MILWAUKEE, Feb. 15, 2008
Obama: U.S. Must Eradicate Gun Violence
Democratic Candidate Also Says He Believes In An Individual's Right To Bear Arms
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Play CBS Video Video Meet Michelle Obama In an exclusive interview, Michelle Obama talks with Katie Couric about her career, her family, and her husband's historic quest for the presidency.
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Video Obama Ad: 'Debate' Barack Obama's campaign refutes charges he is ducking a debate in Wisconsin, pointing out the 18 debates he's attended and the 2 more scheduled. Narrator: "It's just the same politics as usual."
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Video Eye To Eye: Michelle Obama "Only On The Web": In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Katie Couric speaks with Michelle Obama about her husband's presidential bid and why she thinks he is best qualified to lead the nation.
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Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at a news conference Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, in Milwaukee, Wis. (AP)
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Interactive Lecture Hall Horror Gunman opens fire at Northern Illinois University, kills five people before killing himself.
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Interactive Guns In America State-by-state gun laws and death rates, maps of recent school and workplace shootings and facts on who's at risk.
Obama said he spoke to Northern Illinois University's president Friday morning by phone and offered whatever help his Senate office could provide in the investigation and improving campus security. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke about the Illinois shooting to reporters while campaigning in neighboring Wisconsin.
The senator, a former constitutional law instructor, said some scholars argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees gun ownerships only to militias, but he believes it grants individual gun rights.
"I think there is an individual right to bear arms, but it's subject to commonsense regulation" like background checks, he said during a news conference.
He said he would support federal legislation based on a California law that would facilitate immediate tracing of bullets used in a crime. He said even though the California law was passed over the strong objection of the National Rifle Association, he thinks it's the type of law that gun owners and crime victims can get behind.
Five people, including the shooter, were killed during Thursday's ambush inside a lecture hall. Authorities said the two guns used were purchased legally less then a week ago.
"Today we offer them our thoughts and prayers, but we also have to offer them our determination to do whatever it takes to eradicate this violence from our streets, from our schools, from our neighborhoods and our cities," Obama said. "That is our duty as Americans."
Although Obama supports gun control, while campaigning in gun-friendly Idaho earlier this month, he said he does not intend to take away people's guns.
At his news conference, he voiced support for the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, which is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court next month.
"The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gang bangers and random shootings on the street isn't born out by our Constitution," Obama said.
Obama also:
"I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal," he said. "But I think this kind of gamesmanship is not what the American people are looking for."
"If I am the nominee, then I will make sure that our people talk to John McCain's people to find out if we're willing to abide by the same rules and regulations with respect to the general election going forward," Obama said. "But it would be presumptuous of me to say now that I'm locking myself into something when I don't even know if the other side is going to agree to it and I'm not the nominee yet."
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 296 CommentsThe thing about campaign promises is that if you promise 12 things which are fairly realistic to achieve, you promote them as hard as you can but only accomplish 6 you are still better off than to make phony promises that can never be achieved, push them hard and accomplish none.
Hillary says she will achieve universal healthcare by forcing those who can''t afford insurance to pay for it
anyways. The fact that the same strategy is being used in Massachusetts and not insuring the uninsured does not seem to faze her.
McCain says he won''t raise anyones taxes under any circumstances and may respond to the recession from cutting taxes, all the while continuing the money drain called Iraq. That can''t be done in a rapidly shrinking economy. It''s been tried as well. George Bush, Sr.(who will be endorsing him today) called ot "voodoo economics".
Obama won''t accomplish everything he''s promising but he''s right to try and he''s offering more sensible and doable proposals than the others.
Also, you can''t put young people so neatly in a box as you do; it''s slander, not fact.
"The NRA is committed to constitutional rights. While most people think of us as focused on firearms, we are rather more focused on freedom. Yes, we concentrate on the Second Amendment, but the Second Amendment is about liberty. It''s an insurance policy for all of your constitutional rights. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to make sure that you have the ability to protect your life, liberty and property, and those of your loved ones, against any who would try to take them from you. That includes your freedom to speak, worship, protest and vote. It includes the things you hold most dear.
- Sandy Froman, former NRA president
The difference is whether they attempt to KEEP some of those promises or like W - the minute they''re securely ensconced begin to DESTROY everything they promised to protect and defend.
He starts an oil war with NO end in sight in a country that DID NOT attack us and has peed away already over half trillion monetary cost and a half MILLION innocent lives while DIVERTING our troops from catching the SUPPOSED REASON - his BILLIONAIRE family friend Bin Laden!
W promised "compassionate conservatism" and the US got a war of choice, a gutting of the surplus his administration inherited from the previous administration along with a now TEETERING on the brink of depression ECONOMY - we got neither compassionate OR CONSERVATIVE.
The CONSTITUTION he SWORE to "protect and defend" has been GUTTED and in the eyes of the world this nation has become the exact OPPOSITE of compassionate or even diplomatic or intelligent for that matter. Heck the man claims to be a "rancher and he''s AFRAID of horses!
From my perspective, ANYONE would be better than a pathologically lying megalomaniac with delusions of being intelligent.
So WHO would be YOUR choice? McBush Lite?
"Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control. Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government."
-- Congressman Ron Paul, June 26, 2006
www.a-human-right.com
Send SWAT teams bursting into every home and business in America looking for guns?
Make the Army or Blackwater Soldiers bust down every door in America to take our guns?
Send anyone who does not cooperate to a giant prison camp?
There are enough guns in America to arm every adult in the whole country.
Millions of Americans would never give up their constitutional rights and their best means of self defense.
Where are we going to lock up many millions of people?
Our jails are already full!
I don''t know why people are choosing to harm others and themselves but blaming guns and making everyone defenseless will never solve a single thing.
To Me, the thing that would help us all the most, is to realize that we have been collectively duped, for many, many years by the biggest snow-job artists ever. And, once we realize that, and know that we''ve all been "given the treatment" (and I do mean Liberals and Republicans alike!) and realize that it would be much better for us to get along and face what is happening collectively, the better prepared we will be to face what is coming.
I don''t think the outlook is too good. It would really behoove us all to find common ground and figure our collective way out of this mess.
I know that my husband is really opposed to guns. I think that if it makes a person feel more secure to have a regular gun, FINE!!! Why would I care any more about some other person owning a gun than I would feel about them being gay? Makes no difference to me! (Not too big on the assault weapons, though!)
Anyway, I think that the whole argument over guns is a sidetrack and a trap. "Look This Way!!" while we do "THAT!"
Just my thoughts this evening.
The way that I think about government is that it''s absolutely necessary. How will we get roads built, how will we have schools for our children, how will we make sure that we aren''t snowed into taking lethal drugs that are money-makers for the drug industry or having tainted meat served up in the schools (did you hear about this one? Not good!)? How will we come together and even have a military, without government?
I think our present government has malfunctioned terribly. I feel like it''s mostly because the citizens of our great country became too complacent and paid zero attention to what was being done in their names, and now, here we are. In this mess. (Going to continue in another post, sorry about the length of this one...)
WASHINGTON %u2013 The electrifying presidential campaign of Barack Obama faces a new challenge %u2013 a Minnesota man who claims he took cocaine in 1999 with the then-Illinois legislator and participated in homosexual acts with him.
When his story was ignored by the news media, Larry Sinclair made his case last month in a YouTube video, which has now been viewed more than a quarter-million times. And when it was still ignored by the media, Sinclair filed a suit in Minnesota District Court, alleging threats and intimidation by Obama%u2019s staff.
this is the link copy it to your search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVeFVtcdSYY&e url=http:%2F%2Fwww.anorak.co.uk%2Fpoliticians%2F 179725.html
See Larry Sinclair''s allegations:
Larry Sinclair lawsuit, pages1-2-3
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId =56627
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId =56628
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId =56629
Unless you''re the other half who pay absolutely no federal taxes and get thousands of dollars in EITC and child tax credits.
1. To force others to live as they see fit.
2. To get ''free'' stuff (govt services, subsidies, etc.) at the expense of others.
People vote based upon these two ideas, which I find to be reprehensible.
For example, if I had kids in public schools, I would not vote for higher property taxes that those w/o kids in public schools are forced to pay.
I refuse govt subsidies that are paid for at the expense of other Americans.
I do not champion politicians that seek to use govt force against peaceful people. Of course, that rules out just about all of them.
That is a great definition and I agree wholeheartedly, but how do you live it?
Govt caused inflation takes away purchasing power from Americans; in turn, the govt uses the money to fund their excessive, expensive welfare/warfare state.
Freedom of travel (without govt control) is a peaceful act.
Freedom of association, as opposed to coercive govt associations.
Government, by definition, is the use of coercive force against people, peaceful or not.
Thus, less government will generally lead to more peace.
Foreign government intervention gives us unnecessary wars at a tremendous cost.
Govt intervention at home makes things more expensive for everyone.
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