(Martial Law) It's been his dream since before he became Prez. He wanted to be a dictat*r. This would be the perfect storm to give him the title he desires, the power he wants and there would be no elections....no anything. This would be a very stupid thing to do as long as he is prez.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Ver.) -
A little-noted provision of the recently passed Defense Authorization Act allows President Bush to send in the military to police any trouble spot in this country regardless of the wishes of state governors.

On Oct. 17, President Bush signed the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007.
>

A highly controversial and little-known aspect of the act “contains a widely opposed provision to allow the president more control over the National Guard changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future president to use the military to restore order without the consent of the nation’s governors,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Ver.) said.

Americans “certainly do not need to make it easier for presidents to declare martial law,” Leahy said. “Invoking the Insurrection Act and using the military for law enforcement activities goes against some of the central tenets of our democracy. One can easily envision governors and mayors in charge of an emergency having to constantly look over their shoulders while someone who has never visited their communities gives the orders.”


>


There is good reason, Leahy said, “for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the states, when we make it easier for the president to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty.”

The law allows the president to “employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any state or possession of the United States, that the president determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the state or possession are incapable of maintaining public order to suppress in any state, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.”

“Or other condition” is a critical line in the new law, skeptics say. The president can send the National Guard into any community for any—even frivolous—reasons, they argue.





http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/mart...

Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003



http://leahy.senate.gov/issues/Insurrectio...

Insurrection Act

Under the new language, added to the law in the fall of 2006, the President can invoke the act and declare martial law in cases where public order breaks down as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, terrorist attack, or under the nebulous term of �other conditions."

This change makes it easier for the President to invoke the Act in cases beyond an insurrection � cases which were not intended under the previous purpose of the Act. With these succinct but sweeping changes, the President now does not have to contact or collaborate with any state agency in taking control of the Guard and injecting federal military forces, to carry out patrols or make arrests. The President has to notify but not explain to Congress that he or she believes that states cannot handle the situation.

It will be used over & over for years to come.


One of the frontrunners for the presidency of the Democratic Party said this and it was heard & seen around the world.


Reagan tapped into what the people wanted.


"I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what is different is the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing." - Obama


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/16/o...

Word for word on the tape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaoYD7iZG9w


In trying to build himself up or some kind of comparison to Ronald Reagan regarding change and moving away from the 60's & 70's, he also declared that *Bill Clinton, could not or did not do what Ronald Reagan did.

(*our only 2 term DEM president since FDR, about 60 years)

I've seen this explained away many times as not being what it looks like it is or people saying they didn't see any comparisons being made. It's not what "we" think. It's what the Repukes make of it and it's enough to damn democratic candidates for years in favor of a Reagan-like Replacement. I can already hear it, a Democratic presidential hopeful said it as he was dissing one of our best, Reagan must have been the greatest president ever. Just what we need again to get this country on track.
Watch for it. The Dem nominee will get hit with it from now on.

This statement during this presidential campaign by Obama towers over anything & everything HRC has said.

Only a misguided HOPE with Obama.


As for the larger argument here, There have always been a lot of us.

As with all else, the other candidate's supporters can't see the forest for the trees.

about our history, our lives in this post than most could write in a book.


I graduated High School in 1970. We could vote and many things had changed but we were still scratching and clawing for the same jobs, the same pay and the same rights as men in the workplace and in society.


There are still differences and the fight is not over. We need strong women like Hillary Clinton to continue to lead the way.



Thank you again, hayu_lol

01/01/1008 - First great read of the New Year.



Alamom, 55
Female

http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc...

Clinton Drawing Harsher Scrutiny Than Obama, Some In Press Say
His Campaign Denies Assertion

By HOWARD KURTZ | Washington Post
December 21, 2007

DES MOINES — - After weeks of bad news, Hillary Clinton and her strategists hoped that winning the endorsement of Iowa's largest newspaper last weekend might produce a modest bump in their press coverage.
>

"She's just held to a different standard in every respect," said Mark Halperin, Time's editor at large. "The press rooted for Obama to go negative, and when he did, he was applauded. When she does it, it's treated as this huge violation of propriety." Newsweek's Howard Fineman said Obama's coverage is the buzz of the presidential campaign. "While they don't say so publicly because it's risky to complain, a lot of operatives from other campaigns say he's getting a free ride, that people aren't tough enough on Obama," Fineman said.
>


"Slipping Away?" said a headline on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"Hillary Clinton's campaign is teetering on the brink," Fineman wrote in Newsweek.
CBS's Jim Axelrod said her operation is "reeling."
The Los Angeles Times said she is facing her "most serious crisis."
And a banner headline on the Drudge Report asked, "Is It the End?"


>

The Illinois senator's fundraising receives far less press attention than Clinton's. When The Washington Post reported last month that Obama used a political action committee to hand more than $180,000 to Democratic groups and candidates in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the suggestion that he might be buying support received no attention on the network newscasts.

>

Obama did undergo something of a press audit earlier this year, with stories focusing on his record in the Illinois Senate and his ties to indicted fundraiser Tony Rezko. But his recent rise in the polls has not brought the kind of full-time frisking being visited on the hottest Republican, Mike Huckabee.

In an online posting Monday, ABC reported that an Obama volunteer wearing a press pass asked the candidate a friendly question about tax policy at an Iowa event. But several of the assembled reporters huddled and concluded that it was not a story, one of them said.

Clinton faced a storm of press criticism over a similar planted question.

http://www.vitalvoices.org/desktopdefault....

Vital Voices Global Leadership

Our History

The nonprofit Vital Voices Global Partnership grew out of the U.S. government's successful Vital Voices Democracy Initiative. The Vital Voices Democracy Initiative was established in 1997 by then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright after the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing to promote the advancement of women as a U.S. foreign policy goal.

Under the leadership of the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative, the U.S. government, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations, the World Bank, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the European Union and other governments coordinated Vital Voices conferences throughout the world, bringing together thousands of emerging women leaders from over 80 countries.

These conferences launched regional Vital Voices initiatives that continue to give women the skills and resources they need to lift up themselves, their communities and their countries.

The overwhelmingly positive response to the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative led to the creation of Vital Voices Global Partnership as a nonprofit non-governmental organization (NGO) in June 2000. Vital Voices is now continuing the work of advancing women's economic, political and social status around the world, by providing skills, networking and other support to women around the world, whether they are working for the right to vote in Kuwait or entrepreneurship in Vietnam.



Board of Directors
Vital Voices Global Partnership enjoys the support of a very committed Board of Directors with expertise in foreign policy, development, business, communications and philanthropy.

Vital Voices Honorary Chairs
Hillary Rodham Clinton
United States Senator (D-NY) and Former First Lady

Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator (R-TX)

Nancy Kassebaum Baker
Former United States Senator (R-KS)

The rest,
http://www.vitalvoices.org/desktopdefault....


The programs
http://www.vitalvoices.org/desktopdefault....

Much more on the main site.


Google Vital Voices and there are many, many sites describing what they have done & are doing.



edsp

Her historic speech at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 not only galvanized women around the world, it helped spawn a movement that led to advances politically, legally, economically, and socially for women in many countries over the next decade. Among other initiatives, she spearheaded the Clinton Administration's efforts to combat the global crisis of human trafficking. She persuaded the First Ladies of the Americas to use their collective power to eradicate measles and improve girls' education throughout the western Hemisphere. And she is widely credited with helping women in Kuwait finally win the right to vote.



Hillary's Unprecedented Experience on the World Stage
Posted December 14, 2007 | 03:19 PM (EST)

Lissa Muscatine and Melanne Verveer
Huffington Post



Anyone who doubts Hillary Clinton's impact on the world stage might want to check with the top political leaders in Northern Ireland, who cite her work to end sectarian violence there and help secure a lasting peace.


Anyone who doubts Hillary Clinton's international experience might consult with democracy activists in the Slovak Republic, who remember when she stood in solidarity with them and publicly challenged their new government's suppression of civil society.

>

In the heat of presidential campaign politics, candidates on both sides dismiss a First Lady's work as insignificant to foreign policy. But in Hillary Clinton's case, such a presumption is not only wrong, it trivializes the important global issues of human rights, democracy, and international development that are so central to strengthening American values and influence overseas and are hallmarks of her exhaustive work around the world.

As First Lady and now as a two-term senator who represents the most ethnically diverse state in the nation and who sits on the Armed Services Committee, Hillary Clinton has become a fixture on international issues over the past 15 years. She has traveled to more than 80 countries, going from barrios to rural villages to meetings with heads of state. She has consulted with dozens of world leaders - Nelson Mandela, King Abdullah, Tony Blair among them -- on matters as diverse as America and NATO's roles in Kosovo, eradicating poverty in the Third World, and the plight of women living under the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Today, she is one of the most influential voices in the world on human rights, democracy, and the promotion of a "new internationalism" in foreign affairs that calls for a balanced use of military force, diplomacy, and social development to strengthen American interests and security globally.

>

While American First Ladies historically have made great (and often overlooked) contributions to our nation, Hillary Clinton's wide-ranging experience on international issues as First Lady is unprecedented. Indeed, she is the only First Lady to have delivered foreign policy addresses at major gatherings of the United Nations, the World Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the World Economic Forum.



The world knows Hillary Clinton. Moreover, the world respects her.



More...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lissa-muscat...

And then there's ambition -- a given in any presidential candidate, but worth pointing out because Obama works hard to dispel the image of having sought his superstar status. "It's not about me, it's about you," he likes to tell his crowds.

But according to those who know him, he has been talking about the presidency for more than a decade. "It was clear to me from the day I met him that he was thinking about politics," says Harvard Law School classmate Christine Spurell.


"There's a central conundrum about him," says another Harvard classmate, Brad Berenson. "On the one hand, he's this laid-back guy from Hawaii. On the other hand, he's vaulted himself into the race for president of the United States. And that doesn't happen by accident."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/...



Barack Obama says Hillary Clinton too old to unite U.S.


BY MICHAEL McAULIFF
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Thursday, November 8th 2007, 4:00 AM



WASHINGTON - Barack Obama sparked a generational fight Wednesday by trashing White House rival Hillary Clinton for being too old to unite America, saying she and others her age have fought the same tired fights for too long.

"I think there's no doubt that we represent the kind of change that Sen. Clinton can't deliver on, and part of it is generational," Obama, 46, said on Fox News. "Sen. Clinton and others, they've been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s, and it makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done."

Experts and opponents pounced, saying Obama's remarks could offend the most reliable voters, people older than 50 - especially in early-voting Iowa. "You are counting precisely on an older group of Democrats in Iowa," said Iowa State University's Steffen Schmidt. "You can't tell them they're backward-looking. Somebody should be fired in his campaign."

Obama's older competitors agreed. "We think Iowa caucusgoers would reject the notion that anyone over the age of 50 should be disqualified from serving in elected office," said Phil Singer, a spokesman for the 60-year-old Clinton.

"It is an odd thing to say for someone who is looking for votes in a state where the average caucusgoer is in his or her 60s," said Hari Sevugan, an aide to silver-haired candidate Christopher Dodd.

****the Obama transparency record is lacking.

• • An Obama spokesman, Ben Labolt, last week declined to say where Obama's records from his years in the Illinois State Senate are located. There is no law mandating the state to archive the records. The records from Obama's office -- if he kept them -- would potentially show appointments with lobbyists, policy memos, meetings, etc.

• • Obama has supported more earmark disclosure to bolster government transparency. Last June, Obama disclosed the earmarks he requested for Illinois and national interests. However, his office, after repeated requests since June, has yet to disclose earmarks Obama sought in 2006, before he was running for president.

• • Obama does list the names of hundreds of bundlers -- people committed to raising at least $50,000 for the campaign -- on his Web site. He brags about the disclosure on the stump.

But that's literally all Obama does, list a name. No cities or states, information that is available to his campaign. Some names are well known because the bundlers are celebrities or longtime activists. But it's a big country, and there are more than one Bob Clark and Lou Cohen. Just listing a name does lip service to meaningful disclosure.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, in a memo sent last week after the debate, said Obama is "setting a new standard of openness in campaign fund-raising." That's because the bar is very low.

• • Obama's campaign has refused to identify the biggest bundlers, people who are raising at least $200,000 for him and are given membership in his National Finance Council. Obama, as all major candidates, declines most of the time to disclose details about most fund-raising events.

• • During a town hall meeting last month in Dover, N.H., Obama pledged that he would post all meetings he would hold as president on the Internet. As a senator, Obama has never done that.

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/inde...

The Birmingham News


Clinton stretches her lead in state
September 25, 2007
DAVID WHITE News staff writer

MONTGOMERY - Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York has a wide lead over Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the race for president among Alabamians likely to vote in the state's Democratic primary next year, according to a new poll.

Among voters who said they likely would vote in Alabama's Democratic primary Feb. 5, 45 percent said they would vote for Clinton if the election were today, compared to 24 percent for Obama, 9 percent for former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, 8 percent for former Vice President Al Gore, 3 percent for other candidates and 10 percent who didn't know or didn't reply. Percentages were rounded.

Clinton's lead among Alabamians likely to vote in the Democratic primary has grown in recent months, according to this poll and others conduced earlier this year by the center. Her support was at 37 percent in May and 33 percent in July before jumping to 45 percent in the poll completed last week. Obama hasn't made such gains. His support stood at 21 percent in May and 29 percent in July before landing at 25 percent in the latest poll.

Obama, who is black, in the latest poll won the support of 43 percent of the black voters who said they likely would vote in the Democratic primary, compared to 47 percent in the July poll, not a statistically significant difference. Clinton, who is white, in the latest poll won the support of 41 percent of black voters who said they likely would vote in the Democratic primary, up from 26 percent in July, a significant jump.


The big story here is Hillary Clinton rebuilding her lead in the last month or so. She's doing it by holding on to a good share of the African-American vote, at least so far," said David Lanoue, who chairs the political science department at the University of Alabama.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/...


Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research
Germans, French Want Hillary as U.S. President
August 29, 2007

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in two European nations hold positive views on a prospective United States presidential nominee, according to a five-country poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 45.5 per cent of respondents in Germany, and 43.7 per cent of respondents in France, would like to see Hillary Rodham Clinton as the next American head of state.

Support for Rodham Clinton—currently serving her second term as New York’s junior U.S. senator—stands at 38.9 per cent in Canada, 35.2 per cent in Italy, and 29.8 per cent in Britain.

Eight U.S. presidential hopefuls—four Democrats and four Republicans—were included as options. In Italy, 17.5 per cent of respondents would like Republican former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani to win the 2008 U.S. presidential election. In Canada, 13.4 per cent of respondents voice support for Democratic Illinois senator Barack Obama.



Polling Data

As you may know, the United States will elect a new president in November 2008. Which of these candidates would you like to see elected as President of the United States? (Candidates listed alphabetically)

.........................BRI..........FRA.........ITA...........GER............CAN


John Edwards.......1.5%........1.8%........2.6%........2.5%.........2.5%


Rudy Giuliani..........9.5%.....2.7%.........17.5%.......2.1%.........9.6%


John McCain........1.4%........1.1%.........1.3%.......1.2%.........2.7%


Barack Obama.......7.1%........4.7%........11.2%........8.6%.......13.4%


Bill Richardson......0.6%........0.5%.........0.7%........0.6%.........0.4%


Hillary Clinton.....29.8%........43.7%........35.2%.......45.5%.......38.9%


Mitt Romney.........0.4%........0.1%.........0.3%........0.2%.........1.2%


Fred Thompson......0.4%........0.7%.........0.6%........0.4%.........2.8%


Not sure............49.3%........44.7%.........0.6%......38.9%........28.3%



Source: Angus Reid Strategies
Methodology: Online interviews with 5,075 adults in Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy, conducted from Jul. 26 to Aug. 11, 2007. Margin of error for each country is 3.1 per cent.



edbr

voting Americans are not one-issue-bots and they see the big picture.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/...



Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research
Democrats 2008: Hillary 42%, Obama 21%

August 23, 2007
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains a high level of support in the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in the United States, according to a poll by Gallup released by USA Today. 42 per cent of respondents would vote for the New York senator in a 2008 primary.

Illinois senator Barack Obama is second with 21 per cent, followed by former U.S. vice-president Al Gore with 15 per cent, and former North Carolina senator John Edwards with 11 per cent. Support is lower for New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, Delaware senator Joe Biden, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich, and Connecticut senator Chris Dodd.



Polling Data

Next, I’m going to read a list of people who may be running in the Republican primary for president in the next election. After I read all the names, please tell me which of those candidates you would be most likely to support for the Democratic nomination for president in the year 2008, or if you would support someone else.

.............. Aug. 16............Aug. 5............July 15


Clinton...........42%.............42%.................34%


Obama.............21%.............19%.................25%


Gore............15%..............18%.................16%


Edwards...........11%.............10%.................9%


Richardson........1%..............3%...................4%