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The GOP Toolbar – Raising Cash for the Republican Party the Painless Way
Flap received an e-mail earlier in the week from the Republican National Committee about the GOP toolbar but like every come-on blew it off.But, Marc Ambinder had a post today and linked the Wall Street Journal piece that explains it in detail – a painless way to give to the GOP with a click of the mouse and at no cost to the browser user.
Barack Obama may have John McCain beat when it comes to online fund-raising and Facebook friends (click here and here), but Republicans have an edge in one form of Internet campaigning – and it’s growing 2.3 cents at a time.
When supporters install a GOP toolbar for their Web browser, the Republican National Committee collects a few pennies every time they use the Yahoo-based search function. The gadget was designed by http://www.freecause.com/ FreeCause Inc. , which gets the micro-payments from Yahoo and passes them to the RNC, after collecting its commission. Users can track the total in their digital change jar, which tops out at the Federal Election Commission’s $28,500 limit. That would amount to more than 1.2 million searches. Users can also do their online shopping through the browser tool, which directs 1% to 8% of their spending to the RNC.
FreeCause co-founder Casey Adkisson says the company has worked mainly with charitable causes like the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer organization and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
When McCain’s former chief strategist John Weaver heard about the new technology, his firm, The Network Companies LLC, bought the rights to the technology in the political marketplace. Beyond the fund-raising potential, Weaver sees the future of political communications and organizing in Web tools like this one.
“We’re all looking for a way to get around the media filters, to go directly to the consumer,†Weaver said. “The browser is the new desktop. Now we’ve got a communications tool in front of the user for six to ten hours every day. It will have a revolutionary impact.â€
Flap has installed the GOP toolbar and will be using it to search while contributing to the GOP. A novel approach.
Technorati Tags: GOP, GOP Toolbar, John Weaver
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Iran Nuclear Watch: 5000-6000 Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures as he speaks during a news conference after the Eight Developing Islamic Nations summit in Kuala Lumpur July 8, 2008. Iran is running more than 5,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium, its president was quoted as saying on Saturday, in comments suggesting continued expansion of work the West fears is aimed at making bombs
Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that Iran is running between 5,000 and 6,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges.Iran has more than 5,000 active centrifuges for enriching uranium, its president was quoted as saying on Saturday, suggesting a rapid expansion of nuclear work the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement was likely to irritate major powers which have offered Iran economic and other incentives to persuade it to suspend enrichment activity that can have both civilian and military uses.
Western officials said after a meeting with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in Geneva on July 19 it had two weeks to reply to an offer of a halt to new steps towards more U.N. sanctions if Iran froze the expansion of its nuclear program.
Now, Ahamdinejad is saying that the P-5 plus one nations (United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) are willing to accept Iranian uranium enrichment at this level. This is news to Flap unless the United States has changed its many years’ position of a halt to ALL uranium enrichment as a pre-condition to formal negotiations.
The fact is that Iran will NEVER halt any uranium enrichment. The Iranian Mullahs covet a nuclear weapon to project hegemony over their Arab neighbors and blackmail Israel.
Iran continues to enrich uranium and proceeds towards BREAKOUT CAPABILITY.
Stay tuned……
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Barack Obama Watch: Iran Does or Does NOT Pose a Serious Threat?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Back to Sanctions or Military Action?
Iran Nuclear Watch: Back Channel American Nuclear Negotiations with Iran?
Technorati Tags: Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Israel
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Day By Day by Chris Muir July 26, 2008
Will American voters agree with David Brooks when they go to the polls in November?The great illusion of the 1990s was that we were entering an era of global convergence in which politics and power didn’t matter. What Obama offered in Berlin flowed right out of this mind-set. This was the end of history on acid.
Since then, autocracies have arisen, the competition for resources has grown fiercer, Russia has clamped down, Iran is on the march. It will take politics and power to address these challenges, the two factors that dare not speak their name in Obama’s lofty peroration.
The odd thing is that Obama doesn’t really think this way. When he gets down to specific cases, he can be hard-headed. Last year, he spoke about his affinity for Reinhold Niebuhr, and their shared awareness that history is tragic and ironic and every political choice is tainted in some way.
But he has grown accustomed to putting on this sort of saccharine show for the rock concert masses, and in Berlin his act jumped the shark. His words drift far from reality, and not only when talking about the Senate Banking Committee. His Berlin Victory Column treacle would have made Niebuhr sick to his stomach.
Obama has benefited from a week of good images. But substantively, optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney.
The reality of the political polls is that John McCain is hanging in there. Do not crown Obama the next President just yet.
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Technorati Tags: Day By Day, Barack Obama, John McCain
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links for 2008-07-26
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Wow. He didn’t even sweat….
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“We do estimate that 20,000 [literally, “a couple of ten thousand”] people have turned out.”
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U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain urged China on Friday to address human rights concerns and free Tibetan prisoners after he met with the Dalai Lama in Colorado.