What ever the pros and cons of Democrat candidates might be, the polarization in the Democrat camp won’t probably do good for the Democrat campaign overall. It might become more difficult to join all the Democrat voters behind one candidate later.

Oh oh oh eugenia, you have fallen on your ass on this one.

It took me 3 MINUTES to find out that Hillary Clinton has signed this pledge ALMOST A YEAR AGO. The news you linked to in your entry was based on a story that was a year old, and as such, I started wondering if Clinton signed it between then and now. And she did. So, please update your entry, saying you were wrong. Else you are spreading lies.

And in the future, do a bit more research.

I updated the story with your finding, but your finding was not much promising anyway. She originally wouldn’t commit to it, which I find peculiar.

Well, Obama didn’t want to support it either from the get-go, took him a while too before supporting it.

You have to realise, Eugenia, that presidential candidates are VERY careful with signing public pledges or petitions. They can’t just go around signing stuff without first looking into the organisations, their track records, fellow supports of the petitions, and so on. They cannot afford to hang with the wrong crowd.

So the fact that the Clinton campaign signed it a few months later than Obama doesn’t really have to say anything at all. The important thing is that she signed this thing in the first place - when I read your entry, I simply couldn’t believe she would not, and as it turned out, my gut feeling was right.

Well, without doing any research to make sure the information is correct, both democratic candidates seem to support the Patriot Act, none is against a military action against Iran, both are against same sex marriage and both support a border fence between USA and Mexico.

Obama seems to be against death penalty, while Clinton supports that each state can decide about it, but then Obama hasn’t explicitly opposed to torture of prisoners or supported the Kyoto protocol, while Clinton has.

All in all, I can’t say I feel inspired by either of them, but I do hope any of them wins and puts an end to the crazy Bush administration.

If you google “duck river rifles” it will take you to a website about my great great grandfather who was Captain of this Confederate company. We have the same name, but I am named after my grandfather who is named after his grandfather.
Now the website is run by a Man who is membership chairman of the Sons of the Confederacy which is an organization that honors the sacrifice of Confederate soldiers and their memory.
What is true about war now and true about war then is the disparity between the soldiers and the rich people.
The south was getting screwed economically by the North and the Southern states, DID have the RIGHT to cede from the Union.
On the south side of things, the rich southerners WERE dependent on slaves to maintain their wealth, but the confederate soldiers were not slave owners.
So the Bush Oil interests and Plantation Slave interests engaged in a war that was fought by dirt farmers.
Now they didn’t have the education and communication and access to other opinions like we do now and very imporant the South felt they were fighting the second American revolution, his father had fought in the war of 1812 and his grandfather Ezekiel was a revolutionary War hero, in addition thru the grandmothers family her grandfather also fought in the Revolutionary War.
The point of all this, is that I beleive the Sons of the Confederacy is not a raciest organization, but simply wishes to honor the Confederate sacrifice, I do believe that the rich people who started this war, both North and South had economic reasons for doing so, just like now, that the people that dies were not the people that benefited or would benefit from victory, I would love to honor the sacrifice of my family in any prior war, my father was in WW2 and I was in during Vietnan, but I do not want my message about who I am to be misunderstood. I am proud that the Duck River Rifles mainly consisted of my family members were there to protect the family farm, there to prevent my grandmothers from being raped and the family starved to death, but I also protect my family name, by choosing not to associate with groups where my interest can be perverted, my family stands for acceptance of anyone, any race, any religion and not just acceptance, but to embrace them.
I do think that for Hillary and Obama that not all is black and white and that caution does not mean a lack of interest.
I also think that the winner can write the history of the past and think the North should be ashamed of how they treated the south economically and could have prevented that war. We talk about now the torture of prisoners, check out Shermon’s march and ask yourself what you would do if Shermon was coming to your town?

Sorry to continue that thought, but the civil war in my mind was Union bad, for screwing the south economically and forcing them to fight, on a moral basis, bad Confederate rich people some of them my family on my grandmothers side who kept slaves
and believed the Jesus was OK with that.
We go along with things now just as they did then. I think that
Eugenia has an interest as a person in the outcome of the Pres election despite not being a citizen, but let us not forget all the little elections too, from Mayor and city council, it all impacts.
Just because a proposal of law is called “The Children’s Initiative” doesn’t mean that it has children’s interest at heart. Being informed, staying current, letting politicians know how we feel, more than letting the polls tell them should be our first line of defense, giving to politicians that support our view and boycotting products that inhibit our liberty and something simple even like making purchase decisions political will get the message across.
I do not wish to imply that I do not believe in War.
I do believe that if we go to war it should be for a good reason, it should be in our defense, it should not be expansionist. I do believe that we need to have a moral basis for doing so. In example some of the ethnic cleansing going on, I beleive that a preemptive intervention to protect people from slaughter in the interest of mankind,
I beleive that Saddam was a bad guy, but I don’t think we entered Iraq with noble purposes and Chaney’s friends have been enriched, oil interests have been enriched and the loss to the American people and the damage to our reputation will be felt for generations, just as it has in recent times for Germany

It might be hard for some non U.S. citizens to comprehend the U.S. election system but it’s not really that hard.

The whole system, when originally designed, was to be anti-imperialist and a republic based upon indirect democratic representation.

Is it perfect? No. Should it be done away with? No. Could there be changes to make it a little more representative of the people? Yes.

In my forty-four, soon to be forty-five, years of life I’ve seen the elites twist and bend the original intent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to fit their own agendas.

Power does not really corrupt as the saying goes. It’s the “fear” of loosing power which actually corrupts. How do we keep abusive power from continuing it agenda?

Here is an idea. Make all representatives, senators, governors and presidents serve one term and no more. Stricter term limits would contribute to a more stable system.

Holding office was never meant to be a full or lifetime position. The founders never envisioned people holding office like the tyrants they won their independence from.

Will this happen in my lifetime? Probably not. The ultra-imperialist Cons and their equally imperial Dems will continue selling snowing the people with their avalanche of “B”ig “S”tories and it will be business as usual.