July 18, 2008
From Bonnie Erbe (long time host of "To the Contrary" on PBS) in US News: Democratic anti-Obama movement grows online. According to justsaynodeal.com cofounder Diane Mantouvalos in an online FoxNews.com video posted Thursday, the Democratic anti-Obama movement is growing online. Mantouvalos claims the number of Democratic anti-Obama websites is growing exponentially. Justsaynodeal.com, an anti-Obama Web site, lists some 160 websites that have sprung up to urge Democrats to vote for McCain so, these Hillary supporters hope, Senator Clinton can take on McCain in 2012. Montouvalos told Foxnews.com one of these anti-Obama Dems is making a documentary. She also said some 250 organizations were on a conference call planning a major event three weeks before the Democratic convention next month in Denver. Stay tuned... Nancy Pelosi's straight talk express. Speaker Pelosi got it right on CNN yesterday when she described President Bush as a "total failure" on everything from the economy...
Continue reading...
From the New York Times: A Bush administration plan to define several widely used contraception methods as abortion is a "gratuitous, unnecessary insult" to women and faces tough opposition, Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Friday. The former Democratic presidential candidate joined family planning groups to condemn the proposal that defines abortion to include contraception such as birth control pills and intrauterine devices. It would cut off federal funds to hospitals and states where medical providers are obligated to offer legal abortion and contraception to women. "We will not put up with this radical, ideological agenda to turn the clock back on women's rights," the New York senator told a joint news conference with New York Rep. Nita Lowey, also a Democrat, at Bellevue Hospital. "Women would watch their contraceptive coverage disappear overnight," said Clinton. The planned rule is aimed at countering recent state laws enacted to ensure that women can...
Continue reading...
July 17, 2008
Nixon Attorney General Elliot Richardson honored his oath of office - he resigned rather than help Nixon cover up a crime. From CNN: ...[Elliot Richardson] was best known for his actions in 1973, when, during the height of the investigation into the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, he refused Nixon's orders to fire the special prosecutor in the case, Archibald Cox. The Republican president was battling Cox over his attempts to subpoena tape recordings of White House discussions believed relevant to the investigation of the Watergate break-in and the suspected cover-up by the Republican president and his staff. Nixon, who eventually was driven from office by the Watergate affair, contended the nine tapes being sought were privileged. "The more I thought about it, the clearer it seemed to me that public confidence in the investigation would depend on its being independent not only in fact but...
Continue reading...
July 15, 2008
From Rasumssen: ...McCain fares better against Obama than he does against two other prominent Democrats. New York Senator Hillary Clinton leads McCain by eight points, 50% to 42%. Former Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, leads McCain 50% to 43%. These numbers help explain why Election 2008 is competitive even though events so heavily favor the Democrats -- because the Republicans are on course to nominate their strongest possible general election candidate but the Democrats are not. Perhaps even more importantly, the data suggests that voters don’t see a potential McCain Administration as the third term of President Bush. In all five hypothetical match-ups featured in this article, the Democrat leads the Republican among unaffiliated voters. In the match-up between the two presumptive nominees, McCain holds a slight edge over Obama among those voters......
Continue reading...
July 14, 2008
Michael Kinsey says we are off on a snit, Kos says we are ridiculous. Methinks we chose wisely to distance ourselves from such people. I can't bring myself to link to the Great Orange Satan. But here's Kinsey, as he tries to hoist his inadequate doozy of a candidate on us by... going off on a snit (my comments in [italics]): ...For many Clinton supporters, the chance to elect an African-American President represents the culmination of a cause they have been fighting for all their lives. Yet almost half of Clinton supporters tell pollsters that they will not vote for Obama. And Clinton's big-money backers are deflecting money and energy away from their party's presumptive nominee. What is their problem? [They have common sense?] News reports suggest that disgruntled Clinton supporters are angry about alleged sexism in the coverage of her campaign, while other Democrats are upset at Obama's recent...
Continue reading...
July 13, 2008
And it only postpones the inevitable - the home debtors would be better off renting and rebuilding their credit. From Rasmussen: As the Senate inches toward passage of a $300 billion bill to help homeowners facing foreclosure, a new Rasmussen Reports national survey shows that only 21% of voters think the federal government should provide such assistance. Slightly more than half (51%) say the government should not help these troubled homeowners and 27% are undecided. Forty-six percent (46%) blame the ongoing home foreclosure crisis on individuals who borrowed more than they could afford, while 42% say Wall Street investors and mortgage companies caused the problems. The bill expands the FHA's refinancing program for homeowners facing foreclosure by $300 billion and calls for an overhaul of the government-backed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill also allows troubled lenders like Countrywide to transfer their distressed loans to the federal...
Continue reading...
July 12, 2008
What media bias? Let's see, the AP headline reads "off-color" joke - yet the remarkable thing about these jokes were not four letter words, but rather, the sexist content. One can be "off-color" without being sexist. So if one is sexist, particularly if one is chosen by a political candidate running for president to perform in front of his large donors, it should be noted. And somehow the AP characterizes Obama's response as a "joke"??? So where's the punchline in this "joke"? "Bernie, you've got to clean up your act next time. This is a family affair. By the way, I'm just messing with you, man." So let's see, Obama is only calling Mac out (after an audience member objected) because it's a "family" audience - otherwise, his comments would be fine. From the AP: Comedian Bernie Mac endured some heckling and a campaign rebuke during a surprise appearance Friday...
Continue reading...
July 11, 2008
Now, here's a brilliant idea, how about letting someone this morally bankrupt run the United States of America. From Chris Fusco and Dave McKinney at the Chicago Sun-Times: He can't explain exactly how he spent $100,000 of taxpayer's money on a garden that was never built. Instead, what was supposed to be a six-block stretch of trees and paths is now a field of unfulfilled dreams, strewn with weeds, garbage and broken pavement. As a state senator, Barack Obama gave $100,000 in state money to a campaign volunteer who failed to deliver on a plan to create a botanic garden in one of Chicago's most blighted neighborhoods. Obama -- who was running for Congress when he announced the project in 2000 -- said the green space in Englewood would build ''a sense of neighborhood pride." Kenny B. Smith, a onetime campaign volunteer for Barack Obama, can't explain exactly how he...
Continue reading...
July 10, 2008
The rest of the article dove headfirst into far right territory, but he certainly summed up the fundamental case against Obama pretty well: inexperience. From Real Clear Politics: ...No candidate for President since Wendell Wilkie in 1940 has had as little relevant experience before running for President as Barack Obama. The Illinois Senator served for 8 years, in a generally undistinguished fashion, in the Illinois legislature. He was best known for voting present more often than any other State Senator. When the Democrats took over the Legislature the last two years he served, Obama worked out a deal with the Democratic leader, Emil Jones, to get his name on some bills so he could buff up his resume before running for the open US Senate seat. After a string of revelations about two opponents' marital problems, Obama wound up effectively running unopposed for the US Senate seat (Alan Keyes was...
Continue reading...
July 09, 2008
From Maria Cocco at Real Clear Politics: Obama has backhandedly given credibility to the right-wing narrative that women who have abortions -- even those who go through the physically and mentally wrenching experience of a late-term abortion -- are frivolous and selfish creatures who might perhaps undergo this ordeal because they are "feeling blue." In all the years I have covered the incendiary politics of late-term abortion -- procedures that comprise only about 1 percent of abortions in the U.S. -- I have never come across a woman who terminated a pregnancy late because she was "feeling blue." Somewhere along Barack Obama's winding road through the red states, he lost me. It happened when he talked about women who are "feeling blue." Obama says that these women should not be able to obtain a late-term abortion, because just "feeling blue" isn't the same as suffering "serious clinical mental health diseases."...
Continue reading...
July 08, 2008
Election year pandering that helps political cronies while it hurts taxpayers and the economy - and does nothing for the reckless borrowers who bought more than they could afford, driving prices out of reach. From Dean Baker: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is not terribly optimistic about the success of the housing bailout bill going through Congress. They project that 35 percent of the homeowners "helped" under the plan, or 140,000 families, will find themselves again facing foreclosure. The reason for the pessimism is that the lenders get to decide which loans enter the program. Naturally, they will pick homeowners who they think will be the least likely to make it. I wonder what the folks who support this bill will tell those 140,000 families? Many of these families will struggle to make their mortgage payments for 2 or 3 years, sacrificing health care, child care and other necessary expenses...
Continue reading...
July 07, 2008
This video is about the rigging of the 1996 state senate election. More of the same since then, but dirty tricks wouldn't have been enough to bring this questionable local politician to the national arena, without the front runner's disgrace by a domestic scandal....
Continue reading...
July 05, 2008
From Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report: Once again, Obama has proven that he isn't about change - at least not change for the better. He has become a convert to Bush's kind of evangelism: bribery on a huge scale, under the guise of religious faith. George W. Bush as his mentor, Barack Obama shamelessly dives into the political sewer of "faith-based initiatives," the Republican strategy to bribe the Black preaching class. Obama takes his cues from "W," who early in his first term lured hustler/preachers by the thousands into GOP ranks by grabbing them by the greedy-bones. Rather than prepare to cast out this great corruption along with the Bush regime, Obama adopts it as his own - a shocking display of cynicism and amorality. Obama's faith-based treachery will inevitably result in a weakening of the Black progressive tradition. Barack Obama has wracked up a shocking number of betrayals...
Continue reading...
From CNN (who couldn't resist twisting the findings by dissing Hillary and Bill): A growing number of Clinton supporters polled say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, an indication the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain's camp is down from one month ago, but -- in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party -- the number of them who say they plan to vote for Obama is also down, and a growing number say they may not vote at all. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early...
Continue reading...
July 04, 2008
From the New York Times: Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics. Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush’s abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics. Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election. His team explained that, saying he had a grass-roots-based model and that while he was forgoing public money, he also was eschewing gold-plated fund-raisers. These days he’s on a high-roller hunt. Even his own chief...
Continue reading...
July 03, 2008
July 02, 2008
An excerpt from Politically Drunk on Power - Why Does Obama Fear 4 Million?: The PUMA Community represents the most ardent, values driven and politically educated of Hillary Clinton's supporters. They do not fall for the traditional talking points of the political parties that are meant to drive a wedge between the electorate. When McCain was attacked as a Womanizer and accused of not supporting equal pay; this community researched the issues and pointed out the divisiveness and fallacies of the accusations. When Obama and his supporters brought abortion to the forefront of their argument, the PUMA community was quick to point out that historically speaking the "Overturning Roe" threat has been disproved simply by the fact that after years of Republican judicial appointments SCOTUS has shown no desire to take up the issue. Obama fears the Puma community because they are not the typical single-issue voters who will fall...
Continue reading...
From the Washington Post: The Obamas bought the house for $300,000 less than the asking price of $1.95 million, while Rezko's wife, Rita, bought the neighboring lot for the full asking price of $625,000. Rita Rezko later sold a portion of the undeveloped lot to the Obamas, enlarging the senator's yard. Tony Rezko already had been linked to a grand jury investigation involving public corruption. Last month, he was convicted of 16 counts in an influence-peddling scheme that reached the highest levels of Illinois state government. Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below...
Continue reading...
July 01, 2008
June 30, 2008
From the Boston Globe: As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies.But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama's former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama's constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted. The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live...
Continue reading...
Ed Rendell, having sided with the "loser" of the contest, decided he needed to get in good with the "winner". So Ed started a cute little counter-movement to PUMA (where women dishonored by the party gathered to speak out) called HOUND. A kid (budding male chauvinist) inspired by Ed put together a site called The ANTI-PUMA - and best foot forward, let's look at his lead entry: Just say no deal to “Just Say No Deal”, the father website to PUMA voters! I am in works of making ANTI-PUMA the new voice of reason against these republicans hurding the hurt and angry women. I cannot do it alone! I am going to need help! If you would like to blog for ANTI-PUMA please leave a comment with your email and I will sign you up! Together we can ensure that PUMA has the wind taken out of her sails and...
Continue reading...
June 28, 2008
On the McLaughlin Group last night, Nina Totenberg said McCain could beat Obama, but not if he panders to the far right (the minority of the country that thinks Bush is doing a great job). At any rate, here is where McCain makes his pitch to Democrats, Citizens for McCain: "Democrats and Independents for McCain... Citizens for McCain is an organization within the McCain campaign for people who put country before political party."...
Continue reading...
From Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: "Four western companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power." There you have it. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts – that's right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places.And those sweetheart deals in Iraq should be added to his proposed indictments. They have been purchased at a very high price. Four thousand American soldiers dead, tens of thousands permanently wounded for life, hundreds of thousands of dead and crippled Iraqis plus five million displaced, and a cost that will mount into trillions of dollars. Oh, no, they told...
Continue reading...
Exactly. Instead of being knee-jerk pro-Obama (someone they know very little about and thus cannot predict what he will or will not do, although some pretty strong clues have thus far been ignored), the left ought to be relentlessly pro-civil liberties (if they are, indeed, much different from the right at all, which is becoming increasingly doubtful to me). From Jack Balkin in Balkinization: ...So, let's sum up: Congress gives the President new powers that Obama can use. Great. (This is change we can believe in). Obama doesn't have to expend any political capital to get these new powers. Also great. Finally, Obama can score points with his base by criticizing the retroactive immunity provisions, which is less important to him going forward than the new powers. Just dandy. It should now be clear why the Obama campaign has taken the position it has taken. And given what I have...
Continue reading...
June 27, 2008
From the Rocky Mountain News: Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader accused Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic Party nominee, of downplaying poverty issues, trying to "talk white" and appealing to "white guilt" during his run for the White House. Nader, a thorn in the Democratic Party's side since the 2000 presidential election, has taken various shots at Obama in recent days while ramping up his latest independent run for president. In a wide-ranging interview with the Rocky Mountain News on Monday, he said he is running because he believes Democrats, like Republicans, are too closely aligned with corporate interests. Economic exploitation Nader was asked if Obama is any different than Democrats he has criticized in the past, considering Obama's pledge to reject campaign contributions from registered lobbyists. "There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American," Nader said. "Whether...
Continue reading...
The danger of blind partisanship, particularly when a wild card like Obama is the beneficiary. From Raw Story: "Is that really what anyone wants -- transferring blind devotion from George Bush to Barack Obama? Are we hoping for a Fox News for Obama, that glorifies everything he says and whitewashes everything he does?" ...The Democratic presidential candidates' support for an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has caused some contortions among progressive commentators seeking to justify Obama's decision while a few others are willing to criticize the Illinois senator for making what they say is the wrong choice. The two sides of this debate have come into sharp relief in the last few days in a tete-a-tete between Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer and leading critic of the FISA deal, and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. It started Wednesday night, when Olbermann praised Obama for "refusing to...
Continue reading...
From Pat Summers: Dear Mortgage Borrower: I understand that you have gotten yourself into some trouble. As someone who has made more than a few mistakes, I sympathize with you. I really do. However, I am more than a little concerned by how eager our government is to intervene on your behalf. They want to bail you out with taxpayer-backed programs and loans. They also want to violate the sanctity of U.S. contracts by allowing courts to alter terms on mortgages. While this may seem like good news to you, it feels terribly unjust to me. Unlike you, I didn't ride the wave of insanity and buy more house than I could reasonably afford with a loan that I couldn't feasibly pay back. Nor did I sign a legally binding contract to claim responsibility for your questionable real estate transaction. Nevertheless, there is a good chance that I will be...
Continue reading...
June 26, 2008
She hit the nail on the head - I have run across women like Pelosi, who enjoy being the only "girl" in the boys club. Harriet Christian on No Quarter (she writes just as well as she speaks!): Will the new Democratic Party just start marketing a Nancy Pelosi stripper pole to compliment her upside of sexism viewpoint now that the Hillary Clinton Nutcracker has served its purpose? ...I would like to discuss the comments made yesterday by Nancy Pelosi on the topic of sexism and misogyny. Speaker Pelosi said she wanted to know more facts before she made a final pronouncement about sexism and the Clinton candidacy. “I myself find that I get a tremendous upside from being a woman and I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the sexist remarks that people make.” What an amazingly pompous, completely disconnected statement. I guess we can be thankful...
Continue reading...
June 25, 2008
From Paul Krugman in the New York Times: Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who is one of Barack Obama’s top advisers, warned against a crackdown on subprime lending. “For be it ever so humble,” he wrote, “there really is no place like home, even if it does come with a balloon payment mortgage.” “Owning a home lies at the heart of the American dream.” So declared President Bush in 2002, introducing his “Homeownership Challenge” — a set of policy initiatives that were supposed to sharply increase homeownership, especially for minority groups. Oops. While homeownership rose as the housing bubble inflated, temporarily giving Mr. Bush something to boast about, it plunged — especially for African-Americans — when the bubble popped. Today, the percentage of American families owning their own homes is no higher than it was six years ago, and it’s a good bet that by the time Mr....
Continue reading...
Renters who waited until they had good, stable incomes, with adequate cushions for maintenance and other expenses, and money saved for a 20% down payment, found that when they went to buy, the prices had been jacked up astronomically. These responsible people were priced out of the market. Why? Because people who didn't take the proper precautions bought houses they couldn't afford with no money down for 2% interest teaser rates. And took out second mortgages for granite counter tops and SUVs. Now these people are complaining that they can't pay, but want to keep the house anyway. And here's the kicker - they want the renters to pay for it. Where in the Constitution it says everyone is guaranteed a house and if they can't afford it, the taxpayers will pay for it? Where does it say reckless behavior will be rewarded? And how does any of this make...
Continue reading...
June 23, 2008
What a badly written article. About halfway through, the overused "angry" was replaced by the overused "mad". I mean, if you are going to denigrate women by reducing them to a primitive emotion, at least be consistent. Funny stuff. And it ended with a tangled mass of insults, illogic, and idiocy [my responses in italics]: As many people have already observed: What are they going to do, vote for John McCain? No. [um, why not? he's the only one of the two choices who has enough experience to do the job] The truth is, they're really not. [and you base this on what factual evidence?] Not if they care about their freedoms to control their own reproductive lives. [Obama wanted to vote for John Roberts until an aide told him it would hurt his chances of being president, he has a history of making poor choices, he just backed a...
Continue reading...
Lies about McCain while playing the race card, lies about his blatant flip flop on campaign finance, lies about presidential powers and FISA, ... What does he believe in, anyway? Whatever serves Obama. Scott Simon on NPR...
Continue reading...
June 21, 2008
You know how when some half-person causes lots of distress for other people because they just can't be bothered, and you tell them what happened, thinking they'll try to make amends, and they not only are not sorry, they say nasty stuff to you that makes it worse? Then you kick yourself for giving them the chance to add insult to injury. People like will do anything to avoid facing the reality of who they are - call them on what they do, and you see the naked animal scrambling to keep covered. M. Scott Peck wrote about such people in a way that made a lot of sense in The Road Not Taken: Some ordinarily lazy people may not lift a finger to extend themselves unless they are compelled to do so. Their being is a manifestation of nonlove; still, they are not evil. Truly evil people, on the...
Continue reading...
June 20, 2008
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." I have been listening to Oprah Winfrey's Soul Series on XM. Oprah talks to "new age" authors who embrace a blend of eastern and western philosophies. Some of the hits, misses, and just plain out theres who have been on her shows: Hits: Wayne Dyer's current focus is the Tao Teh Ching. Eckhart Tolle's touchstone, though he denies having any specific one, is Christianity (and what he says actually reconcile pretty well with the teachings of Jesus.) Not on the series, Deepak Chopra focuses on the Bhagavad Gita. These authors draw from the world's religious traditions to share some pretty good lessons. Misses: Marianne Williamson's focus is "A Course In Miracles", a book written by a professor in the seventies who believed Jesus dictated the words to her. The book refers to Jesus,...
Continue reading...
From the ACLU: ...This bill allows for mass and untargeted surveillance of Americans' communications. The court review is mere window-dressing –- all the court would look at is the procedures for the year-long dragnet and not at the who, what and why of the spying. Even this superficial court review has a gaping loophole –- "exigent" circumstances can short cut even this perfunctory oversight since any delay in the onset of spying meets the test and by definition going to the court would cause at least a minimal pause. Worse yet, if the court denies an order for any reason, the government is allowed to continue surveillance throughout the appeals process, thereby rendering the role of the judiciary meaningless. In the end, there is no one to answer to; a court review without power is no court review at all... Barack Obama - Mr. Hope and Change - is "conspicuously...
Continue reading...
June 18, 2008
This begs one question - do bad girls get the most guys? From New Scientist: NICE guys knew it, now two studies have confirmed it: bad boys get the most girls. The finding may help explain why a nasty suite of antisocial personality traits known as the "dark triad" persists in the human population, despite their potentially grave cultural costs. The traits are the self-obsession of narcissism; the impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous behaviour of psychopaths; and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism. At their extreme, these traits would be highly detrimental for life in traditional human societies. People with these personalities risk being shunned by others and shut out of relationships, leaving them without a mate, hungry and vulnerable to predators. But being just slightly evil could have an upside: a prolific sex life, says Peter Jonason at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. "We have some evidence...
Continue reading...
June 17, 2008
We told them so. And red flag for inept pundits/politicians - the "they'll come around" dismissal. Yes, please keep believing that. From Jake Tapper: ...Women, particularly married white women, however, may be a problem for Obama, according to the Washington Post/ABC poll. It showed that McCain has a 20 point advantage over Obama among married white women, a group that George Bush also won in the last two presidential elections. Stephanopoulos told GMA that the figure was a "danger sign" for Obama. "This is a huge gap that Obama has to close if he's going to do well." Obama faces an additional problem that only half of the voters saying he has the necessary experience to be president. "If you look at the key question of experience, that may be what's holding him back," Stephanopoulos said. "Only 50 percent of voters say that Barack Obama has the experience to be...
Continue reading...
June 16, 2008
Let's hope not. From Scott Ott: Yes, MSNBC's Chris Matthews found a way to use even the death of a beloved journalist (there's a term you don't see often) to again roll out the liberal chestnut that the Bush-Cheney cabal had manipulated Americans into war by raising the specter of nuclear weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein and like-minded ne'er do wells. The Hardball host's live shot from Paris last night gave vivid illustration to the expression "like a belch in church." Asked by a justifiably teary-eyed Keith Olbermann to reflect on the sudden death, Mr. Matthews professed his love and admiration, calling Mr. Russert "everyman", a "true patriot", "Mr. America" -- by which he meant that the Meet the Press moderator had supported the Iraq invasion because of the trumped-up threat of nukes. In other words, Mr. Matthews clearly implied, Tim Russert was like the rest of you...
Continue reading...
June 15, 2008
Wow, I am very impressed with Diane Mantouvalos of Just Say No Deal and her representation of those of us with like minds. "This group of voters needs courting all over again... [If he puts her on the ticket would you vote for him?] If who does, if John McCain wants to work with Hillary Clinton... If Barack Obama does, no deal... I simply can't vote for a candidate who is less qualified than Hillary Rodham Clinton."...
Continue reading...
People make videos like this. ***One*** legislative accomplishment... Seen on No Quarter:...
Continue reading...
From Dahlia Lithwick in the Washington Post: The main problem: Both McCain and Obama start from the premise that the Supreme Court is tidily balanced among four conservative judicial minimalists, four liberal judicial empaths and the inscrutable Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, swinging away at the center. This is a useful model for trying to stir up public concern about the court's composition, and the decision in at least one blockbuster case -- last Thursday's ruling that the Bush administration is violating the constitutional rights of foreign terrorism suspects being held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- did indeed go down along the traditional lines. Still, the current term is rapidly proving the simple conservatives-vs.-liberals construct to be a thing of the past. With just two weeks left in the Supreme Court's term, everything we thought we knew about the Roberts court seems wrong. The question now is: Who plans to...
Continue reading...
June 14, 2008
What she said (and she said it so very well!) Oh yeah, and Alan Colmes - you have no idea what kind of justices Obama would select. None whatsoever. From Clintons 4 McCain:...
Continue reading...
Experience is not something that can be based on lies. And that is the real issue. According to the Obama campaign: If we vote for Hillary Clinton, we are racist. If we vote for John McCain, we are racist. If we vote for Barack Obama, we are not racist. This is entirely illogical. They must think we are really stupid. Oh, that's right, they do. So they are calling us stupid and racist, hoping we will vote for Obama (how interesting, a "you suck, vote for me" strategy - well, I guess that's one step up from the "who cares, we don't need you anyway" strategy). They appear to think this will make us vote for Obama, to prove they are wrong about us. “Hmmm, they think I’m not voting for him because I’m racist, therefore, to prove to them I’m not racist, I’ll vote for him.” What kind of...
Continue reading...
Check out PUMA Pac - there is a request for Hillary supporters... I just added more "no to Obama sites" to the Recommended Sites list. Let's create a presence on the internet - there are a lot of us out there. Let our voices be heard....
Continue reading...
June 13, 2008
Hillary Clinton: "We need a nominee who can pass the commander-in-chief test, someone who is ready on day one. There is no time for on-the-job training ... Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, I will bring a lifetime of experience, Senator Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002." Bill Clinton: "When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service before he started running?"...
Continue reading...
June 12, 2008
Lecturing people about someone we know a lot about is yet another flawed strategy from the Obama camp. And we know quite a lot about McCain. It's Obama we know very little about. We have no idea what Obama would do with enormous presidential power, but we do have some indications of how he would potentially abuse it, given his past and the way he has behaved during the primary. I am not voting for Obama, that much is clear. Thanks to the DNC, the best possible choice for president, Hillary Clinton, is no longer an option. So what is left? Staying home or voting for John McCain. I believe McCain has the experience and maturity to run the country, without running it into the ground. When country is at issue, country must be the prevailing consideration....
Continue reading...
From Fishbowl DC: Yesterday, CBS' Katie Couric was honored by the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum at their Alice Award Luncheon Gala. She was recognized for "her remarkable career in news media, her ground breaking role as the first female solo anchor of a weekday network evening broadcast and her tireless advocacy for colorectal cancer screening, which has helped save the lives of countless men and women each year" (according to a release). Some thoughts from Couric at the event: However you feel about her politics, I feel that Sen. Clinton received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I've ever seen. Couric went on to say that latent sexism contributed, in part, to Hillary's defeat. She referred to one "prominent member of the commentariat" who said he "found it hard to be objective when it came to Obama." "That's your job," she remembers thinking when hearing this, before suggesting that...
Continue reading...
June 10, 2008
June 09, 2008
I got an email from my Democratic governor, Martin O'Malley, today. Yet another male Democrat for whom I campaigned/donated. He did support Hillary Clinton in the primary, but said he enthusiastically supports Obama now. Party unity nonsense. How insulting. Why they are sending these emails, do they think we are wayward sheep, and one word from them will bring us back to bleating contentment? After all that has gone down? UNSUBSCRIBE to him. And to each and every one of them who sends me a Barack Obama endorsement letter. Keep an eye on your unsubscribes - they are directly related to your endorsement. These are votes you can kiss goodbye. In the words of Harriet Christian, "I was a second class citizen and now I’m nothing." Well, they are nothing to me. "I never was surer of my position that no self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success...
Continue reading...
June 08, 2008
Let's see: We are not good Democrats, who needs us anyway. There are not very many of us, who needs us anyway. We are just [insert sexist/racist insult here], who needs us anyway. Just one question: If they don't need us, why are they so worried about us?...
Continue reading...
Give 'em hell, Harriet! An updated transcript of her remarks at the DNC meeting and on Fox News is below the videos... First, Harriet Christian from Manhattan, at the closed door back room illegal DNC vote rigging meeting (love how she shouted down the loser frat boys): I'm proud to be an older adult woman. I'm from New York City. Hillary's state. The best nominee that's possible. And the Democrats are throwing the election away. For what? An inadequate black male? Who would not have been running had it not been a white woman who was running for president? And I'm not going to shut my mouth anymore. I can be called white but you can't be called black? That's not my America. It's about equality for all of us. And it's about time we all stood up for it. I'm no second class citizen. God damn the Democrats! We...
Continue reading...
June 07, 2008
That's the funny thing about the internet - we have no idea who is behind the user name and the words. Is the person who they say they are? Are they deeply rooted, and stand strong? Or do they blow this way and that, with the wind. Case in point, one of the most vocal anti-Obama bloggers out there. Here is a typical diary entry on MyDD (from just two weeks ago, May 22): Obama is "an arrogant bully who has used sexism and racism to further his own political ends"... his "lies in this campaign have been many and frightening"... he uses "thuggery and chicanery" to win... he "lies at the drop of a hat, smears anyone who gets in his way, and uses race like a club with which to beat up anyone who opposes him"... he "has alr[e]ady used massive, nationwide voter intimidation to further his ends"......
Continue reading...
Just had to say that. AGAIN. Just read an AP report that was so astonishing how one-sided (as they all are, but this one really stuck out). In a short piece, the "reporter" managed to blast Hillary Clinton (she is "polarizing" and made "sharp attacks" on Obama and was not a "gracious loser"). And blast Bill Clinton (his "enraged outbursts" and "racially charged remarks"). And minimize Hillary's accomplishments (no mention that she won the popular vote; that she won 8 of the last 14 primaries; that she won the big states Democrats need to win; that she would have won the required delegates long ago if the Republican primary system was used instead of a flawed, disenfranchising primary system Obama's backers deliberately exploited; that polls show Hillary beats McCain but Obama doesn't; that a large number of her supporters, many of whom are women, are crossing over to McCain -...
Continue reading...
June 06, 2008
Add sexist, corrupt, narcissistic, ... From the Washington Post: Republican Sen. John McCain envisions a November victory built in part around attracting a large number of the millions of voters who turned away from Sen. Barack Obama's promise of change during the historic Democratic primary campaign. Buoyed by polls showing a quarter or more of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters planning to back McCain, his advisers have already started wooing the white working-class voters and women who made up the bedrock of her coalition. They plan to echo and expand the former first lady's critiques of Obama: that he is out of touch with Middle America and too unseasoned to be president. "There's a lot of Senator Clinton supporters who would support me because of their belief that Senator Obama does not have the experience or the knowledge or the judgment to address this nation's national security challenges," McCain told...
Continue reading...
June 05, 2008
The gender gap is what used to win elections for Democrats. No more. From Real Clear Politics: ...I bumped into a septuagenarian former congresswoman who was a staunch Clinton supporter. She told me she awakened that morning with the realization her candidate would not be nominated. Well known as a no-nonsense politician, now she showed another side: "I cried, really cried. We came so close -- so close." Tears were shed that night by lower-income, less-educated women, but also by accomplished older professionals, such as this former congresswoman. They see Clinton as the culmination of their long struggle, with triumph snatched away by an untried, untested newcomer. They complain that, thanks to the Democratic Party's baroque procedures in picking a presidential nominee, Clinton has been defeated though she collected more popular votes than Obama and won most battleground states. This resentment is reflected in a nationwide private poll this month...
Continue reading...
From Jim Geraghty at the National Review: In the coming days, you will hear many asking whether Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House fell short because of sexism. And there will be that related question, “is Obama sexist?” There is really not much evidence that Obama is sexist. There is only, “Hold on a second, sweetie. We’ll hold a press avail,” which he told a reporter at an event outside Detroit. And perhaps his comment to a factory worker in Allentown, Pa., that “you’re gorgeous, you look like you might be a dancer.” Okay, there’s also the time Obama, after a particularly tough exchange with Hillary, told a crowd, “You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out.” And, “You know, over the last several weeks since she fell behind, she’s resorted to what’s called ‘kitchen sink’ strategies. . . . She’s got the kitchen sink flying,...
Continue reading...
June 04, 2008
The headlines are saying Obama won the nomination (someone tell the Obama-biased media that can only happen at the convention in late August.) And nowhere is the South Dakota primary, which Hillary Clinton decisively won the same day, mentioned. And of course, nobody mentioned that Hillary won the overall primary popular vote. The Boston Globe article below paints an realistically gloomy picture, at least. The article closes with Inexperienced Man Obama patronizing Experienced Woman Hillary Clinton, and Democratic "strategists" (now that's a contradiction in terms) saying everyone will now sing Kumbaya together (in their dreams). I spared you that. From the Boston Globe: Fifty-six contests. Hundreds of millions of dollars raised and spent. More than 35 million votes cast. And, finally, five months later, one apparent winner. Barely. As the epic Democratic presidential primary battle finally comes to conclusion today with votes in South Dakota and Montana, Senator Barack Obama...
Continue reading...
Of course, Hillary's Democratic supporters, while greater in number than Obama's, have long been marginalized by the media. But another untold story is how many Republicans viewed Hillary positively - they are saying, "I don't agree with her on everything, but she would have been a good president. But Obama would be terrible." I've heard this again and again. Hillary has earned a lot of respect from across the political spectrum over the past few months. Commonly heard criticisms of Obama, from both sides of the aisle and the middle: his inexperience, his lack of judgment, his "cult" supporters, his questionable past, his hateful associates, his sexist/racist behavior, his abuse of power. Wow - that's who the Democratic party wants to represent them? The party is in for a bumpy ride in the months ahead, if so. But Hillary, why sit in the back seat by accepting the vice presidency?...
Continue reading...
The nomination of the party's candidate occurs in late August at the convention. Not when the media and Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy's vote rigging gang say it happens. Here is the current status of the primaries (and an objective press would have reported it this way): Hillary has 300,000 more votes, and Obama has 130 more pledged delegates. And of course, in a winner-take-all primary like the Republicans, Hillary would be leading in pledged delegates, as well. Also, she won the big, important states Democrats need to win elections. And Obama only won 6 of the last 14 primaries. Popular Vote Totals Hillary Clinton: 17,785,009 Barack Obama: 17,479,990 Pledged Delegate Totals Barack Obama: 1766.5 Hillary Clinton: 1639.5...
Continue reading...
June 03, 2008
Yep, that would be me, too. White. Woman. Standing up for women. Left the Democratic party. Considering voting for McCain. From Froma Harrop at Real Clear Politics: The woman who shouted "McCain in '08" at the Democratic rules committee was speaking for a multitude. After mounting for months, female anger over the choreographed dumping on Hillary Clinton and her supporters has exploded -- and party loyalty be damned. That the women are beginning to have a good time is an especially bad sign for Barack Obama's campaign. "Obama will NOT get my vote, and one step more," Ellen Thorp, a 59-year-old flight attendant from Houston told me. "I have been a Democrat for 38 years. As of today, I am registering as an independent. Yee Haw!" A new Pew Research Center poll points to a surging tide of fury, especially among white women. As recently as April, this group preferred...
Continue reading...
June 02, 2008
Read the whole article, it will remind you of another person who didn't deserve to be president. From Atlas Shrugs: ...We begin with a brief explanation of the legal world Obama claims to belong to by reason of his intelligence. That world is defined by 3 inescapable proofs of such intelligence. They are: (1) high grades, (2) prestigious organizations (i.e, the Law Review) and (3) clerkship with a judge. We will begin with the first and most obvious sign of intelligence - grades. Obama doesn't have them. Oh, he's given the aura of possessing them - but when one looks closely at that aura, it disappears like smoke before your eyes. For instance, not once has anyone, ever, at any time, produced those grades... ...The law review struggled to decide whether affirmative action should factor into the selection of editors, and how much voice to give to critical race theorists,...
Continue reading...
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger, must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you. ~ David Wagoner, based on an American Indian saying...
Continue reading...
As J. Cifre at Savage Politics says: So it is that today, the Democratic Party is attempting to nominate a Black candidate, who does badly with most Whites, most Asians, and most Latinos. They will have a Muslim apostate candidate, who attended a racist and un-American church for 20 years. They will have a Leftist candidate, who is friends with an un-repentant domestic terrorist. They will have a Corrupt candidate, who has personally funded (through his directorship of the Woods Fund) a Muslim organization within the United States that rabidly supports the use of Suicide Bombing in Israel. They will have a young candidate, who is completely inexperienced for the job at hand and demonstrates it on a daily basis. The list goes on… Comically, as if these characteristics weren’t bad enough by themselves, they have somehow achieved bundling all of them into one politician. Do they still think that...
Continue reading...
From the Catholic League: Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Rev. Michael Pfleger’s remarks at Sen. Barack Obama’s church that led the Catholic priest to apologize and the Democratic hopeful to renounce them: “Most commentators are already focusing on the inappropriateness of the race-baiting comments by Father Pfleger. More serious is the venue in which he delivered his diatribe and his long-standing ties to Sen. Obama. “Father Pfleger’s tirade would be inexcusable anywhere, but it is even more offensive when it happens in a church. It does not matter that it was not his own, nor does it matter that it happened in a church that has a record of allowing demagogues to exploit it. When churches become forums for political rallies, both religion and the First Amendment are corrupted. “Obama and Pfleger are no strangers. Indeed, when Obama was in the state senate in Illinois, he conveniently arranged...
Continue reading...
June 01, 2008
As Hillary wins Puerto Rico decisively (and as we know, under the Republican system, she'd have won the nomination long ago, having won enough big states), Jerome Armstrong comments. The DNC closed-door secret committee decision to seat only half of Florida's delegates (although Obama spent $1.3 million in Florida and still lost big to Hillary) and give 4 of Hillary's Michigan delegates to Obama, as well as giving him all the uncommitted votes (which includes John Edwards and undecided votes): The chances of Clinton gaining 82 percent of the remaining delegates are near to nothing. And if so, Clinton's chances were lost with the closed-door 14-13 (15-14 with the proxy votes included) vote to award Obama half the delegates from Michigan (which led to adopting the MDP resolution instead of the Clinton resolution or going to the credentials committee). But to show where we would be if the Clinton resolution...
Continue reading...
From the New York Times: From Mr. Obama, many people take the lesson that someone can come out of nowhere — four years ago, he was a little-known state legislator. But almost anybody will discount the idea of a woman as dark horse. “No woman with Obama’s résumé could run,” said Dee Dee Myers, the first woman to be White House press secretary, under Bill Clinton. “No woman could have gotten out of the gate.” Women are still held to a double standard. They do not have what Debbie Walsh, the director of the Rutgers center, says she used to call the John Edwards phenomenon and now calls the Barack Obama phenomenon: having never held elective office, they run for Senate, then before finishing a first term decide they should be president. If not her, who? Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton may or may not become the first female president of...
Continue reading...
Just as I always thought. My degree is in math. Math always came naturally. What didn't come naturally was dealing with the sexist way I was treated by society and the educational system when it came to math, from grade school all the way through college. If I hadn't possessed this stubborn as all get out persistence gene, I'd have told them all to go to hell and picked another major. I never turned in my test until the time was up, unlike the guys who'd saunter out like it was so easy, thinking, poor, dumb, struggling girl, but then I'd get back my test with a lovely 98 at the top. Yes, I hung in there, and despite the unwelcoming "what are you doing here?" atmosphere, I graduated with honors. From the Guardian: In more "gender equal societies" such as Iceland, Sweden and Norway, girls scored as well as...
Continue reading...
May 31, 2008
From Jerome Armstrong at MyDD (BTW, Jonathan Singer is a major Obama-apologist... the point Jerome Armstrong was making was is that Obama isn’t Mr. Hope and Change, he’s just like all other politicians (only just not as experienced), and yeah, he did try to win in Florida, but like in the other big states, Hillary, although outspent, kicked his ass): He didn't get a very good return on his campaigning in Florida: Hillary Clinton and Obama each spent about $130,000 in Michigan while Obama spent $1.3 million in Florida--more than any other Democratic candidate and more than eight Republican candidates, who were eligible to win delegates from the state. That, from the Center for Responsive Politics. I realize that it's still going to be a fight to make the Democratic Party convention a 50-state event, rather than the 48-state event that some want it to be, but this puts to...
Continue reading...
May 30, 2008
I'm not a legal type, but this just seems wrong to return young girls to parents who place the picture of a man suspected of raping multiple underage girls, and convicted in the rape of another young girl, in a place of honor in their homes. Just the practice of making girls wear heavy long underwear in the hot summer underneath layers of other clothes seems enough to me. But parents not protecting their children from abuse, willingly endorsing the abuse - how are they fit guardians? From CNN: Texas authorities say they collected DNA swabs from jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs in connection with a criminal investigation involving "spiritual marriages" to four girls ages 12 to 15. Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs is jailed in Arizona awaiting trial on 10 felony counts. The samples were taken Thursday in Arizona from Jeffs, the sect's jailed 52-year-old "prophet," said Jerry...
Continue reading...
From Women's Media Center (Glen Beck was on Good Morning America yesterday morning, when they played him the tape of him calling Hillary a b*tch, he said, did I say that? I meant to call her a nag):...
Continue reading...
May 29, 2008
Who'd a thunk a 20 year age difference would actually mean something? There's no fool like an old fool. From OneIndia: Life is not a bed of roses. In fact, it has lots of thorns. Actor George Clooney and his girlfriend Sarah Larson may look wonderful together but all is not as good as it looks from the outset. Now, the news is spreading like wildfire that they have split. It is reported that 47-year-old Clooney has parted ways with 29-year-old model Larson after dating for a year. Sources said that Clooney could not ditch Larson as he thinks she is sweet. It added that separation was inevitable, as they had little in common......
Continue reading...
From ABC News: Father Michael Pfleger, a fiery liberal social activist and a white reverend at an African-American church -- St. Sabina’s Catholic Church on the South Side of Chicago -- is a longtime friend and associate of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, having known him since the presidential hopeful was a community activist. In September, the Obama campaign brought Pfleger to Iowa to host one of several interfaith forums for the campaign. Their relationship spans decades. Pfleger has given money to Obama's campaigns and Obama as a state legislator directed at least $225,000 towards social programs at St. Sabina's, according to the Chicago Tribune. A new Youtube video making the rounds shows Pfleger speaking at Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, just last Sunday, mocking Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, for having cried in New Hampshire, suggesting that she wept because she thought as a white person and wife of...
Continue reading...
May 28, 2008
Ari Fleischer I couldn't even bear to watch, something about an aversion to humans without consciences, I guess. McClellan was never comfortable with what he was doing, and it showed. From Salon: ..."No matter how good a press secretary [you are]," Washington Post media watcher Howard Kurtz told me, "you're thrown into the shark tank every day to get chomped on by the press. And you have limited ability to save yourself because your feet are bound with talking points." Watch McClellan's old press briefings and you'll see a man who is deeply uncomfortable in these shackles. His eyes are wary, his manner stiff -- his evasions actually sound like evasions. By contrast, his Houdini-like predecessor, the suavely mendacious Ari Fleischer, could, without blanching or blushing, explain why the president's opposition to nation building was not really an opposition to nation building. He could insist that Iraq had WMD long...
Continue reading...
As told to Robert Obsbourne in TCM's Now Playing: "I've always thought that where I am is where the party is." ~ Sophia Loren...
Continue reading...
We all know Daily Kos (vanity site for a former Republican) is the Great Orange Satan. Huffington Post (vanity site for a for a former Republican) is the National Enquirer of politics (dig those alien baby style headlines!) MyDD is awash with kool aid (despite the best efforts of Jerome Armstrong to promote reason). On Talk Left, Lady Jeralyn's sidekick, Big Tent Democrat (formerly Armando of the Daily Kos) told Clinton supporters they are "cultists" (how original, as he pretends not to see this is not about Hillary) and he "despises them" (and they say women are emotional!) Taylor Marsh is "working hard" to defeat McCain (as though that does not equate to working hard to elect Obama) and changed her format to include pro-Obama bloggers (et tu, Taylor?) The strategy seems to be that we will all have a sudden urge to follow the party unity lemmings off the...
Continue reading...
May 27, 2008
Joan Walsh, Salon editor, rocks in this video, as she takes on Chris Matthews and a slow-witted talk show host parroting Obama campaign talking points. "If people continue to demonize the Clintons, that will ruin the Democrats' chances... Bill Clinton is the only two term Democratic president in my lifetime... To act like this woman is capable of making a statement like this?... There will be people staying home in November... This is outrageous."...
Continue reading...
WOW. Talk about a rigged primary and an untenable coalition. From Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics:...
Continue reading...
May 26, 2008
From CNN: "She is winning the general election today and he is not, according to all the evidence. And I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running." Former President Bill Clinton said that Democrats were more likely to lose in November if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee, and suggested some were trying to "push and pressure and bully" superdelegates to make up their minds prematurely. "I can't believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out," Clinton said at a South Dakota campaign stop Sunday, in remarks first reported by ABC News. Clinton also suggested some were trying to "cover up" Sen. Clinton's chances of winning in key states that Democrats will have to win in the general election. " 'Oh, this is so...
Continue reading...
From ABC News: When asked about the Obama camp playing the race card, Clinton said, "I was really hurt about it at first. I am way over being hurt. This was cold-blooded, calculated, manipulated and a revolting strategy." ABC News' Ed O'Keefe Reports: Perhaps there will be a Madame President Clinton after all. No, not Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. How about former first daughter and active campaigner Chelsea Clinton? "If you asked me (if Chelsea would run for office) before Iowa, I would have said, 'No way. She is too allergic to anything we do.' But she is really good at it," former President Bill Clinton tells PEOPLE magazine in their latest issue, hitting newsstands Friday. In the PEOPLE exclusive, Clinton called his daughter's "emergence" the "second best thing" of the campaign, after his wife's "ability to endure in the face of all the blows that have been rained on...
Continue reading...
May 25, 2008
From the New York Daily News: This past Friday, during a meeting with a newspaper editorial board, I was asked about whether I was going to continue in the presidential race. I made clear that I was - and that I thought the urgency to end the 2008 primary process was unprecedented. I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband's primary campaign, and Sen. Robert Kennedy's, had continued into June. Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different - and completely unthinkable. I want to set the record straight: I was making the simple point that given our history, the length of this year's primary contest is nothing unusual. Both the executive editor of the newspaper where I made the remarks, and Sen. Kennedy's son, Bobby Kennedy Jr., put out statements confirming that this was the clear...
Continue reading...
May 24, 2008
Check out Stop the Housing Bailout!: ...A bailout allows banks, mortgage brokers, speculators, and refinancers to benefit from their abuse of the system. By doing so, it encourages these people to act irresponsibly in the future. A bailout will force Americans who acted responsibly to pay for those who did not. The average American -- who saved and scrimped for years to buy a house, but could not because speculators and over-extenders boosted home prices beyond affordability -- will now be forced to pay for the homes of those who were less scrupulous......
Continue reading...
Robert Kennedy Jr. defends Hillary Clinton from the Obama camp's outrageous manufactured controversy
This will go down in the history books - how an overly qualified woman was absolutely positively vilified for having the nerve to run for president. Here's Robert Kennedy Jr., who has the courage to speak out for justice aplenty: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, defended her remarks in a telephone interview Friday evening. "I've heard her make that argument before," Mr. Kennedy said, speaking on his cell phone as he drove to the family compound in Hyannis for the holiday weekend. "It sounds like she was invoking a familiar historical circumstance in support of her argument for continuing her campaign." Mr. Kennedy said he has been traveling and had not seen the video or read Mrs. Clinton's comments, but said his support of Mrs. Clinton has not wavered....
Continue reading...
May 23, 2008
From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Lost in the excitement of Barack Obama's coronation this week was an inconvenient fact of Tuesday's results: Hillary Clinton netted approximately 150,000 votes and is now poised to finish the primary season as the popular-vote leader. In some quaint circles, presumably, these things still matter. Real Clear Politics keeps track of six versions of the popular-vote total. They are, in ascending order of inclusivity: (1) the popular vote of sanctioned contests; (2) the total of sanctioned contests, plus estimated votes from the Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington caucuses; (3) the popular vote plus Florida; (4) popular vote plus Florida and the caucuses; (5) the popular vote plus Florida and Michigan; (6) popular vote plus Florida, Michigan, and the caucus estimates. After Tuesday, Clinton now leads in two of these six counts. If you believe that the most important precept in democratic politics is to "count every...
Continue reading...
From Andrew Stephens of the New Statesman: None of these male candidates had a premature political obituary written in the way that Hillary Clinton's has been, or was subjected to such righteous outrage over refusing to quiesce and withdraw obediently from what, in this case, has always been a knife-edge race. Nor was any of them anything like as close to his rivals as Clinton now is to Obama. The media, of course, are just reflecting America's would-be macho culture. I cannot think of any television network or major newspaper that is not guilty of blatant sexism - the British media, naturally, reflexively follow their American counterparts - but probably the worst offender is the NBC/MSNBC network, which has what one prominent Clinton activist describes as "its nightly horror shows".super-delegates, or the disputed states of Florida and Michigan. But never before have the US media taken it upon themselves to...
Continue reading...
May 21, 2008
From Politico: Hillary Rodham Clinton, you’ve got a friend in Dirty Harry. Though a longtime follower of John McCain — dating back to the Arizona senator’s 2000 run against George W. Bush in the GOP primary — Clint Eastwood thinks Clinton deserves some serious respect. And enough already with the calls for her to quit. “Everybody’s trying to talk her into folding, but it doesn’t seem like the spirit of Americana,” Eastwood told Politico before heading to France’s Cannes Film Festival, where his period kidnapping drama “Changeling,” starring Angelina Jolie, had its world premiere Tuesday. “Put yourself in the place of [Clinton]: You’ve gone out there and made a thousand speeches, and you’ve shaken a million hands and you’ve been out there working your ass off,” Eastwood said. “And then somebody comes up and says, ‘Why don’t you just drop out of it?’” The actor/director/producer/jazz aficionado — who had his...
Continue reading...
From Lois Romano in the Washington Post: "The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, or at least more accepted, and . . . there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head. It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists." Women of all ages and nationalities push against the rope line carrying books and T-shirts, posters and stuffed animals -- anything for her to autograph. They tote huge signs that shout "Hillary Cares About Me"-- and they tearfully grab her hand to implore her to stick it out, to take her trailing campaign all the way to the Democratic convention in Denver. They say they have come to...
Continue reading...
May 20, 2008
Seen on The Swamp (other great letters are there from Hillary supporters, too): Enough is enough. No issue and no party is worth fighting for if you do not have respect. Women's rights are human rights, and until the DNC and Senator Obama start standing for these rights, they will not have my vote. While I view Senator Clinton as a hero, and have nothing but tremendous respect for her and for the courage she has shown during this primary, my vote is my own. If Senator Clinton is not the nominee, no amount of urging from Senator Clinton or anyone else can influence me to vote for a candidate and a party that I no longer believe in. I will be changing my registration from Democrat to Independent. For me, it is Hillary or no one. Instead of wondering whether it is Hillary's responsibility to see that her supporters...
Continue reading...
Seen on The Swamp: Boycotting Obama Will Lead to Famine, Armaggeddon, Government-Controlled Uteruses, and other Scare Tactics A lot of desperate Democrats are suddenly scrambling to "unify" with Clinton's supporters, now that they realize that their snow job of an election will lead to an Obama boycott in November. The classic line says that we need to avoid letting emotions interfere with judgment and to think about “the issues.” Well, here's my answer (disclaimer: I do not have a uterus). First of all, I do not need to clear my head and take a deep breath. I am a lifetime Democrat, and I have been voting for Democrats since the mid-80s. I am very experienced having my candidate lose, but then moving on to support the party ticket. In past primaries, for example, I voted for Dean, Bradley, and Jesse Jackson (twice!). I get the idea of party unity....Next. Second,...
Continue reading...
From Lewis Duiguid in the Kansas City: Last summer, I shook Sen. Hillary Clinton’s hand and gave her my business card when she met with the Trotter Group of black columnists. I wished her well in her presidential bid. Ever since then I’ve received e-mails from her, Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, with video links promoting Hillary Clinton’s historic run for the Oval Office. A half-dozen arrived last week. I hadn’t replied until now. Dear Sen. Hillary Clinton: I have greatly appreciated all of the e-mails from you and your family. I have only two words to share with you about your valiant quest to become the 44th president of the United States and the first woman to hold the highest office in the land: Don’t quit. A ton of pundits and political operatives have asked you to give up. Ignore them. They have asked you to step...
Continue reading...
Seen on the internet: John McCain is the only Republican that could win this year. Obama is the only Democrat that could lose. We sure know how to pick em....
Continue reading...
May 19, 2008
From the Canadian Press: There are fears the trials Clinton has faced may put many women off taking a shot at the highest office for a long time to come. "I think it's going to be generations," Karen O'Connor, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, told the New York Times. "Who would dare run? The media is set up against you. Why would anyone put themselves through this?" There are many reasons why Hillary Clinton is losing the Democratic nomination fight. And for some supporters who are devastated a woman likely won't be breaking the glass ceiling to the Oval Office this year, sexism is top of mind. The fading dream generated by Clinton's historic bid is leaving behind a wash of disappointment and anger, some of it directed at party officials and the media. An Ohio-based group of Clinton supporters even says it will try...
Continue reading...
In Oregon: Obama 45 Clinton 41 Undecided 8 Refused 6 In Kentucky: Obama 25 Clinton 51 Edwards 6 Undecided 11 Uncommitted 5 Refused 2...
Continue reading...
I thought we were sticking up for the underdog. I thought we were all about equality for all, genuine equality. Appreciating everyone's gifts that come in many wondrous varieties, and all that. That's why I recently decided to leave the Democratic party/go independent. I don't recognize the Democratic party anymore. I am wondering, was it this way all along, and this horrible election just opened my eyes? Or has it slowly become this way. I feel like I wasted all this time and money and effort on a lie. It used to bug me when people said, both parties are the same. I'd say, but no, you are wrong. And recite all our progressive principles I thought we stood for. When it was only some of the people stood for them, and we mean nothing to the party. What a fool I was. The far right and far left are...
Continue reading...
From Dean Baker: While the banks will still lose money under this plan, they will almost certainly end up much better off than if the situation was just left to the market. In fact, since the banks decide which loans get into the program, it is virtually guaranteed that they will come out ahead. ...Just to remind everyone of where things stand, Congress was wrestling with the situation of several million low- and moderate-income families, who are facing foreclosures on their homes. The main problem here is that they were pushed to buy over-priced homes in bubble-inflated markets. Making matters worse, many of these homeowners were also the victims of subprime mortgage scams. They got loans that started with relatively low teaser rates. These rates then reset, typically after two years, to much higher rates that made the mortgages unaffordable. This is bad news not only for the homeowners facing...
Continue reading...
May 18, 2008
2026 is disenfranchising Florida and Michigan. The correct total is 2210. The "journalists" could at least put that in parentheses while they are shilling for Obama....
Continue reading...
May 17, 2008
NARAL is a badly run organization and has been for some time - the problem is from the top down. It's amateur hour. They make costly mistakes without proper consideration or judgment, then dismiss them with needlessly antagonizing statements. There are plenty of fine organizations who will use your money far more effectively. From Politico: Two former members of Congress, Geraldine Ferraro and Pat Schroeder, jabbed at NARAL for endorsing before the general election. “Looks like some higher ups at NARAL are trying to get jobs in the new administration ... nothing else makes sense to us,” they wrote in a joint letter. With the clock running down on a long-fought primary, NARAL Pro-Choice America leaders sent state affiliates reeling this week by endorsing Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. It was seen as a gratuitous slap in the face to a longtime ally, and it sparked a fear even closer...
Continue reading...
In this video, Chris Matthews goes off on a phony self-righteous rant, and Pat Buchanan challenges him on the obvious. Why did you not object strongly when Obama was chosen 9 to 1 over Hillary by those of his race? Also the fact that Obama made comments disparaging one race (typical white people, bitter white people, etc.) as did his surrogates (Wright, etc.) is never mentioned, nor why that led people to understandably vote against him. No, just false, ridiculous charges at Hillary, who was completely innocent, made by the Obama camp and echoed by the media. So Hillary is on the defensive. History will show just how outrageously biased this campaign was - it will go down in textbooks as the atrocious injustice it is. What answering yes to the exit poll question, was race a factor? meant in West Virginia was that they believed Obama was biased against...
Continue reading...
The "manly two-step" - this is good, from Tom Watson: I'll admit it, the so-called end-game in this long Democratic nomination battle is beginning to confuse me. Let's see if we can get it all down. Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee, favored in that status by national magazine cover stories. Yet no one has told the voters: either in West Virginia, where poor laggard Hillary Clinton (attacked by rabies-infected "Democrats") could barely pull off a 41-point squeaker, nor in the general party populace, where Democrats overwhelmingly want her to stay in the race till the conclusion. They also want her to be the Vice-Presidential nominee, should she come up short. Or form a third party and keep running. Yet there was John Edwards - waiting, waiting, waiting - till after the poorest state in the nation voted to announce that Obama is his man on poverty, and has been...
Continue reading...
May 16, 2008
Say what you will about these guys, they've been pretty consistently praising Hillary Clinton:...
Continue reading...
Ted Kennedy's latest in a long line of disrespectful comments about Hillary Clinton: Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, a top Democrat in the House called to assail Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, for remarks he made when asked about the possibility of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois choosing Mrs. Clinton, of New York, as his running-mate. “I have a lot of respect for Ted Kennedy, but I don’t know how the hell he comes off saying that,” said Mr. Emanuel, who has ties to Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama and has not endorsed in the race. “The gratuitous attack on her is uncalled for and wrong. He is a better senator than that comment reveals.” Mr. Emanuel was responding to an interview with Mr. Kennedy on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt.” In the interview, Mr. Kennedy said he did not think it was possible that Mr....
Continue reading...
From Lavender Liberal: And as referenced in the article, this quote from Sugar N Spice speaks for me as well: I can only speak for myself, but let me repeat, if he gets that nomination, I will not be voting for Barack Hussein Obama under any circumstances. I don't care if Hillary, Oprah or Denzel Washington is his running mate. It ain't gonna happen. He and his band of thugs should have considered the vile way they've treated so many of Hillary's supporters. They were so caught up in those creepy chants and such that they lost sight of the ultimate goal--the general election...You have bought a lemon Obama supporters, but we Hillary supporters are not going to share the cost of keeping that sucker on the road with you. You should have done your research before you made that purchase, because you will be footing this bill alone.. Move...
Continue reading...
May 15, 2008
NARAL is a nonentity to me. I give all my reproductive rights dollars to other organizations, and have done so ever since NARAL backed Joe Lieberman and wrote me a snarky email when I politely protested. They went to the Donna Brazile school of unprofessional, childish, needlessly antagonizing emails. I figured my money could be spent on a better-run organization. But thank you, Ellen Malcolm: For Immediate Release May 14, 2008 For More Information Ramona Oliver roliver@emilyslist.org Statement from Ellen R. Malcolm on NARAL Endorsement in the Democratic Presidential Primary The following is a statement from EMILY’s List president Ellen R. Malcolm on NARAL’s endorsement in the Democratic presidential competition: "I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton -- who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spo