It’s clear to many Democrats that a radical clique has taken control of the Party. Democratic ideals once held to be sacrosanct, including freedom of speech, one person one vote, and an intolerance of sexism have been violently pushed aside for the benefit of Obama. The media drumbeat for Obama is incessant; the media has even stopped pretending to be neutral. We’re seeing the country through Alice’s Looking Glass now and everything is upside-down and backwards. In an effort to save our Party and country, many Democrats are actively working to defeat Obama.

In 1980, the last Japanese soldier of World War Two, Captain Fumio Nakahira, was discovered on Mt. Halcon, Mindoro Island, Philippines. During the previous 35 years, Captain Nakahira had survived alone, serving his Emperor and believing that the War had not yet ended. (This was 15 years after the Gilligan’s Island episode).

Captain Nakahira comes to mind when I think about the thousands of disaffected and disillusioned Democrats across the country who will not be voting for Obama. If Obama is elected despite our efforts to defeat him, it will codify for a generation the Chicago corruption, race-baiting, and misogyny practiced by Obama and his minions; tactics which caused many of to leave the Party. And Obama’s race-baiting, misogynistic thugs will say: Good riddance!

Camping out on our own private Mt. Halcons, many thousands of men and women will remain committed to the causes which brought us to the Democratic Party in the first place. We won’t stop being concerned about sexism, race relations, economic opportunity, and national security.

It’s now dawning on Republicans and independents that a creeping totalitarianism is sweeping the country. Obama’s Truth Squads use the power of the state to stifle free expression, McCain supporters are jeered in public, and Obama’s shock troops — in a form of hate speech so ugly that it can only be described as a pogrom against women — wear clothing which declares that the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, is a “cunt.” Sexual terrorism is the new form of Left-wing Kristallnacht.

Where did this come from?

The ecstatic mania of Obama’s supporters comes from many places, and I don’t pretend to understand all of the sources. Many who support Obama are low-information liberals, do-good progressives, proud African Americans, and fed-up independents. I can’t blame these groups; the Bush Administration has been a disaster. There is, however, a core group of Obama supporters who believe that the Senator from Illinois will bring revolutionary change. And their desire for the revolution is all-consuming and any tactic is considered fair game: caucus fraud, sexism, race-baiting, voter intimidation, online smear campaigns, sexual terrorism, and voter fraud. Anything to win.

I hold Obama accountable for the tone of this campaign and the actions of his supporters. From “hoodwink and bamboozled” to his “lipstick on a pig,” Obama’s sexist double-speak and race-baiting innuendos have unleashed something very ugly into the ether. Obama has given his supporters the tacit encouragement to cross lines of acceptable discourse in order to destroy his political opponents. In the Obama world, Bill Clinton is a racist, Hillary is a bitch, Sarah Palin is a cunt, and John McCain is erratic and senile. I fully expect that an Obama Administration, like all recent Administrations, will continue in campaign mode and I expect these tactics to continue. This was the reason, to borrow a phrase, that we sought to fumigate our Party.

Like many of you, I won’t have anything to do with Obama or his party. Obama’s tactics go against the reason I was a Democrat and no pleas and no threats will force me to give up my principles. Above my computer I have postcards with the images of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy; my Hillary poster is in the corner and remains unframed.

Car displaying McCain sticker vandalized

Saturday, October 18, 2008

CLEARWATER (Bay News 9) — A Clearwater man’s vehicle that displayed a bumper sticker supporting John McCain has been defaced in what appears to be a hate crime, authorities say.

According to authorities, 41-year-old Frank Armstrong’s 2006 Lexus LS 430 was parked on the 1400 block of Gulf Boulevard when someone or a group of people scratched the letters “KKK” into the paint and burned a U.S. Flag on the vehicle.

Authorities say those involved also used cigarettes to burn several areas of the car and apparently urinated on the car. …

Armstrong’s vehicle displayed a bumper sticker supporting the McCain campaign and another that was anti-Barack Obama leading investigators to believe the crime was racially or politically motivated.

No witnesses or surveillance video have been found.

Now Obama has unleashed his fury at Chicago’s biggest AM radio station owned by the Chicago Tribune for allowing a conservative writer and researcher Stanley Kurtz of the National Review to appear on a talk show to discuss his findings on the Ayers-Obama collaboration. [UPDATE: LISTEN to the MP3 of the WGN interview.]

Kurtz may be a conservative. His political views may be obnoxious. But his research is conclusive, factual and inarguable. Ayers and Obama have had a long relationship with Ayers playing the mentor and Obama as protege. And Obama has lied and lied and lied.

Kurtz’s work, unlike Jerome Corsi’s, is not a smear. It is factual.

Why is Obama reacting with such nervousness and such disproportionate anger? Because the truth is so damaging. You can’t hang with an unrepentant terrorist and then want to get elected as commander-in-chief to lead a global war on terror. The average voter won’t swallow that nonsense.

Will the mainstream media report the facts as Kurtz has done? Will it finally do the objective reporting it failed to do throughout the primary campaign? Will the media be upset at Obama’s effort at news suppression and censorship? Will the media discuss Obama’s assault on the First Amendment?

As Americans, we expect certain liberties and rights that were granted us by our forefathers, who wrote documents like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. “We the people” expect that these fundamental rights will always be protected. However, in the current Democratic Presidential Primary, this has not been the case. We believe that the The Democratic National Committee (DNC) made a grave error by depriving American voters of their choice of Hillary Clinton as Democratic nominee. Senator Clinton, by all accounts, except caucuses, won the Primary Election and, therefore, should be the 2008 Democratic Nominee. That didn’t happen, due largely to illegitimate and illegal acts. We have interviews of many accounts from caucus states recounting threats, intimidation, lies, stolen documents, falsified documents, busing in voters in exchange for paying for “dinners,” etc. There are at least 2000 complaints, in Texas alone, of irregularities directed towards the Obama Campaign, that have lead to a very fractured and broken Democratic Party.

The preview, all 33 minutes of it, is compelling. In essence, it is a visual companion to the work of Dr. Lynette Long at Caucus Fraud and Peniel Cronin on Primaries and Caucuses (which will appear at NQ shortly). In short, it is disturbing not just how this happened, but THAT it happened in our country.

I invite you to watch the preview to this documentary, about which the authors said this:

This documentary is about the disenfranchising of American citizens by the Democratic Party and the Obama Campaign. We the People have made this film. Democrats have sent in their stories from all parts of America. We want to be heard and let the country know how our party has sanctioned the actions of what we feel are Obama campaign “Chicago Machine” dirty politics. We believe this infamous campaign of “change” from Chicago encouraged and created an army to steal caucus packets, falsify documents, change results, allow unregistered people to vote, scare and intimidate Hillary supporters, stalk them, threaten them, lock them out of their polling places, silence their voices and stop their right to vote, which is, of course, all documented in “We Will Not Be Silenced.”

This documentary contains powerful, important information. I urge you to spread the word however you are able. Now is the time.

To view, CLICK HERE.

My deepest thanks to all of those at “We Will Not Be Silenced” for your commitment to democracy, to the rights of Americans, all Americans, to vote. Thank you for your courage and integrity in getting this critical information out. And thank you for bringing the voices of these Americans out for us all to witness

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”–Barrack Obama/June 2008

Yup, the Democratic National Committee has outdone themselves with their preparations for their upcoming National Convention in a few weeks. They thought of everything… balloons, barbed wire cages, confetti, stun guns, and those funny hats we all love to see! The Convention will also have lot of speeches extolling the lofty visions of civil rights and personal liberties the Democratic party is so fond of protecting, you know, liberties like free speech, the right to protest, that kind warm and fuzzy democracy stuff. My heart just swells with pride when I read this stuff on their blog:
& lt;h3>The Democratic Vision
The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American. That commitment is reflected in an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights.

Civil Rights

On every civil rights issue, Democrats have led the fight. We support vigorous enforcement of existing laws, and remain committed to protecting fundamental civil rights in America.

The Party Platform

The Democratic Party has a long and proud history of representing and protecting the interests of working Americans and guaranteeing personal liberties for all. One of the places we articulate our beliefs is in the Party’s National Platform, adopted every four years by the Delegates at the National Convention.

Wait…did someone say something about stun guns and cages? No, that can’t be…not the party of freedom and liberty!

The problem is, old Howie didn’t think this through…he didn’t think that rounding up hundreds or thousands of protesters and throwing them in a barbed wire cage in a warehouse on the outskirts of town might not be the message they want to send to those wanting to donate to their party . Not to mention, it goes against all those so-called principals and “visions” of theirs. He also didn’t think his dirty little secret about these cages would be made public.

Damned reporters! Damned free speech!

Not to worry, Howard Dean has this all figured out, he’ll let the Denver Police handle this. They will be passing out flyer’s to all the protesters so they can be told of their rights. So, there ya go! The pretty little piece of paper says we DO have rights to protest! Ain’t America great?

YOUR RIGHTS TO DEMONSTRATE AND PROTEST

Can my free speech rights be restricted
because of what I want to say – even if it’s
controversial ?

No. The First Amendment prohibits
restrictions based on the content of speech.
Police and government officials are allowed
to place non-discriminatory and narrowly
drawn “time, place and manner” restrictions
on the exercise of First Amendment rights.

Where can I engage in free speech activity?

Generally, all types of expression are
constitutionally protected in traditional
“public forums” such as public sidewalks
and parks. Public streets can be used for
marches subject to compliance with the
City’s permitting process.

Where can you engage in free speech activity? Anywhere you want as long as you freely state that you are going to vote for Obama, otherwise…get in the cage until you’re ready to act like an American, dammit!

Let’s see what other rights the demonstrators will have….

What other types of free speech activity are
constitutionally protected?

The First Amendment can, under certain
circumstances, protect communication such
as theater, music, film and dance. Symbolic
acts and civil disobedience that involve
illegal conduct may be outside the realm of
constitutional protection and may lead to
0Acitation and/or arrest. This may include, but
is not limited to, blocking streets, sidewalks
or parades or disrupting public assemblies.

Hmmm…so it sounds like a large group of people protesting could not be on the streets or the sidewalks or they can given a citation/and or arrest. So, they have two choices. They can either levitate so they’re not on the streets or sidewalks, or come wearing costumes and tell the cops they’re doing street theater.

Can I be cited or arrested during a

demonstration?

Yes, if you engage in unlawful behavior
including, but not limited to, such as
blocking streets, sidewalks or parades,
disrupting public assemblies or ignoring
lawful orders to disperse.

Okey-Dokey, so unlawful behavior is defined as blocking streets…check, sidewalks or parades…check, disrupting public assemblies…check, or ignoring lawful order to disperse…check. I’ve got it now. Let’s not forget the vague text that arrest is not limited to just that, they can also arrest you if you look like you aren’t “unified” with the DNC. In other words, you have no civil liberties in the eyes of the Denver Police or in the eyes of Howard Dean, Barrack Obama, Donna Brazille, or Nancy Pelosi. Check and double check.

The American Civil Liberties Union seemed to be a bit dismayed. They want to know where the bathrooms are, will the “prisoners” have something to eat or drink (they were not told how long they will hold the protesters in these barbed wire cages), will they have access to their lawyers, and will they have telephones? Details….details, who needs details when you have flyer’s, police in riot gear, and barbed wire cages?

“They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way!”-The Untouchables/1987

NOTES ABOUT THE DNC: It seems that after Obama took over the DNC and got his hands on their mailing list, he sent out an e-mail telling Democrats to give to his campaign and not the DNC. Well, since he decided that he didn’t want their public funding, they are now virtually broke. The money they have will barely cover the payroll and a few field advisor’s. There will not be enough cash to be able to fund thousands of field offices, like they have in the past. Ooops! Larry Johnson has a post that tells you all about it.

More bad news for the DNC….

Sen. John McCain has so much spare cash on hand — he collected a record $27 million in July — that the Republican candidate plans to run campaign ads during the networks’ coverage of the Democratic National Convention later this month.

Because Mr. McCain has agreed to accept $84 million in public financing for the general election, the presumptive presidential nominee has only until Sept. 4, when he accepts his party’s nomination, to spend the more than $21 million he has on hand.

“We continue to have record months of fundraising. This is now the fifth month in a row that we have exceeded the month before,” said McCain campaign manager Rick Davis. The candidate’s advertising budget for August is expected to exceed $20 million, he said, and, by the Republican convention, Mr. McCain is on track to spend some $60 million on TV advertising during the whole primary campaign.

Hat tip to Pat Racimora of No Quarter for the info on the Denver Police flyer.

Another hat tip to Uppity Woman who also wrote about Gitmo on the Platte, her blog is always chock full of up to the moment news about this election.

(NOTE: I’m sorry, but due to a family emergency, I will not be here to respond to your comments, please forgive my absence and thank you for reading my post!)

All of Colorado is preparing itself for the Democratic National Convention. Denver is already filling up with anxious participants.  The Secret Service is said to be camped out on downtown rooftops.

Some Hillary supporters are arriving in hopes of seeing her name on the ballot, in one form or another. Other people, including the Just Say No Deal/Pumas, and other former Hillary supporters, are coming to protest the corruption we all witnessed at the top of the Democratic Party. Tensions are running high, and groups opposing the takeover of the Party are gearing up to make our voices heard, especially PUMAPAC and The Denver Group. 

Of course, supporters of the presumptuous nominee are arriving with their “Denver or Bust” bumper stickers. And there’s a report today in the Denver Post that tickets to the coronation are being sold for over three grand. 

As registration for free tickets available to see Sen. Barack Obama at Invesco Field at Mile High ends today, a pair of tickets are going for $3,650 at an online ticket-auction site, reports Chuck Plunkett.”There are another four days to go on the auction, and I expect to see people bid it up at the end,” Eric Baker, chief executive of the auction site, Viagogo, said Monday.

“It’s hard to imagine a political candidate generating that sort of excitement,” Baker said. “Never would it have occurred to me that a political speech would have a secondary market.”      

But Focus on the Family, the evangelical group based in Colorado Springs, is hoping to disrupt the Reichsparteitag at Invesco Field with the help of a “higher power.” The Denver Channel describes the video::

Focus on the Family Action has pulled a video from its Web site that had asked people to pray for “rain of biblical proportions” during Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field on Aug. 28.      

While the video has been pulled from their website due to protests it’s available on YouTube, and below, for your viewing pleasure. Politics does indeed make for strange bedfellows. Let it rain!  

At least one of the attacks in the latest wave of blog shutdowns this past week came from IPs assigned to barackobama.com.

This leaves us with an unanswered question. Who or what caused the “malfunction” in Sitemeter?

But then a number of liberal blogs and Instapundit claim there is no connection to the Obama canpaign and the latest wave of blog shutdowns. This is patently untrue in at least one case now.

More on that:

We came across this post by MacRanger at MacsMind [MacsMind Hacking UPDATE] yesterday, where Mac presents “one fact that can’t be explained away”.

On July 22-25 Macsmind was DOS’d (Denial of Service) that originated from three IP addresses that are assigned to Barack Obama’s website. This isn’t a theory but was confirmed via law enforcement through an inspection of the site logs from those dates. The IP address in question; 66.39.4.254 66.39.143.229 216.146.206.181, are all registered via “Go Daddy” under the name barackobama.com.

On those dates, beginning at At 5:48PM Central on the 22nd, the hosted server that contained our site was hit by a 1.6 gigabyte flood of illegitimate traffic. The attacks never abated and only stopped when our host provider took us off line.

Spam traffic originating from three IPs assigned to the barackobama.com would seem to be compelling evidence to the disinterested reader. We haven’t been able to reach MacRanger yet, but the real question isn’t “Is the Obama camp involved in this?”

It’s “Will this story be publicized?”

MacsMind finishes with

Speculation is one thing, but facts are another. This time however we’ve taken protective measures to prevent this from happening again. Additionally the investigation will continue and appropriate interstate authorities have been notified.

Here is a comment from a user of MacsMind and other sites like Atlas Shrugged. Here is what was said:

What the hell is going on? Is someone hacking a bunch of conservative bloggers?

We know this attack was on Sitemeter users. But the above instance from MacsMind can’t be explained away, so easily!

Texas Hill Country has this take on the attacks:

“Translation: People using computers at the Barack Obama Campaign are using them to systematically hack, attack and shut down websites that don’t agree with him. This is so messed up. It’s some Orewellian type business and it’s stuff like this that makes Obama scary as hell…”

I am no computer geek and new to blogging. As a matter of fact I hunt and peck to type….but I had to give pause to this case of blog shutdown. Since when do campaigns attempt to shutter free speech! Obama who has claimed to be a Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Chicago in the past, actually a “lecturer”, now appears to be trampling on that same Constitution in this case.

Shame on you Obama!

What I love best about No Quarter is the smart, lively debate about issues of critical concern, the colorful and flamboyant language that is often enough wildly clever and can be knee-slapping funny, and the fact that it does not shut out visitors simply for disagreeing with each other or the author of the post. (Some current blogs—including larger ones–only allow comments that support their agenda.)

But, beware of Trolls who can ruin the party. Trolls have been around since the Internet began, sort of like how maggots emerge from good fruit. The usual definition is someone who has no real interest in lively debate but rather aims to sabotage the post by making irrelevant, often inflammatory diatribes that disrupt the communication process.

The Obama Trolls are out in full force, and it remains inconceivable that the campaign has not attempted to spray them with a pesticide. On the contrary, the Obama campaign actually hired 400 of them to engage, we presume, in disruptive folly, usually to take the story messages way off track and turn the post into an adolescent food fight instead of a place where vigorous but substantive debate thrives.

There are several types of trolls, which I summarize for your possible edification.

1. “Onramp Hog,” the Hijacker Troll. This spiteful little menace lurks around for a new blog entry and then makes the first comment without even bothering to read the post. The missive is always off-topic, or it is inflammatory or provocative and totally unrelated to the purpose of the main story. This piggy hijacks the post because others immediately react to Onramp Hogs’ bait and interest is diverted away from the original authors’ efforts. It is often difficult or impossible to bring the discussion back on track again. Onramp Hogs probably have no life.

2. “Snot” the Mucilage Troll. Snot is posting Obama talking points wherever it can stick them. Whether the subject of the original post is relevant is immaterial to Snot. Snot probably gets paid for every time it does its blow job.

3. “Alligator Tears,” the Concern Troll who plays like it is on your side, but attempts to persuade readers by pretending to share their goals. This dainty nuisance may take a while to spot, but true colors emerge as the discussion begins to shift. It hates being called out, and quickly disappears once its ruse is discovered. Alligator Tears are usually just annoying, like a “noseeum” that gets in your face at picnics.

4. “Anchovy” the Bait Troll. Anchovy purposely sets people off with an emotional or inflammatory post. This slimy little fish is easy to spot, but sometimes difficult to resist because its comments are so profane or inflammatory. Anchovy Troll needs an outlet and is probably seriously constipated.

5. “Leak” the Mole Troll. You won’t see this lurker because it doesn’t stick its head out, but it is reporting back to the opposition’s camp. Remember, the Internet is a vast highway far wider that the lane you are driving in, so anything you say can get back to the source.

6. “Masturbator” the Sock Puppet Troll. Masturbator uses pseudonyms to add friendly comments to its own blog comments and rises to the defense of the itself, pick fights with those who disagree with it (and sometimes with itself), and frequently praises the brilliance of itself. Masturbator is not getting laid in real life, hence the substitute activity.

7. “Junker” the Spamming Troll. Junker inserts its own agenda into posts, usually irrelevant to the original post. Junker would probably be an Onramp Hog if it could get in as the first post, but is content to insert its irrelevancies anywhere in the thread.

8. “Outhouse” the ID Troll. Outhouse “outs” other bloggers (sometimes also members of their families) by revealing their true identities in malicious ways. Because this can cause real harm to real people, Outhouse may get into legal trouble. Outhouse is a piece of shit. (Can you tell that I have been hit by one of these menaces who, itself, hides behind a pseudonym on Daily Kos? Fortunately my boss is very understanding.)

9. “Snatch” the Identity-Snapping Troll (Pictured above). Uses other real people’s names to embarrass or misrepresent their views. This exceptionally nasty practice can only be attributed to a ruthless coward. Legal action is warranted. You wouldn’t want to know a Snatch in real life.

Best to never feed a troll.

There are many noble sentiments expressed in that speech so I won’t take issue with it on its face. Then again, with 20 speechwriters, including some who worked for Kennedy, invoking the great specters of Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington and Roosevelt and our noble goals for America, how can you go wrong?

The problem, therefore, is not with the speech, but with the man delivering it.

I hate to give the cretin Chris Matthews any oxygen whatsoever, but I must say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. At one point during the primary, he said in reference to the Obama campaign : “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

And here again, Obama is explaining. For me, more at issue than his patriotism are his qualifications. But if he feels he needs to take the time to make sure people know how patriotic he is, well, he doth protest too much, methinks:

“So let me say this at the outset of my remarks, I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand by when I hear others question mine.”

To wit, his speech, in which he spoke about the struggles of America and how, though we fall short of the ideals of our founding fathers, we are still the best country on earth and will always reach for those goals.

So what noble goal is Senator Obama pursuing then, that allows him and his surrogates to call none other than William Jefferson Clinton a racist and smear his legacy, bamboozling those too young to remember how much good Bill and Hillary did for the African American community, and certainly America as a whole, as Obama urges voters to forget about eight years of peace and prosperity, a balanced budget, a surplus in the hundreds of billions and lower unemployment.

He allows his surrogates to unjustly tear down those encroaching upon him and then stands nobly above the fray so he can deliver pretty speeches like this, unhampered and seemingly innocent.

He cautions that our government is piling up mountains of debt, putting off changes to our energy policies and “placing short term interests ahead of the nation’s long-term well being.” How is it then that he voted in favor of Bush/Cheney’s energy bill while both Senators Clinton and McCain voted against it? Why does Obama trash the policies of good Democrats only to tout Reaganomics – the era of junk bonds, double digit interest rates and an end to the Fairness Doctrine.

He eloquently discussed Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘a patriot who led the movement to help America confront her tragic history of racial injustice, and the young soldier who first spoke about the prisoner abuse at Abu Graib.’ Patriotic, too.

He then spoke in glowing terms about John McCain’s patriotism and service to his country, right after General Wesley Clark – surely at the Obama campaign’s behest – was dispatched to Face The Nation on Sunday to say that McCain’s service and sacrifice, while great and honorable, did not necessarily qualify him to be President. When the sound bite did not play well, it was at that point, Obama threw General Clark, also a patriot, under the bus.

Ironically, he also mentions the tragedy now occurring in Zimbabwe, where a corrupt leader and his young followers, are threatening those who do not vote for him with death. Certainly, I am by no means equating their situation with ours.

Surely, we don’t have to fear danger in this country if we vote our conscience, but the threats, harassment and rudeness some of Senator Clinton’s supporters have received at the hand of Senator Obama’s more reckless followers and ‘blogger boyz’ doesn’t seem in keeping with the spirit of independence, liberty and unity Senator Obama is discussing.

Why has he never used his powerful and soaring rhetoric to stand up and tell those guilty of this abusive behavior that this would absolutely not be tolerated in this new post-partisan world he is forging? Rather he has advantaged himself by their crude behavior, and he was also all too happy to have a complicit media chime in and help trash Senator Clinton and her voters to the bargain.

He mentions Harry Truman, yet does not seem dedicated enough to carry out Truman’s wishes in aiming to providing health care for every American, as Senator Obama’s plan would clearly leave about 16 million out.

He speaks of his mother reading the Declaration of Independence to him as a child: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.” Admirable for a mother to share that with her young son. Well, we are all created equal.

Since he’s brought it up, why then, if he is such a champion of equality and a champion of women, are the women on Senator Obama’s campaign staff earning significantly less than the men? Actually, John McCain employs more women on his staff than men, and the women are paid higher salaries than their male counterparts. So who is the progressive here? Who speaks to equality for all?

As Senator Obama asks how we restore our faith in government that seems increasingly removed from its people and dominated by special interests, he would be well served to ask himself why he campaigned on a platform he seems determined now to repudiate and run from. His capitulation on FISA and reneging on his promise to use public campaign financing spring immediately to mind.

While he is waxing poetic about patriotism, he would also do well to look in the mirror and ask himself why, if he, as Teddy Kennedy put it, embodies the nobler aspirations of the American people – is Senator Obama so divisive, instead of a uniting force?

Why have he and his surrogates spent months denigrating those who did not vote for him? Bitter, clueless, uneducated, racist, Archie Bunkers, over the hill, Hillary hags and the like. How is this behavior befitting of the patriot and great leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., whose name he constantly evokes as if he is so ready to follow in his footsteps?

Senator Obama is the presumptive nominee. Supposedly the standard bearer of our party. Why, then, would he allow the DNC to use the talking point that those who will not vote for him are afraid of him because of his race? Why always excuses and blame?

Perhaps some do not feel he is qualified for the office with his paper thin resume and a voting record that thus far, have not exhibited moral courage or a firm stand on the issues.

A leader capable of the unifying qualities Obama discusses so beautifully in his speech and purports to possess must understand how to reach out to others, to give of him or herself and make this election about the voters, to humble himself if necessary by reaching out to people with whom he has not yet been able to find a connection. True leadership does not disparage. It is not arrogant or aloof. It seeks solutions, not excuses.

I cannot help but feel that his speeches, filled with rich imagery, are meant to distract from the issue at hand, rather than to focus on it. The issue was, is, and will remain Senator Obama and whether he is ready and fit to lead this country in conquering the struggles that we face.

We don’t need smoke and mirrors or a distraction. We don’t need any more lofty generalities in this country. We have had enough of words that accomplish little.

I don’t have a problem with his words. I have misgivings about actions that do not match the rhetoric. As we approach Independence Day, it is important for all of us to remember the rights all our ancestors fought for, regardless of our backgrounds or respective heritage.

The freedoms we enjoy today will only be maintained in full if we continue to be vigilant and voice our concerns, protest when we must and hold our leaders’ feet to the fire. That includes holding Senator Obama’s feet to the fire when he does an about face on the very things he pretends to stand for, purporting to be so liberal while cozying up to big business and ignoring the working people of this country and now, too, those on the left who elevated and supported his campaign in the first place.

Patriotism is about many things. It is about courage. It is about unshakeable principles. I have heard it said that you will never know what your principles truly are until they become inconvenient to you.

Unfortunately, Senator Obama has thus far shown that what becomes inconvenient also becomes immediately disposable. How patriotic is that?

____________________________

When Carissa Snedeker went to log into her Blogspot account Wednesday evening at about 7:30, she had no idea what would be waiting for her. She had created her blog, Blue Lyon, three years ago and up until this point had very few problems posting new content. But this time a message from Google came up when she visited her dashboard.

“This blog has been locked due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations,” the message stated. “You may not publish new posts until your blog is reviewed and unlocked.”

When Snedeker clicked on the link at the bottom of the message she came to another one that told her that her blog “has characteristics of a spam blog” and, because of this, it had been locked. It allowed her the chance to send an “unlock request” but told her she’d have to wait up to four business days before someone at Google could review her blog and confirm it wasn’t publishing spam.

“At first I thought it was just this random thing with Blogger’s spam bots,” she told me in a phone interview. “I thought that perhaps in their looking across the blogger universe, that I got accidentally flagged somehow. Stuff like that happens.”

But a short time later Snedeker received an email from another blogger claiming that a number of anti-Obama blogs had been “hacked” that same night. After some digging it became apparent that several Blogspot accounts had been shut down because of similar spam issues, and nearly all of them had three things in common: Most were pro-Hillary Clinton blogs, all were anti-Barack Obama, and several were listed on justsaynodeal.com, an anti-Obama website.

A “Flag Blog” link sits at the very top of every free Blogspot account.

If a person finds objectionable content on a Blogspot site or suspects it’s publishing spam, he or she can click on the link and it will send a notice to Google requesting “human review.”

I spoke to several of the bloggers who had accounts locked and every single one was convinced that it was Obama supporters who had flagged the blogs in some kind of concerted effort to silence them. But when I asked for specific evidence of this, most simply pointed out that only anti-Obama blogs were targeted — a fact that is certainly suspicious but not especially conclusive.

The incident highlights the often-contentious relationship between online Hillary and Obama supporters. Popular sites like Digg.com have consistently posted anti-Hillary links and popular liberal blog Daily Kos experienced a “boycott” a few months ago when several Hillary supporters left the site.

A blogger who uses the pseudonym “GeekLove” (she wouldn’t agree to a phone interview and wouldn’t tell me her real name) said to me via email that when her blog, Come A Long Way, was shut down she thought it was a fluke as well.

“I also felt a little bit humiliated that someone would think to characterize my Blog as ’spam,’” she said. “I had no idea why it would be ’spam’ I assumed it was just some sort of mistake. I did think it was an isolated incident. I requested the Blogger review. I then went to the Hillary Clinton Forum, a place I frequently participate in on line discussions, and I saw Nobama’s post ‘Blogger just shut down my NObama Blog!!‘ Then when other Blogger blogs were affected, I knew it was more than coincidence.”

Like the others I spoke to, she immediately became convinced that Obama supporters were behind the outages.

“I suspect that it was Obama supporters because I think the block was timed to affect blogs prior to the unity event so that we would not ‘rain on the unity parade,’ GeekLove said. “Also, Obama has ads out hiring people with no experience, except the ability to use computers. I presume these are the individuals responsible for silencing any opposition. His campaign has really harnessed the power of the internet and in the process learned to game the system in a way that I find frightening.”

When it comes to butting heads with Obama supporters, perhaps nobody has more experience than Larry Johnson. If his name rings a bell, it’s because Johnson, who worked for the CIA in the ’80s and now does military consulting, was the origin of the famous “whitey” claim. Not long ago he reported on his website that people connected with the McCain campaign are in possession of video footage of Michelle Obama saying derogatory things about white people. However, he admitted that he hadn’t actually seen the video and his two sources hadn’t seen it either. He quickly became a target of bloggers from both the right and left.

Several of the bloggers hit by the Blogspot outage also write at his site, No Quarter, and so Johnson has been watching the controversy with interest. Like the others, he believes wholeheartedly that Obama supporters are behind the “attack,” and he told me in a phone interview that his website had experienced similar problems a few months ago.

“We were contacted by our host in March and they claimed we were draining too many resources,” he said. “They shut us down completely. But when we went in to look at our site statistics it was evident that something else was clearly going on — we were the subject of some kind of spam attack that was putting a strain on the site.”

To ward off such attacks, he decided to go with his own server, a move that he said would make it harder to shut him down. But after he published the “whitey” claims, he had more direct conflicts with Obama supporters.

“The problem with these people who had their Google accounts shut down, they’re intimidated by it,” Johnson said. “They don’t want to get themselves in a situation so they would be identified. Some of these people who get identified, the Obama folks start picking up the phone and calling. I had phone calls into my office, threatening me, saying that you’re going to be fired, let me talk to your boss. I told them to go fuck themselves, because I am my own boss. It helps to be self-employed.”

Johnson and the other people interviewed for this article all agreed that Google was partly to blame for the outages. It was because of the search giant’s “guilty until proven innocent” approach, they said, that allowed the attackers to shut down the blogs so easily.

“My biggest objection is not necessarily that these people did this, but that Blogger had the policy that basically locks you out,” Snedeker said. “In other words you’re guilty until proven innocent, instead of the other way around, and that was what frustrated me.”

“I understand the need if you have some complaints from people that you need to investigate it,” Johnson said. “But you also have to make sure that the person filing the complaint is legitimate.”

An email I sent to Google requesting comment was not immediately returned. Nearly all the bloggers who were targeted by this spam crusade are not waiting around for their accounts to be restored. They’ve flocked to Wordpress and opened free accounts there (including Blue Lyon and Come A Long Way), and they don’t have any immediate plans to return to their original URLs once the dust settles.

What’s perhaps even more notable is that none of the people I spoke to is planning any kind of backlash against Obama supporters. It seemed to me that, for the most part, they just want to be left alone.

“While I am expressing my political beliefs, on Blogger it was a simple push of a button to mark my blog as spam and silence me,” GeekLove said. ” Pushing the button set me back a couple of days and I was unable to post anything during the unity event. The prospect of starting over on another blog was also daunting [and] I briefly, only briefly considered [giving] up blogging. Tactics like this work to silence opposition, why wouldn’t we expect more of that in the future?”

Contact me at simon.bloggasm@gmail.com :: Blog: Bloggasm.com

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Editor’s Note: Check out Larry Johnson’s story published here last night, “Obama Thugs, In League with Google, Bully Bloggers.”