Iowa Floods - Police "Strike Teams" Invade Homes, Harass Flood Victims

I just saw this on YouTube and had to post it. Here's the description from the video itself:

Cops break down doors, threaten residents who question them as part of martial law conditioning, authorities prevent people from re-entering their homes
Shocking footage out of Cedar Rapids Iowa shows cops and government employee "strike teams" breaking into houses of flood victims and threatening anyone who questions their actions in complete violation of the 4th amendment right that protects against unlawful search and seizure.
No warrant, no knock home invasions are being carried out on the flimsy pretext of "checking for structural damage" as cops harass and threaten with arrest people who refuse to have their homes ransacked by thugs in uniforms.

Cedar Rapids police chief Greg Graham promised residents over the weekend that "Law enforcement officers are not entering homes," and that firefighters would only enter homes through unlocked doors and windows yet the video clearly shows locked houses being broken in to.

PrisonPlanet.com has more information on this major problem not reported by the Mainstream Media.

Barack Obama Hits Milestone - 1,965 Pledged Delegates A Majority

Senator Barack Obama took a major step closer to achieving the Democratic Presidential Nomination when he reacted 1,965 pledged delegates and now needing just 60 more delegates and / or Superdelegates to reach the magic mark of 2,025 total delegates and the nomination.

Here's Obama's speech:

Young Voter PAC Helps Iowa Students Get Back For Caucus

I just found this at the Des Moines Register website. It's from the Young Voter PAC. Here's the text:

Students Needing Help
If you are going to school in Iowa and want to come back and caucus, we can help. In order to get gas money and a hotel room just download and fill out this form. Email the form to jane@youngvoterpac.org. You MUST complete the form by Dec. 31st.

Youth Caucusing Stories + Press Inquiries
We compiled a Youth Press Corps that includes youth voting experts and young people living in Iowa. Please call Jane Fleming Kleeb at 202-445-5263 or email mail jane@youngvoterpac.org to set up interviews and to find out what groups are doing on the ground in Iowa.



This is great news for college students in Iowa who want to get back home for the Iowa Caucus, Jan 3rd.

DesMoines Register Reports Barack Obama Ahead in Poll

Yet another poll is reporting that Senator Barack Obama's ahead in Iowa; this one by The DesMoines Register in Iowa. What it may mean is that -- assuming the poll focuses on older voters -- that the Iowa older voter is seeing Obama as the candidate of choice. If that's the case then Clinton's in big trouble, as Obama's growing beyond his base of young supporters.

Barack Obama Holds Foreign Policy Town Hall Meeting In Iowa - Video

Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama held a town hall meeting on foreign policy in New Hampshire this morning. This video is a highlight of what the Senator said before the close of the event



Panelists included:

Richard Danzig – Former secretary of the Navy under President Clinton
Tony Lake – National Security Advisor to President Clinton
Adm. John Hutson (USN Ret.) – Bow, NH resident; Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center; former U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General and nationally-known expert on detention and interrogation
Samantha Power – Pulitzer Prize-winning author and renowned professor of human rights and foreign policy
Susan Rice – Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Senator Barack Obama

Obama Leada In Iowa, Stunning CNN in The Process!

Yep. Here's the news from ABC : Barack Obama's ahead 30 percent, 26 percent for Clinton, and John Edwards at 22 percent. Wolf Blitzer can't seem to stand that Obama's ahead of Clinton. They didn't mention that, or the Des Moines Register Poll, or the latest poll reporting Obama's lead at 4 percent.

Instead, CNN's Blitzer's focusing too much on other matters like the CIA leak, and totally ignoring Senator Clinton's major gaffe on Pakistan.

The Clinton News Network can't stand the news that Obama can win the Iowa Caucus.

Barack Obama Charms Waitress In Iowa - Gets New Supporter Over Ice Cream

This was reported in Floridacounts.com

(COURTESY LA TIMES)--

Barack Obama made an unscheduled stop on his campaign bus tour of Iowa the other day. Even a presidential candidate needs an ice cream cone of an afternoon.

Obama got the ice cream cone in a dairy bar in Wapello. But he also got a little more than he bargained for. After ordering around $20 worth of snacks--mostly ice cream and onion rings--for his campaign group, Obama got to talking with the counter waitress, Angela Dossett, who had some non-edible pressing concerns.

Turns out, she's the widow of a Marine killed in Iraq three years ago. She's afraid she'll lose all her survivor benefits if she makes more money or remarries and moves on with her life. "I can't move on," she said. "If I do I lose'' medical and other benefits.

Obama, who is a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, made a note of her concerns. Afterwards, she said Obama was the first presidential candidate to stop by the small diner. Now she is favorably disposed toward him. "He's really a nice guy,'' Dossett told The Times' Janet Hook.

Obama could have gotten away without paying the check. As the candidate was about to leave, one employee told him that the diner owner, who shyly stayed in the back kitchen, would spare him the bill if he just left an autograph. But the senator had already paid.

Obama chose vanilla, by the way.

--Andrew Malcolm

Hillary Clinton - Iowa Pork: The Other White Meat

Well, that's what it reads if you look at the photo. It features Hillary Clinton flipping burgers while wearing an apron that reads "The Other White Meat" and standing just in front of an under a sign that reads "Iowa Pork."

Man, I can't make this one up!

Top Clinton Aids Have Lobbied and Worked For Iowa Ememy Monsanto

Currently, Hillary Clinton's being hammered for holding her "Rural Americans For Hillary" party at a lobbying firm's office in Washington DC, and for Monsanto, which has a terrible record with Iowans and even that state's Attorney General's investigating their business practices.

But I learned that Clinton herself has ties to Monsanto. In 1998 top aides to her husband President Bill Clinton lobbied for Monsanto in Europe -- including President Clinton and Al Gore. According to Commondreams.org...

Top Clinton aides--including U.S. Trade Rep. Charlene Barshevsky, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and Secretary of Commerce William Daley--also have lobbied their European counterparts on Monsanto's behalf.

Even Bill Clinton and Al Gore got in on the act, engaging in some last minute arm-twisting of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahren and French President Lionel Jospin. Both the French and the Irish caved in to the pressure.

Indeed, Monsanto's well-known for hiring former aids to Bill Clinton. The most famous example is Mickey Kantor, who after representing President Clinton as trade representative, became a Monsanto Board member .

Senator Clinton's got herself in a real pickle this time. This is so bad, she should issue a formal appology to Iowa voters for her conduct in associating with Monsanto.

In Iowa, Hillary Clinton Backer Terry McAuliffe Says Clinton Iraq Vote Flip-Flop Due To Gender

Folks, I'm not making this up. It comes from the Iowa Independent newspaper. On August 30th, Clinton Campaign President Terry McAuliffe opened his mouth and stuck his foot deep in it, pissing off the people in attendance and possibly damaging the Clinton effort in Iowa.

On top of that, McAuliffe's act is upsetting other Iowans as well, and one person just plain wrote "I'm sick of Terry McAuliffe." Yes, the person who will stand in a photo with a Panda -- a costumed Panda -- for a vote, is proving to be a major liability in the state Clinton needs to prove she's unstoppable.

And what's so funny is he's the head of the campaign. He's walking around acting like they've got the election in the bag and thus not being affaid to make stupid statements, like this doozy of a running-off-at-the-mouth you're about to see below.

According to Chase Martyn, ....

Terry McAuliffe, who serves as Chair of Clinton's presidential campaign and was Chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005, helped shed light on why Clinton will not admit her vote was a mistake during an August 30 appearance at a coffee shop in Grinnell, IA. Abby Rapoport, editor-in-chief of Grinnell College's Scarlet & Black student newspaper, was the only reporter present for McAuliffe's candid conversation, and she quoted him this way in the September 7 issue of the paper:

McAuliffe declared that under no circumstances would she take back her vote. “A woman?” he almost yelled. “Can you imagine?”

Iowa Independent has verified from three other attendees of the event that McAuliffe was quoted accurately. Ironically, those attendees also told us that before discussing the connection between Clinton's position on her war vote and her gender, McAuliffe noted that he could only speak so candidly because there were no reporters present -- or so he thought.




Grinnell Coffee Company has a hip, artsy vibe with its black walls and its Venus Rising painting with a French coffee press. But I walked straight to the back, where a small beige room stands in stark contrast to the warm and friendly coffee shop. In the room, Grinnell community members talked in small clusters, awaiting the arrival of yet another politico to plead for their vote.
Suddenly a wholly alien force took over the room. Terry McAuliffe, former Democratic National Committee Chair and long time friend of the Clintons, arrived with an air of dominance, as all eyes focused on him.

McAuliffe is tall, with a booming voice and a slick, used-car-salesman type charm. His smiles and greetings, not to mention his slaps on the back of Wayne Moyer, Political Science, felt too self-congratulatory. You guys haven't won yet, I thought.

As if on command, we all sat down at once, waiting to hear what McAuliffe would say. Yet no one seemed more excited to hear him speak than McAuliffe himself. I guessed it would have something to do with voting for Hillary, given the posters taped to the wall and the stacks of lawn signs in the corner. But his tone was not quite what I imagined.

After asking who in the room would be supporting Hillary and finding only four of the twelve attendees to be loyal, McAuliffe began by emphasizing the campaign's currently successes, and its domination of the polls. He almost seemed to gloss over the nomination process, eager to talk about the general election.

"A lot of people ask me, `Can she win the general election?'" he boomed. The sweet older woman next to me seemed to perk up and nod at the question; presumably, she was asking it too. "Well," he continued, "that's the dumbest question I've ever heard." The woman seemed to stop nodding along.

McAuliffe spoke for almost forty-five minutes, focusing mainly on the general election, an election, he announced, that the Clinton campaign was already fundraising for.

"Anyone in the room who doesn't think this isn't going to be the most vicious campaign is nuts," he proclaimed. He seemed ready for the viciousness though. Later, he declared that "If you defame this woman … we will hit you back so hard your head will spin."

I kept trying to remind myself, undecided that I was, that in fact McAuliffe was not Hillary Clinton and his pushy, aggressive style did not necessarily discount his candidate. And at least he wasn't attacking other candidates, a trait I find particularly frustrating. Hear him all the way through, I thought. Give Hillary a chance.

And apparently Hillary needs my help. "Hillary is going to get elected," he proclaimed, "and I'll tell you why folks, because of women." 18 through 35 year-old women, he specified. ME.

But it was another 18 to 35 year old woman that caused a stir. McAuliffe asked those of us who were not supporters at the beginning of his little talk if any of us had changed out minds. When he found that none of us were swayed, he asked someone to come forward with their objections to his candidate, Jordan Levine '10 , one of the leaders of the Students for Hillary, pointed to Hannah Garden-Monheit '08, leader of Students for Obama. McAuliffe pushed her. "I don't mean to put you on the spot but…"

Garden-Monheit said she disliked Clinton's war vote. McAuliffe declared that under no circumstances would she take back her vote. "A woman?" he almost yelled. "Can you imagine?"

Carol Kramer, one of the four in the room supporting Clinton, echoed Garden-Monheit's concerns about Clinton's war vote.. "I want her to apologize," she explained.

"And I don't," McAuliffe retorted. Supporters could still incur his condescension. He reminded us that "[Republicans] are killers …. They're gonna lie, they're gonna steal-they're good at it."

But his parting words were more unifying. "We all come together in the end," he said. Fine, I thought. I'll vote for any of them-as long as I don't have to vote for you.

Whatever the reasons for Terry's behavior, it's clear he thinks the campaign's so far ahead it can survive his display of arrogance and stupidity.

Big mistake.