Some of you have probably know of Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark. Some of you may have heard his name. Lots of you probably don’t know him at all.

When you have 25 minutes to devote to a YouTube video, do yourself, me, and the country a favor by listening to what he recently told an audience.

Click on the link below. You won’t be disappointed.

Each of us, All of us – Cory Booker at Zeitgeist Americas 2011

Elizabeth Warren has only been on the campaign trail for a few weeks in her MA run for the Senate against Sen. Scott Brown.  Already, however, she is exciting many Democrats and worrying some Republicans.

If you haven’t heard or read much about her, check out what she said recently:

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(A Lincoln student, also a long time friend and MillersTime reader, emailed the following to me a few days ago — a response to Michael Gerson’s “Failing the Lincoln Test: Obama’s ordinary response to extraordinary challenge,” Washington Post, 9/13/11. Click Here to read Gerson’s article).

from Richard Margolies:

Michael Gerson’s op-ed, 9/13/11, fails the Lincoln vision test. He claims that Obama does not meet our crisis with solutions.   He selectively builds his case and overlooks similarities between these two leaders.

Both Lincoln and Obama responded to fundamental changes facing our nation.  Lincoln saw the country moving to a new manufacturing economy in the 1850s and 1860s.  Obama sees the country moving to a knowledge and service mode of production in the 21^st century.

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The Outer Loop, one of the four blogs at MiillersTime, is a place where I sometimes comment on local, national, and/or international issues and often link to articles that I think are worthy of your attention.

And as I relaunch MillersTime with a new design (but the same old ‘editor’), I bring you two ‘articles’ that I suspect you have not seen.

Both authors are individuals who are new to me.

One is a life long Democrat who calls himself a ‘country doctor,’ and who believes Pres. Obama needs to be challenged for the nomination because he has failed overwhelmingly in what he said he would do. His name is Joe Mason, and he says he will run for the presidency himself in 2012 if Obama does not respond to questions about why he has not done what he promised.

The other is a retiring Congressional staff member who for 28 years worked on budget, defense, and security issues, primarily for Republicans in both the Senate and the House. His name is Mike Lofgren, and he’s leaving the Hill and the party and tells why.  He also is no fan of the Democrats.

I post them together, not because I am trying to be balanced (for those who have followed MillersTime since its inception, you know I was a strong supporter of Obama’s candidacy and hoped he would be a terrific president). I post them both because sometimes the best insights come from within (a party, an organization, a group), and these two pieces clearly do that. Together, they not only describe our current political landscape but also put words to much of what I have been thinking and feeling about why our politics have become so dysfunctional.

When you have the time, I hope you will read Lofgren’s long and well written statement, which was recently published in Truthout.org., and also listen to Mason’s YouTube presentation (approximately 15 minutes). As always, please feel free to add your comment(s), respectfully.

The two ‘articles’:

1. Click Here for YouTube Presentation — Joe Mason for President

2.  Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

(Photo: Carolyn Tiry / Flickr)

As the 10 year anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11 comes, there are numerous articles, remembrances, pictures, etc. that seem to be flooding all forms of the media, old and new.

One of the articles that I found of particular interest is by a writer I have always enjoyed following, but since his move from the NY Times to New York magazine, I haven’t read much of what he has been writing.

Take a look at this piece that was published a week or so ago. And feel free to comment, respectfully, of course.

Day’s End

The 9/11 decade is now over. The terrorists lost. But who won?

By Frank Rich, New York (magazine)

• Published Aug 27, 2011

It was “the day that changed everything,” until it didn’t. Even in the immediate aftermath, you could see that 9/11 was less momentous for some ­Americans who were at a safe remove from the carnage and grief. By late September, the ratings at CNN, then 24/7 terror central, had fallen by more than 70 percent. As I traveled across the country that grim fall to fulfill a spectacularly ill-timed book tour, I discovered that the farther west I got, the more my audiences questioned me as though I were a refugee from some flickering evening-news hot spot as distant and exotic as Beirut. When I described the scent of burning flesh wafting through Manhattan, or my ­sister-in-law’s evacuation by the National Guard from her ash-filled apartment on John Street, I was greeted with polite yet unmistakable expressions of disbelief.

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