On re-establishing our Constitution rights…

There must be a sense of urgency if we are to avoid the excesses of the GWB administration in the Obama administration or in administrations yet to come.  Once an office-holder gets power, it is very difficult to reclaim the power and give it back to its rightful owners (“We, the People”).  

It is also clear that Obama will abandon his principles in the name of “getting SOMETHING done.”  This has held true for every controversial issue that has come before us in the last couple of years (and before that when he voted “present” in the IL State Senate).

The only way we can get our rights re-established within the current governmental structure is to enact campaign finance reform in order to shift the power back to the people and seize it from fat-cat Big Business and their special interest groups and lobbyists.  Until we do this, Congress and the Executive Branch will allow them to “pay to play” and will not make decisions that benefit the people.

Campaign Finance Reform is the first and most critical step.

Once that is in place, a healthcare bill can be passed that benefits the people and not the insurance companies, healthcare providers and Big Pharma.

Decisions about how to solve the economy will move back from “welfare for Big Businesses” and the proper restraints and regulations that were eroded since the Reagan years (and even before that) will be re-established.

And, of course, if we re-establish the natural balance between the three branches that the authors of the Constitution intended (and which have worked reasonably well in the past), it stands to reason that our rights and protections will be re-established as well.  All the executive abuses of the past, from torture, rendition and the writ of habeas corpus to Executive Orders and all the provisions in the last few FISA amendments and the Patriot Act will cease to exist in their present form. 

We must acknowledge that “We, the People” do not have to relinquish our constitutional rights and protections in order to be safer.

 

Fear causes us to make bad decisions out of desperation in order to “feel better” or less fearful of our enemies and the potential threats it presents to our country and its citizens.  And what it really accomplishes is to change what is good about our society and form of government based on our fear and desire for safety.  We only have to look in our past to see how we slaughtered Indians by the millions and imprisoned Japanese American citizens in our own concentration camps because we didn’t trust people who didn’t look like us.

And we must pass a rule that amendments that are not germane to a bill cannot be included in any bill.

We also must demand the SCOTUS rule on whether or not an Executive Order is constitutional and binding, particularly if it includes provisions that are unconstitutional (abolishing the writ of habeas corpus, etc.).

And we must clearly establish the Right to Privacy, which will resolve such issues as abortion and homosexual marriage (and, for all practical purposes, many of the wedge issues that have plagues us since 1980).  I believe the Right to Privacy does exist.  If you look at the Bill of Rights, it is quite apparent that our Constitutional framers believed in the “man’s castle” theory which clearly establishes our inherent Right of Privacy.

Anyway, I think we must approach this issue in two ways:

First, get back control over our elected officials, who have reason to fear Big Business and Special Interests because of the enormous cost of running a successful re-election campaign, through passing campaign finance reform.

Second, we must try to educate “We, the People” and make them realize how dangerous it is to set such precedents that shift too much power to either of the three branches and shift power from the People to the government.  We must re-establish the inherent controls and balance between the three branches of government and the unconstitutional shift of far too much government power to the Executive Branch.  Even if we like and trust (or think we do), the guy in office now, we must remember that these precedents, once set, will empower and candidate that occupies these governmental position in the future. 

Unchecked power and unaccountable authority just don’t work, whether we are speaking of individuals or a political party.  We have seen that throughout the ages, and especially since 1980, when the political parties and special interests influenced the general public in becoming more and more polarized.  And that is the real danger. 

A democracy must be “people-oriented” and “people controlled “  Any act or action that contributes to American society by solving societal problems or preventing abuse by a government branch that refuses to acknowledge their accountability to the law of the land and to We, the People, must be effective and results-oriented in order to succeed and achieve the true goals of a democracy.  Every time we allow wedge issues to consume public discourse and further polarize Americans or sit back and watch our inherent constitutional rights and protections “flushed down the toilet” — regardless of any fear that permeates political discourse or public discourse — we move further and further way from the true freedoms that only a democracy can provide.

Abandoning our democratic values in exchange for the delusion that we are safer is the greatest “win” the terrorists could have hoped for…. and we gave this to them out of fear.

The GWB administration was masterful when it came to fear-mongering.  They proved how instilling fear in the general population could successfully empower an unhealthy, unchecked Executive Branch who believed themselves to be above the law.  And we also see how the country was bankrupted by the GWB administration to the point where the People are now financing with their own tax dollars poorly run companies with incompetent or criminal executive management; who deserve to be punished, not rewarded with multimillion-dollar executive bonuses BEFORE they have paid the American taxpayers back for their bailout money… These are the same executives that routinely and for a significant period of time made bad management decisions and were even criminally negligent to the point that their actions consist of a criminal breach of their fiduciary responsibilities.  And then we allow them their million-dollar bonuses while we are punished for their crime by having to carry the load of an out-of-control national debt.

Campaign Finance Reform is the first step

Without it, the Constitution will not be restored to its original intent, real healthcare that first protects the best interests of the People and not Big Business, Big Pharma and other Special Interest will never pass, and Big Business, the NRA and Special Interests will continue to have improper, excessive access to our elected officials, which results in the power to secretly write bills that benefit them or their industry.

Intolerance, political correctness and effective government

“An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.” — Edmund Burke

Regarding the recent shooting at the Holocaust Museum, it amuses me that white supremacy, interestingly enough, does not seem to include Jews, which are often white, whether European or Arab. Jews are a “subclass” of whites which apparently don’t “make the cut” for white supremacists.

But the bigger issue is intolerance and the lack of respect for those with whom we disagree. Even more important is our lack of respect for the RIGHTS of those with whom we disagree. Who you are intolerant toward is not so much the issue.  We live in a polarized world where the extremes are constantly at war (verbally or physically) and the middle has to take a side or be considered “the enemy.” In such an environment, there can be no real progress or real stability.  How we fix this, I don’t know. But I do know it is getting worse. And both extremes — right and left — are equally wrong.

“Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.” — Confucius, The Confucian Analects, Chinese philosopher & reformer (551 BC – 479 BC)

One of the driving forces that led us to become a representative democracy instead of a “pure” democracy is the fact that our Founding Fathers were victims of persecution from the intolerant societies they had escaped. They wanted to ensure that the majority could never infringe the rights of the minority. And their belief that rights were inalienable and God-given was the foundation of this philosophy of individualism.

That’s why, when we see states voting on whether or not a minority segment of our population can enjoy the rights you and I have (to marry whom we please or to speak freely, even if it is against the government or in the form of burning the national flag), it is wrong to even consider holding a vote, or, at least, our Founding Fathers would have thought so based on how they approached structuring our government.

But because most of this intolerance is based on ideology and religion, which requires us to hate those things that are “wrong” and the people who practice these “wrongs”, it is tolerated by our society, or even accepted.  In other words, we demonize those who disagree with us.  We are not content to simply acknowledge that we disagree; we must create a mortal enemy against which we must wage war (or, perhaps, jihad?).  But this intolerance is what is really wrong, and it comes from both extremes in the political spectrum.

There is no justification for murdering a doctor who performs a legal operation that you do not agree with, or hanging a man from a tree on a Saturday night just because his skin is black or a different color than yours, or blaming an ethnic group for all society’s problems because they work hard and enjoy success, or murdering over 2,000 innocent civilians by flying a plane into a building – all these examples are merely expressions of the same problem — extreme INTOLERANCE.  And this intolerance is based on the belief that you have the right to dictate to the rest of the world how they should think and feel and live — a sense of moral supremacy, if you will.  And it’s wrong.

But it’s more than wrong, it’s ineffective. At least, it’s ineffective if your goal is to live peaceably with your neighbors, live your life fully and raise your family to be happy and successful. 

When I was working on an IT project in Manila, Philippines, the manager of the project for which I was consulting was a racist Australian that treated the Filipinos shamefully. He actually announced in the middle of a project meeting of 70 people, many of whom were department managers and the vast majority of whom were Filipino, that “Filipinos are lazy and stupid.” I was shocked. Had he done this in the U.S. or most European companies, he would have been fired that very day. I was embarrassed and ashamed for him and to be working with him, but I held my tongue until after the meeting and followed him back to his office. I told him that he comment was unacceptable and morally wrong, but I wasn’t going to waste my time arguing the merits of his comment with him because I knew that if he believed it was wrong, he wouldn’t have said it in the first place. What I did want to suggest to him was that “It was ineffective.” The successful completion of the project depended on those people that he had just called lazy and stupid to do their job. And to insult the people on whom YOUR success depended was, in itself, stupid, or, at least, INEFFECTIVE. This concept does not only apply to that project, it applies to our nation and our world.

The bottom line was it didn’t matter how he felt about those people, he needed a good working relationship with them to be effective. This is the attitude that we need to reawaken in our society. Our democracy dependends on each of us having the tolerance and the foresight to realize that we can’t be successful as a nation unless we are tolerant of each other and respect each other’s rights — especially when we don’t agree — and work together effectively for common goals. We don’t have to agree to like each other or like each other’s ideas in order to work together effectively. Our success or failure as a society depends on this.

The greatest concern I have right now is the social trend to infringe on our God-given, inalienable right to freedom of speech and sacrifice it on the altar of political correctness. Fashion, fads and opinions change from day to day, if not moment by moment, and what is politically correct today may not be tomorrow. But once we allow any government to infringe on anyone’s right to freedom of speech today, it will still be gone tomorrow for all of us, and, if not forever, certainly for a long, long time.  As MLK said, “If one of us is not free, then none of us are free.”

“You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.” — John Morley

Silence — “shutting people up,” or, oppression –  should not be confused for changing hearts and minds, but it often is perceived as such.  We called that silence which produces the illusion of perceived compliance or acceptance acquiescence.  And this silent approval or the perception of it, is very dangerous.  This is how the Nazis moved Germany from a modern Western country to accepting the Holocaust.  The reason there is a Holocaust Museum is because we need to be reminded of how thin the veil of civilization truly is.

The greatest problem our nation has is not the economy or health care or any other issue like abortion or gay marriage — these are merely distractions from or symptoms of the problem.  It is the fact that our government is not operating effectively.  The gridlock in our government that prevents it from operating effectively is directly due to the polarization in our society and the concept of moral absolutism that prevents compromise and views it as weakness or, worse, evil.

Politics is the art of compromise. It is discernment — knowing which points are negotiable and which ones aren’t — that brings the “art” into play, and this, above all else, is the job of the politician. And until we get over ourselves and our image of ourselves are morally superior and, therefore, entitled to absolute rule, it is not going to get better any time soon.

In the long run, intolerance is a characteristic of a fool, because, just like any foible human being, intolerant people need the compassion and understanding that only comes from tolerance, and if you don’t offer tolerance, acceptance and understanding to others, you have no right to expect it when you need it from them. And you will need it, because we are all flawed and imperfect.

The fact that this shooting occurred at the Holocaust Museum should not be overlooked, because anti-Semitism is on the rise in the Western world due to the efforts of Islamic PACs and organizations supported by Muslim nations (especially Saudi Arabia). The interpretation of multiculturalism as being achieved through political correctness (by suppressing free speech) that is being sold by extreme liberals is starting us down the path of oppression. Such a proposal is before the U.N. as we speak. And, as Edmund Burke said, “Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.” — Edmund Burke

And you are accepting a delusion for reality if you believe silencing criticism will lead to acceptance and tolerance.  It will not.  It will simply force the critics and dissenters outside the system (underground) and encourage them to become more dangerous.  Being able to freely criticize (hopefully, respectfully so) any religion or religious practicioner or government or political party or politician is fundamental to our right to free speech that cannot be sacrificed at the altar of political correctness. To sit silently by while others practice hate speech is equally wrong, because failing to stand up for our values is effectively the equivalent of having none.

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” — Narration from Sergei Bondarchuk’s Soviet film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s book “War and Peace” which has been misattributed to Edmund Burke.

Let’s continue to remind ourselves of how easily a Western society slipped into an autocracy led by a madman who committed some of the most heinous crimes in recorded history. And, even more important, this societal descent into madness took only a short time to achieve.

“A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds…
   to a suggestion rather than to reasoning,
   to an image rather than to an idea,
   to an affirmation rather than to proof,
   to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments,
   to prestige rather than to competence.” — Jean-Francois Revel

And, finally, we must stop having to “relearn” the lessons of the Holocaust: 

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” — George Santayana quotes (Spanish born American Philosopher, Poet and Humanist who made important contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy and literary criticism. 1863-1952)

Gay Marriage and the Constitution

The argument over gay marriage rages on, and attempts to “define” marriage as a union between one man and one woman (i.e., the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA), are still being debated in the public forum because of the recent activities of states sanctioning gay marriage (IA, MA, etc.). 

Let me say clearly:  DOMA is unconstitutional.  Why? Because it discriminates between one citizen and another, conferring unequal rights and privileges to the majority and infringing the rights and privileges of the minority.

One of the social conservative arguments against gay marriage is that we are giving legal recognition to the gay lifestyle.  This is patently untrue.  We are not giving legal recognition to any lifestyle by allowing gays to exercise the constitutional rights they already have, including equal rights and equal protection under the law.  DOMA, however, did recognize and attempt to give special legal recognition to the heterosexual lifestyle.   This is in direct conflict with the Founding Principles of our country even if it is the history, tradition and practices of the American people.

The Founding Principles of our government are clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

“Inalienable” rights are rights that cannot be taken away by man or endowed or conferred by man to any citizen.  Likewise, the right to marry would surely fall under the “Pursuit of Happiness” principle.

http://www.defendmarriage.org/defendmarriage/fma_qa.cfm
Whether Americans like it or not, the Supreme Court in June 2003 placed the issue of marriage in the Constitution. In Lawrence v Texas, the Court ruled that state legislatures cannot treat homosexuality any differently than heterosexuality. The Court stated that “our laws and tradition afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, [and] procreation” and “persons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do.” Relying on Lawrence, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts thereafter forced that state to legalize same-sex marriage. The mayor of San Francisco and other municipalities now say that state and federal constitutions demand the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses.

The finding in Lawrence is interesting, because, like abortion,  it treats marriage as a privacy right. And then there’s the “Justice is blind” principle.  The Court should not treat any citizen differently from any other citizen, at least, not according to the Constitution.  The Constitution does not specifically support or reject any lifestyle.  DOMA is a statute, and is virtually useless in determining rights, because it is not a part of the Constitution or an Amendment ratified by the states.

http://www.defendmarriage.org/defendmarriage/fma_qa.cfm
Since the courts have construed state and federal constitutions to include a purported “right” to same-sex marriage, it is incumbent upon Congress to ensure that the definition of marriage throughout the United States reflects the will of the people. This can only be done through the established amendment process….

As Justice Scalia noted, Lawrence “dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned.” Accordingly, marriage is no longer a decision that the people of the several states can determine for themselves.

And this is appropriate, because our Founders were smart enough to know that government by public opinion poll would lead to great instability and the oppression of the minority.  Majority rule with protection of minority rights is the model they chose.  The same evangelicals and social conservatives who have been wringing their hands over “judges legislating from the bench” lo these many years now want judges to legislate from the bench and uphold DOMA, which is clearly unconstitutional.  Ah!  The ironies of life!

http://www.defendmarriage.org/defendmarriage/fma_qa.cfm
… There is not nor has there ever been a civil right to same-sex marriage. You cannot take away a right that does not exist.

Although I disagree with that logic, let’s reverse that — the same can be said of heterosexual marriage: a civil right to marry has never been specifically defined, heterosexual or homosexual.  The reality is that our Constitution and Founding Principles do not provide for unequal treatment of a minority in contrast with the majority.  Either it is a right for everyone, or no one. 

Distinguishing between civil unions and marriages is also a non-starter, because it again treats one group differently from another. Additionally, it must be resolved at the Federal level, because it will create a situation where one state confers the right to marry to homosexuals and other states may not recognize the marriage.  Once again, it’s either all or nothing at all.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/dixon_02.htm
Article Four of the Federal Constitution states:

“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Clause 1: The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”

In other words, no State has the right to ignore civil agreements reached in other States….

What this essentially means is that State Defense of Marriage Acts (DOMAs) are unconstitutional, plain and simple….

… it also is unconstitutional by virtue of the Tenth Amendment, which states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Because the Constitution does not explicitly give the Federal Government jurisdiction over marriage, the right to regulate marriage is, by default, given solely to the States to decide.  Therefore, Congress had neither right nor power to pass DOMA in the first place….

The solution, some may argue, is to amend the Federal Constitution, which is what George W. Bush endorses.  There is one problem with that:  Article Six reads:

“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”

Boiled down, this means that the Constitution is barred from contradicting itself.  Thus, a Federal Marriage Amendment that would deprive a singled-out populace of any rights runs in clear contradiction to Article Four and Amendment Nine of the Constitution.  Amendment Nine states:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The Constitution says in Amendment Fourteen:

“Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

What this basically means is that the States do not have a right to pick and choose the people to whom it will grant rights and privileges.  If one group of people is allowed to marry, all groups are allowed to marry. …  Plainly, it is discriminatory, and the Fourteenth Article clearly states that selective granting of privileges is not allowed in the United States.

Some may say, “Gays have the right to marry just as everyone else—a right to marry someone of the opposite gender.”  Similar arguments were made in the days of miscegenation in the 1950’s and 1960’s:  “Blacks have the right to marry just as whites do—the right to marry someone of their own race.”  Such a stance is clearly a form of hypocrisy and oppression, and has no place in the America our forebears envisioned, and contradicts the very basis of the repeal of the miscegenation laws.  Albeit slowly, Americans have striven over the years since Brown vs. the Board of Education to uphold that ruling socially; separate but equal is not equal.

One of the arguments for gay marriage is based on the special tax breaks and privileges enjoyed by legal spouses.  Perhaps the best way to “fix” this would be to remove all the government benefits and tax breaks allowed for only married couples.  Then everyone will be equal again.  This would also address the problem that single people are always treated differently in our tax code, etc.

http://www.defendmarriage.org/defendmarriage/fma_qa.cfm
Whatever the Constitution said (or did not say) about marriage for the past 215 years, whatever the history, traditions and practices of the American people confirm (or do not confirm) about the meaning of marriage, marriage is now in the Constitution. The Founders did not do it. But the courts have. Without a constitutional amendment, the judiciary – and not the people – ultimately will determine what marriage means.

If you, as a judge, consider “the history, tradition and practices of the American people” in your deliberations when reaching a decision, you are not a strict constructionist judge by definition. It is interesting that “strict-constructionist-judge-loving” conservatives all of a sudden want judges to legislate from the bench and rule in favor of DOMA, in effect declaring marriage a right only to be enjoyed by heterosexuals.  The Founders did not specifically define marriage, but they did say that all men were created equal and that the majority could not infringe the rights of the minority. So based on the Constitution, DOMA is out. 

The bottom line is that the Constitution does not assert the right to establish a definition of marriage that distinguishes between the majority and the minority to any entity — be it Congress, the several States or the people — thereby infringing the rights of the minority.  The historic and existing definition of marriage is not diminished or disregarded; it is a social construct, not a legal one.  There is no law preventing religions or social groups from using the definition of marriage that suits them within their own practices, so long as they realize it is not a legal construct that can be imposed on other citizens outside their group.

No citizen can be treated differently from another, and, based on that, the DOMA is unconstitutional.  Homosexuals can and should enjoy the same rights and privileges as heterosexuals.  And it is improper for any state to even allow the voters to hold an election to decide to infringe the rights of the minority.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/dixon_02.htm
The religious argument, however, is moot, thanks to the First Amendment, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…“  It is thus that our forefathers sought to protect all Americans from the religious zealotry of a few, or even many; only 52% of Americans claimed to be Christian of any denomination at the last Census.  Should the other 48% of the American people be made to honor a conception of the Creator they don’t agree with?  Of course not; this is why we have separation of Church and State.

Our Founding Fathers were well-acquainted with religious tyranny and, consequently, went to great lengths to avoid the possibility of creating a theocracy or a democracy wherein the majority could oppress the minority. Keep in mind, they had been the minority before escaping religious tyranny and coming to America. The spirit of individualism was in the room at the Constitutional Convention. The idea that a democracy must empower individuals and balance majority rule with minority protection, that Federal law must supercede State law without encroaching on its purview, and that, above all, the Rule of Law must prevail against the Rule of Man are all important principles that protect us even today.

But the attitude among social conservatives and evangelicals is that they want to impose their beliefs and their lifestyle on the rest of us. And this is neither acceptable nor constitutional, thank God. Those heterosexuals that don’t have strong feelings regarding gay rights are reluctant to enter the fray of public debate. I am not gay either, but I am concerned about having anyone’s rights infringed, because if it can happen to them, it can happen to me on some other issue.

MLK said it best: “If one of us is not free, then none of us are free.”

This issue may not apply to me directly on this particular issue, but the concept does. Equal rights and equal protection under the law must be precious to all of us. The Constitution is the blueprint for our representative democracy. We cannot stand idly by and watch our rights be taken from us and the original intent of the authors of the Constitution betrayed. By definition in the Declaration and the Constitution, only God has the right to confer or take away or infringe rights. As far as man is concerned, it’s not his job to decide which rights his peers have. Our rights are inalienable, and that includes everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, culture, background, gender and/or sexual preference. You don’t have to approve of someone’s lifestyle to recognize that they have the right to make their own choices.

God chose to give us free will. Knowing this, it has always amused me to watch evangelicals arrogantly work so hard to “undo” what God did by trying to limit the choices others can make, but never themselves….

Birds of a feather…

I read a comment in an e-mail thread that grabbed my attention:

“And, imagine where Obama’s poll numbers would be if the media actually investigated Obama’s ties to Nadhmi Auchi, Tony Rezko, Khalid al-Mansour (principle advisor to Saudi Billionaire, Prince Alwaleed), Louis Farrakhan, and Rashid Khalidi … or investigated the full extent of the anti-Semitic and anti-white sermons preached from the pulpit by Rev. Wright (Obama’s minister and friend for 20 years) … or investigated the full story of the utter FAILURE of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) to meet its goal of improving a few Chicago schools (wasting $150 million in grants) … Obama was president of the Board of Directors of the CAC and had been appointed to that position by the infamous and unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers who was a founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.  The result of the combined best efforts of Obama and Ayers was FAILURE.  http://tinyurl.com/696u2y   Obama blew through $150 million and achieved nothing … imagine how badly Obama would handle our tax dollars.” — hapi22

 

So, let’s examine these unknown characters.  We all know a little about Tony Rezko, Obama’s first political benefactor in Chicago, who is now serving time after being convicted in Federal court.  A series of investigative reports on Rezko can be found at the Chicago Tribune.

 

Antoin “Tony” Rezko (born 1955 in Aleppo, Syria) is an American political fundraiser, restaurateur, and real estate developer in Chicago, Illinois convicted on several counts of fraud and bribery in 2008. Rezko has been involved in fundraising for local Illinois Democratic and Republican politicians since the 1980s. He focused primarily on Chicago-area Democrats; for example, Rezko was one of Barack Obama’s first major financial contributors. After becoming a major contributor to Rod Blagojevich’s successful gubernatorial election, Rezko assisted Blagojevich in setting up the state’s first Democratic administration in 20 years. Rezko was able to have business associates appointed onto several state boards. Rezko and several others were indicted on federal charges in October 2006, for using their connections to the state boards to demand kickbacks from businesses that wanted to do business with the state. While the others plead guilty to the charges, Rezko pled not guilty and was found guilty of 16 of the 24 charges filed against him. – Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoin_Rezko)

 

But what of these other characters?  Who is Auchi?

 

Nadhmi Auchi (Arabic:نظمي أوجي) is a British billionaire businessman who was born in Iraq. He is the founder and chairman of General Mediterranean Holding (GMH), a conglomerate of 120 companies worldwide. In the Sunday Times Rich List 2008 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK he was placed 27th with an estimated fortune of £2,150 million.^[1]

Biography

Nadhmi Auchi graduated in Economics and Political Science from Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, in 1967. He also worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, becoming Director of Planning and Development. In 1979 he founded General Mediterranean Holding SA of Luxembourg. From 1996 to 2000 he served on an advisory committee to the Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has been president of the Anglo-Arab Organisation since its founding in 2002.

 

Business career

Auch was a member of the Baath Party in Iraq before Saddam Hussein came to power.^[2] While he denies any ties to Hussein’s government, British media reports indicate he sold naval ships to Hussein’s government in the 1980s.^[2]

He is of the largest shareholders in BNP Paribas, a French bank involved in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme for Iraq.

 

In 2003, Auchi was convicted of fraud, and given a 15 month suspended sentence and a £1.5m fine for taking illegal payments from French oil company Elf Aquitaine.^[3] Following the verdict, Elf (by now merged with TotalFina and re-named Total) decided to take legal action against Auchi in France; Auchi responded by suing Total for £200m in turn, this time in the UK.^[4]

 

In recent years he has entered into several partnerships with Chicago-area businessman Tony Rezko, effectively coming to his rescue as his various investment schemes began collapsing. Auchi bought about 15 of Rezko’s pizzeria’s in Wisconsin, according to court records.^[5] In 2005 he took a stake in Rezko’s South Loop development at Roosevelt Road and Clark Street, a deal estimated by observers familiar with the details at $170 million.^[2]

 

In 2008 Stuart Levine, the government’s star witness in the corruption trial against Rezko, asserted that Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, were among the guests at party in Auchi’s honor that took place at Rezko’s residence on 3 April 2004.^[5] While Obama has acknowledged his ties to Rezko, a spokesman said that the senator responed that “Sen. Obama does not recall meeting Nadhmi Auchi at any time or on any occasion, and this includes any event that may have been held for Mr. Auchi.”^[5]

 

In 2008 The Times of London reported the discovery of state documents in Illinois recording that a Panamanian company by the name of Fintrade Services lent money to a funderaiser for Obama in 2005. Fintrade’s directors included Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr Auchi’s wife. Spoksespeople declined to answer when questioned about whether he was linked to this business.^[6]

 

The Times also reported that Auchi’s company loaned  Tony Rezko $3.5 million three weeks before Rezko’s lot and Obama’s new home were purchased in 2005.^[7]  – Wiki: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadhmi_Auchi)

 

For more information about Auchi, see http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/politics/obamas_auchi_problem.php.; http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/obamas_iraqi_oil_for_food_conn.html ; http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/rezko/817377,CST-NWS-watchdog28.stng

 

And then there’s Khalid al-Mansour:

 

Who Is Khalid al-Mansour?

 

Posted on 8:22 PM by Rebecca Bynum

The Iconoclast

Wednesday, 3 September 2008

 

 

Last week, Richard Fernandez at Pajamas media questioned whether a Townhall blog post by Amanda Carpenter which identified a man said by Percy Sutton to have helped Obama both pay for and get into Harvard as a ranting anti-semite shown on videos she linked. The man is Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour, earlier known as Don Warden. Fernandez couldn’t believe the raving looney in the videos could be a financial advisor to Saudi billionaires.

Ken Timmerman has done some digging and the answer is yes. Ms. Carpenter had the right man.  http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/16864

 

 

Is Khalid al-Mansour the man behind Obama myth?

 

 

By Jack Cashill

Posted: August 28, 2008
1:00 am Eastern

 

A few weeks back, I wrote a column titled, “Who Wrote ‘Dreams From My Father’?” My research led me to the conclusion that a literary neophyte like Obama could not have written the memoir on his own. It was simply too well crafted.

I was also suspicious about his claim that publishers had sought him out, while still unknown, contract in hand. I doubted, too, that the publisher would have paid him a hefty advance.

And I refused to believe that his publisher would have invested the hefty ghostwriting fee needed to rescue the project after four years of amateurish dithering, a dithering that included an extended stay for Barack and Michelle on Bali.

“The whole story smells of purposeful intervention,” I wrote. “The whole book does. A political career holds more promise when launched with a lovely memoir under one’s belt than with an unfulfilled contract over one’s head. Much more.”

“The question remains,” I concluded, “who did the intervening and why?” I sensed and still do an affluent and unseen political godfather, someone with a grander vision than Bill Ayers or Tony Rezko.

 

A recent televised interview with octogenarian entrepreneur and politico Percy Sutton, on a New York City show called “Inside City Hall,” sheds light on the question of who this godfather might be.

A Manhattan borough president for 12 years and a credible candidate for mayor of New York City in 1977, Sutton spoke knowingly about the Obama candidacy. Although unspecified as to date, the interview likely took place within the last few months.

“I was introduced to [Obama] by a friend,” Sutton told the interviewer. The friend’s name was Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, and the introduction took place about 20 years ago.

Sutton described al-Mansour as “the principle adviser to one of the world’s richest men.” He also implied that al-Mansour was currently raising money for Obama.

Knowing that Sutton had friends at Harvard, al-Mansour asked Sutton to “please write a letter in support of [Obama] … a young man that has applied to Harvard.” Sutton gladly did so.

Although Sutton does not specify a date, this would likely have been in 1988 when the 27-year-old Obama was applying to Harvard Law.

Two years later, while still a law student, Obama improbably received an advance to write a memoir that would be called “Dreams From My Father” when finally published in 1995.

Not yet clear is who exactly this Khalid al-Mansour is. There are at least two candidates, one more troubling than the other. The first is a Muslim crackpot preacher who has not met the paranoid racial fantasy unworthy of his energy.

The second, more likely, is a Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour, described as “an internationally acknowledged adviser to heads of state and business leaders in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America.”

Apparently, al-Mansour serves on the Board of, among others, Saudi African Bank and was responsible for the Africa investment activities of Kingdom Holdings, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal’s investment company.

Two other details argue for this al-Mansour’s involvement in Obama’s academic and literary careers. He has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University and has authored 24 books.

In short, al-Mansour fits the profile of the political godfather. When I was speculating whose “purposeful intervention” had steered Obama’s career through its rough spots, I could not have imagined a more likely candidate.

Caution is warranted here. This story is still developing, not in the major media of course, but in the blogosphere, where just about all serious reporting now takes place.

Stay tuned.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=73649 .

 

For more information on , please see:  http://www.aswatalislam.net/DisplayFilesP.aspx?TitleID=50050&TitleName=Khalid_Al_Mansour ; http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/08/26/the-wrong-man-sir/ ; http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/khalid_al_mansour/2008/09/04/127844.html ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDeAnC-6P0Q&eurl=http://townhall.com/blog ;

 

And who is Rashid Khalidi?

 

Rashid Khalidi (born 1950), an American historian of the Middle East, is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, and the director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs….

 

Public life

Khalidi has written dozens of articles on Middle East history and politics, as well as op-ed pieces in many U.S. newspapers. He has also been a guest on numerous radio and TV shows including All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, and Nightline, and has appeared on the BBC, the CBC, France Inter and the Voice of America. Khalidi had an advising role at the Madrid Conference of 1991 between the U.S., Israel, Palestinians and Arab states. He served as president of the American Committee on Jerusalem, now known as the American Task Force on Palestine.

 

Khalidi’s statements on the status of Palestinians in Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories have been the most controversial. In an interview on PBS, Khalidi used the term “occupied” in reference to Mandatory Palestine in 1948, saying “about half of it was occupied by Israel (which under UNGA 181 was supposed to obtain roughly 55% of Mandate Palestine, and which by the time of the armistice had taken control of about 78%, including half of what was to have been the Arab state)… the remainder was, as you say, under Egyptian and Jordanian control from 1948-1967.”^[10]  

 

A New York Sun editorial criticized Khalidi for stating that there is a legal right under international law for Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation.^[11] For example, in a speech given to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Khalidi said that “[k]illing civilians is a war crime. It’s a violation of international law. They are not soldiers. They’re civilians, they’re unarmed. The ones who are armed, the ones who are soldiers, the ones who are in occupation, that’s different. That’s resistance.”^[11][12] The Sun editorial argued that by failing to distinguish between Palestinian combatants and noncombatants, Khalidi implies that all Palestinians have this right to resist, which it argued was incorrect under international law.^[11] In an interview discussing this editorial, Khalidi objected to this characterization as incorrect and taken out of the context of his statements on international law.^[11]

 

Khalidi has described discussions of Arab restitution for property confiscated from Jewish refugees forced to flee Middle Eastern and North African countries after the creation of Israel as “insidious”, “because the advocates of Jewish refugees are not working to get those legitimate assets back but are in fact trying to cancel out the debt of Israel toward Palestinian refugees.”^[13]

 

Khalidi opposes the Iraq War and has said that “we owe reparations to the Iraqi people.”^[14]

 

Allegations of PLO connections

Khalidi has been documented of having ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, based on his work for Wafa in the late 1980s. Khalidi has been documented as “a director of the Palestinian press agency,” publishing an “adulatory book” on the PLO in which he personally thanked Yasser Arafat,^[15] and acting as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation during peace negotiations.^[16] Khalidi denied the allegation that he served as a PLO spokesman.^[17] Khalidi explained that he often spoke to journalists in Beirut, and was usually cited, without attribution, as a well-informed Palestinian source. He also said that he was unaware of any misidentification as a PLO spokesman.^[15]

The claim received renewed attention in 2008 when it was raised due to a reported friendship between Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Khalidi’s family when Khalidi taught at the University of Chicago. Articles by Aaron Klein and John Bachelor, writers respectively for conservative outlets World Net Daily and Human Events, were referenced by rival political campaigns and reprinted in wider-circulation media.^{[16][18][19][17]}

 

Obama relationship

Khalidi’s relationship to Obama has come under increasing interest due to the U.S. Presidential race of 2008.^[20] Obama made one of the presentations at a 2003 farewell dinner on the occasion of Khalidi leaving the Los Angeles Area.^[20] The dinner was a celebration of the Los Angeles area Palestian community. Obama’s remarks alluded to the numerous dinners that he had at the home of the Khalidis.^[20]

 

NYC teacher training program

In 2005 Khalidi’s participation in a New York City teacher training program was ended by the city’s Schools Chancellor.^[21] The Chancellor, Joel I. Klein, issued a statement that “Considering his past statements, Rashid Khalidi should not have been included in a program that provided professional development for [Department of Education] teachers and he won’t be participating in the future.”^[22] Following the decision, Columbia University president Lee Bollinger spoke out on Khalidi’s behalf, writing: “The department’s decision to dismiss Professor Khalidi from the program was wrong and violates First Amendment principles… The decision was based solely on his purported political views and was made without any consultation and apparently without any review of the facts.”^[21]    – Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_Khalidi) . 

 

For more information on Khalidi, see http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/02/18/more-on-rashid-khalidi-and-the-risks-for-obama/ ;

 

And what about Chicago Annenberg Challenge?

 

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) (also referred to as the Annenberg Challenge to Chicago) was a public-private partnership founded in 1995 to improve school performance by what it called “on the ground” investments in the form of professional development and technical assistance. Sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation, the CAC received a charter grant of $49.2 million in 1995.^[1] The CAC’s operations were closed in 2001, and subsumed into those of the Annenberg Institute for Social Reform….

 

Legacy

The project appears to have failed to achieve any of its stated, measurable educational goals. For example, a comprehensive study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research concludes:

 

“Results suggest that among the schools it supported, the Challenge had little impact on school improvement and student outcomes, with no statistically significant differences between Annenberg and non-Annenberg schools in rates of achievement gain, classroom behavior, student self-efficacy, and social competence.”^[5]

 

The CAC managed to build a successor organization, the Chicago Public Education Fund, with a focus upon principal and teacher leadership. The Fund has supported such programs as Teach for America, Golden Apple Teacher Education program (GATE), and New Leaders for New Schools.

 

2008 presidential election

Main article: Obama–Ayers controversy

The CAC would come under scrutiny during the 2008 Democratic Primary presidential primaries, when, during a debate with Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia, Barack Obama was asked by George Stephanopolous to explain his relation with William Ayers, with whom he served on the board of CAC from 1995-2002 and traded board chairmanship. Obama described Ayers thusly:

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.”^[6]

 

Records in UIC Special Collections

A large collection of internal records from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge are currently housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The document cache is extensive, consisting of 132 boxes containing 947 file folders.^[7]

The University of Illinois at Chicago released the following statement on Aug. 19, 2008:

 

“The University Library supports the teaching, research, and service missions of the University by acquiring, organizing, preserving, and providing access to information. The Library is open to the public and dedicated to free inquiry. The University has not received ownership rights to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge collection. The University is aggressively pursuing an agreement with the donor, and as soon as an agreement is finalized, the collection will be made accessible to the public.”

 

When these records were not open to the public some people wondered if there was a cover-up of something related to Barack Obama, ^[8] even though Obama “does not have control over these records or the ability to release them”. ^[9] A spokesperson for the museum stated that the donor’s concern “regarding the collection are due to personnel information that could include names, confidential salary information and even Social Security numbers,” and that this delayed the release of the records. ^[10]

 

The UIC says it now has legal authority to allow public access to the collection and made the records public starting Aug 26, 2008. ^{[11] [12] [13]}  Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Annenberg_Challenge)

 

 

 

Chicago Annenberg Challenge Records

 

RADNOR, PA:  The Annenberg Foundation and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University are making available all materials related to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC).

Recent news reports have raised questions about the CAC, and about the availability of materials related to it. Many of these materials are archived at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Annenberg Foundation on August 22, 2008 sent a letter to President B. Joseph White stating that the Foundation has no objection to opening the records to the public and that the Foundation is not blocking their release.

A subset of the documents are also located at the Foundation’s offices in Radnor, PA, and at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform in Providence, RI. Consistent with the principles of transparency and accountability that guide the work of the Foundation, these materials are now available to the public by appointment.

On December 17, 1993, the Annenberg Foundation launched the Annenberg Challenge for School Reform with a five-year $500 million grant to revive and inspire school reform efforts in this nation.  The Challenge brought together civic, business and university leaders, as well as foundations and other groups, in support of 18 school improvement projects, and it built broad public-private coalitions consisting of mayors, superintendents, principals, union leaders, civic leaders and community groups. The CAC was supported with a $49.2 million grant.

 

·        All participating sites in the Annenberg Challenge for School Reform were locally controlled and locally governed.

·        Work related to programs, fundraising and development, research, and evaluation at individual Challenge sites during the grant period was undertaken through the local Challenge entities.

·        Three summative studies of the Annenberg Challenge were undertaken by the Annenberg Foundation and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.  All three documents  –  The Annenberg Challenge: Lessons and Reflections on Public School Reform, Research Perspectives on School Reform: Lessons from the Annenberg Challenge, and The Arts and School Reform: Lessons and Possibilities from the Annenberg Challenge Arts Projects  –  may be downloaded at  http://www.annenberginstitute.org/Challenge/pubs/index.html

 

For information about accessing CAC-related materials, please contact Joanne Cemini (610-341-9066) at the Annenberg Foundation or Darlene Westerberg (401-863-7990) at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. A list of available materials is posted on the respective web-sites of the Annenberg Institute (http://www.annenberginstitute.org) and the Annenberg Foundation (http://www.annenbergfoundation.org).

 http://www.annenbergfoundation.org/news/news_show.htm?doc_id=702786

For more information, see: http://noquarterusa.net/blog/category/annenberg-chicago-challenge/

They say that “Birds of a feather flock togerher” and that you can judge a man by the company he keeps.  If so, then Obama has shown very poor judgment in terms of who is associates with and the company he keeps.  Relationship do tell a lot about a man, and the story these relationships tell lead me to believe Obama cannot be trusted with the most powerful position in the free world.

The X Factor

By Lynette Long
www.lynettelong.com
drlynettelong@aol.com
http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/a-letter-from-lynettePosted

 

Gloria Steinem, in her recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times, came out strongly against Governor Palin claiming the only thing women have in common with Palin is an X chromosome. I respectfully disagree. Governor Palin knows what it is like to be a woman, a mother, a daughter, a sister – things the two men on the Democratic ticket can never fully understand. She knows what it is like to grow up invisible in an incredibly sexist society, to be stared at, groped, and sexually harassed. She knows what it is like to be smaller in stature than men and physically vulnerable. She knows what it’s like to worry that you are pregnant when you don’t want to be or that you are not pregnant when you want to be. Sarah Palin knows what it is to experience the joys and sorrows of motherhood, to nurse a baby while holding down a job, to leave for work in the morning with a toddler tugging at your pant leg, or to have your children calling you at work to diffuse squabbles or ask for help with homework. She knows that once you get to work you have to speak twice as loud and twice as often to be heard and work twice a hard to go half as far. She knows what it is to be a member of the second sex.

 

Gender is the most fundamental human characteristic. The first comment made when a child is born is either, “It’s a girl” or “It’s a boy.” From that second on, boys and girls live in parallel universes in the same culture. From the nursery room to the board room, boys and girls are given different messages about their respective roles in the world. At the hospital they are given different types of names and wrapped in different color blankets. Once home, baby girls and boys wear fundamentally different clothes and play with different toys. This differentiation extends through school where girls are given less attention, picked less frequently to answer questions and placed less often in advanced science and math classes. Once in the workforce, women are steered into lower-paying careers, paid less for the same work, and forced to juggle the responsibilities of work and home. You can’t learn what it is to be a woman, unless you are one. You can’t have a government essentially devoid of women that knows what’s best for women. You can’t legislate for women, without women.

 

After the last Democratic Primary was over and it was clear Senator Clinton was not going to get the Democratic nomination, myself, and a small group of Clinton supporters met with Senator McCain and Carly Fiorina. I personally explained to Senator McCain that women comprise well over half of the population, yet are underrepresented in every branch of government. I asked him loudly and clearly to choose a woman for the VP slot and to increase the number of women in the cabinet and on the Supreme Court. Senator McCain listened respectfully to my request. Representatives of The New Agenda also met with Carly Fiorina and as well as representatives from the Obama campaign to make similar requests.

 

After the Democratic Primary, I was also in contact with a member of Obama’s Finance Committee. He left several messages on my office phone, “urging” me to support Senator Obama. We had numerous contentious conversations and I finally told him I would be happy to vote for Senator Obama and rally other Hillary supporters to vote for Senator Obama but in return I wanted Obama to pledge gender parity in the cabinet. I foolishly thought equal representation in government was a reasonable request. “What if there aren’t qualified women you still expect us to appoint half women to the cabinet?” he replied. I was confused. “There are 300 million people in this country; you’re telling me you can’t find ten qualified women?” His responded, “You can’t have that.” We had no further conversations. There was nothing more to say.

 

Weeks later I approached a training session for DNC canvassers at a park in my neighborhood. Eager to practice their new skills, they all ran up to me, “Do you support Senator Obama? Do you want to donate money to the DNC?” After explaining that I was a Hillary supporter, I again made my request. I will support Senator Obama if he will pick a woman as his running mate and promise gender parity in the cabinet. The men in the group openly laughed at me and found my request ridiculous. I looked at the horrified faces of the newly minted female canvassers. “They’re laughing at you too,” I muttered.

Not one to give up, I contacted a daughter of a friend of mine who is a policy advisor for Obama. She assured me Obama was a good guy, so I posed my request to her. She generously responded, “I’ll ask him.” When I did not hear back from her in a few days, I shot her another email. She told me how disappointed she was in me for making such a stupid request. Obama was on the “right” side of the issues. Why did it matter whether men or women legislated those issues? I guess the answer from Obama was No. What saddened me was her mother was one of this nation’s greatest champions of title nine, educational equity and gender parity. Her mother and I counted the number of pictures of boys and girls in text books, male and female cartoon characters, and documented the underrepresentation of girls in math classes in our nation’s schools.

 

Yes, policy is important but who decides and delivers that policy is even more important. As Marshall McLuhan profoundly noted, “The medium is the message.” Children incorporate many of their perceptions about gender by five years old. Little girls won’t understand if Sarah Palin is pro-life or pro-choice, believes in gun control or is a member of the NRA, but they will know the Vice-President of the United States of America is a girl and that alone will alter their perceptions of themselves.

 

I have given my loyalty to the Democratic Party for decades. My party, which is comprised primary of women, has not put a woman on a presidential ticket for 24 years. My party refused to nominate my candidate, Hillary Clinton, for president or vice president, even though she received more votes than any other candidate in history. My party stood silently by as Hillary Clinton was eviscerated by the mainstream media. My party was mute while MSM repeatedly called Clinton a bitch and symbolically called me and every other woman in this country a bitch. My party was disturbingly silent when the MSM commented on Hillary’s body or the shrillness of her voice, reminding me and every other woman the fundamental disrespect we endure on a daily basis. My party’s candidate was mute when Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger openly mocked Senator Clinton from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ. My party’s candidate was silent when the rapper Ludicrous released a new song calling Hillary a bitch. My party and it’s candidate gave their tacit approval for the attacks on Senator Hillary Clinton and consequently women in general.

 

I have a choice. I can vote for my party and it’s candidates which have demonstrated a blatant disrespect for women and a fundamental lack of integrity or I can vote for the Republican ticket which has heard our concerns and put a woman on the ticket but with whom I fundamentally don’t agree on most issues. If Democratic women wait for the perfect woman to come along, we will never elect a woman. We have to seize opportunity where it presents itself. Besides, the Democratic Party is no longer my home. I have no home, but this election I will make my bed somewhere else.

 

I respect Gloria Steinem’s right to support the presidential ticket of her choice but she is openly trying to derail Sarah Palin’s historic candidacy. As Madeleine Albright said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” I will vote for McCain-Palin. I urge other women to do the same. I might not personally agree with Palin on every issue and I promise to be the first person knocking on her door, if Roe v. Wade, or any other legislation that goes against the rights of women is threatened. But in Governor Palin I find a woman of integrity, who not only talks the talk but walks the walk. I can work with that. I will work with that.

 

When I walk down the street, I don’t have democrat printed on my forehead, but my gender is obvious to everyone and impacts every interaction in my life. Since my country is far from gender neutral, right now for me gender trumps everything else. I urge other women to join me in this fight for equality. Sometimes opportunities occur where you least expect them.