What If?

This was an email that was circulating around my office; I thought it deserved a spot.

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched
around?.....think about it.

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage,
including
a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage
daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law
Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his
graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a
severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his
standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long
affair while
he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted
to pain
killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable
organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Se nators accused of
corruption
in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the
larger Savings
and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that
included
disc ipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on
many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer
distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected
reality,
do you really believe the election numbers would b e as close as
they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and
minimizes
positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative
qualities in
another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a
Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political
Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest
offices in
the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call

Court Decision Denies Extraordinary Rendition Victims Their Day In Court

ACLU-2/14/08 SAN JOSE, CA - A federal court yesterday bowed to pressure from the Bush administration and dismissed a case against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. for the company’s role in the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. The lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, charged that Jeppesen knowingly aided the program by providing flight planning and logistical support services for aircraft and crews used by the CIA to transport victims to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas, where they were subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and torture.

The government intervened in an attempt to block the case, contending that litigation of the case would reveal “state secrets” and harm national security. However, the ACLU’s lawsuit cited abundant evidence that was already in the public domain, including a sworn affidavit by a former Jeppesen employee and flight records confirming Jeppesen’s involvement.

In another development, the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday held a hearing on the bipartisan State Secrets Protection Act, introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), The ACLU urges passage of this law, which would require courts to examine classified evidence instead of dismissing cases on the word of the perpetrators themselves, and would prohibit any dismissal prior to discovery.

The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union:

“The court’s decision allows the government to engage in torture, declare it a state secret, and thereby escape any legal scrutiny for its actions. Government officials are quite willing to discuss the CIA’s detention and interrogation of other prisoners, most notably the six Guantánamo detainees charged this week with capital murder. Apparently, the government believes such activities are state secrets only when that claim will help the administration avoid accountability for illegal programs, but not when it will help seek the death penalty for alleged terrorists. Depriving torture victims of their day in court to prevent disclosure of information that the entire world already knows only compounds the brutal treatment our clients endured.”

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION

WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW COULD KILL YOU.

US HELPS IRAN FUND NUCLEAR ENERGY?

Oh, yes it's true.

Strange Fruit