Barack Obama’s Vetting Through Association

Bill Ayers is shown in 1982 with wife Bernardine Dohrn and their son, Zayd Dohrn, then 4. Image Credit: By David Handschuh -- Associated Press

Barack Obama’s Vetting Through Association

Most people who have a complaint about the Junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, say that he has not been around long enough to have built a record ... upon which one can judge the underpinnings of the decision-making of the man.

Information has surfaced recently about the friends and associations of this Senator and Democrat candidate for President of the United States. This information should cause one to pause and reflect on the fact some vetting has indeed taken place.

This vetting through association should not be confused with “Guilt Through Association” because this focus does not have to take into account what Barack Obama actually thinks … it has everything to do with what these people, their background and what they think, and further, what they think about Barack Obama.

This vetting is in the form of the judgments of the people who know him best. They have worked with him, taught him, served on committees with him. They embrace him as their choice for the leader of the “Free World”.

The people we, at MAXINE, are talking about are the former radical SDS/Weather Underground members William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn (Ayers’ wife), Tony Rezko, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. of the Trinity United Church of Christ. The first two names are of greater trouble than the latter.

This excerpted from Hugh Hewitt and other collateral supplied from his blog –

William Ayers at the time of his arrest.

Underground links likely to resurface for Obama
John Kass - Chicago Tribune - April 23, 2008

This story involves two Chicagoans, former Weather Underground terrorist leaders Bernardine Dohrn and her husband, William Ayers, both Obama supporters who blessed his initial foray into politics. Last week, the unrepentant Ayers became a flash point in Obama's debate with Hillary Clinton.

"And what they [Weather Underground] did was set bombs and in some instances people died," said Clinton, sweetly playing the white terrorist card. "I know Sen. Obama is a good man and I respect him greatly, but I think this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.”

And why shouldn't they?
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But no association is above question for a candidate, whether Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Illinois political fixer Tony Rezko, or Ayers and Dohrn.
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Broadway Baby was implicated in an investigation of a series of violent armed robberies in New York—netting more than $2 million over a two-year span—committed by former Black Panthers and Weather Underground members in the early '80s.

Their aim? Global revolution, naturally. They needed cash, but the rich white parents weren't in a giving mood. So their privileged offspring grabbed guns, pointed them at the faces of the working man and, sometimes, they pulled the trigger.

At Broadway Baby, customers often paid by check and used driver's licenses for identification. On Dec. 28, 1979, information from two customer files was used to apply for two driver's licenses at the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. The fraudulent licenses were used to rent getaway cars for the gang.

Investigators tracked the identities on two licenses for the getaway cars. The names belonged to women who had shopped at Broadway Baby in December 1979. But they weren't robbers.

And who was the manager of Broadway Baby during that period of the customer ID theft?

Dohrn, the future wife of Ayers, identified by investigators as taking customer information from one, and possibly both, of the women shoppers. Dohrn was never charged in that case.

Dohrn and Ayers had been running for some 11 years, fleeing federal charges that they instigated riots in Chicago in 1969.

They finally came in out of the cold in 1980, but the New York gang continued its spree, ending in the bloody 1981 robbery in Rockland County that left a Brinks security guard and two police officers dead.

The federal charges from the riots were finally dropped because the FBI used illegal wiretaps. But the local charge of aggravated assault stuck to Dohrn. She pleaded guilty to two counts, receiving a $1,500 fine and no jail time

In 1982, Dohrn was brought before a federal grand jury investigating radical conspiracies linked to the New York robberies. She refused to cooperate or to provide a signature sought by FBI handwriting analysts. Dohrn was held in contempt of the grand jury and imprisoned for seven months.

A few years later, Ayers got his job as a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. And Dohrn was employed at the Children and Family Justice Center affiliated with Northwestern University's School of Law.

I've always been fascinated as to how the radical underground stop running and get jobs in academia. Is there a Terrorist Patronage Office for Rich White People? And how did a convicted Dohrn get hired to teach at a law school?
Reference Here>>

Bernardine Dohrn at the time of her arrest.

Former '60s Radical Is Now Considered Mainstream in Chicago
By Peter Slevin - Washington Post Staff Writer - Friday, April 18, 2008

In the 1960s, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn saw themselves as urban guerrillas who just might be able to overthrow the U.S. government and force an end to the Vietnam War. They were members of the Weather Underground, a radical offshoot of the antiwar movement, who went into hiding for a decade after a bomb accidentally exploded, killing three members of the group.

Nearly 30 years after surrendering to police, Ayers and Dohrn, both in their 60s, are tenured university professors whose work on school reform and juvenile justice have won them bipartisan respect.

Ayers is an informal adviser to Mayor Richard M. Daley and has been awarded more than $50 million in charitable grants for his promotion of small schools as a solution to a crisis in education. Dohrn lectures widely on children's law and serves on a variety of boards and committees. Together, they have raised three boys in the intellectual haven of Hyde Park, where Sen. Barack Obama is a neighbor.

For months, their connection to the Democratic presidential candidate -- they hosted a gathering for him in 1995 when he first ran for the state Senate and later contributed $200 to his reelection campaign -- has been a source of growing anger among conservatives.
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"I don't condone what he did 40 years ago, but I remember that period well," said Daley, an Obama supporter whose father, Richard J. Daley, was a favorite target of the antiwar movement when he was mayor in the '60s. "It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep refighting 40-year-old battles."

Their pasts have hardly escaped Ayers and Dohrn. After Sept. 11, 2001, alumni at the universities where the two teach protested their presence and said the couple were unrepentant.
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This is a community that has regularly elected former Black Panther Bobby Rush (D) to Congress and mostly sees Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as the onetime heart of an established African American church with thousands of members.
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Ayers and Dohrn did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment. In an April 6 posting on his blog, Ayers described his reaction to his intermittent celebrity as conservative pundits hammered him for his Weather Underground past and his comment in a New York Times profile, published by coincidence on Sept. 11, 2001, that he did not regret his militant tactics.

"Day in and day out," he wrote, "I go about my business, I hang out with my kids and my grandchildren, take care of the elders, I go to work, I teach and I write, I organize and I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful movement for peace and social justice."

The Weather Underground claimed responsibility for roughly a dozen bombings. Targets included the Pentagon, the Capitol, police stations, banks and courthouses. Beyond the three conspirators killed in 1970 when a bomb exploded prematurely, no one was injured in a campaign defined by what one critic has called "immensely bad ideas and dreadful tactics."
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Dohrn pleaded guilty to a state charge and later served seven months for refusing to give a handwriting sample to federal authorities. She told a reporter that the FBI already had a sample, and that she considered grand juries "illegal and coercive."
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When Obama was asked about Ayers during Wednesday's debate, he described him as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood." He said he does not exchange ideas with him "on a regular basis."

The two men served for three years on the board of the Woods Fund, an anti-poverty group. The board, which Obama has since left, was small and collegial, said chair Laura Washington, who served with them. It met four times a year for a half-day, mostly to approve grants, she said. The atmosphere was "friendly but businesslike."
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Under fire on Wednesday, Obama questioned the relevance of Ayers's past to his candidacy: "The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense."
Reference Here>>

Both Ayers and Dohrn were recently recorded making statements that would cause the average person to ask … “What is former about the nature of the radical statements made and recorded just five months ago in November 2007?”

Sample Transcript Excerpts:

Ayers and Dohrn address a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) reunion in November 2007 – a reunion of a radical, liberal, socialist, communist, terrorist, Anti-American action group formed in the 1960’s.

William Ayers, on America - "Empire resurrected, and unapologetic, war without end. An undefined enemy that is supposed to be a rallying point for a new kind of energized jingoistic patriotism. Unprecedented and unapologetic military expansion, white supremacy changing its form … but essentially intact.

Attacks on women, and girls --- violent attacks. Growing surveillance in every sphere of our lives, on and on and on, the targeting of gay and lesbian people as a kind of a scapegoating gesture, to keep our minds off of what is really happening."

Bernadine Dohrn on working politically in America - At the same 2007 SDS reunion, Dohrn quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., referring to the US government as "the greatest purveyor of violence" in the world. She says she believes this sentiment to be true today. She tells the audience that living in America constitutes living in "the belly of the beast" and "the heart of the monster."

Full Audio Of Past And Present Statements Here>>

Video, With Statements From Dohrn Here>>

Ann Coulter's thoughts on how this information relates to, "Her Girl", Hillary Clinton and a perspective as to how this should apply to Barack Obama.

Excerpted from Human Events:

You Don't Need A Weatherman to Know Which Candidate Blows
by Ann Coulter - Posted: 04/23/2008

On one hand, Obama pals around with terrorists. On the other hand, Hillary pals around with James Carville. Advantage: Obama.

Asked why he would be friends with the likes of Weatherman Bill Ayers, Obama said: "The notion that ... me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense."

That's a slick answer -- even "Clintonian"! -- but the problem is, Ayers and his Weatherman wife, Bernadine Dohrn, won't stop boasting about their days as Weathermen.

It's not simply that they haven't repented. To the contrary, those were their glory days! And Ayers isn't just someone who lives in the neighborhood: He and Dohrn were there at the inception of Obama's political career, hosting a fundraiser for Obama at their home back in 1995.
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At one rally, Dohrn famously praised the Manson family for murdering Sharon Tate and others, shouting: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild!"

In a better country, just saying "Dig it!" in public would get you 20 years in the slammer.
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At other rallies, Dohrn said, "Bring the revolution home, kill your parents -- that's where it's at."
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So in addition to being stupid and violent, the Weathermen were also incompetent terrorists.

Would that Timothy McVeigh had been so inept!

If he [Timothy McVeigh] had only said he bombed the building in Oklahoma City to protest American "imperialism," McVeigh, too, could be teaching at Northwestern University, sitting on a board with and holding fundraisers for presidential candidate B. Hussein Obama.
Reference Here>>

The views held as expressed through the statements and actions of Ayers and Dohrn, are NOT the views of America held here, at MAXINE ... are these views, yours?

One last addendum:

Guy Benson is the young producer that has assisted in helping Hugh Hewitt on the Ayers/Dohrn collateral materials. Guy dug up the 2007 tape of William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn speaking at an SDS reunion, audio of which debuted on the Sandy Rios Show which Guy produces, then on my show, Hannity & Colmes, Laura Ingraham.

Benson has now posted a column analyzing Senator Obama's responses to the Obama-Ayers-Dohrn connections.

- PLEASE Read The Whole Article -

We, at MAXINE, are dumbfound struck at how these people have not evolved one inch in a life and world that has advanced and evolved forty years from when these folks gained their fame.

In the video above, Bill Ayers wears a FREE MINDS t-shirt, yet his mind has been LOCKED DOWN in the same mode for over forty years!

In those same forty years, for example, many of us have changed, or modified our opinions due to the temperance of time and reflection ... or just plain temperance. Again, these folks have not - - - and they think that Barack Obama is the perfect person ... their marxist based thinking process for the person ... to be the leader of the free world.

Poll Answers

From Shades Of Grey To B&W – Obama Comes Into Focus

Comparison of warm and cool shades of grey. Image Credit: Knulclunk, vectorized by Fvasconcellos

From Shades Of Grey To B&W – Obama Comes Into Focus

This rocket ship ground swell of support for Barack Obama is pretty amazing when one just stands and watches what is actually going on. The press is in the tank for Obama, he never gets questioned on any subject that requires meat to be on the bone to answer … and when he gives only a bare bones response to a difficult question, no follow-up question that would flesh out a real answer is forthcoming.

“Yes We Can”, “Change You Can Believe In”, “Moving Forward Into The Future”, “The Audacity Of Hope”, is all we are fed on the way to the Democrat Party political convention to be held this summer. No real pushback on the issues of Gay Marriage, Abortion, the tensions developing in South America, Israel and the rocket attacks of 2008, the reality of a stronger, more Communist Russia, and the changing world economic landscape.

But now, we do not have to wait on the Mainstream Media (MSM) to do this work of definition for us anymore. Barack Obama, in an unguarded yet genuine moment, captured and reported on by a “citizen journalist” posting in the Huffington Post, Barack Obama has provided us with a glimpse of the core values embedded in his belief system.

By stating to a group of Democrat Party faithful at a fundraiser in San Francisco April 6, 2008, that the way to understand a large group of voters in small town America is to first explain why they “cling” on to religious faith and principles, personal freedom and gun ownership, the dislike toward open-borders immigration, and caution in the acceptance of people different than themselves is a bitterness built as a result of a 25 year shifting economic landscape.

This opinion by Jonah Goldberg excerpted from The Los Angeles Times -

Barack Obama, the yuppie candidate
By Jonah Goldberg - April 15, 2008

Barack Obama is finally coming into focus.

For a while now, the Obamaphiles have insisted that their candidate represents a profound break with the past. No more culture wars. No more "re-litigating the 1960s," in Obama's own words.

But what about re-litigating the 1980s?

There's always been a certain cultural lag time to Barack and Michelle Obama, a kitschiness that's been hard to pinpoint. But I think I've got it: They're self-hating yuppies straight out of the 1980s, which was to the Obamas what the 1960s were to the Clintons.

For those too young to remember, "yuppie" was shorthand for young urban professionals
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Ironically, the biggest complaints about yuppie materialism came from self-loathing liberal yuppies -- like the Obamas.

The Obamas still seem stuck in that time warp, clinging to '80s-style resentments and political assumptions. Michelle Obama is never so eloquent as when she's complaining about the burden of student loans for her two Ivy League law degrees and covering the high cost of summer camp and piano lessons for her kids on her family's half-million-dollars-a-year income.
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It's Ronald Reagan -- the president of the 1980s -- who seems to loom so large in Obama's world. (Recall how last year, Obama caught some flak suggesting he might be a new Ronald Reagan.) Reagan famously restored confidence in the nation while reducing confidence in government as the solution to our problems.
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The Reagan Revolution moved the country durably to the right -- so much so that even Democrats saw the writing on the wall.
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Bill Clinton's 1992 victory stemmed from the fact that he was a "different kind of Democrat" -- that is, one who understood the lessons of Reaganism, or at least claimed to, and rejected the "brain dead policies" of the old Democratic Party. He was a pro-death-penalty free-trader who oversaw the triumph of the Reaganite critique of welfare.

It's as if Barack Obama spent the 1990s in some kind of Democratic Brigadoon -- and I guess Cambridge, Mass., and the South Side of Chicago might qualify -- and didn't keep up with his party, let alone the nation. Barack Obama, the man of the future, in fact stands athwart that history yelling "Stop."

This is the best way to understand his recent comments at a San Francisco fundraiser as he explained his challenge of connecting with rural and small town voters.

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania," he said, "and ... the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. ... It's not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Later, when his comments sparked a controversy, he dismissed it as a "little typical sort of political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true."

But everybody doesn't know anything of the sort. Not in this decade anyway. Obama's merely recycling the liberal cliches of the 1980s, namely that Pennsylvania's "bitter" voters have been duped by "wedge issues" like guns, religion and racial resentment. New Democrats recognized that wedge issues are legitimate concerns. Old Democrats remain in denial.
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Slate columnist Mickey Kaus has been waiting for Obama to "pivot" to the center as Clinton did in 1992. But it may be that America's most reliably liberal senator doesn't think he has to. He isn't a unifier. He's a counter-revolutionary. And waiting for him to pivot is like waiting for Godot.
Reference Here>>

These observations by Jonah Goldberg, we at MAXINE believe, are the best gauge on the what, why, where, when, and how a Senator Barack Obama’s presidency would look like and the shape it would take.

A counter-revolutionary Marxist willing to place socialism over personal freedom in order to bring proper definition to a group of people HE doesn’t understand or relate to ... Americans!

Barack Obama's Judgement Of Us Is A Bitter Pill To Swallow

The Modern-Day Pied Piper Of Hamlin - Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) addresses supporters during a campaign stop at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Indiana, April 11, 2008. Image Credit: REUTERS/John Sommers II

Barack Obama's Judgement Of Us Is A Bitter Pill To Swallow

Obama touched off controversy with his remarks at a closed San Francisco fundraiser over this previous weekend. The remarks became public late Friday afternoon via the very liberal internet politics posting site The Huffington Post.

He said jobs had been disappearing in small towns in Pennsylvania and across the Midwest for 25 years with nothing to replace them and that people become "bitter".

"It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," said Barack Obama.

In short, Barack Obama declared in front of a crowd of politically friendly people that one of the root causes of racism, the dislike toward open-borders immigration, the perceived need for personal gun ownership, and a deep and entrenched focus on religious principles is bitterness.

NICE!

Washington D.C. Opens New Museum - NEWSEUM

NEWSEUM At Night - The museum is set to officially Friday, April 11, 2008. Image Credit: NEWSEUM Pressroom 

Washington D.C. Opens New Museum - NEWSEUM 

Originally Published April 10, 2008 - 8:27am - Edmund Jenks, MAXINE

 The nation’s capitol city, Washington D.C., plays host to a new major museum dedicated to news, news gathering, news print, production and broadcast, news workers and memoriam, and a Newsroom where interviews are broadcast. 

 NEWSEUM – The interactive Museum Of News, is located adjacent to the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.. 

The official dedication ceremony and opening is scheduled for Friday, April 11, 2008. The Newseum features seven levels of galleries, theaters, retail spaces and visitor services. It offers a unique environment that takes museumgoers behind the scenes to experience how and why news is made.

 

A $25 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to the Newseum — the largest investment from the news community to the newest museum in the nation's capital — will honor the news legacy of the Knight brothers. The grant gives the Knight name to two broadcast studios and a conference center at the Newseum, the largest single project ever devoted to journalism and the free flow of news. Image Credit: NEWSEUM Pressroom 

This morning, NEWSEUM held one of its first broadcasts of a live news conference from a studio inside the museum. 

The joint news conference began with statements from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the status of conditions in Iraq, followed by questions fielded from the audience (presumably museumgoers and actual reporters) as a final appearance after their debriefing reports delivered to the Senate and Congress over the last couple of days.

5 Freedoms Walkway - Image Credit: NEWSEUM Pressroom

This excerpted from the NEWSEUM website – 

Newseum Blends High-Tech With Historical 

The Newseum — a 250,000-square-foot museum of news — offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits. ---- 

"Visitors will come away with a better understanding of news and the important role it plays in all of our lives," said Newseum Executive Director and Senior Vice President Joe Urschel. "The new Newseum is educational, inspirational and a whole lot of fun." ---- 

What They're Saying - A look at media coverage of the Newseum 

“Were he alive today, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have appreciated the Newseum, opening April 11 on the last revitalized site along Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest. 

He spearheaded the four-decade-long effort to revive the inaugural parade route with distinguished buildings and open spaces worthy of “America’s Main Street.” The Newseum caps his vision with contemporary architecture far bolder than the last major design completed on the street. … It is sheathed in glass, not masonry, to reveal some of its activity inside and counter the sealed-up monumentality so prevalent in Washington.” 

— Deborah K. Dietsch, The Washington Times “An endless network of corridors and theaters contains a wealth of news materials that are, at least to someone of my generation, a wonderful and moving evocation of the past. … The Newseum is an attic simply packed with fascinating stuff.” 

— Robert Campbell, The Boston Globe “The new incarnation of the Newseum is dazzling, innovative and absorbing, a first-class addition to the capital's cultural institutions.” 

— Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post “From every frenetic corner, the Newseum fairly shouts, ‘News is necessary to a functioning democracy. News is fun, news is cool, news matters.’” 

— Maria Puente, USA Today “Many Washington museums document the nation’s history. ... As it elevates and illuminates the usually gritty, sometimes glamorous work of the press, the Newseum looks set to give its neighbors some competition.” 

— Owen Phillips, Men's Vogue The Newseum is "among the most prominent" museums in the world, "perched on the last buildable site on the presidential inaugural parade route between the Capitol and the White House. And it is one of the most ambitious, both in design and aspiration." 

— Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times "At a time when journalists are reeling from scathing rebukes and public skepticism about their profession, the gleaming Newseum is poised to become a welcome reminder of all that's good about the business." 

— Jessica Meyers, American Journalism Review "The importance of the First Amendment is hard to miss at the Newseum: Visitors are greeted with a three-story-high engraving of the amendment's words next to the front entrance. ... The new location has a commanding view of the Capitol." 

— APME Gazette "The Newseum will be particularly exciting because officials expect it will be a place to spot news personalities and newsmakers alike." 

— Elizabeth Brotherton, Roll Call ----

NBC Newsroom - Image Credit: NEWSEUM Pressroom

 

KNIGHT FOUNDATION JOINS NEWSEUM'S FOUNDING PARTNERS WITH A LEAD CONTRIBUTION OF $25 MILLION 

Conference Center, Broadcast Studios to Be Named in Honor of Knight Brothers WASHINGTON — 

A $25 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to the Newseum — the largest investment from the news community to the newest museum in the nation's capital — will honor the news legacy of the Knight brothers.  

Opening April 11 on Pennsylvania Avenue, the new 250,000-square-foot, interactive museum of news will remind generations of Washington visitors of the importance of the First Amendment, free speech and the role of the media in a free society. 

The grant gives the Knight name to two broadcast studios and a conference center at the Newseum, the largest single project ever devoted to journalism and the free flow of news. ---- 

"The Newseum will immediately become one of the most important platforms for discussion of free speech in America," said Alberto Ibargüen, president of Knight Foundation. "We want to be part of that conversation, we want our journalism grantees to be part of that conversation and we want the values the Knight brothers stood for and defended to be integral to that conversation." ---- 

Once opened, the new museum's two Knight broadcast studios, including the Pennsylvania Avenue Studio overlooking the U.S. Capitol, will be the location of top-flight news programs and civic dialogue on the issues of the day. 

"Millions of Americans travel to the National Mall to learn more how to be an American," said Steiger, editor in chief of ProPublica. "It's fitting for the Fourth Estate to take up residence there." Knight Foundation joins a host of supporters from news and journalism contributing to the Newseum, including the Annenberg Foundation, The New York Times, News Corporation, Cox Enterprises, Hearst Corporation, ABC News, NBC News and Time Warner. ----

KSAS-TV Channel 5 News Heliocopter - Image Credit: NEWSEUM Pressroom 

Addmission Hours 

The Newseum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. 

2008 General Admission Rates * • Adults (13 to 64): $20 * • Seniors (65 and older): $18 * • Youth (7 to 12): $13 * • Children (6 and younger): Free * • Group discounts are available. School Groups Public and private school students in grades 1–12 in The Washington Post metropolitan market receive free, general admission through March 31, 2009. 

To qualify, schools must make group reservations in advance. The schools must be located in one of the jurisdictions listed below. College and university student groups located in the same areas listed below also receive free admission through March 31, 2009. To qualify, colleges must make group reservations in advance. 

Reference Here>>

One Question: 

(spawned after a review of the names of supporters contributing to the NEWSEUM) 

Will the New Media spur of the “fourth estate” get its own Wing and Blogging studio? 

 Anytime soon?

 

NowPublic Awarded

UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE 

NEWSEUM closes it's doors for good on February 19, 2021 - and in this age of Social Media censoring, dubious "Fact Checking", and account suspension/cancellation along with outright social portal de-platforming from server farms (as what happened with the 1 Billion dollar social media platform PARLER being pulled off of Amazon Web Services server farm - without notice or cause given tenants of Free Speech) supported by America's Fourth Estate - this is good.

Yes, the Newseum’s First Amendment Tablet Is Coming Down. 

No, It’s Not Because Democracy Has Failed.

The 50-ton, 74-foot-tall marble tablet is going into storage, and maybe someday, a new home.

WRITTEN BY MIMI MONTGOMERY, Washingtonian   | PUBLISHED ON FEBRUARY 18, 2021

Yesterday, photojournalist Megan Smith tweeted out now-viral images of the tablet being disassembled from the building’s facade. Of course, because this is the internet, some folks decided this was an apt metaphor for the state of today’s media, or a reflection of the Biden administration’s approach toward journalists.

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In reality, the tablet is coming down because…the museum is closed and the building has been sold. You can still check it out, though: The display hasn’t been fully taken apart, says a Freedom Forum representative. Once it is fully disassembled, it will go into storage, says the representative, with hopes to find it a home where it can be permanently displayed.

ENDS

TAGS: Cox Enterprises, Hearst Corporation, Knight Foundation, Blogging, The New York Times, Annenberg Foundation, Time Warner Inc., ABC News, NBC News, New Media, Washington D.C., News Corporation, NEWSEUM, MAXINE

Abolish Absolut, From This World, Absolutely

"This particular ad, which ran in Mexico, was based upon historical perspectives and was created with a Mexican sensibility," said a statement identified as being from Paula Eriksson, with V&S, Absolut's parent company. Image Credit: Un-Named Mexico City ad agency with approval from Sweeden’s Vin & Sprit, soon to be owned by French spirit maker Pernod Ricard SA

Abolish Absolut, From This World, Absolutely

The beauty in the insult of this ad campaign is that at least this Vodka company will not be the problem it used to be in ones pursuit of being an alcoholic!

Absolut Vodka should not only be boycotted, it should be banished from the Red, White, and Blue United States of America.

At MAXINE, we understand that this ad was really not an oversight. While the map might have been in Spanish … the headline copy of the ad was produced in ENGLISH ONLY. The speculation on why any ad agency would take this tact is because of the BUZZ and free advertising it would create.

Once we finally resolve to close our borders and enforce our laws, Absolut had better hope that the cockeyed thinking Mexicans that agree with the logic of Reconquista shown in the 1830’s era ATZLAN map switch to Vodka from Tequila once they are forced to go back across the border (due to the lack of opportunity) to the country they are citizens of – Mexico. You know, the country that lost California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and parts of Idaho & Washington State in a formal treaty that ended a war and, further, was actually paid 15 million dollars to release all claims.

As claimed by the spokesperson for Absolut, is an ENGLISH ONLY banner copy – was "This particular ad, which ran in Mexico, was based upon historical perspectives and was created with a Mexican sensibility." - Image Credit: Un-Named Mexico City ad agency with approval from Sweeden’s Vin & Sprit, soon to be owned by French spirit maker Pernod Ricard SA

This excerpted from World Net Daily -

Ad expanding Mexico 'hearkens to ideal time'
Absolut vodka promo puts California, Arizona beyond U.S. borders
Posted: April 04, 2008 - 8:49 pm Eastern - © 2008 WorldNetDaily

A vodka advertisement that put California, Arizona and several other southwestern states within the borders of Mexico "hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal," according to the sponsor.

WND reported earlier when a new ad for Absolut vodka reconfigured North America according to the aspirations of many Mexicans, who believe the U.S. Southwest was stolen and should be returned. Over a redrawn map of the U.S., the ad by the Swedish Absolut Spirits Co. declares, "In an Absolut World," noted columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin.

Major Hispanic civil rights groups in the U.S., such as the National Council of La Raza, are tied to movements advocating a "reconquista," or reconquest, of territory lost when Mexico signed the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican-American War.

Malkin points out the Mexico City-based firm that created the ad, Teran, says its philosophy is advocating "disruption" as a "tool for change" and "agent of growth." The firm encourages "overturning assumptions and prejudices that get in the way of imagining new possibilities and visionary ideas that help create a larger share of the future."
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The vodka company, however, has tried to explain:

"In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues," she wrote to a Missouri vodka fan who expressed his concern.

"Will your company be running like advertisements in Denmark and Germany illustrating Sweden as the property of those respective countries, as they were in the historical past?" the fan responded. "You know, in an 'Absolut World of Denmark,' or an "Absolut World of Germany' advertising campaign!

"Of course not," he continued, "because doing so would be an insult to all Swedes worldwide. Do you see the fact-based common sense in my argument now?
----
As WND reported in 2006, Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., called on La Raza to renounce its support of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan – which sees "The Race" as part of an ethnic group that one day will reclaim Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs. In Chicano folklore, Aztlan includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas.

In 2002, a prominent Chicano activist and University of California at Riverside professor, Armando Navarro, told WND he believed secession is inevitable if demographic and social trends continue.
----
"A secessionist movement is not something that you can put away and say it is never going to happen in the United States," he [Navarro] contended. "Time and history change."
Reference Here>>

Please add these names to the list of non-consumable liquors produced by French spirit maker Pernod Ricard SA, Absolut’s parent company – Jamison Irish Whiskey (no wonder we, at MAXINE, liked Bushmill’s), Wild Turkey Bourbon, Chivas Regal (scotch whisky), The Glenlivet (single malt scotch whisky), Kahlua coffee liqueur, Tia Maria liqueur, Malibu coconut-flavored rum, Mumm champagne, Seagram’s gin, Ballentine’s scotch, Beefeater gin, Stolichnaya vodka (USA distribution arm), Courvoisier cognac, Sauza tequila, Maker’s Mark bourbon, Jacob’s Creek and Montana wines.

You know, if one were to take this insult and it’s reaction seriously … people in our country would all have become clearer thinkers, have respect for our own sovereignty, and we probably would have sealed up our borders long ago.

Time to GET SOBER ... PEOPLE!

Tick, Tick, Tick | 107 Avian Flu Deaths In Indonesia

Chickens - Experts say the danger is the virus may evolve into a form that people can easily catch and pass to one another, in which case the transmission rate would soar, causing a pandemic in which millions of people could die. Image Credit: FAO

Tick, Tick, Tick 107 Avian Flu Deaths In Indonesia

This morning, two deaths of adolescent Indonesians help to establish the island(s) nation as the most affected nation on Earth due to the bird flu virus.

One boy and one girl bring the total number of deaths to 107, and it is unclear wither these cases can be traced to “Cluster” human-to-human transfer of the virus even though the boy that just passed away had a brother die from the same disease.

There are still other individuals who have tested positive for the Avian Flu but have yet to succumb to the effects of the H5N1 virus of which there remains no cure.

Indonesia - Contact with sick fowl is the most common way of contracting the H5N1 virus, which is endemic in bird populations in most of Indonesia. According to United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) data on March 19, bird flu has infected 31 out of 33 provinces in Indonesia. Image Credit: FAO

This excerpted from Reuters -

Two Indonesian youths die of bird flu
By Mita Valina Liem; Editing by Ed Davies and Alex Richardson Reuters Mon Mar 31, 2008 3:05am EDT

JAKARTA - Two Indonesian youths have died from bird flu, a health ministry official said on Monday.

A 15-year-old boy from Subang, in West Java, died on Wednesday in an area where chickens had died, said Nyoman Kandun, director general of communicable disease control at the ministry.

An 11-year-old girl from Bekasi, east of Jakarta, who died on Friday also tested positive for the virus, the official said.

"There were dead chickens in the boy's neighbourhood, but in the girl's case it is still unclear," Kandun said via a mobile phone text message.
----
Earlier on Monday, a 22-month-old girl from Sumatra's Bukit Tinggi tested positive for bird flu and the health ministry was checking her neighbourhood for possible backyard farming.

"Her condition is improving, and she is being treated at a Padang hospital," Lily Sulistyowati, a health ministry spokeswoman, said by telephone.

Including the latest deaths, Indonesia has had 132 confirmed cases of the virus.

Contact with sick fowl is the most common way of contracting the H5N1 virus, which is endemic in bird populations in most of Indonesia.

According to United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) data on March 19, bird flu has infected 31 out of 33 provinces in Indonesia.

Experts say the danger is the virus may evolve into a form that people can easily catch and pass to one another, in which case the transmission rate would soar, causing a pandemic in which millions of people could die.
Reference Here>>

Michelle Obama Goes Nuclear With Fear

2004 - Illinois Democratic US Senate candidate Barack Obama, seated next to his wife, Michelle and daughters Sasha, 3, far left, and Malia, 6, as they wait for election returns in a Chicago hotel. Obama beat Republican Alan Keyes in the nation's first Senate race with two black major-party candidates. Image Credit: AP Photo

Michelle Obama Goes Nuclear With Fear
(Michelle Obama's fear based philosophy may actually be perpetuated in the philosophies taught at the church she attends)

To listen to Michelle Obama talk about the America of fear she sees, scares us here at MAXINE.

When we go out to the strip shopping centers or travel on the Metro Rail, get out and walk through where people gather, we do not see the America of fear Michelle Obama describes.

The rhetoric of fear and the perception that we are running around and peaking around every corner as we purchase our “domed” drinks at the local coffee bistro … we don’t see or live what Michelle is talking about.

You know, it strikes us that it is the democratic party that perceives “Two Americas” … there is the America that runs along every day with the confidence and freedom we all have in everyday life and then there is the America (like the one John Edwards and Michelle Obama want us to buy into) democrats can come in and “save” us from.

This from YouTube, Michelle Obama introduces her husband, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, at a campaign stop in western Iowa. posted 8-16-2007 –

The day Barack Obama takes office he will run from our enemies ... or have tea with them (leave Iraq ... meet with dictators) and invade our allies (bomb parts of Pakistan without their consultation) in the war on terror … now that really IS something to afraid of!

UPDATED January 28, 2006:

The source of Michelle Obama's fear based philosophy may actually have their roots in the philosophies taught at the church she attends.

UPDATED March 28, 2008:

Drip, Drip, Drip - The beliefs and fears and racism of the Obama family as they had been taught at the knee of Rev. Wright of the TUCC keep showing themselves in the most clear way.

This excerpted from ABC News -

Michelle Obama on Diversity, Comfort Zones, and America
By Jake Tapper, ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent - March 26, 2008 6:27 PM

In a January speech at the University of South Carolina, First Lady aspirant Michelle Obama made remarks making the rounds on the internet today.

Talking about her experience at Princeton where she hung with a largely African-American crowd, she said:

"We don’t like being pushed outside of our comfort zones. You know it right here on this campus. You know people sitting at different tables - you all living in different dorms. I was there. You’re not talking to each other, taking advantage that you’re in this diverse community.

Because sometimes it’s easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions. It makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is are we ready for change?"
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The Obama campaign says that's a mis-interpretation of her comments, that it was the proclivity for "comfort zones" that she thought was so "America."

(As opposed to the ethnic and cultural open minds in Europe, Asia and Africa, I suppose?)

Video showing Michelle Obama's self imposed segregationist attitudes and comments delivered in South Carolina, in context, so that one will not mis-interpret what was said:

This poll would be a better source to become informed from as opposed to the teachings of the church Barack and Michelle Obama have attended regularly for the last twenty years.

Poll Answers

IRAN & A Weapon Of Mass Destruction

The fungal strain was named for its discovery in Uganda in 1999. - The disease spreads by wind-blown fungal spores. Planting highly resistant wheat varieties in the southern United States where stem rust fungus can survive winter could prevent the disease from taking hold in the South and then spreading to the rest of the country.Ug99 has overcome most of the stem rust resistance genes bred into wheat varieties during the past several decades. Last year, ARS Cereal Disease Laboratory (CDL) plant pathologist Yue Jin confirmed a new, even more virulent variant of Ug99 in Kenya. His colleague, geneticist Les Szabo, also at the CDL in St. Paul, Minn., leads the stem rust genome project. Caption & Image Credit: Haber7.com

IRAN & A Weapon Of Mass Destruction

It’s true and can be mentioned in the same breath. The fields in IRAN are producing a weapon of mass destruction and it is not what you think.

This weapon of mass destruction is aimed directly at IRAN itself and will effect countries that are located East, it is biological and it kills wheat crops on a massive basis.

The weapon is a fungal wheat stem “rust” that is carried upon the wind and attacks whole fields of wheat laying them to waste leading to food shortages and greatly increased food prices.

Up to 80 per cent of all Asian and African wheat varieties are susceptible to the fungus, and major wheat-producing nations to Iran’s east – such as Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan – should be on high alert, FAO warned. Image Credit: NewScientist

The wheat fungus [strain] first emerged in Uganda in 1999 and is therefore called Ug99. The Ug99 strain found in Yemen was already more virulent than the one found in East Africa. Ethiopia and Kenya had serious wheat rust epidemics in 2007 with considerable losses.

Harvesting wheat. Crop yeilds are expected to drop dramatically in Iran due to UG99 - a strain of virulent fungus that attacheds itself to the stems of growing wheat. Image Credit: Getty

This excerpted SeedQuest taken from a statement released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) –

First report of wheat stem rust, strain Ug99, in Iran
By SeedQuest – March 5, 2008

Wheat killer detected in Iran - dangerous fungus on the move from East Africa to the Middle East

A new and virulent wheat fungus, previously found in East Africa and Yemen, has moved to major wheat-growing areas in Iran, FAO reported today [5 Mar 2008]. The fungus is capable of wreaking havoc to wheat production by destroying entire fields. Countries east of Iran, like Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, all major wheat producers, are most threatened by the fungus and should be on high alert, FAO said.

Wheat is a major food crop in the world and sustains the majority of the world's population. Wheat fields occupy more of the earth's surface than do fields of any other food crop. Stem rust is one of the most important wheat diseases limiting production in many areas of the world. The disease has been important throughout the ages. The Romans, in order to please the rust god, Robigus, held a festival called Robigalia. Image Credit: USDA

It is estimated that as much as 80 percent of all wheat varieties planted in Asia and Africa are susceptible to wheat stem rust (_Puccinia graminis_). The spores of wheat rust are mostly carried by wind over long distances and across continents. "The detection of the wheat rust fungus [strain Ug99] in Iran is very worrisome," said Shivaji Pandey, director of FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division. "The fungus is spreading rapidly and could seriously lower wheat production in countries at direct risk. Affected countries and the international community have to ensure that the spread of the disease gets under control in order to reduce the risk to countries that are already hit by high food prices."

The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has informed FAO that the fungus has been detected in some localities in Broujerd and Hamedan in western Iran. Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the fungus. Iran said it will enhance its research capacity to face the new infection and develop new wheat varieties resistant to the disease.
Reference Here>>

We, at MAXINE, are always looking for the upside, so the question that begs to be asked is:

Does, or better, can this fungal "rust" be made to attach itself to Opium/Heroin Poppies like the fields grown in Afghanistan? Huhmmmmmmm!

The Psycho-Slavery Tactics Of The TUCC

The Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Interfaith Service Celebrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., February 9, 2007 – Image Credit: Amherst College

The Psycho-Slavery Tactics Of The TUCC

The problem with Reverend Wright isn't an "Attitude" he projects when he preaches in front of the gathered parishioners as some would like to think ... it is a BELIEF, a belief that he preaches to enslave people with, in an effort to make himself more important than the teachings of GOD.

Once one buys into this form of Psycho-Slavery, it becomes impossible to think outside of its construct - Hate breeds Hate and the Reverend Wright is the pied piper!

The sad part in all of this is that the messages of Reverend Wright are designed to take people who are already indoctrinated into a culture of fear and hate and strengthens their conceptual bonds. GOD teaches us that there is a way out of oppression, fear and hate and the right Reverend Wright has seen fit to distort GOD’s teachings and turn them around for harm in our society.

We ARE judged by the company we keep. Reverend Wright's Psycho-Slavery of fear and hate (and others who believe and preach the messages he teaches) has got to stop if our country is ever going to get beyond the identity based divisions the Democrat Party is famous for through its embrace and representations.

The media exposure of what actually goes on during the sermons at the TUCC does not bode well, or speak well, of Barack Obama’s judgment given the twenty year association and support Barack has already shown to his (his word) MENTOR!

This episode will leave a mark on Barack Obama. We, at MAXINE, predict that if he becomes the Democrat Party candidate for President ... he will loose against John McCain due to his (and Michelle's) twenty year association with the Reverend Wright, his teachings, and the TUCC.

Additional Obama Background Links:

Michelle - http://tinyurl.com/37wyjo

Barack & TUCC - http://tinyurl.com/33f545

Barack Demographics - http://tinyurl.com/3aahxf

Palm Sunday UPDATE:

The new pastor (and the current power structure at the TUCC) took a moment during the service on this Palm Sunday to launch a defense of Reverend Wright. A defense of a preaching style and message that ensures this congregation will not look to self-reflection.

This excerpted from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Church: Wright's character 'being assassinated'
BY MAUREEN O'DONNELL Staff Reporter - March 16, 2008

During a Sunday evening service, Pastor Otis Moss III spoke of "external forces" that want to "box us in and vilify us."

In a Palm Sunday sermon laden with symbolism, Moss seemed to liken a biblical donkey or colt to the oppressed. To undermine it, "You have to assassinate the colt's character," Moss said to shouts of "Preach."

"....The domesticated donkey says, 'You need to stop talking that social justice stuff" and speak only of Jesus, Moss said.

In the church's prepared statement, Moss criticized basing Wright's legacy on a few comments. After 36 years of preaching, "It is an indictment on Dr. Wright's ministerial legacy to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30-second sound bite,'' Moss said.

"It saddens me to see news stories reporting such a caricature of a congregation that has been such a blessing,'' said church president Rev. John J. Thomas in the statement. "It's time for us to say 'No' to these attacks and declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends."
Reference Here>>

The only thing narrow about the "attacks" are not the political or ideological ends but the recognition of the insult to truth and fact when Rev. Wright used "Moral Equivalence" and our ending WWII with terrorist acts of planes being flown into buildings.

"The TUCC Plantation" speaks!

UPDATE March 18, 2008 - Barack Obama Speaks And Creates More Questions

This excerpted from The O'Reilly Factor's Talking Poinrs Memo:

Barack Obama replies to the pastor controversy. That is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo."

Ever since he began his dramatic rise last fall, I have admired Senator Obama's campaign style. He has energized politics, and that is good for America. But I do not believe the senator understands how serious this pastor situation is, how angry many Americans are.

As you may know, Obama's friend and spiritual counselor Jeremiah Wright has been exposed as an anti-American hater. He believes the USA is no better than Al Qaeda. He says America brought 9/11 on itself.
----
How can you have a class association with an American-hater for 20 years? Surely Senator Obama knew how Wright felt, even though he might not have heard the exact words. Also, what kind of judgment allows a sitting senator to attend a church that radical?

The latest Rasmussen poll shows Obama losing support across the country. His favorability rating is down 5 points in three days. And the Wright controversy is driving that. The folks don't want leadership that is associated with that kind of hatred.

At this point, the story tells us more about the media than Senator Obama. You'll remember the very liberal New York Times attacked John McCain for associating with a lobbyist nobody ever heard of. The Times put the story on page one and the liberal media ran with it. The McCain story was about association and judgment, was it not? And what's the Obama story about? Association and judgment. But The New York Times buried the pastor's story. The paper must think its readers are stupid.

Likewise, the nightly network programs have downplayed the situation. On Friday, ABC ignored it. NBC News gave it 20 seconds.

Hear me: If we didn't break the story wide last Thursday night, it would have likely died, which is exactly what the leftist media wants.

Finally, Barack Obama says he deplores the racial aspect of the story, but who is really pushing race, senator? I believe that would be your former pastor and far-left zealots like Media Matters and Jesse Jackson. They are the chief race-baiters in America.

So the Wright story is here to stay. Voters aren't going to forget it. Senator Obama should realize that and confront the issues involved on programs like this one, where millions would see him and he would get a fair hearing. Because if he does not fully explain his association with Pastor Wright, he will not be elected president. Period.

And that's "The Memo."
Reference Here>>

UPDATE 3-23-2008 -

AM610 WIP host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his March 18, 2008, Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice.

Obama told Cataldi that "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know (pause) there's a reaction in her that doesn't go away and it comes out in the wrong way.

We, at MAXINE, must ask - Is there such a thing as a "Typical White Person"?

Call Him "Big Dog" McCain

Mitt Romney and John McCain – Image Credit: WXIA-TV Atlanta

Call Him "Big Dog" McCain

John McCain was just tapped with a gift of a nickname by Mitt Romney.

In an exclusive interview with Hannity and Colmes taped earlier today (and verbally recounted on Hugh Hewitt) Mitt Romney had the following comment about the sparring between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on who would be the strongest as President in a war response situation.

Overhead - To Paraphrase:

"Watching Clinton and Obama argue as to who is the stronger Presidential candidate, is a little like watching two Chihuahua's bark at each other trying to show who is bigger.

Well, for my money, in this scenario John McCain isn't a Chihuahua, he IS the Big Dog!"

Video UPDATE:

This clarification and update excerpted from Politico –

Romney says he'd take Veep, calls McCain "Big Dog"
By Jonathan Martin 05:20 PM

Mitt Romney said in his first interview since departing the GOP race that he would accept the number two position on the ticket and that there is no lingering bitterness between him and John McCain.

“I think any Republican leader in this country would be honored to be asked to serve as the vice presidential nominee, myself included," Romney told FOX's Sean Hannity in a broadcast set to air tonight. "Of course this is a nation which needs strong leadership. And if the nominee of our party asked you to serve with him, anybody would be honored to receive that call … and to accept it, of course.”
----
Romney says that he thinks the wounds have healed.

“There are really no hard feelings, I don't think, on either side of this," he said in the interview. "There were no pacts and so forth that make people feel like that we will never come together. Instead these campaigns are all coming together. We are supporting our nominee enthusiastically, aggressively."

Romney said his top fundraisers have already met with McCain's campaign.

"We are laying out ways we can support his campaign.”

Romney also belittled the Democrats, saying that he thought Barack Obama would eventually emerge as their nominee and that such an outcome would play to the GOP's favor.

"I think he is the better match-up for Senator McCain because the public recognizes just how inexperienced he is," Romney said. "With Senator Clinton there is some confusion in perception that somehow being there while her husband was president made her a foreign policy-national security experienced person. She is not. She doesn't have any more experience, really, of a significant nature than Barack Obama does. But in Barack Obama's case, people recognize this guy was a state senator and before that he was a community activist. He has been a United States senator for a short, short period of time. He is in no significant way qualified to lead the country at a time of war, to lead the country out of an economic challenge. This is not a person who can stand up to Senator McCain.”

To make his case, Romney employed a canine metaphor.

Listening to Obama and Clinton discuss their national security credentials, Romney said, is akin to "listening to two chihuahuas argue about which is the biggest dog."

"When it comes to national security, John McCain is the big dog, and they are the chihuahuas," he said.
Reference Here>>

Romney delivers and, we at MAXINE believe, that this is still the nickname to remember - Big Dog McCain vs Maverick McCain!

Cuba's IT Underground - It's On The Stick!

Having a USB memory stick is like carrying a portable hard drive the size of a packet of chewing gum. USB memory sticks are the fastest in the flash memory card industry with transfer rates up to 60MB/s and capacities ranging from 64MB to 4GB. Caption & Image Credit: mediaheaven.co.uk

Cuba's IT Underground - It's On The Stick!

Necessity is the mother of invention – or in this case adaptation. Information technology in Cuba, with its heavy-handed Communist/Socialist oversight of human activity, is in a process of breaking out of the grip of the government sanctions against the freedom of information sharing and publishing.

News, information, and entertainment media in Cuba, is hard to come by unless one is able to afford the time to log on to a computer in one of the few “Cyber Cafés”, have access to a tourist hotel internet portal, is a student, or has access to a smuggled dish and secretly grab the information for later viewing and sharing - OFFLINE!

Dutch made , USB Memory sticks manually selected for their natural beauty, and professionally handmade into unique and personal USB memory sticks. From ooms. Order Online - 256 MB - 45 Euro 1GB - 70 Euro. Caption & Image Credit: oooms.nl

OFFLINE in Cuba is an intranet (an in-country internet) patched together through a “postal service” email communication connection that the government is having trouble shutting down. The “Whack-A-Mole” process the government is left with can not stop the viral sharing aided with the use of USB memory sticks.

At an e-mail center in Havana, customers work under an employee’s watchful eye. Old Havana has only one true Internet cafe, down from three a few years ago. Caption & Image Credit: Jose Goitia - The New York Times

This excerpted from The New York Times -

Cyber-Rebels in Cuba Defy State’s Limits
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. - New York Times, HAVANA - March 6, 2008

A growing underground network of young people armed with computer memory sticks, digital cameras and clandestine Internet hookups has been mounting some challenges to the Cuban government in recent months, spreading news that the official state media try to suppress.

Last month, students at a prestigious computer science university videotaped an ugly confrontation they had with Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the National Assembly.

Mr. Alarcón seemed flummoxed when students grilled him on why they could not travel abroad, stay at hotels, earn better wages or use search engines like Google. The video spread like wildfire through Havana, passed from person to person, and seriously damaged Mr. Alarcón’s reputation in some circles.
----
“It passes from flash drive to flash drive,” said Ariel, 33, a computer programmer, who, like almost everyone else interviewed for this article, asked that his last name not be used for fear of political persecution. “This is going to get out of the government’s hands because the technology is moving so rapidly.”

Cuban officials have long limited the public’s access to the Internet and digital videos, tearing down unauthorized satellite dishes and keeping down the number of Internet cafes open to Cubans. Only one Internet cafe remains open in Old Havana, down from three a few years ago.

Hidden in a small room in the depths of the Capitol building, the state-owned cafe charges a third of the average Cuban’s monthly salary — about $5 — to use a computer for an hour. The other two former Internet cafes in central Havana have been converted into “postal services” that let Cubans send e-mail messages over a closed network on the island with no links to the Internet.
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Young people here say there is a thriving black market giving thousands of people an underground connection to the world outside the Communist country.

Swiss army knife with USB memory stick Memory size: 128MB 256MB 512MB 1GB 2GB 4GB 8GB. Caption & Image Credit: sz-wholesale.com

People who have smuggled in satellite dishes provide illegal connections to the Internet for a fee or download movies to sell on discs. Others exploit the connections to the Web of foreign businesses and state-run enterprises. Employees with the ability to connect to the Internet often sell their passwords and identification numbers for use in the middle of the night.

Hotels catering to tourists provide Internet services, and Cubans also exploit those conduits to the Web.

Even the country’s top computer science school, the University of Information Sciences, set in a campus once used by Cuba’s spy services, has become a hotbed of cyber-rebels. Students download everything from the latest American television shows to articles and videos criticizing the government, and pass them quickly around the island.
----
The video of Mr. Alarcón’s clash with students was leaked to the BBC and CNN, giving the world a rare glimpse of the discontent among the young with the system.
----
Another event many people witnessed through the digital underground was the arrival in the United States of Carlos Otero, a popular television personality and humorist in Cuba who defected in December while on a trip to Toronto.

Illegal antennas caught signals from Miami television stations, which youths turned into digital videos and shared. Though the event smacked more of celebrity news than politics, it would never have been shown on the official media.

Some young journalists have also started blogs and Internet news sites, using servers in other countries, and their reports are reaching people through the digital underground.

Yoani Sánchez, 32, and her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, 60, established Consenso desde Cuba , a Web site based in Germany. Ms. Sánchez has attracted a considerable following with her blog, Generación Y, in which she has artfully written gentle critiques of the government by describing her daily life in Cuba. Ms. Sánchez and her husband said they believed strongly in using their names with articles despite the possible political repercussions.

Shortly before Raúl Castro was elected president last week to replace his ailing brother, Fidel, Ms. Sánchez wrote a piece describing what sort of president she wanted. She said the country did not need a soldier, a charismatic leader or a great speaker, but “a pragmatic housewife” who favored freedom of speech and open elections.

Writing later about Raúl Castro’s first speech as president, she criticized his vague promises of change, saying they were as clear as the Rosetta Stone was when it was first found. Both essays would be impossible to publish in Cuba.
----
Because Ms. Sánchez, like most Cubans, can get online for only a few minutes at a time, she writes almost all her essays beforehand, then goes to the one Internet cafe, signs on, updates her Web site, copies some key pages that interest her and walks out with everything on a memory stick. Friends copy the information, and it passes from hand to hand. “It’s a solid underground,” she said. “The government cannot control the information.”

It is spread by readers like Ricardo, 28, a philosophy student at the University of Havana who sells memory sticks to other students.
----
Like many young Cubans, Ricardo plays a game of cat and mouse with the authorities. He doubts that the government will ever let ordinary citizens have access to the Internet in their homes. “That’s far too dangerous,” he said. “Daddy State doesn’t want you to get informed, so it preventively keeps you from surfing.”

Pedro, a midlevel official with a government agency, said he often surfed Web sites like the BBC and The Miami Herald at work, searching for another view of the news besides the ones presented in the state-controlled media. He predicted that the 10,000 students studying the Internet and programming at the University of Information Sciences would transform the country over time, opening up more and more avenues of information.

“We are training an army of information specialists,” he said.
Reference Here>>