Obama is Coming to The City of the Angels

[LouiseVargas]

Senator Barack Obama will be in Los Angeles next Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at the Rancho Cienega Sports Complex in Los Angeles at 2 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

I, Louise, will be attending this event to get a closer look at him (I have small digital Sony CyberShot) with fully charged batteries, as well as another set of charged batteries. I want to hear what he says and feel the vibrations of the crowd. I plan to get there two hours early.

I'm sure there will be tons of pamphlets and brochures. I'll put them in my new SC Xmas tote bag.

For those who want an explanation of why I like him, it has nothing to do with politics. If he were a Republican, I would still like him. What I see is a very cool man, very charismatic, very sincere, he speaks well, and I don't know exactly why he is in this powerful position when no one heard of him two years ago. I believe God is behind this rise to fame. I will investigate him further and see if he can maintain his momentum until the election in 2008.

My reasons are very simple and straightforward. I don't care about the legislation he was involved with. Maybe he hasn't been around long enough to enact legislation. But I know a future president when I see one. Not everything in life occurs on the physical level. He comes from the metaphysical level, which is higher than the physical. He has magic and is in his position on purpose. I've tried to tell you why I like Obama. You may not agree with me but I have tried to explain. It's my opinion only. I know he will be president one day.

In this post, I have stated my own opinions. I don't expect to be attacked by anyone for my view on why I like my candidate.

I'm looking forward to hearing your passion about your candidates.

I'm going to the Los Angeles rally and I'm thrilled about it and my heart is beating faster.

Thanks for reading.

[justinsmama]

[Dihannah1]

quote LV: My reasons are very simple and straightforward. I don't care about the legislation he was involved with. Maybe he hasn't been around long enough to enact legislation. But I know a future president when I see one. Not everything in life occurs on the physical level. He comes from the metaphysical level, which is higher than the physical. He has magic and is in his position on purpose. I've tried to tell you why I like Obama. You may not agree with me but I have tried to explain. It's my opinion only. I know he will be president one day.

I'm curious,  besides being charismatic and possessing Magic,  what issues does he stand for that you agree with?  What issues do you believe he will bring to the table,  that will benefit our country?  From your post, it sounds like you are just 'attracted' to him, with no care about what he stands for.   That leaves me a little worried that people will vote for those they are attracted to, rather than the issues important for this country.  JMO, of course.
I admit, I know little about metaphysics, so please explain what this means as far as him being a good president for everybody's benefit.  
I am not nearly as certain of what candidate I will vote for yet, as it is still too soon for me, as it's barely begun and still people 'tripping' into the ring.

Looking foward to your thoughts after the event in LA.

[LouiseVargas]

Dear Dihannah1,

I have already stated the simple reasons why I like Obama. There are many people like me who will vote for him on the basis of his charisma and youth and magic, and what we hope he could do. As I've said before, the people do not elect the president. The candidate is chosen by a world wide cabal of bankers and rich businessman who rule the world financially.

I'm skeered you think I'm a kook now. If you want to read about metaphysics, I recommend http://metagifted.org/

I have far less at stake than other Monkeys regarding the future President. I don't know what the future will bring. I'm 62, estranged from my children and grandchildren. I tried to make my daughter realize how the world changed after September 11, but she didn't want to hear it. It is people like her that need to be concerned about politics and issues, etc., for the sake of her children. She doesn't vote. What can I say?

For me, the political future is not as important as it should be for younger people. If I see radical extremists taking over the United States, I will know about it before they reach my apartment. They will never make me wear the burka. I have four bottles of death pills. I have saved them up since September 11, 2001. You may not like that last statement but I've never forgotten that the world changed that day.

Because of my Jewish heritage, I will not open my door in the middle of the night
(half asleep) to extremists or police and let them take me away in the night and put me in an interrment facility. If they said "unless you come with us, we will shoot you dead" I would reply, "Ok shoot me."

Please understand that I am just answering Dihannah1's question. This is my point of view and I have every right to express myself.

[nonesuche]

The President is chosen by whom? a cabal of bankers and businessmen? I'd disagree, I would say however those individuals/entities FUND campaigns and funding is critically important.

Obama is depending upon his web campaign on facebook to raise his major funding.

This is a good column that seems to describe the 'magic' you see, he just uses another term you have intimated often - liberals are sexy?

Obama runs on Obama
By Rich Lowry
Friday, February 16, 2007

You know you're at a Barack Obama rally when there is a student in the front waving a "Liberals Are Sexy" sign.

A couple thousand people are packed in the University of New Hampshire field house, tingling with anticipation over Obama's imminent arrival. There is a stirring in front, and everyone in the place jumps to his feet, only to sit down again when it turns out only to be Obama's student introducers. When he finally comes out, there is a long, raucous welcome that almost seems to justify the lyrics of the Foo Fighters song blasting from the loudspeakers, "It's times like these you learn to live again."

The question for Obama is whether he can live up to the excitement around his candidacy and forge it into something solid. Tonight's performance — where the Illinois senator, at the end of his announcement tour, might have been tired — suggests the answer is "no."

He dodges a question about North Korea, and "ums" and "uhs" sprinkle his talk. Eventually, a kid gets up in the back and asks for "concrete examples of actions you're going to take." There's a smattering of applause for the pointed question.

Obama is smart enough to be able to talk intelligently about nearly anything, but it usually feels like he's a glib amateur. He has a troubled relationship to policy plans, which risks making his campaign of hope against cynicism seem merely hackneyed verbiage. It's hardly a new idea to attack the political process as too small-minded, money-grubbing and negative. In fact, it's commonplace.

Obama insists that he doesn't need more policy because he's written two books. But only if Obama were running on "finding himself" would his (beautiful) memoir of his early life, "Dreams From My Father," be a detailed manifesto. His new book, "The Audacity of Hope," has policy in it, but it's scattershot thoughts about addressing all of the nation's problems, not detailed plans.

It would be a simple thing for Obama to give a few policy speeches, but he seems to consider that beneath his inspirational style of leadership. "JFK said, 'Let's go to the moon,'" without knowing specifically how to get there, Obama explains to the crowd.

Ultimately, Obama offers himself — his reasonable and optimistic tone and his biography — as the salve for American politics. A critic will see here a characteristic self-involvement. In "Dreams," a college friend tells him, "You always think everything's about you." In "Audacity," his wife similarly admonishes him, "You only think about yourself." And now his presidential campaign is all about him.

The unusual thing about the biographical basis of Obama's candidacy is how much of what makes it so compelling happened before about age 10 and was none of his doing. If his mother hadn't married a Kenyan and then an Indonesian man, if his background weren't so intriguing, he'd probably be just another ambitious senator.

A sympathetic questioner here asks what qualifies him to be president. Obama ticks off everything he's done since college, including his work as a community organizer in Chicago. This is faintly ridiculous, but the thrust of Obama's campaign can indeed be traced to Chicago. There he was dealing with desperate people genuinely in need of a glimmer of hope. He seems to think that America is the South Side of Chicago writ large, just as hope-deprived. Obama has taken a sermon he heard 20 years ago in Chicago on the "audacity of hope" and made it the theme of a presidential campaign.

Obama has strengths — he's winsome, a fresh face and has always been against the Iraq War. In his parting remark here, Obama says, "My rival in this race is not other candidates, it's cynicism." But cynicism is not on the ballot. Other, formidable candidates are, whom Obama will not vanquish merely by the audaciousness of his audacity or the hopefulness of his hope.




Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years .

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RichLowry/2007/02/16/obama_runs_on_obama

Louise, I would also counter that these are "cynical" times, we have a global economy changing industry radically, we have global terrorism, possibly a renewed cold war vis a vis Russia, N Korea, & Iraq, and we have global warming. All can have catastrophic effects upon our world so forgive me if I feel a bit of cynicism for those who have no real answers I can sink my teeth into.

I don't limit that to just Barack Obama, I am applying the same standard to every candidate and as a result, no one is a frontrunner at this moment for me. I guess I'd like the opportunity to investigate and learn, gain trust and respect for what any given candidate can offer in terms of experience, solutions and strategic plans, and a vision and plan for how to implement those solutions -  but no magic is required for me.

JMO, but I do hope you enjoy your visit with Obama, ask some pointed questions and we'll be watching the media for their grading of his performance as well.

[mrs. red]

This was an interesting and yet telling tid-bit.  Obama writes an editorial about cleaning up the Senate's act, no taxpayer funding etc and then does the opposite.

How typical of those in Washington.  The first article is his editorial and the second, interestingly enough is from a Russian paper, but I heard this on the radio originally.  It's puzzling that I couldn't find any American papers with the information.  Media bias? Hmmmmm, but I digress.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301620.html

Columns
Print This Article
E-Mail This Article
today in slate
Michael Lewis: Have I Screwed Up My Daughters Forever?A Chance To Change The Game

By Barack Obama
Thursday, January 4, 2007; Page A17

This past Election Day, the American people sent a clear message to Washington: Clean up your act.

After a year in which too many scandals revealed the influence special interests wield over Washington, it's no surprise that so many incumbents were defeated and that polls said "corruption" was the grievance cited most frequently by the voters.
 
It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that this message was intended for only one party or politician. The votes hadn't even been counted in November before we heard reports that corporations were already recruiting lobbyists with Democratic connections to carry their water in the next Congress.

That's why it's not enough to just change the players. We have to change the game.

Americans put their faith in Democrats because they want us to restore their faith in government -- and that means more than window dressing when it comes to ethics reform.

Last year, I was hopeful that scandals would finally shame Congress into meaningful ethics legislation. But after the headlines faded, so did the enthusiasm for reform. In the end, I found myself voting against the final ethics bill because it was too weak and unresponsive to the obvious need for comprehensive reform.

This time around, we must do more.

We must stop any and all practices that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a public servant has become indebted to a lobbyist. That means a full ban on gifts and meals. It means no free travel or subsidized travel on private jets. And it means closing the revolving door to ensure that Capitol Hill service -- whether as a member of Congress or as a staffer -- isn't all about lining up a high-paying lobbying job. We should no longer tolerate a House committee chairman shepherding the Medicare prescription drug bill through Congress at the same time he's negotiating for a job as the pharmaceutical industry's top lobbyist.

But real reform also means real enforcement. We need to finally take the politics and the partisanship out of ethics investigations. Whether or not the House ethics committee has been covering for its colleagues, the secrecy with which its members have operated has led people to question why legislators who are serving jail time were not caught and stopped by the committee in the first place. It's led people to wonder why Congress cannot seem to police itself.

I have long proposed a nonpartisan, independent ethics commission that would act as the American people's public watchdog over Congress. The commission would be staffed with former judges and former members of Congress from both parties, and it would allow any citizen to report possible ethics violations by lawmakers, staff members or lobbyists. Once a potential violation is reported, the commission would have the authority to conduct investigations, issue subpoenas, gather records, call witnesses, and provide a report to the Justice Department or the House and Senate ethics committees that -- unlike current ethics committee reports -- is available for all citizens to read.

This would improve the current process in two ways. First, it would take politics out of the fact-finding phase of ethics investigations. Second, it would exert greater public pressure on Congress to punish wrongdoing quickly and severely. Others have proposed similar good ideas on enforcement, and I am open to all options. We must restore the American people's confidence in the ethics process by ensuring that political self-interest can no longer prevent politicians from enforcing ethics rules.

The truth is, we cannot change the way Washington works unless we first change the way Congress works. On Nov. 7, voters gave Democrats the chance to do this. But if we miss this opportunity to clean up our act and restore this country's faith in government, the American people might not give us another one.

The writer is a Democratic senator from Illinois.





http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/15-02-2007/87427-barack_obama-0

Barack Obama travels around the world
Front page / World
02/15/2007 10:44 Source:            
 
 Barack Obama's two years in the Senate have taken him around the world, from Russia to Iraq to Kenya - an itinerary more costly to taxpayers than any other senator who took office with him.
   
The Illinois Democrat's travels in 2005 and 2006 cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $28,000 (EUR 21,000) as he studied nuclear proliferation, AIDS, Middle Eastern violence and more.

Eight other new senators took office in 2005, and about $19,200 (EUR 14,700) was the most anyone spent for government-paid travel, according to reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.

Obama's journeys are unusual for such a junior senator, but not for someone thinking of a presidential run. Obama has announced his candidacy for president in the 2008 election.

"Valuable or not, it's the thing they all do to show that they're knowledgeable about the world," said Stephen Hess, a George Washington University professor and former presidential aide.

Obama was one of two first-term members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 109th Congress. He spent $18,822 (EUR 14,388) in per diem and transportation costs in 2006 as he visited Middle East hotspots and toured Africa. The previous year he spent $8,313 (EUR 6,355) visiting the former Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.

The first-term senator with the next greatest spending on taxpayer-funded trips was Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican whose visits included China, Russia and the Middle East at a cost of about $19,200 (EUR 14,677). Ranking third was Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who spent $17,867 (EUR 13,658) to visit China and Kuwait, among other places. Neither is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

However, other first-term senators also took trips - both foreign and domestic - funded by private groups, which Obama does not accept. Ethics watchdog groups are critical of privately funded travel, arguing that it serves mostly to ingratiate lawmakers to their sponsors, who often are lobbying them on government policy. If Coburn's privately funded trips are included, his total travel amounts to nearly $29,000 (EUR 22,000) for the two years, more than any other first-term member.

Obama's travels were also eclipsed by some of the committee's more senior senators.

[nonesuche]

Mrs Red-

I found those stances full of conflict as well, both from the same human?

It seems our Senator Burr who was so helpful in our battle with SSA is another one who had very high costs to the taxpayer for travel as well as Obama. Burr however isn't broadcasting for legislation to police ethics in the same manner as Obama. Burr likely shouldn't or he will find himself in the same crosshairs as Obama does now on this issue.

[mrs. red]

Mrs Red-

I found those stances full of conflict as well, both from the same human?

It seems our Senator Burr who was so helpful in our battle with SSA is another one who had very high costs to the taxpayer for travel as well as Obama. Burr however isn't broadcasting for legislation to police ethics in the same manner as Obama. Burr likely shouldn't or he will find himself in the same crosshairs as Obama does now on this issue.

Don't you find it odd that I had to find a Russian paper for this?  Our media should be ashamed of it's self.  I heard a quick blurb on the radio and then nothing.... it's fascinating to me that this slipped by so easily.

[nonesuche]

well that isn't good  now is it?

I am finding more and more that going outside of the US such as that canadian piece on Putin, are perhaps the only way to find out what the rest of the world deems important about the US?

the good, the bad, and the ugly as they say.......it takes a strong stomach

I agree that this should have never slipped by for it's the epitome of 'do as I say and not as I do' from Obama.

[mrs. red]

Also when one reads the papers from other countries it is easily seen why we are so hated by other countries.  Not only that, but they use our own stupid, self-absorbed politican's rants against  us....

it is truly sickening...

of course they want to advance our worst candidates... then maybe we will have the rioting in the streets, high unemployment, and socialized medicine that isn't working all that well for them either.

I really wish one of our old posters from Canada was here... remember Cancoon?  She was an amazing source of history and knowledge and she had emailed me about the socialized medicine because it was affecting her family.... and she was an attorney. I wish she were involved in our discussions, she was very level and fair... it wasn't all anti -US all the time.... and it was, at the same time, pro Canada

[nonesuche]

I remember her as well, very strong poster and enlightening too.

on any given day I expect the US has plenty of soundbytes from our politicians for those outside the US to generate and even manipulate more reasoning why we are power mongers if that's your motivation to incite fear and resentment -

sometimes I do think the US is such a target simply because we are larger and wealthier as a nation.

[Dihannah1]

LV,  yes you were just answering my question,  Thank you. You do have a right to your opinions, whether I agree or not. I asked because I truly wanted to understand what you were saying.

[LouiseVargas]

Nonesuche, Mrs. Red,

I respect your opinions and your right to have them.

If I go to the Obama rally in LA on Tuesday, I will report back with my impressions. I've never been to a political rally in my entire life. I'm thrilled as well as skeered. I may be blabbing on and on about him, but I don't yet know who I will vote for, or even if Obama will be the democratic candidate. I tend to think he will not be. But I'm going to get a look at him and hear what he says and pick up on the feelings of the crowd (there will be more than 15,000). I went to his website and signed up for an email invitation to take with me.

Thank you, Dihannah, for letting me express my opinion.

[mrs. red]

Nonesuche, Mrs. Red,

I respect your opinions and your right to have them.

If I go to the Obama rally in LA on Tuesday, I will report back with my impressions. I've never been to a political rally in my entire life. I'm thrilled as well as skeered. I may be blabbing on and on about him, but I don't yet know who I will vote for, or even if Obama will be the democratic candidate. I tend to think he will not be. But I'm going to get a look at him and hear what he says and pick up on the feelings of the crowd (there will be more than 15,000). I went to his website and signed up for an email invitation to take with me.

Thank you, Dihannah, for letting me express my opinion.

LV, I look forward to hearing your report.  It will be interesting to see how he handles the crowd from a first hand perspective, I think.  I have heard several people here that saw him when he was here.  I will share their impressions after you share yours to see if y'all thought the same things.

[LouiseVargas]

It's a deal, Mrs. Red. I'll relate all my impressions.

I plan to take my camera with fully charged batteries and an extra set, as well as my old Nikon concert binoculars, along with a notepad so I can take notes. I have to find out what is allowed. I'm taking my Monkey Xmas bag (if I receive it in time - if not, I have other tote bags) to put in all the campaign buttons, bumper stickers (I NEVER stick them on, I just use scotch tape) T-shirts, yard signs, etc. I tried to order them from the Obama website so I could wear a Tshirt and button to the rally but they said it would take two to three weeks to be delivered. I'll wear something else ... jeans, low heeled shoes.

[nonesuche]

Louise,

I'm glad you're taking your camera, political rallies are always interesting events plus the people watching is pretty cool too. You could send your grandsons photos of it?

Obama was the first candidate to get a governor's endorsement today, Kaine of VA. So that's a first in his favor and I hope he's eased into campaigning a bit better so that you get more meat and potatoes to share when you return !

[LouiseVargas]

Dear Nonesy,

Thanks for the encouragement about the Obama rally. I'm just a bit skeered to go to an arena where I know there will be thousands of people. But I guess it's gonna be a big experience in my life. I'm pushing myself to promise myself I will attend.

Re my grandsons, I don't want to derail this thread so I'll send you an email, ok?

With love,
Louise

[LouiseVargas]

Is anyone still awake? 10 p.m. Monday.

I need some encouragement regarding attending the Obama rally tomorrow. Since September 11, I am skeered of big crowds.

I'm determined to go. I found out it is an outdoor arena so I'll wear a hat.  

I'll log on in the morning to see if anyone has read this and has encouraging words for me.

[justinsmama]

Good morning, Louise! Remember that there will be security at the rally. Try one or two deep breaths with slow exhalation to reduce any anxiety (works for me in the dentist chair and stirrups   ). Wish I could be there with you!

[nonesuche]

I hope you have a great outing Louise, please be safe and yes wear a big hat with a brim, it will help give you shade to see through your camera lense for great shots !!