Democrats Choose Charlotte, North Carolina, for 2012 Nominating Convention

[somone]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-01/democrats-choose-charlotte-north-carolina-for-2012-nominating-convention.html

Democrats Choose Charlotte, North Carolina, for 2012 Nominating Convention
By Heidi Przybyla and Catherine Dodge

The Democratic National Committee today announced it will hold its 2012 presidential convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The convention will begin Sept. 3, party Chairman Tim Kaine said in an e-mail to committee members. Charlotte was chosen over St. Louis, Minneapolis and Cleveland. In 2008, Democrats held their convention in Denver.

North Carolina’s demographics reflect the coalition that comprised President Barack Obama’s 2008 victory, with large populations of young, black and educated voters.

“More than anything else, we want this to be a grassroots convention for the people,” first lady Michelle Obama said in an e-mail to supporters released by the Democratic Party. “We will make sure everyone feels closely tied in to what is happening in Charlotte. This will be a different convention, for a different time.”

The Republicans will hold their convention the previous week in Tampa, Florida.

[Kalyke]

1. Good... it needs to be in a purple state surrounded by

some red states. That way maybe the people down here who never are ALLOWED to hear anything but rightwing media might be able to get another viewpoint with the party so close by.

[Better Believe It]

2. Next to New York City's Wall Street, Charlotte is the second biggest banking capital in the U.S. !

Makes perfect sense and sends the right message to Wall Street and corporate America.

[TheWraith]

3. Do you do anything here anymore other than hate and bash Democrats? nt

[Better Believe It]

4. Like this post? "I think it was a real achievement of Obama to embrace, not demonize, the Chinese"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x309517

In a live video Q & A session, Truthdig Editor and columnist Robert Scheer answered readers’ questions about his latest column, “Hogwash, Mr. President,” and Obama’s second State of the Union address.
January 28, 2011

Anderson: Well, here’s a suggestion from within our own Truthdig team, which is that we ask you what you thought of Obama and the Chinese president’s visit?

Scheer: Yeah, I thought this was a strong moment for Obama. I think he … look. I think Obama is obviously better than many of the alternatives. Don’t get me wrong. And the fact that he’s not willing to … he has, at times, flirted with the bait China, “hold the Chinese responsible,” card, which Republicans and Democrats do. The good thing about this visit is he was willing to treat the Chinese with respect, which they deserve. That doesn’t mean you give them a blank check; that doesn’t mean you don’t criticize their human rights record. And in fact, one of the great achievements of that visit is the Chinese leader—Chinese leader! In public! Now, unfortunately, it wasn’t reported in China the way we would have hoped—but in public, in front of the world, said, “We need to work on our human rights.” That was an incredible, incredible victory. When is the time when an American president has said that, we need to work on human rights? That was a real achievement.

And I think the resistance of the impulse to demonize China, to look for scapegoats … the fact is, it was the U.S. economy that messed up the Chinese economy, not the other way around. It was the U.S. economy that messed up the Greek economy, and the Spanish economy, and threatened the German economy and the English economy. It was our banking policies—we are the culprits in this thing. Our Wall Street geniuses are the people that caused this international crisis. Now, the Germans and the Chinese have come out of it better than we have. But we can’t demonize them; we can’t blame this all on their currency or something. They’re going to try to do as well as they can, and they have a lot of people, a lot of mouths to feed. They’re going to try to … we’ve always jiggered currency, we’ve always jiggered trade to protect our own people; let’s not kid ourselves. So what they’re doing is, they say, hey, we can’t have riots in the street, we’ve got … hundreds of millions of people are going to be very unhappy with any of the slightest little drop here. And so they have protected their interests, and like the Germans, seem to be coming out of this nightmare that we created, you know, in better shape.

But I think it was a real achievement of Obama to embrace the Chinese, to treat them as equals, to not demonize, and yet to reserve the right to criticize things that are universally important, like human rights, yeah. So I thought it was a masterful—let me be very pro-Obama on this—I thought it was his best moment in foreign policy; it was masterful. So I don’t always want to criticize … look, I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again. I take no joy in being a naysayer. I know we have people who comment and say, “God, you just love to be in opposition, you just love to be critical. …” I don’t. Trust me, I would rather go sailing today with our managing editor, who happens to be my son, Peter, and say, “Hey! The world’s in great shape. We don’t really need to put out Truthdig. We don’t need to be sounding the alarm. You know, let’s just go sailing! It’s a beautiful day in Los Angeles. You know, we have this little sailboat, let’s go out there, let’s enjoy it.” I’d love to just think, “Hey, let’s have a great lunch here, you know? Let’s take the whole Truthdig staff down to the beach, and we’ll go have lunch. Our work is done. We’ve got a great president, he’s solving our problems, and we should shut up for a while.” But the problem is that a lot of people are hurting around the world, and it would be irresponsible for us to shut up now. We can’t do that.