Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Spar at Labor Union Debate

From ABC News

Democrats Debate Infrastructure Needs
Democrats Focus on Nation's Infrastructure Needs at AFL-CIO Debate

By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Labor Writer
Aug 7, 2007

Chicago-- Democratic presidential candidates said Tuesday the nation should invest more money in infrastructure and less in the Iraq war, citing the Minneapolis bridge collapse as a symptom of neglect.

The candidates cast the matter as one of creating jobs as they addressed thousands of labor union activists, a constituency that could prove pivotal in deciding which contender emerges as the party's nominee.

The 90-minute debate, held outdoors at Soldier Field, was sponsored by the AFL-CIO.

"Putting our country back to work begins by cutting the funding for the war in Iraq," said Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd. He said $1 billion in domestic infrastructure spending would create 40,000 jobs.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "We have to make investments in infrastructure," adding that it would create jobs and improve security at ports, tunnels and other potential terrorist targets.

Several questions dealt with trade, a sensitive subject for union activists who argue that too many U.S. jobs have gone overseas.

Labor leaders often have criticized the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, which was enacted by former President Clinton, the New York senator's husband.

Hillary Clinton defended the pact, saying the nation needs "broad reform" of trade. "NAFTA is a piece of it, but it's not the only piece," she said.

Her chief rivals Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards also stopped short of saying NAFTA should be scrapped. But they criticized the front-running Clinton for her ties to lobbyists and Wall Street.

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A bloggers take on the debate

Guest Blogging On The Rude Pundits Site Today

I am guest blogging on the Rude Pundits site today. Please feel free to pay a visit.

Co-Blogger Will Be Featured On NPR Next Week

Mirror On America Co-Blogger African American Political Pundit, will be a guest on NPR's News and Notes Program, as part of the Bloggers Roundtable, on Wednesday, August 15th.

Be sure to tune in...

I will also be posting the audio of the program.

Students Shot Execution Style in Newark - Community Outraged

Victims Were Lined Up & Forced to Kneel Down Before Being Shot

One of the 4 victims managed to survive.

Some in the Community are now calling for the resignation of young Mayor Cory Booker. I guess they expected Booker to perform a miracle in a year (overnight in relative terms), in a community that was literally allowed to rot over a period of decades. He can't perform miracles.

Even the father of one of the victims stated that "it's not about the Mayor, it's about the Parents... not raising their kids right". A courageous statement from a grieving father. Bill Cosby was right on time.... We just don't have enough Cosby's and enough fathers, like the one mentioned above. But I believe that this street culture that is promoted and glorified, is also playing a role.

I suppose the Thug Culture apologists would say that the suspects are just poor victims in this case.... The thugs and the culture are not to blame.

When will this urban genocide end? When parents start parenting like they are supposed to... and when the underlying culture of violence and degenerate values is finally rejected.

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USAToday

Newark-- The murder of three college students left residents of Newark shaken and angry Monday, prompting a march on City Hall and providing a major challenge for the city's new reform-minded mayor.

Mayor Cory Booker, 38, a Rhodes scholar and Yale-educated lawyer, was elected last year and promised to make public safety his top priority.

Crime has fallen during the last year, including a slight drop in the number of murders. But five killings over the weekend — including the execution-style slaying of the college students — jarred the mayor and the city. "This breaks the heart of our city," Booker said.

The murders took place around midnight Saturday behind Mount Vernon Elementary School in a middle-class neighborhood. The victims had no record of being in trouble and were seen as success stories for the city's school district.

The four students, ages 18 to 20, were listening to music in a well-lit playground behind the school shortly before midnight, Newark police said.

Three of the friends were lined up against a school wall and killed by gunshots to the head. The murder victims were Terrance Aeriel, 18, Iofemi Hightower, 20, and Dashon Harvey, 20. Natasha Aeriel, 19, Terrance's sister, was shot in the head but survived and was in fair condition Monday at a local hospital. Police were looking for about five men allegedly involved in the killings.

Two of the students were juniors at Delaware State University. Two others planned to attend the school this fall.

"They were great kids," said William Freeman, security chief at Newark public schools. "We're all grieving. We're a struggling district, but we have success stories, and it's so painful to have it end this way."

He said police suspect robbery was the motive. No arrests have been made. Newark has had 60 murders so far this year, down from 63 a year earlier. But the bloody weekend threatens to damage the city's effort to rejuvenate itself.

Newark has a new performing arts center, and an 18,000-seat sports arena is under construction for the New Jersey Devils pro hockey team.

"This is certainly a hard blow because the city has a new reform mayor who's trying to create a vibrant 24-hour downtown," says James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.

The arts center, arena and other attractions depend heavily on suburban residents feeling the city is safe, he says. "People not having fear is crucial, but it's not something you can turn around overnight," he says.

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Additional Report From The Houston Chronicle

Report From the New York Times

Watch the Yearly Kos Presidential Debate

Intro


Watch The Debate in 3 Parts

Part I

Part II

Part III

Another love fest for the Democrats....

Hillary Clinton continues with her lies in Part II (About pulling troops out of Iraq).

Yearly Kos Convention - A Sea Of White Males

Washington Post writer, Jose Antonio Vargas, highlights a lack of diversity at the Yearly Kos bloggers Convention.

A Diversity of Opinion, if Not Opinionators

At the Yearly Kos Bloggers' Convention, a Sea of Middle-Aged White Males

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer

CHICAGO-- It's Sunday, day 4 of Yearly Kos, the major conference for progressive bloggers, and Gina Cooper, the confab's organizer-in-chief, surveys the ballroom of the massive McCormick Place Convention Center. A few hundred remaining conventioneers are having brunch, dining on eggs, bagels and sausage.

Seven of the eight Democratic presidential candidates have paid their respects this weekend, and some 200 members of the credentialed press have filed their stories. A mere curiosity just two years ago, the progressive blogosphere has gone mainstream. But Cooper sees a problem.

"It's mostly white. More male than female," says the former high school math and science teacher turned activist. "It's not very diverse."

There goes the open secret of the netroots, or those who make up the community of the Internet grass-roots movement.

For all the talk about the increasing influence of this growing group -- "We are a community . . . a movement . . . an institution," Cooper said in a speech Saturday night -- what gets scant attention is its demography. While the Huffington Post and Fire Dog Lake, both founded by women, are two of the most widely read blogs, the rock stars are mostly men, and many women bloggers complain of sexism and harassment in the blogosphere.

Walking around McCormick Place during the weekend, it became clear that only a handful of the 1,500 conventioneers -- bloggers, policy experts, party activists -- are African American, Latino or Asian. Of about 100 scheduled panels and workshops, less than a half-dozen dealt directly with women or minority issues.

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More Trouble Between Russia and Georgia

Russia and Georgia just can't seem to get along. The thugs in the Russian government claim to know nothing about the reported bombing attempt on Georgian territory.

See Report

What Americans should be concerned about is the fact that the U.S. is pushing for NATO membership for Georgia, despite the fact that skirmishes between Georgia and Russia are fairly common. Also the political situation in Georgia is not stable...and they would offer little to NATO in terms of capabilities. In fact, Georgia would be more of a liability.

This is why NATO membership for Georgia is a bad idea.... it does not have a good, stable relationship with its neighbors. NATO expansion overall is a bad idea. It is an unnecessary burden for the U.S., at a time when the country already has too many defense treaty obligations. The U.S. should radically decrease these obligations instead of adding new ones.

2 Middle Eastern Men Found With Explosives Material in South Carolina

The pair was arrested after a routine traffic stop near a South Carolina Naval Base.

But the Feds were quick to play down the story.... immediately saying that there was no link to terrorism (before they have conducted a thorough investigation). If a link is found of course... it would be another strike against the idiotic foreign policy of the Bush Administration. I keep shouting about these open borders and lax Visa policies...especially regarding Student Visas. When will the political leadership actually do the things necessary to help secure the country???? Having 150,000 troops fighting a war overseas is not going to protect us here at home. You could have a million troops fighting overseas... that won't do a damn thing to stop terrorists from walking into this country on a Visa or European passport and doing us harm. Unfortunately too many Americans have bought into that propaganda - the "we are fighting them over there, so that we won't have to fight them over here" nonsense).

This also shows how local authorities are on their own when it comes to dealing with the terror threat. There has been a disconnect between the Feds at Homeland Security and local law enforcement & the private sector, ever since 9/11.

The Feds' message to the nation: There is nothing to this... you can all go back to sleep. I am noticing that this is becoming the automatic standard response from Washington D.C.

But let's hope that the Feds are right.... and there is no link to terrorism. Hopefully these guys were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
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The story according to the local authorities:

GOOSE CREEK, SC — Pipe bombs were found Saturday in the trunk of a car being driven by two Florida college students, according to court documents.

Now the men will have to post a combined $800,000 in bond to get out of jail, a circuit judge decided this afternoon.

Youseff Megahed, 21, and Ahmed Mohamed, 24, have been charged with possession of an incendiary device, Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt announced today. If convicted of the charges, the men could face between 2 to 15 years in prison.

Mohamed’s bond was set at $500,000 while Megahed’s was set at $300,000.

Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt said the men were pulled over Saturday night on U.S. Highway 176 while driving more than 60 mph in a 45-mph zone. When an officer approached the car, he saw one of them men fold a laptop computer, which the officer believed was suspicious, DeWitt said.

The officer asked them if he could search the car, which the men agreed to. When he asked if there was anything in the car he should know about, the men said there were fireworks in the trunk.

At a 1:30 p.m. news conference today in Tampa, a spokesman for the University of South Florida where the men attend said Megahed is an undergraduate student and Mohamed is a civil engineering graduate student, the Tampa Tribune is reporting.

Mohamed is originally from Kuwait and completed his undergrad education in Cairo, according to the Tampa newspaper. He has been at USF since January and was registered for six hours during summer session, the spokesman told the paper.

Megahed, originally from Egpyt, has been enrolled at USF since 2004 and had not declared a major. He was registered for three hours this fall, according to the newspaper.

An Islamic community leader from Tampa, Fla., who’s been in touch with the families of the two detained college students, told The Post and Courier that Megahed and Mohamed are not troublemakers and that they a were simply on a weekend trip to North Carolina.

Ahmed Bedier, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights organization for Muslims, said family members have told him they think the materials were leftover fireworks Megahed kept in his trunk since July 4.

“Both of them are really naïve kids,” Bedier said.

He said Megahed is a permanent legal resident of the United States and Mohamed was the passenger. Mohamed’s legal status is not known.

“There’s a lot of unanswered questions,” Bedier said.

A terrorism task force, meanwhile is reviewing the evidence, said FBI spokesman Richard Kolko.

“At this point, it is too early in the investigation to say there is any link to terrorism,” Kolko said.

News that explosives were found Saturday shocked residents in Goose Creek, home to the Naval Weapons Station, which houses the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig, a military prison where enemy combatants have been held.

(Source)

USA: A Nation Full of Misplaced Priorities