate we have more scripts than issues. Sound bites and sarcasm, get the dirt and put it on film. They twist your mind with a spectrum of scenarios from wolves at your door to mushroom clouds over our play grounds, it's no wonder people are turned off.

We know more about Britney's spending habits now days than John Edwards stand on getting us out of Iraq. We've become a tabloid, People magazine society but the sad thing is inquiring minds don't want to know what they should know. Johns the only candidate who's set a dead line of a year to get us out of Iraq. The other two candidates, sitting Senators I might add, have done nothing to get us out. Where is the media, where is the coverage?

Last but not least is Elizabeth Edwards. Her strength and will power in helping her husband in his campaign have inspired me and many others. I can imagine no finer First Lady. Where is the coverage of her? I see Bill out stumping for Hillary but no coverage of Elizabeth to speak of. Maybe if she were a little younger and red haired?

It is because I believe in John Edwards so much that I made a donation tonight, of what I could, to his campaign and I'm asking all who read this to do the same no matter how much it is. Use the Act Blue link here on my page or go to the John Edwards blog. No matter how you do it John deserves your support, please help.

We've got to do our part...

2007-12-31T14:47:00.001-08:00

John has battled, under extreme circumstances, to stay within reach of the nomination and it looks like he may pull it off but the votes haven't been counted and anything can happen between now and then so he will need to depend on us to watch his back.
Someone wrote, the other day, that if John Edwards isn't our candidate it will be our lose not his. Let's not let that mistake happen...

Open Letter to John Edwards: Get Ready, John,
They're Going to Come at You with All Barrels Blazing

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Posted December 31, 2007

John Edwards, you better have a strong stomach and a steel rod in your spine. You're going to need it because it's going to get ugly, and you're going to be the target of the ugliness. You hung tough, didn't fade in the polls as some expected and hoped, and now you are poised to make a big showing in Iowa. Now that that's the case, they're going to come after you with all barrels blazing.

The 'they' is not just the gaggle of ultra-conservative slam artists, the Fox network crowd, talk shock jocks, the Wall Street Journal neo-con columnists, and The New York Times neo-neo-liberal bunch. The 'they' is also Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party shot callers. They will slander, slur, and outright frontally assail you. As long as you were a bare afterthought, warm up act to Clinton and Obama, nobody cared.

These two mediagenic darlings have hogged the glare of the media and the public, and with Clinton, it's loathing and vitriol and with Obama, it's curiosity and fake adoration. But John, you quietly, patiently did your homework. You courted the Democratic Party chairs and leaders in Iowa, hammered away on the need for universal health care, a revamped farm policy, labor protections, against corporate pillaging, and most importantly, the disgrace of endemic poverty in a nation of plenty.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/open-letter-to-john-edwar_b_78902.html?load=1&page=2#comments

Rise up People...

2007-12-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

Now's the time and John Edwards is the man...

2007-12-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

He's gonna make a great President!...

2007-12-18T23:41:00.000-08:00

John is coming back at the right time. I believe his momentum will carry him through Iowa. He is the one true candidate, running a campaign as it should be run, he's the candidate who will restore the Democratic party to it's former glory...

Edwards Takes Back Lead in Iowa
A new InsiderAdvantage poll in Iowa shows John Edwards leading among likely caucus-goers with 30% support, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton at 26% and Sen. Barack Obama at 24%.

This is the first poll to show Edwards ahead of his rivals since summer.

Key finding: Edwards holds a significant advantage "among a group who could be key to the first contest of the presidential year: those who say their first choice is someone other than the top three. Under Iowa Democratic Party rules, candidates who poll less than 15 percent in the first vote at each caucus around the state are eliminated, and their supporters get a second chance to vote for another candidate."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/12/18/edwards_takes_back_lead_in_iowa.html

John Edwards on Campaign Finance Reform

2007-12-16T12:10:00.000-08:00

This man should be our next President!...

Edwards on top...

2007-12-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

First Place

John Edwards -- Although his endorsement from Congressman Bruce Braley did not come as much of a surprise (Braley was a strong Edwards supporter in 2004), it will certainly help assuage fears among his supporters that his candidacy has lost its momentum. And, as revealed Monday morning on a conference call, the former North Carolina senator has recruited multiple precinct captains in 87% of Iowa's precincts, demonstrating the continuing superiority of his grassroots organization.

Second Place

(tie) Hillary Clinton -- In our first Power Rankings, Clinton ranked third, but she has shown many signs of life recently that indicate she deserves a higher position. Her husband campaigned for her in Eastern Iowa last week, helping to shore up her supporters there; and she herself has spent time on the ground in less likely places reassuring leaners that she still takes Iowa seriously. Although her more aggressive attacks on Sen. Barack Obama may damage her already-low second-choice support, they should also reassure her supporters that she deserves their time and effort on caucus night. And the entree of Emily's List's new voter outreach program may be a help, as well.

(tie) Barack Obama -- Upward Momentum -- Polls have confirmed what we have felt anecdotally for a long time: that Obama's message resonates equally well among women as it does among men, and that's before Oprah Winfrey has even arrived. The gender and age gaps both show signs of closing, and his campaign's crowd-building skills are unparalleled. His subtle criticisms of Clinton over the past month have forced Clinton to issue less subtle criticisms of her own, perhaps demonstrating the direction her campaign sees the race heading. If any candidate will usurp Edwards's first-place position between now and January 3, Obama appears best positioned to do so.

Fourth Place

Joe Biden -- Upward Momentum -- Biden has mastered the art of retail politics better than perhaps any other candidate in the race, and it shows not just in his campaign events but also in his organization's ability to capitalize on social networks and the political capital of his endorsers. His base is more likely than any other candidate's to actually attend the caucuses, and his second-choice support continues to increase.

Fifth Place

Bill Richardson -- Richardson has a large staff that has been building lists since June, but he lacks support from traditional activists and politicos around the state, as evidenced by his very short list of state legislative endorsements. His staff will not be able to do all of the necessary work for getting out the vote alone. And although he is committed very seriously to grassroots campaigning, he is unpolished and inconsistent on the stump.

Sixth Place

(tie) Chris Dodd -- Dodd's campaign has been promising from the start, but his second-choice support still seems far stronger than his first-choice support. FIrefighters have been working diligently across the state to support him, but he will need a major shake-up in the race in order to advance. His focus on other candidates' votes on bankruptcy "reform" legislation is promising, but attacking Edwards, Clinton, and Biden may cost him more than he gets in return.

(tie) Dennis Kucinich -- Kucinich spent little to no time in Iowa in the first nine months of the campaign, but over the past week he has spent at least some time reaching out to his base of supporters from 2004. Although he has likely started too late in the game to build a strong organization, he may have shown enough signs of life here to reassure small factions of the electorate that he deserves their support.

Eighth Place

Mike Gravel

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chase-martyn...ng_b_75147.html

What really bugs me the most

2007-11-13T23:49:00.000-08:00

I have watched John Edwards run the type of campaign I'd like all candidates to have to run but in doing so he's highlighted the problems we face in getting others to do it to. John Has not taken big money in his campaign. He's said no to the big money lobbyists on capital hill and ran his campaign on matching funds, the way all campaigns should be run but at the risk of not getting his message out.
This is sad. I bristle when I here this or that candidate has X amount of money and that should get them elected. This is a sad indictment of or election process, as if it needed help. I see a man like John Edwards, on the stump day in day out, and still they don't give him a chance that tells me somethings wrong. He has the clearest message and the biggest contrast of any of the candidates. He is a true liberal in the mold of FDR, he sees what the problem is and has a plan to fix it.
Another is this sudden attitude by the Clinton camp that the "Boys are Picking on Hillary". I'm sorry but the President is a gender neutral position. If you want the office you've got to step up to the plate, there will be far more heat applied once in office and if this is intimidating then she doesn't need to be running for the office. John has had some pointed questions but questions that need to be answered, and he has every right to bring them up. I respected and defended Bill Clinton but of late I'm seeing things that I just don't like from either of them. John is far more forthcoming and honest about what he will do in office and I trust the guy.
I do think things are happening. With the revelations that Hillary planted questions, the field is starting to bunch up. I truly believe that once the smoke clears John will triumph in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Isn't it strange

2007-11-12T11:08:00.001-08:00

Isn't it strange that now you can't find a hint of this story or the new poll that shows Clinton slipping? Isn't that strange.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/20...on-camp-ad.html

and Bill Clinton meets with his ex-detractor and Head of the Right wing conspiracy this doesn't smell right to me...

and considering that the MSM and everyone else have been pushing Hillary down our throats for so long...

Edwards To Be Endorsed By Key Iowa Group

2007-11-08T15:31:00.000-08:00

The Senators star is rising. He has the fight and determination to win and I believe he will.
Go John Go!

Exclusive: Edwards To Be Endorsed By Key Iowa Group
By Greg Sargent - November 8, 2007, 5:58PM
I've just learned from several sources that John Edwards will be endorsed by the fiscal group Iowans for Sensible Priorities, a very good get for Edwards in the key early-primary state.
A source on a rival campaign confirmed that the group decided to endorse Edwards; the decision will officially be announced tomorrow morning. The endorsement is a key one because it could potentially deliver a large block of thousands of caucus goers to Edwards.
Peggy Huptert, the head of the group, refused to confirm or deny whether the group had decided to back Edwards. But she did agree to discuss the general importance of the endorsement with Election Central.
"We have 10,000 Iowans who have taken a pledge saying they will vote in the caucuses and only support a candidate who supports shifting 15% of wasteful Pentagon spending into other priorities," Ms. Huptert said, describing her group's litmus test issue. I was unable to immediately confirm whether Edwards had in fact made this pledge.
Ms. Huptert added that all the main candidates had submitted questionaires to the group in search of its support. She noted that the winner of the group's endorsement (who she declined to confirm) would in effect get the support of all these members in one fell swoop. But others in Presidential politics pointed out that this is the first time the group is endorsing in this manner, so its ability to move votes remains untested. We won't know the full significance of Edwards' get until the votes are cast.
Still, the Edwards campaign -- which also declined to confirm the group's decision -- are already announcing a mystery event for tomorrow and are already looking to build excitement around it. The campaign already has an advisory out promising an "Important Campaign Announcement" for tomorrow in Des Moines.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/11/exclusive_edwards_to_be_endorsed_by_key_iowa_group.php

The Winner is

2007-10-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

If we're smart!

Missing Edwards Tapes

2007-10-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

John is his own best salesman. This man needs to be President!

This man needs to be President!

2007-09-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

John Edwards the working mans friend!

2007-09-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

This article just emphasizes what I've known about John Edwards for some time. As Senator he voted for every pro labor bill he could. As a candidate he has espoused many programs to help the beleaguered American Worker and as President the Workers of America would have a friend in the White House again!...

Unions Endorse Edwards
RAMESH SANTANAM | September 3, 2007 11:02 AM EST | AP

PITTSBURGH — John Edwards won the endorsement of the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America as more than 1,000 union members cheered the Democratic presidential candidate.

"America was not built on Wall Street. America was built by steelworkers and mine workers," Edwards told supporters at a downtown Labor Day rally and parade.

Wearing union T-shirts and carrying signs that urged an end to the war in Iraq, the crowd booed heartily when UMW President Cecil Roberts brought up the name of President Bush. Roberts said Bush is to blame for many good-paying U.S. jobs going overseas.

Earlier, Edwards suggested New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign represents politics-as-usual in Washington and that Edwards represents a break from the past.

"We just have a disagreement," Edwards said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "Sen. Clinton defends Washington lobbyists and the system that exists in Washington and thinks she can work within that system. If that were true we would already have universal health care. If that were true America would already be attacking global warming in a serious way."

The steelworker and mine worker endorsements mean that Edwards now has more labor endorsements than any Democratic presidential candidate.

The former senator from North Carolina has also secured the backing of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

Clinton has been endorsed by the United Transportation Union and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd has been endorsed by the International Association of Fire Fighters.

The United Steelworkers is the largest industrial union in North America, with 850,000 members and retirees in the metals, mining, rubber, paper, oil refining, chemicals and service industries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070903/edwards-unions/

Edwards wants money out of Politics

2007-08-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

The former Senator makes Hillary look bad in this video.

Special Extra Earnings for Military Service.

2007-06-29T16:27:00.001-07:00

Attached is an informative article referencing "Special Extra Earnings for Military Service."

This article explains that under certain circumstances, special extra earnings for military service from 1940 through 2001 can be credited to your record for Social Security purposes. It also explains how the extra earnings are credited.

If you are a veteran who is collecting Social Security and you're not sure whether you are receiving this benefit, you may call your local Social Security office and ask them to check your account.

This information is new to me, and it has helped other veterans already. You can also access their website at:

http://www1.va.gov/opa/feature/index.asp and http://www1.va.gov/OPA/vadocs/current_benefits.asp.

If I can ever be of assistance, please feel free to contact me.

Perry B. Clark, State Senator
5716 New Cut Road
Louisville, KY 40214
502.366.1247

2007-06-20T18:19:00.001-07:00

This man speaks for himself...

John Edwards supports Civil Unions

2007-06-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

I've seen a lot of criticize of John Edwards lately about being against gay marriage and I don't see that in a legislative sense from him. In a current article on Huffington Post I thought his answers were honest, according to his beliefs, and we shouldn't have to throw away our personal believes just because we become public servants. Like Edwards said thats why we have the division of church and state. That's a huge statement he's making here.

It's like my beliefs on the abortion issue. My opinion shouldn't matter I'm a man, it's not my body. As an elected official I'd have to vote pro abortion, even though I prefer we find other alternative. It's an issue that should be left up to the woman her doctor and her god if she needs one. I like the saying abortions legal, available, and few or something to that effect.

What John Edwards is saying is he'd have to legislate without regard to his religious beliefs. It would be the will of the people and not what he himself personally believes. You can't force people to accept gay marriage, but you can force legislation that gives equal rights...

I personally wish we could get our noses out of everyones sex lives, but thats what seems to be the hot button and politicians will be forced to pander, thats politics.
What everyone will have to realize is, this will take baby steps. Think about it, this is a far cry from the way things were even 12 years ago.

I've included the article so you can judge for yourself. He's breaking the hold of the religious right on our constitution...

Edwards: Personally against same-sex marriage

WASHINGTON (CNN) – During CNN’s Faith and Politics forum Monday at George Washington University, former Sen. John Edwards, D – North Carolina, told CNN that he does not believe homosexuals have the right to be married.

“No. Not personally, you’re asking me personally,” Edwards told CNN moderator Soledad O’Brien.

“There’s a difference between my belief system and what the responsibilities of the President of the United States are,” he added. “It is the reason we have separation of church and state.”

Edwards said he’s in favor of “civil unions and all the subsequent rights that go with that.” The former senator is on record as opposing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

It'll come!

EXIT STAGE LEFT... SO LONG, SWEETIE...

2007-05-31T19:34:00.000-07:00

This is a letter composed by a very dear friend of mine...I think it speaks for itself...

EXIT STAGE LEFT...
SO LONG, SWEETIE...
By Buddy Spell
May 30, 2007

And there ya go.....

By way of background, Cindy Sheehan and I became acquainted in 2004. At the time, several Louisiana activists had established a resistance beach head in the Greater New Orleans Area to confront the war advocates regardless of whoever won the sham election in the coming November. Cindy contacted me seeking our endorsement of a new group she had organized called Gold Star Families for Peace.

I instantly sensed her strength, sincerity and passion. We became immediate friends.

About a year later, in June '05, Cindy came to Covington to visit following the Summer SOULstice action in New Orleans. At the time, we were organizing a Peace Train to DC for the mass protest set for September. Cindy was assisting us and would join the Louisiana Activist Network's journey to the White House. Of course, two events, back to back, would change everything. At least for me....

Around August 3, 2005, she contacted me and told me that she attempt would to confront Bush at his pretend cowboy ranch in Crawford, Texas. She asked me to join her as legal counsel. The days and weeks which followed were some of the most rewarding of a fairly long and very exciting life. At Camp Casey, we stomped on the terra. It was brilliant. No regrets. Pure patriotic rebellion. The best.

Then came Katrina. She made landfall on the very day Camp Casey closed down. I came home immediately to begin to rebuild and the movement moved on.....

As things got stabilized at home and the war drug on, I signed on as legal counsel to Troops Out Now for the week of last spring's March on the Pentagon. I came home bruised and disappointed...and tired of the uphill battle intrinsic to holding a mirror up to a society blind to its flaws. Without fanfare, I determined to take a sabbatical from the movement.

Thank God for Cindy Sheehan and the summer of '05. From those heady days of rebellion comes the strength to dust off and move onward. Her tour of duty is done...well done. She has suffered for the movement and has earned the right to slip away.

I could have never put up with the abuse she sustained from the pompous, disengenuous apologists and lock-steppers on the Right for as long as she did. They picked at every flaw, real and contrived, and attacked her with an unchristian ferocity which has been staggering. And she continued onward through it all.

Now, as she elegantly exits stage left, the pigs take one last, unnecessary shot. Well, as their Dear Leader has said in the halls of the Senate, they can go fuck themselves. Cindy Sheehan has, with all of her flaws, more humanity in an eyelash than these punks could ever garnish.

More power to her.

More power to us.

Cindy and I disagreed on tactics and political stuff all of the time. Constantly. We only agreed on that which was of primary importance...a yearning for a peaceful and just homeland. She remains my friend and fellow warrior. And, dare I say, a hero.

My rest is about over and preparations for the next "Big One" now begin.

See you at the DNC in Denver next summer. The Democrats have bitten the hand which fed them. Let's bite back.

Oh, and I'll bet Cindy will be there too.

No doubt about it....

Buddy Spell is an antiwar activist and felony defense lawyer in Covington, Louisiana who, along with his law partner wife, Annie, served as "house lawyer" at the Seige of Crawford in August, 2005.

From Elizabeth Edwards

2007-05-15T10:54:00.001-07:00

Dear R

I am so proud that today in Iowa, John is announcing the launch of our new group: Women for Edwards. Women from across the country—elected officials, community leaders, workers, political activists, mothers, daughters, sisters—have added their voices to the campaign.

Today, I'm asking you to join us. Please help me by sending this email on to your sister, your mother, a friend or any woman you know who might be interested in joining our campaign. Tell them the news about Women for Edwards, and let them know we need their voice.

Here's the link to sign up:

www.johnedwards.com/women

For John and me, this campaign has always been primarily about the people who the campaign, and ultimately an Edwards administration, can reach and help. In fact the name of the group—if it wasn't too unwieldy—could be Women for Women (for Edwards).

This campaign has always had at its core the issues about which women feel passionately, and therefore it is no surprise to me that women are drawn to this campaign—both because of the emphasis on the real issues and John's commitment to improving the lives of women and families.

John's clear focus on the key issues that affect women's lives during the campaign gives us all confidence that he will prioritize these same issues as President. I'm talking about things like:

* Raising the minimum wage which currently disproportionately disadvantages hard-working women

* Guaranteeing every American quality health care with a program that does not wait but addresses this stress on American families now so that every woman, every child gets the medical attention she needs

* Making college more affordable and helping Americans save which dramatically affects the bottom line in many women's lives

* And women, like all Americans, desire to create a better world for our families by supporting the troops and ending the war in Iraq, taking a better, long-term approach to defusing radical extremism that fuels terrorism, and by stopping global warming so that the current alarming trends do not become an environmental free-fall that our children will not be able to halt.

Getting this election right is so important to women. Can you use this as an opportunity to reach out and find one woman you know who shares these values and ask her to join us? Can you find one woman who is not involved, help her register to vote and talk to her about John's campaign—a campaign dedicated to improving her life?

www.johnedwards.com/women

I'm glad that we're in this together.

Sincerely,

--Elizabeth Edwards
Tuesday, May 15, 2007

I'm Sorry

2007-04-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in awhile. I've have some personal things that took precedence, but I'll be back at it tonight.

Vote John Edwards!

Money is everything...

2007-04-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

It's really shameful how money has taken precedence over policy when it comes to electing our national leaders. This year will probably be the first billion dollar campaigns in American history but what do we get from all that money spent? If we get John Edwards we get an end to big money politics and lobbiest driven legislation.
The way to do this is to use the tools that are out there for free and I'd like to give you some examples of what our candidate has gotten in the line of free advertising recently.
You can't buy this kind of stuff folks and it's all good. This shows me I've made the right choice.

John Edwards Sticks to His Message
As John Edwards travels the country, he's sticking to his message—and caring for a sick wife.
By Jonathan Darman
Newsweek

April 9, 2007 issue - After Bill Clinton, there is perhaps no spouse in the 2008 presidential race as powerful as Elizabeth Edwards. She is her husband's closest adviser and toughest enforcer. She has her own fund-raising following. She revises drafts of some of John's speeches. Outsiders angling for staff positions get grilled intensively by the candidate—and his wife. "This doesn't require any parsing of words," John Edwards says. "Elizabeth is involved in everything."

Now Edwards and his top counselor are facing their toughest campaign challenge yet: how to manage her future on the trail. In the two weeks since the Edwardses learned that Elizabeth's breast cancer has returned and is incurable, the couple has seen an outpouring of support. Lance Armstrong, a family friend, called. So did George H.W. Bush, who suggested a specialist at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The campaign raised $540,000 online in the week after Elizabeth's announcement. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, 56 percent of adults think Edwards made the right decision by staying in the race; only 12 percent think he is trying to use his wife's illness to his own political advantage. "When I walk down the street I can't move," John tells NEWSWEEK. "People stop me: 'How's Elizabeth? We're thinking about her'."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17889145/site/newsweek/?from=rss

WASHINGTON - As he tries to explain how he'll cope with the return of his wife's cancer, presidential hopeful
John Edwards is opening up about another family struggle — the death of his teenage son Wade 11 years ago.

His family life suddenly in the spotlight, Edwards has responded by speaking about an experience bound to bring him sympathy, humanize his campaign and focus on perseverance after tragedy.

The discussion began last Thursday when John and Elizabeth Edwards announced her breast cancer had spread to her bone. It continued Saturday when Edwards was asked if he could balance the campaign and her diagnosis.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070329/ap_on_el_pr/edwards_lost_son_4

Mar 31, 2007 8:08 pm US/Eastern
John Edwards Makes Campaign Stop In Aventura

(CBS4) AVENTURA John Edwards made a campaign stop in South Florida on Saturday to continue his fundraising drive as he prepares for a presidential run in 2007.

The former Democratic senator from North Carolina met with supporters in Aventura, as he continued a whirlwind week which saw him make campaign stops in Indianapolis, Lexington, Ky., Youngstown, Ohio, before arriving in Miami, where he hopes to raise as much as possible before the first-quarter campaign finance reports are due.

It’s going very well so far,” Edwards told CBS-4 on Saturday. “We’ve got a lot of momentum. We’re doing very well in our fundraising and our political work around the country and we feel very encouraged.”

http://cbs4.com/local/local_story_090201021.html

By JIM DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 31, 7:31 PM ET

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. -
John Edwards returned Saturday to his legal roots and his native state as he wrapped up a fundraising blitz.
ADVERTISEMENT

Edwards stopped at a reception at the upscale office building of one of South Carolina's biggest trial lawyer firms, just across from Charleston's port and near the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier museum.

In his last run for president, the former North Carolina senator who made his fortune as a trial lawyer, was asking his colleagues to reach deep in their pockets get his first presidential bid off the ground. But it's different this time around, Edwards said Saturday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070331/ap_on_el_pr/on_the2008_trail_30

Edwards' presidential run to be family affair

April 1, 2007
BY TONY LEYS
DES MOINES, Iowa --Iowans probably will see a lot of John Edwards' family over the next year, his wife said Friday.

The couple plan to pull their two youngest children out of school next fall and take them along on the presidential campaign trail, Elizabeth Edwards said.

The Edwardses were considering the move before last week, when she learned her breast cancer had returned and become incurable. Because of that news, she said, she and her husband are more determined to keep the children -- Emma Claire, 8, and Jack, 6 -- close at hand.

''Selfishly, we love being with them,'' she said.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/321808,CST-NWS-edwards01.article

008 CAMPAIGN
Online donors give to Edwards
Presidential hopeful surges near $3 million via Internet donations
MIKE BAKER
Associated Press

RALEIGH --
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards surged toward an Internet fundraising benchmark of $3 million Saturday, just hours before the campaign closed the books on the first quarter.

Fred Baron, the campaign's chief fundraiser, said it was "a fair assumption" to say the Edwards campaign had already passed its total fundraising target of $7.4 million, noting that campaigns generally gain more dollars through non-Internet donations.

Edwards, a former trial lawyer, has been tirelessly touring the nation courting donors since he joined the 2008 race in December.

"We are well along the way to financing this campaign," Baron said. "We're very gratified."

It took Edwards two months to reach $1 million in online contributions. The former senator from North Carolina has since taken one month to make up the remainder. He has received an influx of donations since his March 22 announcement that his wife, Elizabeth, has an incurable form of cancer.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/115/story/70388.html

This is good, really good. This is a campaign managers dream. It's great being on the right train headed in the right direction...

Wow what a week!...

2007-03-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for not posting before now but things have been happening in my life as well as on the campaign. I think today instead of quoting a lot of people I don't know I'll just give you my take on JRE and the current events and what I suspect the future will be.

I have had so many thoughts go through my mind and so many emotions through my soul(my soul being that self I only share with me). It's funny how my first thoughts went to the Movie "The American President". I don't know how many of you have seen it, it stars Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. It deals with an embattled President who has lost a spouse at a young age. He has a school age daughter and must content with not only affairs of state but also of heart.

I was most impressed by a speech he gave at the end of the movie. It was great:

Reporter: Robyn, will the President ever respond to Senator Rumson's question about being a member of the American Civil Liberties Union?

President Shepherd: Yes, he will. Good morning. [Members of the White House Press Corps begin to rise] It's alright. Please keep your seats. Good morning.

For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being President of this country was, to a certain extent, about character. And although I've not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I have been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character.

For the record, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU, but the more important question is "Why aren't you, Bob?" Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the constitution? Now if you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a few hours ago.

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.

Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

I've known Bob Rumson for years. And I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it!

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism. You tell them she's to blame for their lot in life. And you go on television and you call her a whore.

Sydney Ellen Wade has done nothing to you, Bob. She has done nothing but put herself through school, represent the interests of public school teachers, and lobby for the safety of our natural resources. You want a character debate, Bob? You better stick with me, 'cause Sydney Ellen Wade is way out of your league.

I've loved two women in my life. I lost one to cancer. And I lost the other 'cause I was so busy keeping my job, I forgot to do my job. Well, that ends right now.

Tomorrow morning the White House is sending a bill to Congress for it's consideration. It's White House Resolution 455, an energy bill requiring a twenty percent reduction of the emission of fossil fuels over the next ten years. It is by far the most aggressive stride ever taken in the fight to reverse the effects of global warming. The other piece of legislation is the crime bill. As of today, it no longer exists. I'm throwing it out. I'm throwing it out and writing a law that makes sense. You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and hand guns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I'm gonna convince Americans that I'm right, and I'm gonna get the guns.

We've got serious problems, and we need serious people. And if you want to talk about character, Bob, you'd better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I'll show up. This a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up.

My name is Andrew Shepherd, and I AM the President.

The movie not only brought out the complications of a President trying to pick up the pieces of his life and still be the leader of the free world. It also brought out the wicked underbelly of Washington politics and how your opponent will use whatever you give them in order to achieve their goals.

As much as it pains me to think it, the possibility does exist that Elizabeth may not enjoy his second inauguration. There are many scenarios that could play out between now and election time and I have resolved to expect nothing but the best. Elizabeth Edwards is a fighter and I feel certain she will survive this to a ripe old age. I look forward to watching the successful two term President Edwards and his wife Elizabeth retire to their home in North Carolina and do good works for America as did another former President and First Lady.

But should fate intervene and disrupt this plan nothing will change my support for John Edwards for President.

John Edwards and the working man

2007-03-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

John Edwards is the working mans best friend. Having grown up in a working class family . His dad was a mill worker, Johns values oft time reflect mine. I can remember riding with my dad on his bread route as John used to go to the mill and watch his dad work. That instills a respect in you for the working man.
Senator Edwards voted many times for working mans legislation...

The Senator is a man who understands the workers right to a collective voice at their jobs, and has voted to protect the workers right to organize and have union representation...

Labor unions are vital for the future of American workers
We don't believe it's right that a man or woman could be fired from the job for trying to organize a union in the workplace, so that working people actually have a voice. And this is something I take very personally. My mother and father have health care today because of the unions. My younger brother is a card-carrying member of IBEW; he and his family have health care today because of the union. We need real labor law reform in this country.
Source: 2005 Take Back America Conference Jun 2, 2005

He also said...

Greater protection for unionization
I support job training programs, an increase in the minimum wage, greater protection for unionization, and greater help for Americans balancing work and families.
Source: 2004 Presidential National Political Awareness Test Mar 3, 2004

I really can't believe more people haven't picked up on this. John Edwards has actually had the courage to come out in favor of Unions, and in giving the working man more barganing power when it comes to dealing with the powerful managment legal machine...

Support unions; ban striker replacements
Labor has been a powerful force for good in this country and across the globe, and Edwards supports tougher penalties and stronger enforcement to protect workers' rights to organize and collectively bargain. Edwards also opposes permanent striker replacement because he believes we should not punish an employee with permanent job loss if he or she exercises a legally protected right to strike. Edwards has consistently earned high scores from labor unions for his votes on behalf of American workers
Source: Campaign website, johnedwards2004.com, "Key Issues" Jul 17, 2003

Senator John Edwards even voted to secure workers overtime protection...

Protect overtime pay protections.
Edwards signed a letter from 43 Senators to the Secretary of Labor

To: Labor Secretary Elaine Chao

Dear Secretary Chao:

We write to express our serious concerns about the Department's proposed regulation on white collar exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act. These sweeping changes could eliminate overtime pay protections for millions of American workers.

We urge you not to implement this new regulation that will end overtime protections for those currently eligible. Under current law, the FLSA discourages employers from scheduling overtime by making overtime more expensive. According to a GAO study, employees exempt from overtime pay are twice as likely to work overtime as those covered by the protections. Our citizens are working longer hours than ever before – longer than in any other industrial nation. At least one in five employees now has a work week that exceeds 50 hours. Protecting the 40-hour work week is vital to balancing work responsibilities and family needs. It is certainly not family friendly to require employees to work more hours for less pay.

Overtime protections clearly make an immense difference in preserving the 40-hour work week. Millions of employees depend on overtime pay to make ends meet and pay their bills for housing, food, and health care. Overtime pay often constitutes 20-25% of their wages. These workers will face an unfair reduction in their take-home pay if they can no longer receive their overtime pay.

We urge you not to go forward with any regulation that denies overtime pay protections to any of America's currently eligible hard-working men and women.
Source: Letter from 43 Senators to the Secretary of Labor 03-SEN4 on Jun 30, 2003

People I'm no blogger but I sure like writing about someone when I'm inspired and trust me this man inspires me...

Gun control

2007-03-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

The gun control debate has been divisive to say the least. There is nothing more passionate to a gun enthusiast than to hear someone mention that they should give up their guns. It has been a wedge issue used by the right wing in general and gun manufacturers specifically, every time a legislator tries to introduce a bill on gun legislation.

The second amendment reads.

Article the fourth [Amendment II][4]

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

or if you prefer.

Notes:

4. In the Congressional Statutes at Large, Vol. 1, Page 97, at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=220, the first and third commas are omitted, so that it reads:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

The question remains open of where those additional, and grammatically spurious, commas came from, but they do not change the legal meaning of the provision, and it would not be erroneous to omit them.

http://www.constitution.org/billofr_.htm#04

The fact is that our founding fathers lived in a different time and under different circumstances. The continental congress had no provisions for an organized military and relied solely on the citizens to protect the country and themselves. It was a time of exploration and much of the country was wild and unsettled so that a man needed a gun to not only put food on the table but to protect them and their families from danger. A gun was very necessary for survival.

Today we are supposed to be a more civilized society but yet guns, and gun violence are a daily item on the evening news. New FBI statistics show an alarming increase in violent crime specifically having to do with guns. This in spite of what the gun lobby said as far as more guns in the hands of citizens would make criminals think twice about committing crimes. What I have said all along has come to fruition, the more guns in the hands of citizens means a bigger market for criminals possessing guns.

We now have concealed carry laws and laws designed to allow citizens to shot to kill without the risk of answering to their actions, but has it helped in decreasing crime? The statistics prove otherwise.

"Two years worth of double-digit increases in violent crime demonstrates an unmistakable change in the extent and the nature of crime in America," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the nonprofit think tank that is funded in part by the Justice Department, as well as corporations and private foundations.

"There are those that say this is a statistical blip, an aberration," Wexler said. "After two years, this is no aberration."

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/violent-crime-rises-in-big-cities/20070309064709990001

I support, as does John Edwards a persons right to own a gun for protection a hunters right to own a hunting weapon for hunting. However like all rights they come with responsibilities. Like John Edwards I also support laws that govern the sale, and accountability of all firearms and their owners. Senator Edwards has supported legislation, that I support, that would address my concerns and the concerns of all citizens and that is

Q: What federal gun control measures you would propose?

EDWARDS: I think we should extend the Brady Bill, which is set to expire. I think that we need to close forever the gun-show loophole, [to avoid criminals] buying a gun. I think it does make sense to have trigger locks for the purpose of keeping guns safe from children.

http://www.issues2000.org/2004/John_Edwards_Gun_Control.htm

Senator Edwards supports gun control that we can live with (pun intended) and that's why I support John Edwards for President.

An Anniversay

2007-03-06T15:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend a good friend of mine will be going to Washington. He's a lawyer but not a politician. He probably should be a politician but I doubt the congress is ready for him yet.
He's going to acknowledge an anniversary, well two anniversaries to be exact. It was forty years ago this year that thousands of Americans organized to march on the Pentagon in protest of the Vietnam War...

March 17th marks the forth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Four years ago George W. Bush abused the authority that John Edwards and other members of congress gave him. They gave him the authority to find and bring to justice the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack on our country. They gave him the ability to use our armed forces to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. They gave him the power to track down, where ever they may be, the conspirators, who's cowardly act, brought down the World Trade Centers, and he abused it...

My friends will remember that march, 40 years ago, that brought about real change, that made people think. They will be marching on the Pentagon once again. The young the old. Men, women and children. As in the 60s they will be from all walks of life but all with the same purpose in mind, to bring an end to this unjust war. Some who participated way back then have died others have grown too old to be there but are there in spirit. I will have to sit this one out myself but appreciate those brave souls who will be marching on my behalf...

Senator Edwards may have voted for the war on terror but it didn't include a war on Iraq. The senator has said that he favors cutting funds for the war, but George Bush and Co. believe that more is better so instead of listening to the people of this country, the Generals, or the politicians, he wants to escalate this war. Thats what my friends are going to Washington to try and stop. Will it work? Couldn't hurt to try. Like someone told me the other day when I ask him to sign a petition for the environment, he said "even a futile gesture is better than silence, I suppose." I laughed and told him "they probably thought the same thing at Valley Forge"...

In closing I'd like to say if your not doing anything on the weekend of the 17th and want to get involved in stopping a war, my friends would welcome your company. Who knows you might make a couple thousand new friends...

BTW Buddy, give em hell for me... Onward!

http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=8107

http://www.dawndc.net/float.php?annc_id=478§ion_id=1

http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com/

Get off your Duff and Get Involved!

Something to think about.

2007-03-04T07:49:00.000-08:00

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I wrote this in my Democratic Underground Journal, before I asked them to delete my membership. I was inspired, at that time, by the unfair treatment of our working class, but it's a generic document and just reflects on think tanks in general:

Acebass's Journal
Whats in a word?...
Posted by Acebass in General Discussion (01/01/06 through 01/22/2007)
Sun Apr 30th 2006, 04:43 PM
I often wondered, when I'd hear about them on the news, what are these conservative think-tanks, and what do they all sit around thinking about?...

First off I wish someone would pay me to just sit around and think but thats beside the point, conservative thing-tank, hm mm just let that soak in...

They think conservative thoughts and what could be wrong with that you say? Well when you look at what we have today you see the harm in letting conservatives think to hard in any one place for very long...

You see they didn't like the Unions, Unions meant that ordinary people could afford things on their own and wouldn't have to be subservient to the 'company' anymore. I can't say for sure just what was said but I'll bet they thought about Unions a lot. Then they devised a plan to discredit Unions make them seem greedy when they went on strike, "if your suffering then it's that damn Unions fault, if they'd get back to work you would have what you want." You never heard anyone rail at the company for not listening to the workers demands, it was always those lazy Union people that didn't want to work...

I remember a time when a man got paid a decent wage and could support his family without the wife working. We owe that to Unions for keeping the pay scale high enough for the working man to live. I can also remember talk of a four day work week, and a time when there was a middle class. I'll bet they thought a lot about that in those conservative think tanks...

I'll bet they also thought a lot about how to get the message to their millionaire friends while making it sound like they were talking to the average American. They've become pretty slick at that. Why they even had everyone believing they were going to cut their taxes when they really meant to cut just the rich peoples taxes. They had them believing that they would get government off our backs when they really meant off the backs of big business...

I will have to give them credit, their plan just about worked. I think people are finally seeing through it though, at least I hope so. You know it might not be a bad idea if we didn't let these folks sit around and think too much, it seems that when we do, we end up getting screwed in the end...

Either way, when a group of people, with the same agenda get together to form government policy. I think someone from "We the People" should be there to listen. Don't You?

Something on my mind...

2007-03-02T18:41:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here and I can't stop thinking about the movie "Born on The Fourth of July". That movie highlighted the treatment that soldiers like Ron Kovac received as a thank you for their service. I feel akin to Ron Kovac and like this except from his autobiography:

"I wrote all night long, seven days a week, single space, no paragraphs, front and back of the pages, pounding the keys so hard the tips of my fingers would hurt. I couldn't stop writing, and I remember feeling more alive than I had ever felt. Convinced that I was destined to die young, I struggled to leave something of meaning behind, to rise above the darkness and despair. I wanted people to understand. I wanted to share with them as nakedly and openly and intimately as possible what I had gone through, what I had endured. I wanted them to know what it really meant to be in a war -- to be shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the intensive care ward -- not the myth we had grown up believing. I wanted people to know about the hospitals and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to the war, why I had grown more and more committed to peace and nonviolence." — Ron Kovic

I hope to relay a story too.

Whats is going on in our VA hospitals right now is so reminicent of a time not long ago. That movie brought back memories. I can't and won't speak for the men and women who have had to go through a VA hospital on the way home from Nam, I was fortunate and have been able to put that war behind me, however many men and women still haven't made it home, and it's the system that's broken and needs fixing that has let them down.

I first read where they were getting rid of ;

WASHINGTON - The Army on Thursday fired the general in charge of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, saying he was the wrong person to fix embarrassing failures in the treatment of war-injured soldiers that have soiled the institution's reputation as a first-class hospital.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/walter_reed_14

And then I read this:

WASHINGTON — Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for war-wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070302/walter-reed

But getting rid of them isn't going to do anything for a system that is for all intents and puposes broken as these next articles will highlight.

Investigators found several problems in how agency officials formulated budget requests to Congress, including failure to accurately forecast the department's workload, unrealistic assumptions about savings that could be achieved from policy changes and calculation errors.

GAO confirmed VA's claim that part of the forecasting problem stemmed from using workload data from 2003, before American forces were heavily engaged in the Middle East. For its fiscal 2006 budget formulation the agency sought additional data from the Defense Department, but had trouble obtaining it, auditors found.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35084&printerfriendlyVers=1&

They have their sacrificial lamb and maybe now that the spot light is on we'll get something done, but where will the money come from? How big of an actual deficit does the system have? This next article suggests that the White House, in 2001, increased the budget for veterans issues a record:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- The White House today delivered to Congress the largest increase in discretionary spending for veterans ever proposed by any President -- $1.5 billion for 2001.

"With this budget, the President signals the Nation's continuing commitment to her veterans, their families and the selfless professionals within this Department who assist them," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Togo D. West, Jr. "The median age of the Nation's veterans is about 58, and more than nine million are at least 65 years of age. As they age, their health-care requirements and the assistance they need from VA increase dramatically. The President's budget recognizes this and responds to it."

http://home.att.net/~vet_updates/vabudget.htm

the article states further:

VA's 2001 budget would provide $48 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2000. It will fund benefits and services for millions of eligible veterans and family members. There are 25 million veterans and 44 million family members who are potentially eligible for VA benefits and services. The budget's priorities include:

* Improved access and service in health care to reduce appointment waiting times;

* Enhanced standards for patient safety;

* Full funding for new emergency and extended care benefits;

* Adding more than 1,000 claims processors since 1999;

* Funding for more federal and state veterans cemeteries;

* Preservation of national cemeteries as shrines to our veterans.

http://home.att.net/~vet_updates/vabudget.htm

Something went wrong, very wrong. Of course the Gulf War has come but this money never saw the light of day and I'll venture to say, was never intended to.

The Facts: While it is true that the VA health care budget is increased for FY 2004, the proposed
increase is insufficient to meet veterans’ medical needs. According to the American Legion, the
budget “comes $1.9 billion short of maintaining an inadequate status quo.”1 The combined
effects of medical inflation, which was 4.7% in 2002,2 and new enrollment, which is expected to
increase by 8% this year,3 consume most of the increase.
The budget does contain important initiatives to reduce waiting times and improve care for a
subset of veterans, mainly those with low incomes and service-related disabilities. But because
the overall level of funding is inadequate, the budget pays for these initiatives that benefit some
veterans by significantly cutting the medical care available for millions of other veterans. This
“rob Peter to pay Paul” policy is fundamentally wrong.

http://www.house.gov/larson/budget_factsheet_conf1.pdf

The problem isn't just at Walter Reed but is a system wide problem as is illistrated by this article:

The VA claims that by shifting funds dedicated to replace old equipment and conduct maintenance the department can address its budget shortfall and meet veterans’ demand for timely, high–quality health care. The following snapshots from across the nation reflect the stark reality of the budget shortfall on veterans’ access to safe, high quality care.

* The 3 surgical operating rooms at the White River Junction VAMC in Vermont had to be closed on June 27 because the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system was broken and had not been repaired due to the siphoning of maintenance funds to cover the budget shortfall.

* The VAMC in San Antonio could not provide a paraplegic veteran with a special machine to help clean a chronic wound because the facility did not have the equipment dollars.

* The VAMC in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, closed its Geriatric Evaluation and Management Unit which does extensive case management to help elderly veterans increase their functioning and remain at home.

http://veterans.house.gov/democratic/budget/snapshot6-29-05.htm

These are just some of the problems facing not only our Veterans Healthcare system but healthcare in this country in general. It is a train wreck waiting to happen. I am one of those 58 year old veterans that may have to depend on the VA hospitals for my very life. I hope that I have shead some light on the problem and that we work expediciously to change the system, as well as the people running it.

Greetings ...

2007-03-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog "Veterans for John Edwards".

Veterans issues have been front and center since the 2004 campaign. We saw how vicious people can be and how they try to turn something of pride into something to shame. John Edwards has no military background and You can be certain that it will come up when he wins the Democratic nomination.

If John McCain wins the Republican nomination you can bet money on it that we will see more pictures of him shaking Nixons hand instead of him blowing up the USS Forrestal. The Republicans will Swiftboat him to death over that. I plan to use this blog to keep updates on Veterans issues. Positions and accomplishments JRE has made in the veterans behave.

His wife Elizabeth knows first hand what it's like in the military. Her father was a decorated Navy pilot and she grew up in a military atmosphere. As first lady I can see her working to help the VA hospital situation. I see her as more of an activist First Lady.

I know that as Sentor John Edwards:

Offered Bill to Offer Tax Help for Military in Hostile Areas, Help for Military Families. After a 1999 visit to Fort Bragg, he introduced legislation (S. 1424, 106th) to extend tax exemptions for military personnel in combat zones to members of the armed forces serving in other hostile areas designated by the Defense Department. The legislation grew out of meetings with the spouses of military service members deployed in Operation Allied Force, who asked why federal tax laws treated pay for duty in the Balkans combat zone differently than pay for other hazardous missions. John Edwards has continued his efforts to help military families as they deal with the stress of extended deployments and the ongoing War on Terror. He introduced legislation (S. 864, 108th) to give National Guard families financial help for child care in their hometown.

http://www.independentsforker

ry.org/info/index.php?category_id=1389

This blog is for all Veterans so please post your constructive comments. Since I know how salty some veterans can be, and after all I want this open to the public, I will reserve the right to post only those that are tasteful and constructive. After all we practice family values around here...