President Obama’s years of public service are based around his unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around politics of purpose. To save America from Economic collapse he provided the Stimulus Package and formulated American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. With these programs put in place, all leaders from Congress and Senate (including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan who later admitted) were offered the opportunity and took funds and agreed to utilize the Stimulus package responsibly to create job opportunities in their regional’s.
President Obama expects elected leaders to be truthful, responsible, answerable, transparent and be accountable to the people who vote them to public office by telling the truth how they used the stimulus packages and if it did not work well for them, they should instead give report why it did not instead of covering the Truth with smokes-screen and just flip flopping……
President Obama knows that in his leadership, he aided Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with other Congressmen and Senate with stimulus packages to help their people in creating jobs; and it is true they did not create their wealth alone, they were aided through without Government facilities, resources, bonds, etc., to make it possible for them to do what they had to do which they must explain to the people why; if they did not create job opportunities as was demanded in the stimulus package for The Recovery Act.
President Obama was able to steady the economy to where it is now. President Obama made strides to cut taxes for working families, and expanded health care for children and their parents. As a United States Senator, he reached across the aisle to pass groundbreaking lobbying reform, lock up the world’s most dangerous weapons, and brought to surface transparency in the government by putting federal spending online.
President Obama cannot do it alone and this is why he wants voters to elect bi-partisan people in the Congress who will engage effectively in both the Congress and at the Senate to make things work in a bi-partisan instead of those who are bent to fight the Government for self greed of the 1% Special Interest of the Rich.
The war is centrally between the Rich against the middle-class and the poor. The Rich want a Government that works and deliver for the 1% rich and should be closed to the rest 99% of the people……What will become of the 99% if the government is shut-down from serving the middle-class and the poor….??? People, the Government should work for all people the rich and the poor without discrimination but based on regulatory trading policies in order to balance. ……… Facts are all in the open ……..check attachments…..
It is the Truth that shall set us all free united at peace with each other…….
Cheers Everybody…….!!!
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
Check it out!!!
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The ED Show – Romney helps the rich get richer
Published on Jul 11, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
July 11, 2012
The Nation magazine revealed that Romney’s biggest campaign donors love offshore tax havens and examined the banking habits of the top 11 donors. The Nation also revealed Romney wants to cut their taxes, and his own, by at least 10%. Ed Schultz talks to “The Nation’s” George Zornick about Romney’s donors and why they’re all investing in the Romney campaign.
Guess who has to pick up the slack to cover for their tax deficit – the low income and middleclass.
Its like these rich mofos can? reap all the benefits of a rigged society yet provide nothing to support it…I guess thats a good thing in the end as it most likely will all come falling down.
syntaxed2 1 month ago
The ED Show – Romney: Don’t need more firemen, policemen, teachers
Published on Jun 8, 2012
June 8, 2012
Republicans hammered President Obama over his remarks that the private sector is “doing fine.” But Mitt Romney actually revealed the honest truth about the Republican prescription for the jobs market. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich joins Michael Eric Dyson to dig into Romney’s comments.
The current Republicans in congress are the most annoying and useless people you could ever elect. They have no ideas except tax cuts for the rich, cutting spending during a recovery on programs that benefit those hit hardest by the recession, and subsidizing and privatizing the government so that big corporations can make profit off of services the government use to? provide.
Show it Mike! You know it’s right to tell the truth and make the fair contrast!! If the house can’t pass another couple trillion $ TAX-CUT for the RICH, they ain’t doin anything FOR THE REST of the country. Causing thousands of Americans to continue to be? laid off adding more millions to the already outrageous number out of work. SO LAME! Mitt and the rest of those hate-filled Repulicans have their heads stuck in the freakin sand, they are smothered in their own ignorance. Lift up and BREATHE!
Mamalita7 1 month ago
Romney and his CROOKED BAIN DEALINGS REVEALED Keith Olbermann
Published on Aug 6, 2012 by LedaOhio21
Google the video title for more info.. My ScrewTube accounts are nuked so fast I am tired of writing all the details out.. Do some leg work.. Search for more info yourself.. It is out there!
Romney Dogged by Questions on Bain & Tax Returns as Obama Deems Him “Outsourcer-in-Chief”
Published on Jul 18, 2012 by democracynow
DemocracyNow.org – Records revealed last week show Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney remained at the helm of the private equity firm Bain Capital three years longer than he had previously disclosed. Romney maintained he left Bain in 1999 to run the Winter Olympics in Utah. But the Boston Globe reported last week that Romney retained control of Bain and earned a salary through 2002. The three-year period in question saw Bain shuttering a number of U.S. companies, leading to layoffs and the outsourcing of American jobs. We’re joined by Chris Rowland, Washington bureau chief for the Boston Globe.
To watch the complete weekday independent news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, search our vast archive, or to find more information about Democracy Now! and Amy Goodman, visit http://www.democracynow.org/
Outsourcer-in-thief! I want someone in office who has had the life long passion to help the American people as a servant, not someone who cost the economy millions of dollars and jobs and has enough money to run for office for 12yrs because of it. I don’t even care if he helped other businesses to succeed. ? Just the fact that he could outsource jobs for profit instead of making them stronger within the country convinces me that he is in it to win it for himself and not for the American people.
TheLeperChef1 4 weeks ago
1099: Mitt Romney’s Troubling Tax Talk Continues Despite Barrage of Insults at Obama
Caught on Tape Again: Mitt Romney’s Heartless Positions Revealed in Open Mic Show Off To Fat Cats
Published on Apr 17, 2012 by politicalarticles
No description available.
I am voting for Obama because I don’t want the republicans to have a three judge advantage on the supreme court. They brought us citizens united with a one judge advantage can you? imagine how badly they will screw us with three?
Smartassawhip 4 months ago in playlist Favorite videos
Stericycle: mitt romney Profits Off Aborted Fetus Disposal – July 2012
Published on Jul 16, 2012 by mccainisthroughX
Unelectable buffoon, republican religious Kook, anti-American outsourcer and US tax-evader mitt romney’s newest problems include his investment in Stericycle, a disposal company that handles disposing of aborted fetuses and afterbirth. Once again, flip-flopping moron and religious Kook romney is on both sides of an issue, and there’s more to come, since romney’s investments are now being investigated more closely.
That’s right. mitt is a liar and hypocrite of unseen proportions. mitt, like most religious Kooks, is unable to tell the truth, a religious trait that was created through an unwillingness to live inside of? reality, and a need to be self-righteous, as Terrorists are. The religious are taught, by idiots, liars and the mentally ill, to ignore reality and pretend they know everything, even when they know nothing at all. mitt is a joke, and President Barack Obama will be Our President for 4 more.
mccainisthroughXin reply to maha77(Show the comment) 2 weeks ago
Of course they’re hypocrites! Do you really think the GOP wants to overturn Roe? This has been the greatest political windfall for them since the Civil War. Thanks to this issue, they have a solid voting block that is all fired up over “baby killing”! What better? emotional issue to keep your base united and looking the other way while you rape the US middle class? I am sure a few of them are sincere but, as a party the GOP LOVES abortion!
pdoylemiin reply to mccainisthroughX(Show the comment) 1 week ago
Bill Maher Slams Mitt Romney Hard, Compares Him to Rappers (Real Time New Rules 1-20-12)
Video shows just how un-sure ‘Mitt Romney’ is about almost everything in the world, See for yourself.
Vote 4 Ron Paul – http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
The ED Show – Romney camp struggles to explain later Bain years
Published on Jul 16, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
July 16, 2012
The Romney Campaign cannot get away from questions about the candidate’s time at Bain Capital or his unreleased tax returns. Ed Schultz talks with MSNBC’s Richard Wolffe and former Newt Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler about the latest mess for Mitt Romney.
Paul Ryan’s Secret Shame Revealed: Political FUBAR
Published on Aug 14, 2012 by britethorn
Paul Ryan’s secret shame is wide out in the open. Mitt Romney has revealed it and its only a matter of time before the GOP voters find themselves faced with having to support a person who is against everything the modern Republican Party has rejected!
http://www.britethorn.com
http://www.facebook.com/BritethornMedia
Crying,
I just don’t know. I mean, I just don’t know the Republican Party anymore. Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan because he’s the intellectual leader of the GOP? And if that isn’t Political FUBAR, I don’t know what is.
Am I the only one in the world who seems to have caught what the mainstream media and the big time political pundits seems to have missed about Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential pick? That he’s smart? That Paul Ryan actually reads every page of the Congressional Budget, understands it, and enjoys it? That he’s a policy wonk? That Mitt Romney has called him the intellectual leader of the Republican Party?
And when is the last time you heard anyone refer to anyone on a Republican Presidential ticket as an intellectual? I mean, George W Bush was able to convince people that he was a cowboy despite the fact that he doesn’t ride and owns a ranch without any horses –but he could have sold whiskey to Mormons before he got anyone to swallow the notion that he was smart. And Sarah Palin, smart? Dan Quayle smart? I mean, sure, Dick Cheney is probably an intellectual, but my guess is that the last guy who tried calling him one was the hunting biddy who’s face he tried to shoot off.
No, Republicans have spent the better part of the last thirty years denigrating, shaming and ridiculing anyone who dared to present themselves to the public as an intellectual, which is one big reason why I think Mitt Romney’s made a huge error in picking Paul Ryan as his running mate. Although, by comparison Ryan does make Romney look pretty stupid which could wind up making him a lot more popular with Republican Voters.
Not George W Bush popular, because, and idiot like that only comes along once in a lifetime — twice, if you count Sarah Palin.
Maybe that’s why Romney picked him, hoping to bring some brains to what has been a pretty brainless campaign so far. Unfortunately, Romney’s campaign has seemed to RELY on the? fact that Republicans don’t think. I can’t explain most of the things he’s done and said so far otherwise. Now they are being asked to applaud an “intellectual.” Honestly, I don’t see how this can fail to get hairy.
Of course, in the meantime, Biden is making plenty of dumb gaffes today too, so…
MartianStories 1 week ago
Mitt Romney Leaves Dog on Roof of Car
Uploaded by bluestatewins on Jan 13, 2012
http://www.bluestatewins.com Mitt Romney Leaves Dog on Roof of Car
Romney: Corporations Are People, My Friend.
Uploaded by tpmtv on Aug 11, 2011
more at c-span.org
Does this means that Romney chops up people and sells their dressed up remains at a profit?
Because that’s? what he’s been doing with corporations.
psychocrysis2 3 months ago 14
See my latest blog post. Feel free to comment there.
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Caring citizens communicating American values are the solution to expanding liberty and justice for all,
Chuck Watts, Co-Founder of Caring Citizens
Empathy Surplus Project – 2012 Theme: Occupy Compassion
Empathy Surplus Project Twitter Page
Empathy Surplus Project Facebook Page
Empathy Surplus Project Google+ Page
Sign the Charter for Compassion
937-725-4317
Romney, Ryan and the Devil’s Budget: Will America Keep Its Soul?
by George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith, first published at Huffington Post, 08/22/2012
America was born with a great soul, a moral view of Democracy in which citizens care about their fellow citizens and join together to take responsibility not just for themselves but for each other, for America as a union, a joint enterprise. The government’s job was to carry out that moral vision and to do so it created what we call The Public, the provision of basic protection and empowerment for all.
From the beginning of America, the Public provided roads and bridges, public schools, hospitals, a national bank, a patent office, police, a justice system, public buildings and records, and more. Since then the Public has expanded as public needs have expanded — sewers, clean water, public transportation, public health and disease control, scientific research, the internet, GPS, an energy grid, parks, and much, much more. See rest of article;
Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) is on the defensive after he made comments stating that women who are “legitimate” rape victims can’t get pregnant. Prominent conservatives from Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) to talking-head Sean Hannity are begging him to drop out of his race for US Senate.1
Here’s the thing: Their outrage is disingenuous at best. Why? Because Rep. Akin’s views are anything but fringe when it comes to Tea Party members of Congress. He, Paul Ryan and 171 mostly Republican members of the House sponsored a bill last year that would have narrowed the definition of rape to make it even harder for survivors–especially lower income rape survivors–to get abortions.2 They felt the need to define rape as “forcible” rape–sound familiar? Akin and 63 others allies in Congress co-sponsored a bill that would have made emergency contraception and common forms of birth control illegal.3
Now, conservatives in Congress are falling over themselves to condemn Akin hoping their statements will stop the media from focusing on the fact that lots of them hold many of the same views.
We can’t let that happen. We need to make sure that voters everywhere know how widespread the “Akin problem” is. So we’re planning a big effort–partnering with local groups on the ground in these districts, organizing survivors to tell their stories and running ads online and on the radio–to get the word out about how many members of Congress have partnered with Akin to roll back women’s reproductive rights. But we need your help to do it. This will cost us at least $25,000 to pull off. Can you chip in $25?
Attempts to “redefine” rape aren’t new to Congress. And the consequences of doing so are far more severe than simply making abortion harder to access–they have a significant cultural effect too. Too many legislators are willing to go so far as to place even greater burdens and cast doubt on rape survivors just to advance their agenda of taking away women’s rights to control our own bodies.
In fact, changing the definition of rape has been a key talking point for extremist anti-choice conservatives for years. John C. Willke, former president of the National Right to Life Committee, has argued pregnancy from rape is rare in part because “when women are actually raped, the trauma upsets their endocrine system in a way that prevents pregnancy.”4
And a lot of current members of Congress hold equally extreme views and have actively tried to force rape survivors to take their pregnancy to term, deny survivors access to emergency contraception and even criminalize some forms of birth control–like IUDs. This year’s Republican Party Platform even calls for a federal ban on abortion without an exception for rape or incest.5
Conservatives in Congress have been able to advance their right-wing agenda without any scrutiny for years. But this year, they’ve taken their efforts to new extremes, so it’s been getting more notice. And we have to keep spotlighting them.
Please chip in to help us spread the word to voters all over the country about how many politicians hold views just as extreme as Rep. Akin’s.
Thanks for speaking out,
–Nita, Shaunna and Kat, the UltraViolet team
Sources:
1. John Cornyn, Top Republicans Call On Todd Akin To Rethink Candidacy, Huffington Post, August 20, 2012
2. The House GOP’s Crusade Against Reproductive Rights, Media Matters, October 6, 2011
3. Paul Ryan and Todd Akin Partnered On Radical ‘Personhood’ Bill Outlawing Abortion And Many Birth Control Pills, ThinkProgress, August 20, 2012
4. Todd Akin’s Rape Comment Was Bad, but His Abortion Views Are Much Worse, Daily Best, August 20, 2012
5. Report: GOP abortion platform doesn’t include rape exception, The Hill, August 21, 2012
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Conservatives want us to think that Rep. Akin is alone in his extremist views but he’s not–lots of current members of Congress have partnered with him in trying to redefine rape and criminalize some forms of birth control.
The weekend endorsement for the Health Services Minister Prof Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o to vie for the Kisumu County senate seat has been received wit mixed reaction by the electorate in the region.
Observers and political pundits were quick in pointing out that Prof. Nyong’’s quest for the senate seat would be a daunted if not an uphill task, while others have described the move as political suicide.
Nyong’o is the current MP or Kisumu Rural, a rural constituency, which has since been disbanded by the IEBC, which has realigned and splinted into three, namely Seme, Kisumu town West and Kisumu Central.
The Minister has represented Kisumu Rural eve since 1992 first multi-party elections on a Ford Kenya ticket, but was rested by the voters in 1997 and was only re-elected back to parliament on an n LDP ticket in 2002 after a five years in political limbo only after reportedly being reconciled with Raila Odinga.
Nyong’o is facing Equally powerful, influential, resourceful Nairobi base businessmen in the name of En Maxwell Otieno Odongo of Otieno Odongo and Partners Engineering Company and a Nairobi base architect Ocholla Ogoda the former poplar Gor Mahia Football Club chairman.
Local pundits say his chances of clinching the Kisumu County Senate seat are very remote if not a pipe dream.
Information reaching us says Prof Nyong’o has never been a highly performer MP at the local political derby. His detractors are accusing of being a very mean and extremely thrift person tot worth to be a politician.
His lackluster and dismal performance at the constituency level has contributed a great deal to his poor performance resulting in bad blood between him and his constituents.
At the national political area, the Professor has been the principal spokesman of the ODM o mater related to the party policy and ideological guidance. He had always had the sole of the most formidable defender on the part leader Raila Odinga. Perhaps this is what has prompted the Minister to shift his political base from his Seme Rural constituency to Kisumu County an area with the largest cosmopolitan voters in the hope that Raila Odinga will come to his aid and bail him out of shameful d Senate.
The MPs move in backing and endorsing Nyong’o or the Kisumu County Senate seat, however, is faulted by many people who described it as an attempt impose leadership on the voters. Some o the MPs who came to Kisumu to drum up the support for Nyong’o, however, are themselves facing lean time in their respective constituencies, and quite a few of them will be kicked out. So they would only cause Pro Nyong’o more trouble.
One of Prof Nyong’o’s most credible opponents is Eng. Maxell Otieno Odongo, who hails from the populous Kano sub-clan, which is well spread I the three administrative districts of Nyando, Muhoroni and part of Kisumu is arguably posing a real threat to Nyong’o’s ambition. It is said that if the clans arithmetic could work in Odongo’s favor then Prof Nyong’o is going to nowhere.
The other aspirant, Ochola Ogoda hails from another populous clan of Nyakach. He has settled in Muhoron Settement scheme where the presence of people whose original home is from Nakch is formidable. Ogoda, would therefore claim most of the voter fro Nyakach district, while Nyong;o whose relations with the electorate in hi s home turf of Seme s aid not to be all that much cordial could face uncertain political future if cannot re-brand himself.
Otieno Odongo is a flamboyant industrialists-cum-business tycoon who had employed so many people in his own establishment, which span from large scale sugar cane farming, tourist hotels, engineering firm with an international outlet, milling and also involve in the rice milling business in Ahero and elsewhere.
Immediately after the launching of Prof.Nyong’o Senate campaign, the dreadful rumor went around that the six ODM who attended the ceremony had agreed on an MOU called to mount a joint campaign aimed at scuttling Engineer Odogo’s campaign or the Senate seat Stop Otieno Odongo [SOO} campaign to scuttle Eng. Odongo elaborate campaign. The Engineer had launched his own campaign at the same venue two weeks ago, which attracted thousands of people from all the seven constituencies that form the Kiumu County.
The constituencies are Nakach, Muhoroni, Nyando, Kisumu Town East, Kisumu Central, Kisumu Tow West and the newly created Seme constituency.
Commonly known to his peers as “The Aga Khan” as the result of his generosity towards the down trodden poor people.Eng Oteno Odongo one of the wealthiest Luos is said to be very generous and had helped in paying school fees for hundreds of students from the poor families acquire education, ad is known for making hefty donate towards the local community projects.
Yesterday, one daily screamed its headlines, Poll Chaos Murderers and rapists to walk free. It was a declaration too hard for victims to swallow. Now, the task force formed by Mr. Keriako Tobiko, the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the matter of prosecuting poll suspects, returned the verdict that there is no evidence to try 8869 cases of suspects who killed, maimed, raped and destroyed property.
This is in the backdrop of government’s concerted efforts to bring back the ICC cases to be tried locally. We all know that over 1600 Kenyans were killed in 2007/08. We buried them, The President attended a memorial service sometime later in their memory, if I am not wrong, a mausoleum was erected or proposed in their honor.
We all know that over 500,000 people were displaced and some are still living in IDP camps. The government has spent millions of tax payer’s money resettling them. We have heard hundreds of individual accounts of victims of post poll rape in various forums.
Today, I do not want to write on behalf of the IDPs, victims of rape, maiming and those who lost property. The government seems to believe they have a weak case and thus they should try harder and build stronger cases.
I want to confine myself to the case of the dead, those who were killed by the marauding mobs that the government claims it cannot ascertain. I want to speak for the dead because they cannot come back from their graves to build their cases. I want to speak for them because the constitution guaranteed them the right to life and the government has an obligation to protect that right.
It is not the burden of dead victims of crimes that infringe on fundamental human rights such as the right to life to prove their cases. This responsibility lies with the government, especially where murder has occurred. It is very callous of this government to throw up its hands and declare it cannot do anything to apprehend the killers. The government machinery from the NSIS, CID and police are capable of investigating and finding these killers. These killers did not come from Mars, they are fellows within our society, people who were captured on camera hacking fellow Kenyans, burning their houses, pulling them out of vehicles and slaughtering them. These are gangs that were caught on camera, without hoods or balaclavas; brandishing machetes, bows and arrows, spears, some even transporting guns in vehicles. These people did not commit these crimes in the dead of the night; they were operating in broad daylight, in many cases right next to contingents of armed police officers.
Various institutions such as the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights documented some evidence. The NSIS must have reports of what transpired before, during and after the elections with regard to the violence. Meanwhile, the government wishes for victims, among them the dead to come out and build credible evidence.
If this government cannot find the killers, it has no moral authority to continue in office. The oath of the President is that of protecting lives and property, protecting the constitution which guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms, among them the rights to life, free speech, association, owning property, exercising ones choices during elections.
This latest developments is further proof of the governments preoccupation with protecting the perpetrators of post poll chaos at the expense of victims. It all boils down to political will. Neither side of this coalition government wishes to bring to justice the architects of the heinous crimes. It can only mean one thing; major players in this government are themselves the perpetrators. A government worth its salt cannot claim that out of over 1600 murders, 500,000 displacements, hundreds of rape and maiming cases, in all this, it is only capable of convicting a single perpetrator whose case a victim successfully provided evidence.
This is an affront of the people of Kenya, it is an affront on the rule of law and definitely, an affront on the oaths our leaders took. If anyone still has any doubts that we expect suspected perpetrators to prosecute themselves, we are a deluded lot of a people.
This is what all Kenyans must stand up against.
Otieno Sungu.
The writer is an online civic educator and an environmental activist.
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Hi All
Here is a preview of our last League of Young Professionals Meeting… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEEhBMvw9Ag&feature=youtu.be
Join us on facebook http://www.facebook.com/LYP.Kenya for regular updates
Nomination losers at the just concluded, but reportedly flawed ODM preliminaries in the Ndhiwa by-election have been urged to join hands with other party leaders in the region I supporting the winner Augustino Neto Oyugi win the seat back and strengthen its parliamentary strength.
They must remain steadfastly in ODM and remained patriotic and totally committed to the party ideals
The disillusioned nomination losers are reported to have ganged up after meeting in Nairobi and vowed to put their weight behind the candidate of other party instead of supporting and campaigning for the ODM torch bearer.
Making what he termed as passionate appeal to the close t 21 nomination losers to change their hearts and abandon their planned rebellion against the party, a Homa-Bay County prominent politician Hilary Ochieng’ Alila told the nomination losers to be patient ,saying the patience pays. This is because the general election is around the corner and if even if they had lost I the nomination, they should remain loyal and supportive to the party nominee to win.
They will be able to stand contest and win the election during he forthcoming general elections. The elections will come with unlimited opportunities for those who are ambitious to win the elective positions both at the national, senate and in the regional governance in accordance to the unlimited opportunities offered under the new constitutional dispensation.
Alila said for the ODM members to extend their support to candidate of a rival political party in the by-election campaign would be tantamount to a betrayal and open rebellion, which could earn those involve the cancellation of their party membership and eventual expulsion from the party,
Alila a Nairobi based businessman who is currently campaigning for the Homa-Bay County Senate seat said for the ODM members and supporter to propel the party leader Raila Amolo Odinga to realize his presidential ambition, the party must remain united and all should work as a team.
Alila is challenging the Immigration and Registration of Persons Minister Gerald Otieno Kajwang’, the current Mbita MP who has shifted his political camp from Mbita to Homa-Bay town and is now contesting the County Senate seat.
It has since emerged that during the just ended Ndhiwa by-election nomination ODM preliminaries, Kajwang, who is also the ODM County branch in Homa-Bay and his rival Alila had thrown their weights o two different aspirants.
Kajwang’, it is being alleged to have thrown his weight behind the former Ndhiwa MP Tom Okello Obondo a perennial Ndhiwa parliamentary election loser ever since 1994. Obondo performed poorly in the nomination, while Hilary Ocheng Alila another contender for the County Senate seat supported Augustino Neto Oyugi who eventually won the party in a hotly contested and controversial by-election nomination. He outcome of the Ndhiwa preliminary nomination is therefore only pointing fingers at the direction the Homa-Bay County politics will follow come March, 4 2013.
The populist and youthful Alila whose candidature for the County Senate seat against Minister Otieno Kajwang’ is being commonly being referred to by the locals like the biblical battle between the little David and the giant Goliath is said to have gathered and mobilized a formidable campaign team in all the eight parliamentary constituencies that forms Homa-Bay County, stretching from Kabondo-Kasipul, Kasipul, Karachuonyo,Rangwe, Homa-Bay Town, Ndhiwa, Gwassi and Mbita.
However, the political intrigues recently witnessed in the last week’s Ndhiwa nomination indicating that the Minister is under heavy pressure of losing the Senate battle and in a great panicking.
Another important key ODM Homa-Bay County branch was the branch treasurer, Mrs Monica Amolo, who is also the self-proclaimed ODM coordinator in Nyanza and a perennial election loser in Ndhiwa. She had lost the bid to become the Ndhiwa MP against the late Joshua Orwa Ojode in 2002 and 2007 each tie claiming that she had been rigged t and her votes stolen, and even atone time moved to the High Court against the late Ojode and the disbanded Elect0ral Commission of Kenya under Kivuitu though she had garnered only 12,000 votes against Ojode’s 48,000.The case was throw out against her with cost.in 2007
Reports emerging from Homa-Bay ay Alila is currently on the lead in the two constituencies in Suba districts of Gwassi and Mbita, Ndhiwa,Rangwe, Kabondo-Kasipul and Kasipul while Otieno Kajwang has fragmented and scattered support among his uncles in Karachuonyo where his mother hails from
Pundits, however, maintains that it is too early to make an accurate assessment.
It is crucial that I share this with you people!!!
Let’s think for a second about what’s happened since President Obama took Office.
America businesses have added 4.5 million jobs in the last 29 months. The typical middle-class family has saved $3,600 in tax cuts over his first term. We passed historic health care reform. The war in Iraq has ended. It’s now easier for women to fight for equal pay for equal work. Student Education Loan system and repayment has improved and relaxed opening more doors fair to all so that more students from middle and poor families to gain University education. Healthcare system has improved and will get better as time goes.
People, just imagine; if President Obama did not give everything in his intellect and power to put America on top of the world, the above would not have been possible. President Obama is above reproach that is why he played bi-partisan even when political tide is not politically favorable, but remained faithful to public mandate and promises he made during his first Presidential campaign. We all saw how he struggled against forces of obstructionists with tight blockages from the Special Interest strategy to block him every step of the way from the word go……..
If Congress and Senate played bi-partism from both sides of political divide, the story would be different. Jobs and economic ratings would be favorably high reducing joblessness etc., and this is why voters must wake up this time round and get to know what Romney-Ryan ticket would mean to the majority; more specifically when galvanized by hate with racial discrimination on a non-idiological agenda ducking away from real policy issues. Voters must be concerned about what will become of the country when special interest of the millionaire rich continue to evade paying taxes………and ask themselves, who then is dividing the Americans in this instances…….. People, it will be:
a) “Politicians behaving badly”……
b) attacking Medicare, calling it Obamacare……….
c) inventing ID negative scheme to block voters galvanized by hate and discrimination………
d) the prescriptive procedural hurdles to block voters from voting rights ……….
e) the manufactured Super-Pack Ads paid by super rich of special interest to smear President Obama negatively
These and many more of its kind will take away Peace and Unity the family of America is enjoying both locally and internationally and in the circumstances, interfere with business partnership including cultural diversity progressive development agenda the Nation cherishes.
You can see from the attachments and connect the dots and see why Peace and Unity is extremely important and why it is important to give President Obama a second chance…….. It is because he will make things better for all………
Cheers everybody……..
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
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Paul Ryan declares Devotion to AYN RAND in Videos, WOW!!! – Rachel Maddow
Published on Aug 14, 2012 by Romney MrEtchASketch
Rachel totally disproves Paul Ryan’s “denials” about following Ayn Rand. Videos show he’s a True Believer & devotee of Ayn and her philosophy of the privileged rich. Rachel also shows how Ryan’s Plan would shift $4.6Trillion more to the rich in the next 10 years.
Ryan IS NOT a “fiscal conservative!’
From MSNBC
“Ayn Rand argued for rational egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should? “exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself”. She referred to egoism as “the VIRTUE of SELFISHNESS”
“She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness.”
Rand “considered? laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system.” (free of government regulation)
– Wikipedia
Romney MrEtchASketch 1 day ago
Paul Ryan’s? Budget Plan calls for Medicare “Vouchers” to be given to Seniors over 67. But that effectively means that anyone with a serious illness or preexisting condition will be? UNABLE to get any Heath Insurance, whatsoever???
Romney MrEtchASketch 1 day ago 2
Gotta also see the new Jon Stewart spoof on Twilight vampires & Paul Ryan.
Hilarious.
Jon Stewart Mocks Paul Ryan’s Hypocritical Fiscal Stance With Twilight, Taylor Lautner Imagery (VIDEO)
On Huffington Post. 8/15/12? (Can’t post the URL)
Romney MrEtchASketch 20 hours ago
Paul Ryan’s? Budget Plan calls for Medicare “Vouchers” to be given to Seniors over 67. But that effectively means that anyone with a serious illness or preexisting condition will be? UNABLE to get any Heath Insurance, whatsoever???
Romney MrEtchASketch 1 day ago 2
John Stewart Blasts Mitt Romney
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp-Fu5smnBM
Published on Mar 7, 2012 by StopRomney
http://www.stop-romney.info
MITT ROMNEY ANTI-CHRIST
Uploaded by DionAFields on Dec 30, 2011
WAKE UP AMERICA. Not buying it yet check there own sites Liberty replaced saints at this site. http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com
My new ex mormon friends says this about the word LIBERTY means to a mormon.
The word liberty to mormns refers to the 2,000 straping warriors in the book of mormon who fout a terrible battle and not one was killed or? injured. It means to a mormon no federal regulations to interfer with pologamy, or other deeds the mormons do and have done. It is a battle cry for mormons
I read in the book, “CAN MITT ROMNEY SERVE TWO MASTERS?” Romney and & Mormon Church’s agenda is to bring the World under the Mormon Govt. of God. The Mormon White Horse Prophecy states that the government will hang by a thread & the? Mormon Church will come forth to save it. Also that Mormons will rule the entire earth side by side with Jesus Christ from Jackson County Missouri-their Garden of Eden & Mormonism will be the-one-world-theocracy religion of which to perform the government through.
certainlytruthful 1 month ago
Obama blasts ‘dishonest’ Romney-Ryan attacks over Medicare
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News
White House Correspondent
The Ticket – 21 hrs ago
(Olivier Knox)President Barack Obama charged Wednesday that Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are looking to slash Medicare benefits while leveling “dishonest” attacks accusing him of doing the same thing.
“They are just throwing everything at the wall to see if it sticks,” Obama told a rowdy crowd of supporters in Dubuque on the third and final day of a bus tour through Iowa.
The president said his approach had “strengthened Medicare” and added 10 years to the program’s lifespan, even as it enacts “reforms that will not touch your Medicare benefits, not by a dime.”
“My plan’s already extended Medicare by nearly a decade. Their plan ends Medicare as we know it,” he charged. “My plan reduces the cost of Medicare by cracking down on fraud, and waste, and subsidies to insurance companies. Their plan makes seniors pay more so they can give another tax cut to millionaires and billionaires.”
“That’s the difference between our plans on Medicare. That’s an example of the choice in this election,” the president said. Romney’s camp has accused Obama of slashing Medicare by $716 billion, in part to pay for his landmark health care law, popularly known as Obamacare. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus charged in an op-ed published Wednesday that Obama “is the only candidate in this race willing to let Medicare die.”
Obama’s camp has countered that his cuts won’t shrink benefits but, rather, target waste. (It notably cuts reimbursement rates for hospitals, drugmakers and insurers, while predicting that an influx of new patients will make up for losses.) And it has underlined that the House Republicans’ budget, crafted by Ryan, not only embraces those reductions but envisions shifting the popular program to a voucherlike system that could see elderly patients paying more out-of-pocket costs.
Both sides are grappling with Medicare’s ballooning share of federal spending, fueled by an aging population and costly advances in health care. Republicans have pointed out that Obama previously denounced political grandstanding on the issue—only to turn to it in the aftermath of Romney’s pick of Ryan as his running mate.
The issue has particular political resonance among elderly voters, who are critical to the outcome in vital battleground states like Florida.
[Political junkie? Sign up for the Yahoo! News Daily Ticket newsletter today]
First lady Michelle Obama, reunited with her husband for his last day in Iowa, introduced the president and told the crowd, “It all boils down to who you are and what you stand for. And we all know who my husband is, don’t we?”
“Your president knows what it means when a family struggles,” she said, to cheers from the crowd. That echoed Obama campaign arguments that Romney’s wealth has left him out of touch with average Americans.
“I am just reminded how lucky I am, because she is a woman of strength, and integrity and honor,” the president said of his wife. “She is the best mom in the world—and she’s cute!”
“I do think she is a perfect first lady,” he said, noting that Michelle Obama planned to go pick up daughters Sasha and Malia “from sleep-away camp.”
The president also recalled how Iowans propelled his unlikely 2008 bid for the White House.
“Every stop, I’ve got fond memories of the last campaign,” he said. “This is where our movement for change happened.”
“I’ve come here to ask you to stand with me, just like you stood with me in 2008, to finish what we started,” he said, to cheers from the crowd of about 3,000. “Iowa, I’m gonna need your help one more time here.”
Obama began his day with breakfast at Riley’s Cafe and Catering in Cedar Rapids with three veterans, Amanda Irish, Jake Krapfl and Terry Philips. He also visited Cascade High School.
Obama defends Biden on ‘chains’ remark
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News
White House Correspondent
The Ticket – 17 hrs ago
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden campaign together in late 2010 (William Thomas Cain/Getty …
President Barack Obama, breaking his public silence Wednesday on Vice President Joe Biden’s claim that a Mitt Romney victory will “put y’all back in chains,” dismissed the controversy over the comment and expressed full confidence in Biden.
In interviews with People magazine and “Entertainment Tonight,” Obama sought to put Biden’s remark, which drew angry denunciations from Republicans, in context and said voters aren’t focused on the stir it created.
“Most folks know that’s just sort of a WWF wrestling part of politics,” Obama told “Entertainment Tonight.” “It doesn’t mean anything, just fills up a lot of airtime.”
When asked by People magazine whether he would talk to Biden in the aftermath of that remark, the president offered the verbal equivalent of a shrug.
“Joe Biden has been an outstanding vice president. He is passionate about what’s happening in middle-class families,” he said. “So I will be talking to him a whole lot about the campaign generally.”
Biden meant that “you, consumers, the American people, will be a lot worse off if we repeal these [Wall Street reform] laws as the other side is suggesting,” Obama told People. “In no sense was he trying to connote something other than that.”
To “Entertainment Tonight,” he characterized Biden’s phrasing as a “distraction” from a substantive issue, adding that “we should focus on what Joe’s comments meant and what they’re intended to mean, and that is, we shouldn’t roll back Wall Street reforms that are making consumers and the economy a lot more secure.”
Biden’s comments came on Tuesday at a campaign stop in Danville, Va., where he told a group of supporters that Romney would “unchain Wall Street” by rolling back regulations.
“He said in the first hundred days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street,” Biden said during a speech at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
Obama jabs at Romney over dog-on-car-roof incident
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News
White House Correspondent
The Ticket – Tue, Aug 14, 2012
For Seamus? President Barack Obama unleashed a sharp attack on Mitt Romney over his opposition to a wind-power tax credit popular in Iowa—and linked to it a long-ago incident in which the Republican candidate put his family dog, Seamus, in a carrier strapped to the roof of his car.
“We’re at a moment right now when homegrown energy, like wind energy, is creating new jobs all across Iowa and all across the country,” Obama told an estimated 852 people in Oskaloosa, Iowa.
The president underlined that Romney does not want to renew the tax credit when it expires at the end of the year, and painted the Republican candidate as an enemy of alternative energy.
“He’s said that new sources of energy like wind are ‘imaginary.’ His running mate calls them a ‘fad.’ During a speech a few months ago, Gov. Romney even explained his energy policy this way: ‘You can’t drive a car with a windmill on it,'” he said.
“I don’t know if he’s actually tried that—I know he’s had other things on his car. But if he really wants to learn something about wind, all he has to do is pay attention to what you’ve been doing here in Iowa,” the president said.
Other things on his car? The only well-known thing Romney has had atop his car was Seamus, the Irish setter. That June 1983 family trip has become the stuff of legend in the 2012 campaign (in the Republican primaries, Romney rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum both used the tale as ammo against the former Massachusetts governor).
More coverage from Yahoo! News
Ecuador grants Assange asylum; UK vows to ‘carry out’ extradition anyway
Paul Ryan to Obama on Medicare debate: Bring it on
Obama defends Biden on ‘chains’ remark
More stories
McCain says Obama Would Be ‘Wise’ to Replace Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton on the Ticket
By Sunlen Miller | ABC OTUS News – 18 hrs ago
Although he predicted it would not happen, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Wednesday it would be “wise” for President Obama to take Vice President Joe Biden off the Democratic presidential ticket and replace him with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“I think it might be wise to do that but it’s not going to happen obviously, for a whole variety of reasons,” McCain said in an interview on Fox News, stopping just short of Sarah Palin’s call last night for an all-out replacement of Biden on the ticket.
“I’m not sure if I were Hillary Clinton I would want to be on that team,” the senator added, “I think her ambitions frankly are for 2016 and I’m not sure that would enhance that likelihood.”
McCain had some harsh words ready for Biden, saying that the vice president “continues to say things that are unacceptable in American politics,” and specifically referenced Biden’s remarks Tuesday in Danville, Virginia.
Yesterday Vice President Biden said to the crowd, “look at their budget, and what they are proposing. Romney wants to let – He said in the first hundred days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
McCain said the Vice President “crossed the line” this time and should be held accountable for that sort of remark.
“Yet he seems to get away with it because it’s just sort of a joke,” McCain said.
The harsh words weren’t reserved just for Vice President Biden but for the Obama administration’s handling of the campaign overall, the tenor of which McCain says calls into question the Obama team’s ability to govern should President Obama win a second term.
“What do you get if you win with this kind of campaign?” he questioned of the Obama campaign, pointing to specific negative and what he defined as misleading ads the Obama campaign has run, “if you run this kind of slash and burn gutter campaign that they are running, what happens when you start governing again?”
McCain said it would be “very difficult for anybody in the team that ran this kind of campaign to govern and bring people together come the following January.”
Aug 14, 2012 6:00am
Paul Ryan Book Club: Shrugging Off Ayn Rand?
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Richard B. Levine/Newscom
Wisconsin’s First District has voted him into Congress seven times over the past 14 years, but popular as Paul Ryan is at home there may be another constituency that holds the Republican vice presidential candidate in even higher regard.
Ryan, you see, is the country’s most powerful Randian. At least, he used to be. More on that in a moment. First, a look at his adoring relationship with the work of Russian emigre novelist Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”
It began, according to a 2005 speech Ryan gave to The Atlas Society, when he was still a student. And it guided his thinking on monetary policy for decades to come:
“I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are,” he told the group. “It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff.”
Ryan has since denied making his staff read the books.
He continued: “But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.”
Rand’s literary inner circle was called, ironically perhaps, “The Collective.”
Individualism, or objectivism in some cases, provides the philosophical underpinnings for most of Rand’s narratives. The novelist and literary critic Harriet Rubin wrote bluntly in the New York Times that “Atlas Shrugged” is a ”glorification of the right of individuals to live entirely for their own interest.”
It also celebrates atheism, treating religion with a degree of scorn.
“If devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking,” one of Rand’s characters says in the novel, the “alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind.”
This is where politicians and business leaders tend to pull up.
Ryan has, as noted above, taken a step back from his impassioned Rand-regard in the past few years. And in an interview with the National Review this April, he did a pretty firm about-face:
“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.
So after all that, Paul Ryan, it seems, has shrugged off Ayn Rand.
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August 11, 2012
Ayn Rand Joins the Ticket
Posted by Jane Mayer
With the choice of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney adds more to the Republican ticket than youth, vigor, and the possibility of carrying Wisconsin—he also adds the ghostly presence of the controversial Russian émigré philosopher and writer Ayn Rand.
Although she died thirty years ago, Rand’s influence appears on the rise on the right. As my colleague Ryan Lizza noted in his terrific biographical Profile of Ryan, Rand’s works were an early and important influence on him, shaping his thinking as far back as high school. Later, as a Congressman, Ryan not only tried to get all of the interns in his congressional office to read Rand’s writing, he also gave copies of her novel “Atlas Shrugged” to his staff as Christmas presents, as he told the Weekly Standard in 2003.
Two years later, in 2005, Ryan paid fealty to Rand in a speech he gave to the Atlas Society, the Washington-based think tank devoted to keeping Rand’s “objectivist” philosophy alive. He credited her with inspiring his interest in public service, saying, “[T]he reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.” (One of the trustees of the Atlas Society, Clifford Asness, the co-founder of AQR Capital Management, a twenty-billion-dollar hedge fund, is one of the many outspoken Wall Street financiers who has shifted political sides, denouncing Obama, whom he supported in 2008, for interfering with capitalism by bailing out Chrysler, and by imposing tighter financial regulations after the 2008 economic collapse).
Three years ago, as Tim Mak reports today at Politico, Ryan described America’s political challenge as coming straight out of Rand’s work—saying, “what’s unique about what’s happening today in government, in the world, in America, is that it’s as if we’re living in an Ayn Rand novel right now. I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.”
More recently, however, Ryan distanced himself from Rand, whose atheism is something of a philosophical wedge issue on the right, dividing religious conservatives from free-market libertarians. This year, with his political profile rising, Ryan stressed not only that he had differences with Rand’s atheism—a point he had made as far back as 2003—but went so far as to denounce her whole system of beliefs, describing his early attraction to her writing as little more than a youthful dalliance. He admitted that he had “enjoyed her novels,” but, as Mak notes, he stressed that, “I reject her philosophy. It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas.”
Ryan’s sidestep from Rand was politically essential. As a Mormon, the last thing Romney needs is to alienate the Christian Right further by putting an acolyte of an atheist on the ticket. So it was not surprising that Romney made a point of stressing Ryan’s Catholicism during his announcement of Ryan today, introducing him as, “A faithful Catholic” who “believes in the dignity and worth of every life.”
While Ryan may be distancing himself from Rand now, the Democrats will surely argue that her views on the virtues of selfishness have left a more lasting legacy in the policies that he and Romney embrace. In his début today, Ryan stressed that “We promise equal opportunity—not equal outcomes”—a philosophy that telegraphed a tough message to those who are worst off. Ryan also signalled a Rand-like celebration of the winners, and dismissed complaints from the losers, saying, “We look at one another’s success with pride, not resentment.” Rand’s language was tougher still. She used words such as “refuse” and “parasites” to describe the poor, while celebrating millionaire businessmen as heroes. She abhorred government social programs, such as Social Security, at least until she reached the age of eligibility, and reportedly signed on for both its benefits and those of Medicare.
Ryan won’t be the first Rand fan to grace the Vice-Presidential ticket. Jack Kemp, who was Ryan’s mentor in politics, also described himself as influenced by her writing. In some ways, the Romney-Ryan ticket resembles the Dole-Kemp one, in pairing a Presidential candidate short on charisma and conservative credentials with a younger, more ideologically fiery sidekick. Kemp, however, was famously optimistic in his outlook. Ryan has a sterner countenance. Either way, though, while the G.O.P. may be behind when it comes to attracting female voters, in picking Ryan, who like Kemp was deeply influenced by Rand, it has added at least the imprint of an extra woman to the ticket.
For more on Romney, Ryan, and the rest of the campaign, bookmark The Political Scene, our hub for coverage of the 2012 election.
Photograph by Brendan Hoffman/Getty
Paul Ryan loved Ayn Rand, before he said he didn’t
August 12, 2012|By James Rainey
Paul Ryan listens as Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign rally at Randolph… (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images )
Back in 2005, an up-and-coming lawmaker named Paul Ryan credited the polemical novelist and libertarian Ayn Rand as a central inspiration for his entry into public life. Ryan toiled in those days in relative obscurity, a well-respected but low-profile member of the House of Representatives.
By the spring of 2012, the boyish congressman had become a Republican star, widely named as a possible vice presidential pick. He also had become considerably less comfortable being linked to the controversial Rand, an atheist with a tartly Darwinian world view.
As Ryan and the Republicans look to define the new vice presidential choice’s brand, part of the commentary will be about just how Randian (read: unsympathetic to the weak) the candidate really is.
Photos: Paul Ryan added to Romney’s ticket
Ayn (rhymes with “fine”) Rand wrote the bestselling “Atlas Shrugged.” She also encouraged the world’s “makers” to pursue “rational self interest” as “the highest moral purpose of [one’s] life,” while giving little care to the nefarious “takers.”
Journalists who have recently written about Ryan suggested that his infatuation with the Russian émigré author, who died in 1982 at age 77, has hardly waned. The favorite son of Wisconsin has recently been insisting that his embrace of Rand amounted to a youthful infatuation. In an April interview with the National Review, Ryan said that the reports linking him to Rand were essentially “an urban legend.”
“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan told Robert Costa of the National Review. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview.” He added that he had merely “enjoyed a couple of her novels,” which also included another bestseller, “The Fountainhead.”
But Ryan made no bones about his philosophical influences just a few years ago. He told the Weekly Standard in 2003 that he gave his staffers copies of “Atlas Shrugged” as Christmas presents. Speaking to a group of Rand acolytes in 2005, Ryan said, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.”
Even three years ago, Tim Mak of Politico noted, Ryan channeled Rand. “What’s unique about what’s happening today in government, in the world, in America, is that it’s as if we’re living in an Ayn Rand novel right now,” Ryan said. “I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.”
PHOTOS: Paul Ryan’s past
But by the time he introduced his austere budget plan this year — calling for an end to Medicare as a mandate and its replacement for many Americans with a system of vouchers — Ryan was being depicted as a harsh absolutist. He did not need to be tied too closely to Rand and her sink-or-swim imperatives.
Jonathan Chait, writing in New York magazine, suggested Ryan cannot slough off his connections to Rand’s thinking that easily. The journalist cited Ryan’s 2009 remarks about the immorality of government attacking productive members of society.
“It is not enough to say that President Obama’s taxes are too big or the healthcare plan doesn’t work for this or that policy reason,” the lawmaker said. “It is the morality of what is occurring right now, and how it offends the morality of individuals working toward their own free will to produce, to achieve, to succeed, that is under attack, and it is that what I think Ayn Rand would be commenting on.”
Chait said that Ryan has frequently invoked Rand’s idea of “makers” subsidizing society’s “takers.” In the New York story, he summed up the writer’s libertarian philosophy as “a defense of capitalism in general and, in particular, a conception of politics as a class war pitting virtuous producers against parasites who illegitimately use the power of the state to seize their wealth.”
While the congressman may not be a pure Randian “Objectivist,” Chait opined, he hews to a particular vein the philosophy in support of supply-side economics and the imperative of cutting taxes and reducing role of government. Jack Kemp, an earlier Rand-follower and vice presidential nominee, took the same position. (He also was one of Ryan’s first bosses when Ryan worked as a Capitol Hill staffer.)
In his National Review interview contesting his ties to Rand, Rep. Ryan suggested another more important influence. “If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me,” he said, “then give me Thomas Aquinas.”
Aquinas was a saint, after all, who was said to disdain secular philosophy in favor of Christian revelation — a view unlikely to scare up criticism at a town hall meeting in Sheboygan or Rapid City.
Ecuador grants Assange asylum; UK vows to ‘carry out’ extradition anyway
By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News
Senior Media Reporter
The Lookout – 4 hrs ago
(AP)
Ecuador’s foreign minister announced on Thursday that the country would grant asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, defying threats by the British government to storm the Ecuadorean Embassy and extradite Assange to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in cases of alleged rape and sexual molestation.
“We have decided to grant political asylum to him,” Ricardo Patino said at the end of a long televised statement from the Ecuadorean capital of Quito, where he criticized the U.S. and U.K. governments for failing to protect Assange from political persecution.
“The countries that have a right to protect Assange have failed him,” Patino said. “[Assange] is victim of political persecution. … If Assange is extradited to U.S., he will not receive a fair trial.”
The foreign minister said that Ecuador asked Sweden to promise it would not extradite Assange to the United States, but Sweden refused.
“Asylum is a fundamental human right,” Patino said, adding that “international law” overrides local laws, and that Assange has “the right not to be extradited or expelled to any country.”
A crowd gathered outside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where Assange, a 41-year-old Australian native, has been holed up since June, to hear the announcement. At least one protester was arrested.
[Slideshow: The scene outside the embassy]
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office called Ecuador’s decision to grant Assange asylum “regrettable.”
“British authorities are under a binding obligation to extradite him to Sweden,” a spokesman for the office said. “We shall carry out that obligation. The Ecuadorean government’s decision this afternoon does not change that.”
According to The Associated Press, Sweden summoned Ecuador’s ambassador to Stockholm, calling the decision to grant asylum to Assange “unacceptable.”
Moments before the announcement, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa tweeted: “No one is going to terrorize us!”
It’s unclear what will happen to Assange now. U.K. authorities say his asylum is a violation of his probation–and there is reason to believe he would be arrested if he tried to leave the embassy. “Assange is going to Sweden,” Louise Mensch, a conservative member of the British Parliament, tweeted. “We are going to extradite him there. That’s it and that’s all. #rape”
Assange fears that if he were extradited to Sweden, he would immediately be extradited to the United States, which has condemned WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. Assange and his supporters say the U.S. would charge him with espionage; the U.S. has not said whether or not it would pursue charges against him.
On Thursday, the White House declined to comment on Assange.
On Wednesday, Patino said he received a “clear and written” threat from British authorities who claimed “they could storm our embassy in London if Ecuador refuses to hand in Julian Assange.”
“We want to be very clear, we’re not a British colony,” Patino said. “Colonial times are over.”
British officials said they are obligated to turn Assange over to Stockholm.
“The U.K. has a legal obligation to extradite Mr. Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offenses and we remain determined to fulfill this obligation,” a spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in response. “Under British law we can give them a week’s notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection. But that decision has not yet been taken. We are not going to do this overnight. We want to stress that we want a diplomatically agreeable solution.”
Britain, the BBC noted, could lift the Ecuadorean embassy’s diplomatic status to fulfill a “legal obligation” to extradite Assange using the “Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987”:
That allows the U.K. to revoke the diplomatic status of an embassy on U.K. soil, which would potentially allow police to enter the building to arrest Mr. Assange for breaching the terms of his bail.
Such a move, though, would be unprecedented.
In a statement early Thursday, WikiLeaks condemned the U.K.’s threat to raid the embassy:
A threat of this nature is a hostile and extreme act, which is not proportionate to the circumstances, and an unprecedented assault on the rights of asylum seekers worldwide.
In 2010, Swedish prosecutors in Stockholm issued warrants to question Assange about alleged sex crimes involving a pair of former WikiLeaks volunteers. Assange claims the charges are part of an international smear campaign stemming from WikiLeaks’ publication of diplomatic cables.
After a brief international manhunt, Assange turned himself in to London police in December 2010. He was granted bail and placed under house arrest. After Assange’s appeals to fight his extradition to Sweden were denied, he fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy.
Inside the embassy, Assange “sleeps on an air mattress in a small office that has been converted to a bedroom,” according to the New York Times. “He has access to a computer and continues to oversee WikiLeaks, his lieutenants have said.”
According to Sky News, Assange watched the announcement from inside the building and welcomed it as a “significant victory,” but added: “Things will get more stressful now.”
Filmmaker Michael Moore, one of several Assange supporters who contributed funds to guarantee his bail, applauded the decision, and urged Londoners to demonstrate outside the embassy. “As Americans we were lied [to] by our government about Iraq,” Moore wrote on Twitter. “He exposed the truth.”
Ecuador, it’s worth noting, has a horrible record on press freedom.
And Correa, in particular, has had a “torrid relationship” with the press, Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, wrote in a recent editorial. “His arsenal of repression includes such tactics as pre-empting private broadcasts to denounce the presenters, bankrupting papers through defamation suits, and publicly shouting down critics who dare question him.”
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A responsible leader with integrity must have character of conviction.
That Leaders must do what they say and must mean what they say.
That Leadership is a show-case of who President Barack Obama is…
…….Please read on………..
I agree, President Obama is a mentor to the emerging generation of the world. He is a role model for Peace and Unity. In just less than 4 years, he brought America to the limelight of shining stars; where, before he took power, America was on the verge of economic collapse and at the same time, was an enemy hated by many Nations. He got engaged; advocated for Faith in hope for better things and worked hard to build confidence in TRUST (against stiff obstruction) so human dignity, value, virtue and honor is able to restore Peace and Unity we all want; and that, love is able to permiate amongst all of us for the sake of preserving Nature; the purpose of creation. People!!! what a beautiful thing we cannot afford to ignore……..????
The Truth shall set us all free indeed…….I love you all……..
Cheers everybody…….!!!
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
– – – – – – – – – – –
Wednesday in politics: Obama wraps up Iowa bus tour, Ryan in Ohio, and more
By Phil Pruitt | The Ticket – 2 hrs 34 mins ago
It’s the third and final day Wednesday of President Barack Obama’s campaign bus tour in the battleground state of Iowa. He’ll be joined by first lady Michelle Obama at stops in Dubuque and Davenport.
On Tuesday — a day of especially heated rhetoric — the Obama campaign labeled Mitt Romney’s attacks as “unhinged.” Apparently the Obama people thought Romney’s description of Obama as “intellectually exhausted, out of ideas and out of energy” was over the top. No doubt, there’s more to come Wednesday. Romney has a morning interview on CBS.
As for the remainder of his day Wednesday, Romney will attend fundraisers in North Carolina and Alabama.
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Rep. Paul Ryan will be in Ohio, another battleground state, on Wednesday. On what will be his third day of solo campaigning as Romney’s running mate, Ryan will attend a victory rally in Oxford. Before leaving Nevada on Tuesday, Ryan made a “covenant” with supporters to turn the economy around.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden will wrap up a two-day campaign trip through the southern and southwestern areas of Virginia with an event at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. During a stop Wednesday in Danville, Biden proclaimed, Romney “said in the first hundred days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put you all back in chains.” The Romney people took exception with that.
Also worth noting on Wednesday: Sen. Marco Rubio will attend Romney fundraisers in Texas, and John Bolton will campaign for Romney in Michigan.
And then there is this: Rick Santorum, the primary candidate who gave Romney his biggest challenge, will be campaigning in Ohio on Wednesday for Romney.
Sources: Yahoo! News’ Holly Bailey, Olivier Knox, Chris Moody, Associated Press
More coverage from Yahoo! News
Republicans bite back after Obama knocks Romney’s dog-on-car trip
Mississippi fattest state in the land, according to new statistical analysis
Joe Biden to supporters: Mitt Romney will ‘put you all back in chains’
Joe Biden Speech; Yesterday in Michigan. Powerful..Watch it.
September 16, 2008, 1:37PM
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (12) | RECOMMENDRECOMMEND (45)
Biden hits Romney-Ryan ticket as a ‘stark choice’ CNN Political Ticker
Biden speech leads campaign fight for Obama
MITT ROMNEY
March 15, 2012|By Tom Cohen, CNN
Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday assumed the role of top campaign surrogate for President Barack Obama, harshly criticizing the economic policies of Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as a threat to the American middle class.
“If you give any one of these guys the keys to the White House, they will bankrupt the middle class once again,” Biden told autoworkers in Ohio, a key battleground state for Obama’s re-election bid in November.
The speech at a United Auto Workers hall in Toledo was the first of four planned in coming weeks by the vice president. It came hours before the Thursday night release of a 17-minute documentary that frames the narrative of the Obama presidency.
With the Republican race remaining competitive among Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and trailing candidate Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, Biden kicked off the most visible effort to date of the Obama campaign to win a second term in the November general election.
The vice president went after the Republican candidates by name, something the president has not done so far, and focused on the revival of the auto industry during the Obama administration to characterize GOP policies as misguided and out of touch.
“These guys have a fundamentally different economic philosophy,” Biden said of Romney, Gingrich and Santorum. “We’re about promoting the private sector. They’re about protecting the privileged sector.”
In particular, Biden cited the billions of dollars in government financial support for U.S. automakers during the recession as an example of the differing approaches between the parties.
The program, which began in the Bush administration and was extended under Obama, provided money that kept General Motors and Chrysler operating and led to restructuring through bankruptcy. Both automakers now report growth, and GM has recorded record profits.
Many Republicans strongly opposed what they called government bailouts of the private sector, and Biden made sure the autoworkers knew that.
He quoted the headline of a November 2008 op-ed in the New York Times by Romney, whom the White House considers the likely Republican nominee, that said “Let Detroit go bankrupt.” Biden also told the crowd, which booed the Romney references, that the former Massachusetts governor once said the Obama administration’s handling of the issue would make General Motors “the living dead.”
In addition, Biden quoted Gingrich as having called the auto industry funding “a mistake.”
According to Biden, Obama knew at the time the move would be heavily criticized, but the president “didn’t flinch.”
“This is a man with steel in his spine,” Biden said of Obama’s decision to provide more government money. “He made the tough call and the verdict is in. President Obama was right, and they were dead wrong.”
Of Romney’s prediction of living dead, Biden said: “We have now living proof: a million jobs saved, 200,000 jobs created.”
Romney’s op-ed called for a managed bankruptcy of the automakers rather than giving them government money.
“Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself,” Romney wrote in the op-ed. “With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.”
Today, Romney argues that what eventually happened followed what he prescribed back then. Romney also has said the private sector would have stepped in to help the auto industry without the need for government financing, but Biden rejected that contention Thursday.
“Wrong,” Biden declared, adding that no one — not even Romney’s former company, Bain Capital — was loaning money at the height of the recession.
A spokeswoman of the Romney campaign noted that back in 2007, then-Sen. Biden said he didn’t believe Obama was ready to be president.
“More than four years later, it’s clear that he (Biden) was right,” said the statement by Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul, which attacked Obama’s record but included no direct response to Biden’s criticism of Romney’s economic policies.
A senior Democratic official told CNN on Thursday that Biden will continue his campaign efforts in Florida, talking at senior centers about Medicare and proposed reforms by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin. Along with Ohio, other states targeted by Biden will be Iowa, New Hampshire and parts of Virginia, with the focus on tax reform, boosting manufacturing, the auto industry and Medicare, the official said.
According to two Democratic officials, the campaign rollout with Biden’s speech and the video release was planned for now because Democrats thought a Republican presidential nominee would have been determined.
The officials said the campaign was unable to wait until May or June to begin responding to Republican attacks.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, responded to the Obama campaign push by saying the president’s policies have failed and change is needed.
“A campaign speech and Hollywood movie from the Obama campaign won’t change the fact that family budgets in Ohio and across the country are being stretched by everything from food prices to soaring prices at the pump,” Priebus said in a statement sent by e-mail. “Voters have a clear choice this November: continue down Barack Obama’s path of broken promises and failed policies, or change direction with new leadership committed to reversing the Obama agenda that has Americans worse off than they were four years ago.”
“They’re Gonna Put Y’all Back In Chains”
Published on Aug 15, 2012 by wwwMOXNEWScom
August 14, 2012 C-SPAN
http://MOXNews.com
Great speech, and it demonstrates something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Obama’s prodigious skills as an orator are often credited with getting him to the point he is today. And no doubt those skills have been helpful. But the fact is, the truth isn’t any less inspiring or compelling coming from Joe Biden. The message is sound no matter who delivers it, because the message is the absolute truth.
Posted by hrebendorf
September 16, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
My favorite line and one I believe with all my heart: “The campaign a person runs says everything about the way they’ll govern.”
Also, “It’s not just about a job, it’s about dignity. It’s not just about a paycheck. It’s about pride. It’s not just about opportunity. It’s about respect.”
Here’s the text for those of you who can’t get YouTube to play where you are. Read it. It’s a very good reminder that, whatever the polls said yesterday or will say tomorrow, we need to keep on working, to do everything we can to get leaders like Obama and Biden. We truly do need this kind of change – badly.
————————
Remarks by Senator Joe Biden—as prepared for delivery
The Case for Change
Saint Clair Shores, MI
Monday, September 15, 2008
Eight years ago, a man ran for President who claimed he was different, not a typical Republican. He called himself a reformer. He admitted that his Party, the Republican Party, had been wrong about things from time to time. He promised to work with Democrats and said he’d been doing that for a long time.
That candidate was George W. Bush. Remember that? Remember the promise to reach across the aisle? To change the tone? To restore honor and dignity to the White House?
We saw how that story ends. A record number of home foreclosures. Home values, tumbling. And the disturbing news that the crisis you’ve been facing on Main Street is now hitting Wall Street, taking down Lehman Brothers and threatening other financial institutions.
We’ve seen eight straight months of job losses. Nearly 46 million Americans without health insurance. Average incomes down, while the price of everything — from gas to groceries — has skyrocketed. A military stretched thin from two wars and multiple deployments.
A nation more polarized than I’ve ever seen in my career. And a culture in Washington where the very few wealthy and powerful have a seat at the table and everybody else is on the menu.
Eight years later, we have another Republican nominee who’s telling us the exact same thing:
This time it will be different, it really will. This time he’s going to put country before party, to change the tone, reach across the aisle, change the Republican Party, change the way Washington works.
We’ve seen this movie before, folks. But as everyone knows, the sequel is always worse than the original.
If we forget this history, we’re going to be doomed to repeat it — with four more just like the last eight, or worse. If you’re ready for four more years of George Bush, John McCain is your man.
Just as George Herbert Walker Bush was nicknamed “Bush 41†and his son is known as “Bush 43,†John McCain could easily become known as “Bush 44.â€
The campaign a person runs says everything about the way they’ll govern. The McCain-Palin campaign has decided to bet the house on the politics perfected by Karl Rove. Those tactics may be good at squeaking by in an election, but they are bad if you want to lead one nation, indivisible.
I count John McCain as a friend. I’ve known him since before he was a Senator. If he needed my personal help, I’d go. He served our country bravely, nobly. But America needs more than a great solider, America needs a wise leader.
Take a hard look at the positions John has taken for the past 26 years, on the economy, on health care, on foreign policy, and you’ll see why I say that John McCain is just four more years of George Bush. On the issues that you talk about around the kitchen table, Mary’s college tuition, the cost of the MRI for mom, heating our home this winter — John McCain is profoundly out of touch.
Senator McCain has confessed, quote, “It’s easy for me to go to Washington and frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have.†And he’s right, if all you do is walk the halls of power, all you hear are the wants of the powerful.
I believe that’s why Senator McCain could say with a straight face, as recently as this morning, and I quote “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.†That, “We’ve made great progress economically†during the Bush years. But friends, I could walk from here to Lansing, and I wouldn’t run into a single person who thought our economy was doing well, unless I ran into John McCain.
John McCain just doesn’t seem to understand what middle class people are going through today. I don’t doubt that he cares. He just doesn’t think that we have any responsibility to help people who are hurting.
My dad used to have an expression: “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.â€
By that measure, John McCain doesn’t stand with the middle class. He stands with George Bush firmly in the corner of the wealthy and well-connected. He stands with the CEO of Exxon-Mobil, who, while testifying before my Senate judiciary committee swore to me under oath that Exxon-Mobil didn’t need the tax breaks they’d been given to explore for oil.
John McCain is so firmly in their corner he thinks the Exxon-Mobils of the world should get an additional $4 billion dollars a year in tax cuts.
He stands in the corner of the wealthiest Americans by extending tax cuts for people making over a quarter million dollars a year, and then adding more than $300 billion on top of that for corporations and the wealthy.
There is simply no daylight – at least none I can see — between John McCain and George Bush.
On every major challenge we face, from the economy, to health care, to education and Iraq, you can barely tell them apart.
Don’t take my word for it, look at the record. Ninety percent of the time, John McCain votes with George Bush.
Here’s what that means:
When George Bush called for Social Security to be privatized, John McCain stood with him – he even campaigned for that roundly rejected plan.
When George Bush says that the government has no obligation to re-train or provide extended unemployment benefits for people who have lost their jobs due to trade agreements,
John McCain echoes that view, and has said that Bush is “Right on trade… absolutely.â€
When George Bush said we shouldn’t investigate why the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina was so incompetent, John McCain stood with him.
When George Bush initially opposed a new GI Bill that would send a new generation of veterans to college, John McCain stood with him, calling Senator Webb’s effort too generous.
When George Bush blocked our efforts to provide health care to another 3.8 million children, John McCain stood with him.
And when, in early 2007, George Bush suggested that the health care benefits you get through your employer should be taxed as income, John McCain stood with him. And now, ladies and gentlemen, John McCain has resurrected that idea, and made it an essential part of his health care plan.
Issue after issue, vote after vote, the story is the same.
In the last 16 years, he’s voted 23 times against the renewable energy – wind, solar, biofuels — we need to free ourselves from foreign oil.
Since he arrived in the Senate over 20 years ago, he’s voted more than 19 times against the minimum wage.
In 1994, I wrote and we passed a Crime bill that put 100,000 new police officers on the street, 3,300 of them here in Michigan, provided shelters and security for tens of thousands of battered women, and helped lead to an eight year drop in violent crime. John opposed the crime bill and the Violence Against Women Act it contained, calling them “ineffective†and “ill conceived.â€
Time and again John voted against increased funding for Pell grants to help families with incomes under $55,000 send their kids to college.
Time and again, John McCain voted to make it harder for women to achieve equal pay for the same work – making it harder to prove, and punish, discrimination. He even voted against a study to determine if there is a gap between what men and women are paid. Twice.
Governor Palin says all senators do is vote. Well, just imagine what the country would look like if John’s votes had become the law of the land.
In John McCain’s America, we wouldn’t guarantee that more of energy would come from wind, solar, and other renewables. The minimum wage would still be $3.35 an hour. There would have been 100,000 fewer police on the beat. There would have been no national domestic violence hotline for the 1.5 million women who were in crisis and needed somewhere to turn.
Over 160,000 members of the Guard and Reserve who answered their country’s call and served more than one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan would get no credit towards an education for their additional sacrifice. Fewer parents would be able to afford to send their kids to college. And women who were discriminated against on the basis of pay would more difficulty making their case. Thank God that’s not the America we live in.
John McCain recently said: “the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.†Then he proved it by the advisors he chose to surround him – advisors who have further cocooned him from the reality facing the rest of us. People like Phil Gramm. The man who wrote John McCain’s economic plan actually said, repeatedly, that we’re not going through an economic recession. Phil Gramm says it’s just a mental recession. That we’re a nation of whiners.
Tell that to my friend who flew jets for the Navy and then went to work for a commercial airline for over 20 years – only to see his pension wiped out while his CEO got a golden parachute. Don’t tell me that he is a whiner.
Don’t tell me that the woman I met in Missouri who worked for the Chrysler plant for 13 years making minivans and lost her job when production moved to Canada is a whiner.
Don’t tell me that an engineer who sees his job go overseas because his company has been given a tax break to leave instead of one to stay is a whiner.
Don’t tell me that these people, people who are our nation’s heart and soul – deserve to be treated as economic scapegoats.
These people worked hard, they did everything right, and they’re willing to work hard again. But instead of their government supporting them, their government walked away from them. Nobody stood up for them.
Barack and I will.
What is John’s response to the state of the economy? Let me quote him: “A lot of this is psychological.†Let me tell you something: Losing your job is more than a state of mind.
It means staring at the ceiling at night thinking that you may lose your house because you can’t get next month’s mortgage payment. It means looking at your pregnant wife and not knowing how you’re going to come up with the money to pay for the delivery of your child, since you don’t have health care anymore. It means looking at your child when they come home from college at Christmas and saying “Honey, I’m sorry, we’re not going to be able to send you back next semester.†It’s not a state of mind. It’s a loss of dignity.
When you and your economic advisors are so out of touch, it’s no surprise that your economic policies ignore the challenges that normal families face.
Let me just give you one more example. In the midst of this housing crisis, John McCain said, “I will fight for those that lost their… real estate investments.†He went on to say, “It’s not the role of government to bail out big banks or small borrowers.†What about small borrowers? What about homeowners? What about the people who don’t invest in homes, but live in them? There’s an important distinction between the predators and the preyed upon.
I heard that a Republican County Chairman right here in Michigan said that they’re keeping a list of foreclosed homes, suggesting that if you’ve lost your home, you should also lose your vote. I have a different idea. I think that if you’re worried about losing your home, you should vote for the guys who are going to help you keep it!
Whatever happened to the guy, who once denounced tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in a time of war as immoral.
When someone running for election changes his views to satisfy the base of the party, that’s not change, that’s just more of the same Washington game. The problem is that in the Washington game today, the American people are losing.
Ladies and Gentlemen, as of today, there are 50 days until Election Day. That’s just seven more weeks to talk about the direction we’re going to take this country, to talk about the issues of concern in your lives, to talk about you. But as his campaign manager has said, and I quote, “This election is not about issues.â€
When Senator McCain was subjected to unconscionable, scurrilous attacks in his 2000 primary campaign, I called him on the phone to ask what I could do. And now, some of the very same people and the tactics he once deplored his campaign now employs. The same campaign that once called for a town hall a week is now launching a low blow a day.
Barack and I can take it. That’s not what bothers me.
It bothers me that — as one media watchdog put it — John’s recent commercial is the, “latest in a number that resort to a dubious disregard for the facts.†As another news organization put it: The wheels have come off the straight talk express.
But what really bothers me, is that every punch thrown at us — is an attempt to distract you. And they can be plenty distracting.
Like the McCain advertisements that misrepresent a vote by Barack Obama to protect young children from sexual predators. Like Senator McCain’s effort to obscure the fact that Barack Obama’s tax cuts will benefit 95 percent of all working people. Like John McCain’s attempt to cloak himself in reform by misrepresenting his running mate’s record.
It’s disappointing to me to think that John McCain really does approve this message.
Every false debate we’re drawn into is a real conversation we don’t have with the American people. Character attacks get media attention, but they make this election about us when it really needs to be about you.
Barack Obama believes that progress in this country is measured by how many people have a decent job where they’re shown respect. How many people can pay their mortgage. How many people can turn their ideas into a new business. How many people can turn to their kids and say “It’s going to be okay†with the knowledge that the opportunities they give will be better than the ones they received.
That’s the American dream. That’s what the people in my neighborhood grew up believing. And I want our kids to have the same dream.
Barack Obama starts from that vision of progress and will do what it takes to get us there.
That’s why his tax cuts – benefit the middle class. That’s why he’ll make it easier for families to afford college for their kids. That’s why he says everyone should be able to have the same health care that members of Congress have. That’s why his energy plan will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, bring down gas prices, and, in the process, we’ll create five million new green jobs. Those are the changes we need.
Yes, this campaign is about change, but it’s about even more than that. It’s about what we value as a people. It’s not just about a job, it’s about dignity. It’s not just about a paycheck. It’s about pride. It’s not just about opportunity. It’s about respect. That’s why Barack and I are in this race.
We know we need change if we’re to restore dignity, pride, and respect. We know America’s best days are ahead of us, and we know why we’re here.
We’re here for the for the cops and firefighters, the teachers and assembly line workers, the engineers and office workers, the small business owners and the retiree.
All of the folks who play by the rules, work hard, and do what is asked of them. They deserve a government as good and an economy as strong as they are.
We’re all are Americans. There has never been a challenge too great. The stakes have never been higher.
My father always told me, Champ, when you get knocked down, get up. Get up. Its time to get up. Its time to trust the grit and determination of the American people.
America is ready. You are ready. I am ready. And Barack Obama is ready. Our best days are yet to come.
May god bless America and may God protect our troops.
‘They’re going to put y’all back in chains’:
‘Romney wants to, he said in the first 100 days, he’s gonna let the big banks again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street,’ said Mr .Biden, who then lowered his voice and added, ‘They are going to put y’all back in chains.’
Joe Biden drew the ire of the Mitt Romney camp after telling an audience that the Republican would put voters ‘back in chains’ with his Wall Street financial deregulation plans
He was making a point that if we repeal Wall Street reform which is what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to do, we’re going to go back to the days where they’re writing their own rules, and we saw what happened.
More…
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Romney running mate criticises Britain’s National Health Service because ‘it makes patients dependent on government help’
Paul Ryan completes Romney’s ‘comeback team’: Republican picks Tea Party favourite Congressman as vice presidential running mate
‘Devoid of charm, offensive and a wazzock’: Romney’s disastrous day in London after saying he didn’t know if Olympics would be a success
‘Taxpayers had to bail them out.
‘We had to spend billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars bailing them out.
‘Now I would think that that, you know, that is a problem for middle class taxpayers.
‘That would hamper their ability to take care of their own finances.’
—
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So they say in legal terms that justice delayed is justice denied. This I may add by coining another word that “the voting delayed is a denial of democratic rights of the electorate.”
The last Sunday ODM preliminary nomination in the just concluded, but much flawed Ndhiwa by-election was a total sham, and a big shame to the party that has always been boasting of championing the essence of he democratic principles in this country.
Thousands of the constituents who turned out in their big numbers to vote for a candidate of their choice were badly let down by poor management of the by-election, poor logistics and the disappearance of election material, non-arrival of ballot papers at the poling stations, which are scattered all over the expansive rural constituency.
It is even shameful to say that the distance between Ndhiwa Town and Ratang’a, which is the late Joshua Orwa Ojode’s rural home is hardly seven kilometers apart. The two centers are linked by the Rodi-Sori road which is beautifully tarmac ked and could take hardly ten minutes drive. The election materials and ballot papers from Ndhjiwa Town arrived at Ratang’a at about 4.15 p.m long after the would be voters had dispersed and went home after waiting for the election materials from as early a 7.a.m. What a mess?
Owing to the logistics problems experienced all over Ndhiwa only 7,278 voters managed to cast their votes in a constituency which boasts close to 80,000 registered voters. The voters had turned out o enthusiastically read to exercise their democratic rights in voting in their new MP.
They sang and danced at the various polling station, but in some places waited for the whole day without the election officials on sight. This later was to become the source of fist fights and mayhem that were witnessed at the various stations. The voters had become impotent and suspicious that their preferable candidates were about to be rigged out of the race after waiting for the whole day without seeing the election materials.
It was a total flop, and its time the ODM electoral board headed by Eng.Philip Okoth Okundi and its entire directors were shown the exit door by the party headquarters at the Orange House in Nairobi.
Alternatively, political parties which cannot organize and manage their own preliminaries be compelled to seek assistance and help from the IEBC.
The story has been the same ever since 2007showing clear proof that the ODM is incapable of of organizing an efficient and peaceful preliminaries on its own in the by-elections that have come and gone. This is perhaps the reason why the party which is led by he Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga has lost in nearly all the by-elections it had participated ever since 2007 starting with the one which was held in Ainamoi in Kericho district following the death of the former MP for the area the late David Too who was shot and killed by a policeman in Eldoret .
In all the previous by-elections held countrywide in the recent past the ODM had lost due to its haphazardly and inefficiently managed by-election which have ended with numerous complaints by participants of highly rigged by-elections. Ndhiwa should serve as the shining example. There was no logistic problem in the area. All the access and feeder roads are passable and in good condition wit one major highway traversing the entire constituency from Rodi-Kopany in the neighboring Rangwe constituency in Homa-Bay district winding up at Sori in Karungu Bay in Nyatike constituency.
The election s official were nowhere raising temperature of the voters who set upon those few officials who showed up late, but half-heartedly with kicks and other crude weapons almost marred the exercise following the outbreak of sporadic of fist fighting everywhere The ODM is to be blamed.
The worse part of the exercise is the unconfirmed claims and allegation to the effect that Agustino Neto Oyugi, the youthful politician who emerged the winner of the much flawed nomination has been working as the campaign manager of Eng Phillip Okundi, the chairman of the ODM election board who is also currently campaigning for the coveted position Homa-Bay County governor.
The 12 hours delay in announcing the outcome of the preliminary nomination exercise where Neto was reported to have garnered 4,278 votes, while the 21 other aspirants received a combined figures of 3,000 votes has escalated the suspicious that the winner might have been rigged in by a plan hatched by the board chairman. There was no indication as to who was number two, number three and so forth.
Taking into account the allegation that the winner is closely connected to Okundi, there is all the significant aspect of conspiracy to deprive the Ndhiwa electorate of their constitutional rights of picking up a popular Mp of their own choice. And justice can only be seen as being done, if the could issue an orders for the repeat of Ndhiwa by-election. Such irregularities like those witnessed in Ndhiwa last Sunday could hurt the ODM successes in the impending general election schedule for Mach 3, 2013 and even impact negatively on Raila Odinga’s presidential bid.
Ndhiwa by-election preliminary nomination is a clear mockery of the tenets of democracy and must be declared null and void in the interest of democracy
Other aspirants had their names missing from the ballot papers in as many as in twenty polling stations. What a mess. One Jeremiah Owiti who is known to his peers as “Jero” had his name missing from ballot papers in nearly every polling station.
In all fairness, the ODM headquarters must order for the repeat of the Ndhiwa preliminary nomination exercise
Does Augustino Neto and his group of loud mouth activists know something we dont know about Raila? Neto won the Dhiwa ODM primaries and now want his boss barred from running but that is not the big story. The big story, which we have been told so many times is that Raila academic background is questionable. Now Neto and co are telling Raila never completed primary school and so Moi is even more educated than our PM. I dont believe that and Neto need to give us evidence because I think this is not fair to the PM. Calling him a primary school drop out is an insult to Rao. Isitoshe, they are now telling us that Rao cannot run for the presidency since he is a primary school drop out. Does any one have that link with that kamzee who claimed that Rao never saw the inside of a high school and stopped short of calling him a fraud? Rao has kept quiet over these allegations and I supported him but this time, I think he has to speak. These porojos are now getting into our nerves.
Looks like these activists want akina PK, Martha, Mutava, Kiyiapi and Tuju to be PORK. No problem but lets bar these thugs from running from office with valid and good grounds.
Kuria
“(One) of the main reasons for joining the Prime Minister (is) taking a job as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi with questionable academic qualifications and credentials,” papers filed in court say.
They also claim that the PM did not complete primary school education and could not have qualified to proceed for secondary school and university studies. They want the Ministry of Education to provide records showing when Maranda Secondary School was started.
They want Mr Odinga summoned to court to explain why he worked as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi without clear academic credentials, and to clarify his graduate studies at a German university.
Eight petitioners, among them Mr Augustino Neto who has just won the ODM nominations for the Ndhiwa constituency by-election, want the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to bar permanently the five from running for the presidency.
—
Excelling Woman of the month July edition: Asunta Wagura
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This month, HIV activist and the olympic touch bearer Asunta Wagura, shares insight on her life, her challenge, how she turned it around and how she is transforming her community; Kenya and the world.
Paul Ryan is bad for America. He’s anti-choice, and would give big tax cuts for millionaires, while raising taxes on the middle-class. He’s a Tea Party favorite who takes donations from the billionaire Koch brothers, and he introduced one of harshest and most inhumane budgets in recent history. His ideological hero for many years called selfishness a virtue and charity an abomination.
But most people don’t know just how bad Paul Ryan is. So we made this list of 10 things to know about Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential pick, Paul Ryan.
. . .
The future of America is on the line—from a woman’s right to choose to our economy.
10 Things to know about Paul Ryan
1. His economic plan would cost America 1 million jobs in the first year. Ryan’s proposed budget would cripple the economy. He’d slash spending deeply, which would not only slow job growth, but shock the economy and cost 1 million of us our jobs in 2013 alone and kill more than 4 million jobs by the end of 2014.1
2. He’d kill Medicare. He’d replace Medicare with vouchers for retirees to purchase insurance, eliminating the guarantee of health care for seniors and putting them at the mercy of the private insurance industry. That could amount to a cost increase of more than $5,900 by 2050, leaving many seniors broke or without the health care they need. He’d also raise the age of eligibility to 67.2
3. He’d pickpocket the middle class to line the pockets of the rich. His tax plan is Robin Hood in reverse. He wants to cut taxes by $4.6 trillion over the next decade, but only for corporations and the rich, like giving families earning more than $1 million a year a $300,000 tax cut. And to pay for them, he’d raise taxes on middle- and lower-income households and butcher social service programs that help middle- and working-class Americans.3
4. He’s an anti-choice extremist. Ryan co-sponsored an extremist anti-choice bill, nicknamed the ‘Let Women Die Act,’ that would have allowed hospitals to deny women emergency abortion care even if their lives were at risk. And he co-sponsored another bill that would criminalize some forms of birth control, all abortions, and in vitro fertilization.4
5. He’d dismantle Social Security. Ironically, Ryan used the Social Security Survivors benefit to help pay for college, but he wants to take that possibility away from future generations. He agrees with Rick Perry’s view that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and he supported George W. Bush’s disastrous proposal to privatize Social Security.5
6. He’d eliminate Pell grants for more than 1 million low-income students. His budget plan cuts the Pell Grant program by $200 billion, which could mean a loss of educational funding for 1 million low-income students.6
7. He’d give $40 billion in subsidies to Big Oil. His budget includes oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while cutting “billions of dollars from investments to develop alternative fuels and clean energy technologies that would serve as substitutes for oil.”7
8. He’s another Koch-head politician. Not surprisingly, the billionaire oil-baron Koch brothers are some of Ryan’s biggest political contributors. And their company, Koch industries, is Ryan’s biggest energy-related donor. The company’s PAC and affiliated individuals have given him $65,500 in donations.8
9. He opposes gay rights. Ryan has an abysmal voting record on gay rights. He’s voted to ban adoption by gay couples, against same-sex marriage, and against repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He also voted against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama signed into law in 2009.9
10. He thinks an “I got mine, who cares if you’re okay” philosophy is admirable. For many years, Paul Ryan devoted himself to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness as a virtue. It has shaped his entire ethic about whom he serves in public office. He even went as far as making his interns read her work.10
If there was ever any doubt that Mitt Romney’s got a disastrous plan for America—he made himself 100% clear when he picked right-wing extremist Paul Ryan as his running mate. Paul Ryan is bad for America, but we can’t beat him if Americans don’t know everything he stands for. Share this list with all your.
Thanks for all you do.
–Justin, Carrie, Steven, Stephen, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “Ryan’s Budget, Robin Hood in reverse,” Economic Policy Institute
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278939&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=4
2. “12 Things You Should Know About Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan,” Think Progress, August 11, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278662&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=5
3.”Ryan Budget Would Raise Some Taxes; Guess Who Gets Hit?,” Off the Charts, April 12, 2012 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278692&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=6
“Middle class could face higher taxes under Republican plan, analysis finds,” The Washington Post, June 19, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278693&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=7
4. “Statement on Mitt Romney’s Selection of Rep. Paul Ryan for His Vice-Presidential Running Mate,” NARAL, August 11, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278694&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=8
“Paul Ryan’s Extreme Abortion Views,” The Daily Beast, August 11, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278695&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=10
“Paul Ryan Sponsored Fetal Personhood Bill, Opposes Family Planning Funds,” Huffington Post, August 11, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278852&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=12
5. “12 Things You Should Know About Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan,” Think Progress, August 11, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278662&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=13
“Ayn Rand would have HATED Paul Ryan,” Daily Kos, August 12, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278853&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=14
6. “Pell Grants For Poor Students Lose $170 Billion In Ryan Budget,” Huffington Post, March 27, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278696&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=15
7. “Ryan Budget Pads Big Oil’s Pockets with Senseless Subsidies,” Center for American Progress, March 20, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278697&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=16
8. “Koch brothers have Paul Ryan’s back,” Politico, August 11, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278940&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=17
9. “Paul Ryan as VP Matches Mitt Romney on Homophobia,” The Advocate, August 11, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278698&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=18
10.”Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand”, The New Republic, December 28, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=278699&id=48818-21095459-eD0V2Nx&t=19
BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
10 Things The Romney Campaign Doesn’t Want You To Know About Paul Ryan
Posted on August 13, 2012 by Marika
Most people don’t know just how bad Romney’s VP choice is. So we made this list of 10 things to know about Paul Ryan. Read it, then share it with everyone. The future of America is on the line—from a woman’s right to choose to our economy.
Everyone is talking about Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s pick for Vice President. And most people are talking about his extreme plans to end Medicare and gut Social Security.1 But what people don’t realize is that his record on women is equally appalling–shocking even.
We compiled a list–a horrifying list–of Paul Ryan’s record on women’s rights. These are five facts every single voter needs to know, right away.
. . . http://act.weareultraviolet.org/signup/paulryan/?akid=155.6000.ZAtruh&rd=1&t=3
5 Things to Know about Paul Ryan and Women
Thanks
–Nita, Shaunna and Kat, the UltraViolet Team
P.S. Victory Alert: Candy Crowley to Moderate a Presidential Debate. After more than 85,000 UltraViolet members signed a petition–that we delivered to the Presidential Debates Commission–they announced that for the first time in 20 years, a woman, CNN’s Candy Crowley, will moderate an official presidential debate. Thanks so much for being a part of this important victory!
Sources:
1. Paul Ryan Social Security Plan Calls for Private Accounts, Huffington Post, August 11, 2012
2. Paul Ryan: Just Plain Bad for Women, Daily News, August 13, 2012
3. Statement on Mitt Romney’s Selection As Rep. Paul Ryan for His Vice-Presidential Running Mate, NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 11, 2012
Paul Ryan’s Extreme Abortion Views, The Daily Beast, August 11, 2012
4. Ibid.
5. Paul Ryan’s Extreme Abortion Views, The Daily Beast, August 11, 2012
The Ryan Reaction: This Election Is Now about “Choice,” RH Reality Check, August 13, 2012
6. Ibid.
The election battles for the coveted position of Kisumu County governance appear to have attracted what one local pundit had termed as some of the “ best brains in the region.”
Among the candidates who have already declared their intention to contest this highly lucrative position included academic luminaries, business magnates, entrepreneurs and seasoned politicians as well as the most highly experienced administrator’s per-excellence
However, one of the leading aspirants has come out in the open and issued a challenge to his opponents to discard what he described as “the retrogressive clans and tribalism politics.
Peter Hongo a senior marketing -guru with the Mumias Sugar Company said everyone should be eligible and free to contest any elective position so long as he or she is a Kenyan citizen irrespective of his birthplace or places of originality.
All the aspirants must preach the gospel of peace and love and articulate to the electorate their party and individual policies in regards to service delivery to the voters..
“it is very essential that the candidates must exhibit the politics of maturity and preach only for peace and tranquility which is devoid of acts of violence and political thuggery.” said Hongo.
Hongo who hails fro Kisumo East Location in Kisumu Town West constituency within Kisumu County for along time has been the marketing manager of the Mumias Sugar Company, and the man behind the company’s sales success story during the genius managerial prowess during the reign of the former Managing Director Dr. Evans Otieno Kidero who has sine retired from the company services and is now aspiring to become the first City governor of Nairobi under the new constitutional dispensation arrangement.
The soft-spoken and stoutly built Hongo says he had all what it takes to be the County governor in Kisumu region and that if elected to the position he would use hi wealth of experience
One of his worthy opponent is equally an experienced manager. He is Ojawng’ K’ombudo former long serving Kisumu Town Clerk, who had switched to politics and was made the Regional Development Minister under the KANU last regime of the retired President Daniel Arap Moi. K’ombudo who is a very successful businessman in Kisumu Tow had served as a two terms MP for Nyakach constituency.
The same position ha attracted a former senior accountant with the Kenya Revenue Authority {KRA] Jack Ranguma who at time was the joint official receiver manager for Miwani and Muhoroni sugar companies. He hails from West Kano in Nyando district.
Also reported to be in the race is a senior lecturer in one of the US based universities Dr Barrack Abonyo, who is a close friend of the Prime Minster Raila Odinga.Abonyo also hails fro Kano plains in Nyando district and has been an instrumental in raising fund for Raila’s campaign kitty in the US. He is being credited as one of the strongest Raila supporters in the diaspora.
Dr. Makobewa a 40 year old trained medical doctor who is also the executive director of OGRA FOUNDATION an NGO with the strong British government financial support. Dr Makobewa who runs chains of ultra modern medium size hotels in Kisumu City also hail from Kano Plains. His candidature is reported to have bee endorsed by the elder from Kano clans sending out negative signal of clan’s politics involvement in the race or Kisumu County governor position.
The race for Kisumu governor has also attracted the younger sister of the Prime Minister Raila Odinga Ms Ruth Adhiambo Odinga who is the managing director of the Odinga family business flagship, The Spectre International which is runs and managing the Kisumu Molasses plant near Otonglo Market n the outskirt of Kisumu City.
Also I the race is the youthful insurance executive I London an Nairobi Simon Ogendo, who is the son of the former Kisumu Mayor, the late Ogendo Ponge. Ogendo, hails from Kolwa Location around Nyamasaria suburb in the outskirt Kisumu City, and is candidature is said to be attracting mostly youths ad women groups.
Kisumu County which covers six parliamentary electoral areas of Seme, Kisumu Town East, Kisumu Central, Kisumu Town East, Nyando, Muhoroni an Nyakach has the vast resources such as fish, tourism spots, farming with sugar cane and sugar factories as the mainstay of its economy need the right people at the helm of the County governance in order to turn it. This requires men and women of proven ability and experience to manage it and turn it around.
Kisumu City recently acquired the multibillion shillings new Kisumu Airport, which is soon expected to serve larger passenger planes. The site is the getaway to East African countries and cities with good connection to other destinations in the region b either roads and by air.
Already the Cit is hosting several secretariats of the East African Community whose senior and junior staff need good housing accommodation.
However, Kisumu City is the only major urban center in Kenya without functioning manufacturing industries.All the major industries such as the Kenya Breweries plant, Kisumu Cotton Mills Limited, Kibos Industries and others closed down a decade ago, splitting hundreds youth out of employment. The new Count top leader will have a daunting task of working toward the rehabilitation of the ’ closed down industries and possible establishment of new ones to absorb hundred of thousand of jobless youths who have since became a real security menace to the city dwellers, especially the school lever. The city woes could be rightly attributed as having been caused by politically motivated and economical marginalization of the Luo-Nyanza region by he previous KANU regimes.
London trained Medical Doctor cum Hotelier Dr. Hezron Mackobewa has joined the race for Kisumu County Governor.
The medic made the declaration early this week in a Kisumu Hotel in a colourful ceremony which was attended by his native Kano Clan Elders and Kisumu County Key Stakeholders.
Dr. Mackobewa aged 40 years told the attentive gathering, that his quest has been precipitated by the County Wealth potential which has not been tapped well for decades and he has ideas to ensure that status quo is changed if given the chance by the Electorate.
He hails from Ombeyi in Kano and has got chains of hotels webbing across the region. The medic is also the Director of OGRA FOUNDATION which is being credited for offering education and medical support to the destitute through their well laid outreach programmes since early 2000.
The wealthy and soft spoken medic cum hotelier will rely on his grassroot network to propel his bid. He will however contend to battle it out with a group of equally vibrant, well educated and monied aspirants among them Mumias Sugar employee incharge of Business Development and Water Peter Hongo.
He hails from Kogony Clan (native) and has been criss crossing the terrain for a couple of years doing harambees for schools, churches and sponsoring bright but poor students a move which has really catapulted him to a force to reckon with. The youthful tycoon was one of the brains which made Mumias Sugar to be unrivalled in the sugar industry during the term of the immediate former C.E.O Dr. Evans Kidero.
London based Insurance Executive Simon Ogendo the son of former Kisumu Mayor Ogendo Ponge has also joined the fray. Ogendo who has been busy for now two months overseas since he declared told this journalist during a recent telephone interview that he has finalized his campaign strategy and will soon hit the road before the end of August.
Atieno Otieno who is a Nairobi based Lawyer cum business-woman has also been aggressively campaigning. She has been busy appealing to men to realize that time for discriminating against gender is parochial and overtaken by events.
Another candidate is Ruth Odinga, the sister to Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Ruth has been on the ground trying to counter her critics that being Prime Minister’s Sister shouldn’t be a harbinger to her quest.
But in an area where clannism politics seem to be the hallmark of everything, it remains to be seen what change her bid will have on the litmus paper. She’s the Managing Director of Kisumu Molasses Plant, a company associated with the family.
Former Town Clerk and Cabinet Minister Ojwang Kombudo has also vowed that age is nothing but a number. Kombudo says he has what it takes in terms of experience and his tenure as a clerk of Kisumu Municipality and as a Minister is crystal clear and unrivalled. He come from Lower Nyakach and is nearing 80 years.
Crowing the list is former Kenya Revenue Authority Commissioner Jack Ranguma who is a native of Kano-Kobura. He has been very active in the ground but he seems to have run out of steam due to the fact that he started abit early.
Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Awendo Town, Migori County.
TWO men who are believed to be the most trusted confidants and close political associates of the Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga appeared to have taken an early led in the battle for the two prime positions in the Migori County governance thereby sending the other aspirants eyeing the same positions into great panicking.
The two are Prof. Edward Oyugi Akong’o who appeared to have already emerged as the leading contender for the lucrative position of the Migori County governor.
The other Raila’s political associate of long standing is the former Mathare MP Gilbert Ochieng’ Mbeo who is contesting the covenant position of Migori Senate seat.
Before winning the Mathare parliamentary seat during the 1992 first multiparty elections, Ochieng’Mbeo was among the so-called Young Turks who joined hands with the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga the doyen of the opposition in Kenya and fought gallantly for the introduction of the multiparty system of politics in Kenya as opposed to hitherto most dreaded one party monolithic system.
Prof Akong’o Oyugi who hails from Suna Migori was detained along side with the late George Moseti Anyona the former Kitutu Masaba MP and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Raila Odinga and others after a long period of torture at the now infamous and defunct Nyayo Torture Chambers under the hawk eye of the then dreaded Special Branch security intelligence under the retired President Daniel Arap Moi and he lost his teaching job at the University of Nairobi upon his release from detention camp, forcing him to fled the country in search of green pasture in Europe as he could longer be employed by any public University in Kenya.
The crime committed by the trio was alleged attempt to launch an opposition party in Kenya during the clamor for the multi-party political system which was sweeping the country lie Tsunami at the time.
In the 1992 first election held under the multiparty system, Ochieng’ Mbeo comfortably won the Mathare parliamentary seat of a Ford Kenya ticket. He was later nominated by the LDP then led by Raila Odinga to represent Kenya in the East African Legislative Assembly in Arusha where he was returned twice before serving in the ODM electoral system for a couple of years.
Armed with an American degree Ohieng’ Mbeo is considered the most experienced and suitable person to represent Migori County in the Senate due to his vast experience and wealth of experience in parliamentary system.
Mbeo is to square it with the one time two times MP for the old larger Homa-Bay constituency Phares Oluoch Kanindo, a man who is well known for party hoping or party hoper who contested the Rongo parliamentary seat on PNU ticket in 2007 and who is considered by the electorate as a spent force and politically non-entity.
He had twice served as the chairman of the board of the directors for the Awendo-based SonySugar Company which he left in huff after failing to turn the government-owned sugar mill around into a vibrant profit-making outfit.
After sitting in the August House for close to ten year Kanindo is on record for not having made his maiden speech s or asking questions. The majority of the electorate in Migori say his time is up and as such he should vacate the political field for more the youthful and properly educated lots.
Kanindo of late has been making the round while appearing in almost every funeral gathering making sugar-coated speeches in Dho-Luo vernacular dialect for which he is so fluent in, but which the locals consider as ‘big joke” and ineffective and stale as for as modern politics in Kenya f today are concerned.
Ochieng’Mbeo is therefore stand a better chance of clinching Migori Senate seat in the absent of any other credible challenger. The ODM party loyalty will also count a great deal This is because the ODM will not take the risk of issue anyone whose loyalty and total commitment to the party presidential victory with a ticket to contest any elective position on its behalf. He paty’s vetting and screening would be the toughest this time around.
The Migori County in a complex that the region is shared by two ethnic tribal group,namely the luos the majority and the Kurias who are the minority. However, the Kuria and Luos have worked together from the time immemorial since 1962 when the former South Nyanza district was split into two one for theKiii and the Southern Nyanza fr the Luos. The Luos went home Bayalog with their neighbors the Kuriapeople.
The two communities have lived and worked together harmoniously. During the formation of the larger County Council of the greater Southern Nyanza, the late Mzee Paul Mboya Akoko became the first County Clerk. Mboya was a Luo from Karachuonyo while his deputy was Chacha Marama from Kuria and when Mboya finally bowed out ad retired Chacha Marama took over the County Clerk position and served for long time. The two communities plans to share the County positions of the County governance in equal terms and in a democratic manner.
In the case of governor Prof Akong’o Oyugi who is serving as political adviser to the Prime minster on matters of politics is expected to battle it with several other aspirants who have already declared their interest in the seat.
They included the KSB zonal director for Sonysugar zone Zacharia Okoth Obado from North Kanyamkago, in Uriri district,Ezra Odondi Odhiambo from Central Sakwa in Awendo district, Mark Nyamita also from Uriri distrct, Christopher Rusanat.
However, Prof Oyugi appeared to be more popular than the rest of the aspirants an acceptable by the electorate to the entire region.
Migori Cunt has eight parliamentary constituencies, namely Kuia East, Kuria Wes, Migor East,Migori West, Nyatike, Uriri,Awendo and Rongo..
DEGGARS seemed to have already been drawn up for the election battle in the race for Homa-Bay County Senate seat.
The contest for this important County governance seat appeared to be heading for a two men horse race between the Immigration and Registration of Persons Minister Gerald Otieno Kajwang’ and the populist Nairobi based youthful and populist businessman Hilary Ochieng’ Alila..
A number of the would be aspirants for the same seat appeared to have backed out of the race, leaving the field open for the two Kajwang’ and Alila to battle out.
Kajwang’ is the outgoing Mbita MP and a seasoned politician who has represented the Mbita people for the past three consecutive terms ever since 1997. The Minister, however, is leaving the Sua region without the blessing and confident of the voters in the region following his recent patch up with the Suba community over the change of the name o two parliamentary constituencies, namely Gwassi and Mbita, which had been changed by the IEBC to Suba South and Suba North.
The hurdles facing Kajwang’ is his reported concerted effort to rubbish the existence of the Suba community, failure to recognize the existence community and failure to come into terms with political realities that the existence the Suba community is not negotiable and a reality.
The Minister who is known to be one of Raila Odinga’s confidants, and infamous or his Bado Kuna Mapambano lyrics political song, is being accused for having made no significant contributions in terms of development of Mbit constituency and Likened by the constituents like “someone who is flying out of political realities in the region” and seeking a soft landing spot in the Homa-Bay Senate seat.
Kjawang’ had previously underrated his worthy challenger Hilary Hilary Alila and apparently concentrated his energies fighting the late Joshua Orwa Ojode, the former Ndhiwa MP who before he met his sudden and accidental death on June 10, 2012 in a helicopter crash had indicated that he too would contest the same Homa-Bay
This paved the way for a tactful and mobilizer per excellence Hilary Alila who is a very resourceful young politician to concentrate in building his power bases in all the eight parliamentary constituencies stretching from Kabondo-Kasipul, Kasipul, Karachuonyo, Rangwe, Homa-Bay Town, Ndhiwa, Gwassi and Mbita.
Meanwhile report reaching this writer from Ndhiwa constituency says the constituents there have faulted Tom Otieno Alila the elder brother of Hilary Alila who made the announcement at the weekend that he too would be contesting the impending Ndhiwa by-election .
The rumor making he round in Ndhiwa Town and it environs, is that Tom Alila’s candidature is a deploy tactics of Minister Otieno Kajwang’ which are meant and aimed at weakening the most effective campaign being mounted by the latter’s younger brother Hilary Alila against him in the race for Homa-Bay County where the two are battling it out for the County Senate seat.
Ndhiwa electorate wants Tom Alila to withdraw his candidature in the Ndhiwa by-election to allow Hilary Alila to put p a strong challenge against Kajwang’ in the battle for Senate seat. “Moreover Tom Alila is not an ODM member and as such his chance of clinching Ndhiwa seat are too remote”, they said, adding unless he is being used as spoiler he should pull out immediately. His younger brother has invested a lot in the Senate campaign.
In the same context, Ndhiwa constituents also wants Sam Ojode to pull out of the by-election race so that Orwa Ojode’s widow Mary Ojode could carry out the family flag and recapture the vacant seat. to continue implementing the soicio-economic projects were initiated by her late husband ,but left unfinished.
Both Sam Ojode and Tom Alila were not available for their immediate comments on the latest development. Phone call placed to their mobile phone numbers went unanswered.
PARTY hoppers, political-turn-coats and those known as common political gamblers this time round will not be welcome by the Orange Democratic Movement {ODM} to take part and contest the election in Ndhiwa constituency during the impending by-election.
ODM leaders in Ndhiwa and in the larger Homa-Bay County have resolved that that those aspirants who have been identified as party hoppers will not be welcome to contest the election in Ndhiwa by-election.
The Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission {IEBC} has called for the by election to be held on September 13.
The by-election is for the vacant Ndhiwa parliamentary seat. The seat fell vacant following the accidental death of the former MP for the area he late Joshua Orwa Ojode who perished in an helicopter crush at the Ngong Forest near Nairobi on June 10, 2012.
Ojode who was an Assistant minister for Internal Security lost his life together with his boss, the former Security Minister Prof.George Saitoti and their two police security bodyguard and two pilots.
However, there has been unusual influx in the number of the potential aspirants rearing to go for the seat. Some of them could be arguably classified as green-horns, while there are quite a number of experienced politicians who have contested the elections in the area before.
ODM party leaders and members in Ndhiwa are, however, seemed to be much concerned with the about three potential aspirants, who had stood and contested for the party’s tickets in the same constituency during the general elections of 2007.
The three have been identified as Mrs Monica Amolo, Augustine Neto Oyugi and the one time MP forNdhiwa Tom Okello Obondo.
The three were beaten hands down by the late Joshua Orwa Ojode and after loosing in the preliminaries jumped onto the bandwagon of Charity Ngilu led Narc Kenya and were eventually bundled to humiliating defeat by Orwa Ojode during the election proper.
There were also other candidates who lost to Ojode during the preliminaries, but they stuck to ODM and never ditched the party and had stayed on and contributed immensely towards the late Ojode’s victory.
One of the aspirants Monica Amolo cause uproar when she claimed that she had been rigged out of her victory and went as far as petitioning the court against Ojode’s landslide victory, and yet she pulled only 12,000 compared to the winner Ojodes 48,000. She had also lost the election
Tom Obondo who had represented the area for only one and half year in between 1992 and 1994 1992 on a Ford-Kenya ticket, and immediately had crossed the floor of the August House and went back to KANU for some reasons best known to himself. This is what is paved the way for Joshua Orwa Ojode’s easy victory on LDP ticket during the by-election of 1994.
Obondo has since became one of the notorious party hoppers in the region crossing back and fro to KANU an even joined Nicholas Biwott’s Vision Party of Kenya. At one time Obondo had teamed up with Biwott in a vain effort to wrestle KANU from its then national chairman Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, but the effort flopped but the latter triumphantly retained his sit.
The here have since trooped back to the ODM, and readily announced heir intention to take part in the impending Ndhiwa by-election. Now the party leaders in the region have set tough conditions for in any elective positions on the party’s tickets in future.
On of the leading contenders in the Ndhiwa by-election Ted Odero, made bluntly clear that here is room for political prostitution in Ndhiwa. “Gamblers who simply call the press and made some announcement about their intention of contesting the election in the by-election for the simple purpose of attracting handouts from partly and politicians are not welcome in Ndhiwa, “Said Odero.
Another prominent politician in Ndhiwa Jeremiah OwIti has called the ODM head office to ensure that there were strictest rules in place that are governing the readmission of those who had left the party and joined other parties.
They must bet thoroughly screened and vetted before they are welcome back,” said Jeremiah Owiti another aspirant the impending Ndhiwa by-election.
Meanwhile reports reaching us from Ndhiwa say that the widow of the late former Assistant Minister Internal Security the Joshua Orwa Ojode, Mrs Mary Ojode is also contemplating the idea of herself plunging into the race in the by-election.
A multiple sources have report that May Ojode has already hit the ground despite not having unanimous blessing from her late husband’s Kwabwayi clan home. She is reported to have made an extensive campaign tour of various trading center and marketplaces like Aora-Chuodho, Ratang’a and Wachara where he met with her supporters.
Mrs Ojode, however, could not be reached for the verifications of these conflicting reports. Her mobile phone rang, but there has been no answer.
Other unconfirmed reports says that Mrs Ojode would later this week visit the Orange House, the administrative headquarters of the OD in a tough lady who can fight for the set even against her men competitors on her own and even win.
The Eldoret North MP William Ruto is reported to have made an inroad into rank and file of the ODM Women Orange Democrat organization’s national office and may be now operating deeply behind his arch-political rival Raila Odinga’s rear-guards.
News about Ruto’s breakthrough Raila Odinga behind the line came following he recent fiasco during the ODM Women Democrats elections of the organization’s national office bearers.
The election meeting was held on July 17 at the Boma of Kenya. Raila and his wife Ida Odinga are reported to have attended the meeting briefly.
Apparently unaware of what had transpired due to intensive behind the scene maneuverings the previous evening when most delegates from up-country converged in Nairobi.
Prior to their trip to Nairobi, delegates from within the Kisumu County had held a meeting in Kisumu City and agreed on the line up. The delegates were supposed to have traveled together and had resolved to give their baking and support to only the women who are loyal to the Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Strange thing, however, happened. Upon reaching Nairobi, the Kisumu delegates lost contact with their colleagues, who had travelled much earlier and had already been booed into a posh hotel by a woman who is suspected to have been acting at the behest of William Ruto and other anti-Raila forces.
It was at this time hen Kisumu delegates came to realize the intrigues surrounding heir much highlighted meeting. The chairman of the Kisumu Women Orange Democrat organization, Mrs Rosa Buyu was nowhere to be seen. The phone lines were all switched off. Communication between her and Kisumu delegates were severed.
On arrival In Nairobi, However the Kisumu County delegates were shocked to find there was another line up of proposals involving Assistant Housing Minister Bishop Margaret Wanjiru. Two ODM nominated MPs Rachel Shebesh and Millie Odhiambo had their own line up, which was immediately allegedly joined by Buyu who for some unknown reasons had abandoned the Kisumu delegation and even disowned Mrs Nancy Matara who had been tipped earlier by the Kisumu delegates to contest the position of the national organizing secretary. She was abandoned.
The young woman, however, stuck to the Ida Odinga’s line up and squeezed a slim victory to become he Deputy National Organizing Secretary, despite having been abandoned and disowned by her own delegates
Her branch secretary Mrs Grace Akumu lost contact, and the situation was only saved following he intervention of Mr Ida Odinga, her sister –in-law Ruth Adhiambo Odinga and Grace Akumu who quickly worked out for a alternative new-lineup that show Mrs Elizabeth Syeng’o from Kitui North victory over Mrs Farida Ahmed from the coast.
There were 20 slots and countrywide and Kisumu County ODM Orange Democrats got one position to the chagrins of the ODM Women parliamentary caucus.
What has emerged since is that there infighting between Mrs Ida Odinga and the ODM women parliamentary caucus. After the parliamentary caucus had lost their line-up, one of the Rachel Shebesh confronted the ODM election board chairman with unsubstantiated accusation that the elections had been rigged, though it was conducted transparently according to the made which had been agreed upon by the delegate themselves.
From all the intrigues, pundits were quick into pointing out that some members of the party’ women parliamentary caucus are covertly fighting Raila, though some of them are the same members of the much touted ODM Reloaded team. He group had a hidden agenda to scuttle the ODM Women Democrats national office elections. The ODM Youth Orange Democrats had their election the previous day at the same venue, which went on smoothly.
Last weekend the Kisumu County branch ODM Women Orange Democrats had called a meeting at the party offices along the Kisumu-Kakamega Highway, The purpose of the meeting was nowhere. She did not show up nor did she send in an apology.
The women who attended the meeting appeared to have been brain-washed while they were in Nairobi where other reports says plenty of money had changed hands. What followed the weekend meeting in Kisumu was full of the acrimonies, followed by accusation and counter accusations.
All clearly pointing to the direction of unconfirmed rumor making the round that some members of the ODM parliamentary caucus were not happy with the active role being played by Mrs Ida Odinga in mounting the most aggressive the campaign for her husband to realize his presidential ambition
Unconfirmed report says the money which almost scuttled the organization meeting at the Bomas of Kenya came from either a source connected to Wiliam Ruto or senior, but un-named, members of the G7.
The same money has sine derailed the unity of the Kisumu County Women Orange Democrats.
The time is ripe for Kenyan politicians who are nursing presidential ambition to cast their political nets widely open while shopping around for suitable running mates to consider the possibility of including the COTU {K} Secretary-General in their teams.
Atwoli has the largest constituency in the labor movement; therefore his inclusion into the presidential race team as the running-mate could have a far-reaching and fruitful result to any party or presidential hopeful who chooses him as a running-mate.
Historically it should be remembered that the labor movement in Kenya had played a pivotal role in the struggle for independence and went as far as helping the Kenyan African National Union{KANU} into a sweeping victory in 1963 general elections that ushered in the political independence.
It could be remembered that its inception at the Kirigiti stadium in Kiambu town in June 1960, KANU immediately identified itself with the Kenyan workers. It was gradually built on the strength of the labor movement.
At the birth of KANU, the late Tom Mboya had won its coveted top office of the Secretary-General of newly established first black African colony-wide mass political movement ever since the colonial authorities banned the Kenya African Union [KAU} under the Sate of Emergency declared by the colonial governor in Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring on October 20,1952.
The formation of KANU an that of its rival Kenya African Democratic Union {KADU} came as a hard bargain during the first round able constitutional conference in Kenya which was held a he famous Lancaster House in London between February and March 1960.
It happened that Mboya who had trounced Arthur Aggrey Ochwada with only one single vote for the position f the Secretary-General was at the time the most influential General Secretary of the defunct Kenya Federation of Labor {KFL}, which was the hen the umbrella of the labor movement I Kenya.
All the unions affiliated to KFL joined the fray. All the general secretaries of the unions affiliated to KFL mobilized the workers who in turn joined KANU en mass. Prior to the birth of KANU, the KFL had become the most effective voice of he workers in Kenya and also that of the African population frequently issuing statements on behalf of African population and is aspiration as well as the demand for political independence and the end of both the state of emergency and racial discrimination on jobs.
In its early existence as a mass political movement in Kenya , KANU survived mostly on resources and manpower provided by the KFL, which later propelled I-it into power in 1963.
It was also joined by splinters of African political parties which were given very limited chances to operate within the district level. This was so in the absence of any mass and colony-wide African political parties. Ii fact it as through the KFL unfaltering support that KANU successfully managed to over its rivals like the pro-white settlers KADU and other a the tie of the 1963 general election, which ushered in political independence.
And even today the labor movement could [provide the competing parties with a swing votes. This is the main reason why I have the opinion that any presidential aspirant whose party can settle on Atwoli as its running-mate could harvest maximum votes within the industries and from the plantation workers.
The outspoken unionist has built a large following not only among the workers, but the Kenya public at large. He is a robust- man who always prefer taking the bull by its horn and a fearless speaker when it come to the question of defending he Kenyan workers.
Atwoli always peaks his minds irrespective of how other takes hi views. He has built a strong constituency beyond parochial lines, tribal ethnic boundaries; therefore he could be an asset to the party that picks him up as a running mate to its presidential aspirant. Such a party would definitely harvest maximum votes from the workers and other Kenyans who have come to trust Atwoli as an untainted leader.
History is so kind and it tells us that the later Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana won and be Secretary general of the Trade Union Congress o Ghana {TUC}, while in Kenya the late Jomo Kenyatta’s accession to power was made possible owing to the organizational skills and mobilization ability of the politically genius Tom Mboya. It was Mboya’s dynamism and used his political magnanimity and skills in propelling KANU into victory n 1963.
Atwoli apart from c being the boss of COTU {K} is also the Secretary-general of the membership –rich Union of the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers. Also in his armpit is the Kenya Union of Sugar Plantation Workers.
Atwoli is known as a man who strongly abhorred the politics of sycophancy and as such would make a wonderful vice president of the Republic of Kenya. Ever since stepping into the helm of workers leadership, Atwoli has put the Kenyan workers into the world map. He is sitting o several key and important world-wide workers boards, important workers boards in the African continent.
Anglican Arch Bishop Eliud Wabukalla has strongly castigated a clique of “selfish” politicians who are pushing that the next General Elections be held in August 2013 instead of March 2013.Speaking in Boya in Nyando District Kisumu County during working tour in the regions diocese, Wabukala said that Kenyans have already tuned their minds for the march 2013 polls and any attempt to reschedule it will be contested to the bitter end.
During a morning press briefing at the home of a Nairobi business man Erick Okeyo who is also a staunch member of Anglican church,wabukhala appealed for calm and humility ahead of the elections.
He further emphasised the need for restrain among the communities and said dialogue should be key whenever there is a stalemate or misunderstanding.
The routine pastoral work by the Arch Bishop will extend to four Diocess a move which has seen a sharp growth of the faithfuls in the region in the last few years since he took the mantle of leadership.He was accompanied by the Bishop of maseno South Diocess Mwai Abiero.
