Frank Rich: McCain Can Run, but Bush Won't Hide
Digby: The Wisdom of the Ancients and Practically Lactating
Glenn Greenwald: High Standards at the Washington Post Op-Ed Page
d r i f t g l a s s: The Clintonian Blue
Bob Franken: Hillary: We Really Don't Care
Howard Kurtz, WaPo: Feud Fuels Bill O'Reilly's Blasts at GE
He's so natural!
Hmmm... I think the material was funny. But it also bordered on being too close to the truth to be parody.
Obama Draws 75,000 to Portland Rally
The campaign, citing figures from Duane Bray, battalion chief of Portland Fire & Rescue, estimated that 75,000 people are watching him speak.
That's pretty fucking cool.
UPDATE: Bob Cesca has a couple of awesome pics.
"First, let me make it very clear: poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to not be rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill."
NY TIMES: Jimmy Slyde, one of the last great tap dancers of the big-band era, whose smooth moves carried him from swing and bebop to Broadway and the movies, died early on Friday at his home in Hanson, Mass. He was 80.
One of the smoothest tappers I've ever seen. Saw him in Black & Blue, a Broadway show in the late 80's. I think there's a video of that show available, or at least it was recorded for PBS or something like that.
NY TIMES: Robert Mondavi, the California vintner who set in motion the rebirth of the Napa Valley wine industry and, to a generation of Americans, championed the idea that fine wine was an integral part of the good life, died Friday at his home in Yountville, California. He was 94.
I wouldn't consider myself a connoisseur, be I do loves me some good wine! My wife and I have approximately 60 bottles in our growing collection, including a Mondavi Moscato that we bought while visiting the Mondavi Winery in Napa a couple of years back. Mondavi is not our favorite (or favorite winery for that matter), but it ain't swill.
So keep drinking that wine and you'll live to be 94 too... but at that point, why? All you're doing is drooling on yourself anyway... I kid!
"The public education system in America is one of the most important foundations of our democracy. After all, it is where children from all over America learn to be responsible citizens, and learn to have the skills necessary to take advantage of our fantastic opportunistic society."
George W. Bush, in probably his most outrageous comments since stealing the Presidency, compared sitting down to negotiate with an elected party leader of another country to the "appeasement" of the Nazis in 1938, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave Hitler half of Czechoslovakia in the hopes that it would deter Hitler and his Nazi Party from further invasion. Not only did he say it, but he said it to the Isreali governing body as a diplomat representing the United States.
If Bush actually knows any history at all, then this is where he would be an expert as his family was involved with the rise of Nazi Germany through Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush. But I digress.
The backlash of negative responses that this idiotic statement has garnered would make one realize that the Emperor with no Clothes had really stepped in it big time, don't you think? Well... if you think. John McCain, however, does not think.
Asked if he thought Mr. Obama was an appeaser, Mr. McCain sidestepped the question and said: “I think that Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans, that wants to wipe Israel off the map, who denies the Holocaust. That’s what I think Senator Obama ought to explain to the American people.”
RUBIN: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"
McCAIN: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."
"...It was bad enough when McCain tried to link Hamas and Obama because Hamas said it preferred Obama. And if the Klan endorsed McCain because he wasn't the black guy, would McCain have a problem if someone said that McCain and the Klan are one and the same?
...We've seen this movie before. Whenever conservatives can't win an argument on the merits, they attack some real or perceived enemy as Hitler. So Ho Chi Mihn was Hitler. bin Ladin was Hitler. Ahmadinejad was Hitler. Of course Hussein was Hitler. And anyone who does something to try to resolve conflict short of more war is Neville Chamberlain.
...Was Israel -- with far more experience and its survival at stake in dealing with war and terrorism -- wrong to neogtiate with former enemy Egypt, with successful result...wrong to negotiate with former enemy Jordan, with successful result...
...Take Iran and Ahmadinejad, the newest "Hitler." Iran can't stop laughing at Bush's foreign policy. He attacks its long-time enemy Iraq, allowing Iran's Shia majority to have far more influence in a Shia-majority Iraqi government. And Bush at the same time provides an unpopular Iranian government with a convenient outside enemy to rally nationalistic support to its side. Which is why Secretary Robert Gates himself has advocated talking more to Iran. What an appeaser!"
"After all, a week ago, there were - Yasser Arafat was boarded up in his building in Ramallah, a building full of, evidently, German peace protestors and all kinds of people. They're now out. He's now free to show leadership, to lead the world."
Why is it that Karl Rove, or for that matter George Bush and Dick Cheney or any other criminal in this worst administraion ever, believe that they are above the law, ignoring Congressional subpeonas, agreeing to testify under the conditions that they're not under oath and that there would be no transcript?! And how is that acceptable to any elected Republican official or any Republican citizen?
What balls! It's astounding.
Here's Congressman Robert Wexler and Former Gov. Don Siegelman on with Dan Abrams, who won't let this story go, and for good reason.
From Wexler's office via email:If Rove refuses to testify voluntarily and ignores the subpoenas that will certainly be issued, he should be held in Inherent Contempt of the House of Representatives.
No American is above the law. None of us should be able to ignore Congress without consequence. If Mr. Rove ignores a subpoena from the Judiciary Committee, then the House of Representatives should pass an Inherent Contempt citation and exercise our right to send the House Sergeant-of-Arms to gather Mr. Rove and bring him before Congress to testify.
I do not advocate this option lightly, but the reality is that Congress has few options left against an Administration that totally refuses to submit to any type of reasonable Congressional oversight. Congress has both the right and obligation to investigate these matters. Never before has an Executive so upset the checks and balances inherent in our Constitution. If we back off or delay, we effectively forfeit the power of Congress to investigate the Executive branch.
Rove is not the first White House official to ignore Congress. We have seen a pattern of refusals based on laughable claims of executive privilege. First, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers ignored subpoenas on the investigation into the firing of US Attorney Generals for partisan political motives.
Their refusal to testify was unprecedented: never before have executive officials totally refused to even show up before Congress. Bolten and Miers are the highest officials ever held in contempt of Congress. Unfortunately, Attorney General Mukasey – in a dereliction of duty – has refused to enforce the contempt decree and now Congress is suing them in District Court to demand compliance. Then, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, David Addington, refused to testify on the investigation into the Bush Administration's ordering of torture. Now, Rove continues this executive arrogance by also refusing to testify.
Enough is enough. We have a Constitutional obligation to provide accountability to a White House that is trying usurp the constitutional powers of Congress.
These are the very reasons why I have been pushing for impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney. The Bush Administration has been running roughshod over the Constitution for eight long years. We should not allow the promise of a positive election be used as an excuse to ignore our duty to investigate crimes that weaken the very fabric of our Democracy.
ap·pease·ment, noun - to yield or concede to the belligerent demands of (a nation, group, person, etc.) in a conciliatory effort, sometimes at the expense of justice or other principles.
It's late and I should be getting to bed, but I have to comment on Chris Matthews' evisceration of right wing hack Kevin James today on Hardball. Every once in a while, Matthews gets it right, and I'm starting to believe that he's just as tired of all the bullshit as the rest of us have been for a long time now.
I first saw Kevin James (not the funny comedian, but the asshole wingnut) on some show a couple of weeks ago and thought, "Who the fuck is this dipshit and why would anyone have him on the air?" Maybe Matthews thought that too and figured he'd have a little fun dangling him over the shark tank.
*It's a horrible situation when the President of the United States makes a ridiculous comment (comparing Barack Obama's foreign policy stance to the appeasement of the Nazis in 1938) while in a foreign country today that can be considered an act of treason,* but then the wingnut hyenas receive their faxed talking points and repeat what they read ad nauseam without even understanding what they are saying.
Watch and be amazed at how this buffoon is schooled by Matthews, and keep an eye out when James gets flustered and refers to his notes for those catch words "enabled, energized, legitimized," repeating them over and over again as if it's an answer to the question being posed.
You can keep looking at your notes all day, nitwit, the answer to "What did Neville Chamberlain do wrong that you don't like?" isn't going to magically appear on your "Dittohead Brainless Talking Points of the Day" email.
And Mark Green! "Kevin, when you're in a hole, stop digging." Priceless!
The saddest part of this whole thing is that this piece of shit excuse for a human being is going back to his job tomorrow at a Los Angeles right wing conservative radio station without any repercussion from his pitiful performance on Hardball, probably trying to excuse it as being taken out of context or that it was some "liberal media" hit job. (I say "excuse for a human being" because I believe that besides being a living, breathing entity, you also have to have the ability to use your brain and think.)
I hope I'm wrong. I hope there is blowback from his pathetic appearance because I am so fucking tired of the "yes" men and dittoheads who do nothing but regurgitate whatever is fed to them and up until this point, haven't been called on it. Finally, a "journalist" did his job. I still use that term loosely with Matthews but he is starting to show something here. Contempt for the corporate status quo? Or just plain tired of sitting there and having to deal with the bullshit? I don't know, but it's working for me, makes for good television and for once it's nice to see some truth on the tube.
Kudos to Chris for being mad as hell and not taking it anymore... at least for today. Does Matthews have enough pull at MSNBC to prevent them from ever booking this douchebag again? God, let's hope so.
(* More on the moron and his "appeasement" comments at a later time.)
Is there nothing this prostitute won't peddle? Trying to laugh off the viral video of O'Reilly exploding while the host of Inside Edition when he had much more hair, BillO suggested that there's much newer video of him blowing up due to a "contractual obligation" he has to "create a few dramas" for his co-workers, otherwise they'd quit. Yeah, I'm sure that's the reason, Bill.
By the way, he'd be happy to sell those videos to you.
Stephen Colbert's moment of "solidarity" with O'Reilly however, is priceless.
Maybe it has something to do with, oh, I don't know... WEST VIRGINIANS! Take a look at some of the MENSA members that have the privilege of voting.
People like Janice:
People like Mike Norman who sells "Obama in '08" T-shirts out of his bar with a picture of Curious George eating a banana:
"We're not living in the (19)40's," he said. "Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears -- he looks just like Curious George."
I guess we're all overreacting huh, Mike? Why would having a picture of a monkey on a t-shirt with the black candidate's name underneath be considered racist? I couldn't imagine.Rick Blake, a spokesman for publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which owns Curious George, said Wednesday that the company didn't authorize the use of the character's image, but hasn't been in touch with anybody selling or manufacturing the shirts.
"We find it offensive and obviously utterly out of keeping with the value Curious George represents," Blake said. "We're monitoring the situation and weighing our options with respect to legal action."
Well Mike, I hope your motherfuckin' racist ass gets sued for everything you own, including the two teeth left in your head, you asshole.
"We hold dear what our Declaration of Independence says, that all have got uninalienable rights, endowed by a Creator."
...Golf.
Yeah, poor George gave up his golf game to show his "solidarity" with the families of the fallen US soldiers in Iraq.
Golf. He didn't think it was a good idea to have some mom who'd lost her son watching him play golf during wartime. It sends the wrong signal. So he gave it up. Or was it the bad knee and calf injury that caused him to stop playing? Hmmm....
Classic Keith. This one is for the ages.
...A source close to the Clinton campaign said the Edwards camp gave the Clinton folks a head's up. "Clearly it's upsetting" the source tells ABC. "He brings the workers" to Obama.
It's about time! And I must admit that I thought the Clinton camp would say that at this point, his endorsement doesn't amount to much because it's long after the North Carolina primary, what's the big deal, yadda, yadda, yadda.... but I'd be wrong.
And perhaps in hindsight, those who wanted an earlier endorsement from Edwards (myself included) are now realizing that instead of being one of many during the heat of the primaries where the Clinton campaign could have blown off Edwards' endorsement as not very meaningful are now realizing that the current timing of it could be the final nail in the coffin for Hillary. I'm venturing to guess that the superdelegate trickle these past few weeks will soon become a bursting dam.
"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly hree non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America... And we're going to do something about it."
Even James Carville has acknowledged the turning tide and while still supporting Clinton, has said that Barack Obama will most likely be the Democratic nominee for President."I still hear some dogs barking... I'm for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee."
"As soon as I determine when that is, I'll send him a check," he added.
Hillary supporters take note. Passionate support is one thing, reality is something else.
It's a foregone conclusion that Hillary Clinton is going to win today's primary in West Virginia, especially with comments like this coming from its edumucated citizens:“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist.”
Yes, that comes from a lifelong "Democrat." 67-year-old retired coalminer Leonard Simpson would rather vote for McCain given the choice of the Straight Talker or the Muslim with the atheist wife (that would be Obama in his mind).
So I'm not expecting too much out of West Virginians, but I think the main issue is how the punditocracy is going to spin it. Are they going to say what we all know, that Hillary's win is nothing that we didn't expect but with superdelegates streaming toward Obama and the not so fuzzy math and the massive debt her campaign is carrying, she's still trying to climb a nearly impossible mountain for the nomination?
Or are we going to get yet another false horserace, with Hillary being the comeback kid and "why can't Obama close the deal?" inane banter to fill out the slated hours of "coverage" of a primary whose projected results will be known about two minutes after the polls close?
I'll take a quick look tonight but won't hold my breath for anything newsworthy.
"Like you, I have been disgraced about what I've seen on TV that took place in [Abu Ghraib] prison."
- Parkersburg, West Virginia, May 13, 2004
Crooks & Liars: Apparently [House Minority Whip Roy] Blunt didn’t get the memo that McCain is trying to distance himself from Bush and as Rep. Chris Van Hollen points out, on the two most important issues to the American people [Iraq and the economy], McCain absolutely equals Bush. And Roy, that’s not such a good thing. REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: ...the Bush economic policies have helped drive this economy into a ditch. The economy has lost 260,000 [jobs] in the first four months of this year... And John McCain does represent a continuation of the Bush economic policy, as Roy just acknowledged. And the fact of the matter is, people are hurting. The one thing this president doesn’t understand and John McCain doesn’t understand is the economic squeeze the families around the country are feeling.
BLITZER: When it comes to domestic economic issues, what is the major difference between President Bush’s policies, what he wants to do, and what John McCain would do if he were president?
BLUNT: Well, I think what John McCain wants to do is continue these pro-growth tax policies that our friends on the other side have been talking for sixteen months now…
BLITZER: But that’s what President Bush wants to do too.
BLUNT: And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that.
BLITZER: So it would be in effect a third Bush term when it came to pro-growth tax policies?
BLUNT: It would be. I think it would be. And I think that’s a good thing...
Even in the face of cold, hard facts, a lame duck presidency and the results of the last seven years, Roy Blunt continues to tow the party line. Either he's doing it because that's what he was told to do, or at this point, the GOP has convinced themselves that the Bush way really is the best move forward. When you repeat something a million times, you start to convince yourself that it is fact. I believe Blunt thinks the latter.
"We're working with Chancellor Schroeder on what's called ten-plus-ten-over-ten: $10 billion from the U.S., $10 billion from other members of the G7 over a ten-year period, to help Russia securitize the dismantling - the dismantled nukular warheads."
"There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead."
- Washington, DC, May 11, 2001
In an attempt to persuade superdelegates, an e-mail campaign to flood the uncommitted remainder of the superdels and fill their inboxes began and in my opinion, is having negative results for the Clinton camp. In one exchange, Donna Brazille, Al Gore's campaign manager and a stalwart of the Democratic Party, responded with frustration to a writer's threats of defection. "Honestly, this is the 9th email today," she wrote before 8:00 pm. "So I believe you're ready to not only destroy Roe versus Wade, voting rights, civil liberties and civil rights. Perhaps adding trillions more to the deficits through non-stop tax cuts to the wealthy and 100 more years in Iraq. Yes, please join Rush and McCain asap. The train has left. Catch it." "I spent my entire life in the two reddest states in the entire U.S. so please excuse me if I fail to discern the nuances of the arguments sent my way this evening in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign to intimidate the remaining unpledged delegates by threatening to leave the party and vote for a third Bush term if I and others like me don't vote for Sen. Clinton," wrote the exasperated superdelegate. "I have been uncommitted throughout this campaign because I wanted to see how the candidates performed in a variety of settings. I am proud of them both. But I am horrified by this effort to threaten votes for McCain if super delegates don't vote for Sen. Clinton. I have received hundreds of emails from both sides - but I can say without exception that I have not received a single email from an Obama supporter that threatened a vote for McCain if I didn't support Sen. Obama. You really ought to be ashamed."
Speculation is that the e-mail inundation was the brainchild of either Taylor Marsh, a pro-Clinton blogger, or Hillaryis44.org, two websites I refuse to acknowledge with a mouse click, hence no link.
You gotta love Donna Brazille for e-mailing back.
May 20th.... May 20th... May 20th.... May 20th...
...At least two other party insiders wrote the Huffington Post expressing concern over the scope ("I've received emails like this for weeks but tonight it started in mass) and negativity of some of the Obama attacks, including one red-state Democrat:
UPDATE: Phil Singer, a spokesman for Clinton, emails to say that the campaign knows nothing about the emails. Meanwhile, two readers write in to say they saw the campaign being coordinated at the friendly Clinton website Hillaryis44.org, as well as the blog page on Clinton's own website.
Hat tip to Bob Cesca and Paddy on Cliff Schecter on this one.
First of all, let me say how nice it is to watch Morning Joe on MSNBC without the "Joe" part of it. The discussion was actually a discussion; engaging and serious, not loudmouth and idiotic. Mika Brzezinski, fill-in David Shuster and Tiki Barber (again?) had a twelve minute conversation with John Edwards and his thoughts on the race.
Mika prodded him for an endorsement, didn't get one, but did get him to admit that he would "very likely" endorse the same candidate he voted for. Listen to the 10 minute mark - he follows up with "I just voted for 'em on Tuesday" (emphasis mine). He didn't specifically say "him", he said "'em". But if you're speaking quickly, the 'h' isn't as emphasized, such as "voted forrim" as opposed to "voted forrer." Who the hell knows?
He does have a differing opinion as to how important, or not, his endorsement is, and at this point, it's probably best "forrim" to lay low and let this thing play out until at least May 20th. Hillary wouldn't drop out of the race with an Edwards endorsement of Obama anyway, so what's the difference? And if he has a chance to be a "War on Poverty" Czar for either candidate, why potentially upset either individual with an endorsement?
They also discuss Hillary's "hard-working Americans, white Americans" slip of the tongue and he doesn't believe that it was racial, knowing her the way he does. I'm not completely sure I agree, as we've all seen how the race baiting has come and gone, subtley and no so subtley, but fair enough. I take Edwards at his word on that one. He has his opinion just like everyone else.
Great interview - of course it is - Joe Scarborough isn't anywhere near the studio playing "gotcha."
It's former Attorney General John Ashcroft's birthday today! He once joked that George Bush worked 24/7: "Twenty four hours a week, 7 months a year." Who knew that in hindsight, he wasn't half bad - relatively speaking - when it comes to the criminals in this administration.
C'mon, you know you want to click on the video below. You want to "let the eagle soar once more!"
I have to say that I am disappointed in Jon Stewart. While I fully expected exactly what we got during last night's interview with John McCain, I was hoping it would be a bit more serious.
Stewart did ask a couple of decent questions, but since it is a comedy show, their wording gave McThuselah just enough room to wriggle out of answering them in the guise of trying to be funny.
And the "Do I salute now?" whisper when McCain made his entrance made me feel ill. I hope someone starts taking this "maverick" to task sooner than later.
"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a seven and a half pound largemouth bass in my lake."
I just came across an article in our local rag, The New York Daily News, entitled Ugly Truth Why HIllary Clinton Won't Quit: ...Many in the white, working-class crowd were simply not ready to back Barack Obama - for reasons that are disturbing.
"I'm kind of still up in the air between McCain and Hillary," said Jason Jenkins, 32, who cited information from a hoax e-mail as a reason to spurn Obama.
"I'll be honest with you. Barack scares the hell out of me,"he said. "He swore on the Koran."
Obama did manage to pull in many white voters, but still encountered similar sentiments from a man who refused to shake his hand at a diner in Greenwood, Ind.
"I can't stand him," the man said. "He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned."
And sadly, this is why shitheads like former New York City Mayor Ed Koch are calling Obama a loser in the general election and why Clinton still thinks she has a shot. It's the unspoken race issue. They hope that idiots will vote for Clinton not because they actually support her, but because they still think Obama is a Muslim, or they put too much emphasis on Rev. Wright, or they just won't vote for a nigger. Especially an uppity one who is smarter and richer than they are.
Why is Tiki Barber on Morning Joe? What the hell does he have to do with pundit politics?
And although they're giving Barack Obama his due, is it really true that "Obama finally found his voice last night"? Is that the only catchphrase they know?
One more thing, they're criticizing Obama for calling Indiana a "tiebreaker" on Meet The Press and giving Hillary the opening to use it against him, when we all know that a "tiebreaker' meant that Hillary had to win big. BIG... in Indiana to make a case to the superdelegates which she clearly didn't do.
The so media spin begins because they don't want this "horse race" to end even though the filly lost last night, breaking one ankle in North Carolina and the other ankle in Indiana.
"And one of the things we've got to make sure that we do is anything."
Hillary Clinton called North Carolina a "game changer" in the race for the Democratic nomination, but I don't think this is what she had in mind. Barack Obama had taken North Carolina 56%-42%, after major barnstorming by Bill Clinton this past week. Some reports say he's done 100 stump speeches in the last two weeks in the Tarheel State.
If Senator Harry Reid actually believes what he said: Senator Joe Lieberman "supports us on virtually everything except the war," then it's time for Reid and anyone thinking like him to go. He doesn't get it... OR he understands the game too well. Dear Senator Reid,
Well I say "Game over."
Here's my email to Reid:
I am writing in regards to your appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and your statement, when asked about Senator Joe Lieberman. You said Joe Lieberman "supports us on virtually everything except the war."
Here are some non-war votes from Lieberman since the Democrats took over Congress in 2006:
Bill to ban the CIA from using waterboarding:
Democrats -- 45-1
Republicans - 5-46
Lieberman- NAY
Cloture vote on bill to restore habeas corpus (which Lieberman voted to abolish in 2006):
Democrats - 50-0
Republicans - 5-42
Lieberman - NAY
Vote to strip retroactive amnesty for telecoms out of the FISA bill (h/t Matt Browner-Hamlin):
Democrats -- 31-16
Republicans - 0-48
Lieberman - NAY
Vote to specify that FISA is the "exclusive means" by which the President can spy on telephone and email communications:
Democrats -- 49-1
Republicans - 9-40
Lieberman - NAY
Confirmation of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General:
Democrats -- 6-40
Republicans - 47-0
Lieberman - YEA
Cloture vote to proceed to consideration of No-Confidence Resolution for Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General:
Democrats -- 47-0
Republicans - 6-37
Lieberman - NAY
Can you please elaborate on your statement? If you believe that all these votes are related to the war in Iraq, how can a vote on restoring habeas corpus or a vote of No-Confidence on former Attorney General Gonzales possibly be linked in your estimation?
I certainly mean no disrespect, but I find in incredulous that you would feel this way. And I've forgotten one other important topic that Senator Lieberman is NOT voting with the Democrats on: the next President of the United States.
You can email Harry Reid here.
(H/T Glenn Greenwald)
You'd think MSNBC producers would pull the graphics and chyron stating the devastation in Myanmar, but they didn't.
Towards the end of a news confernce in which First Lady Laura Bush was answering questions (Lord knows about what) some intrepid White House Press Corp member asked for details about Jenna's wedding, with follow ups by other reporters. Laura Bush obliged and they all joked, but it seemed all a bit insensitive considering the conference dealt with Myanmar's tragedy.
"You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone."
"Solutions for a Strong Military"?
What the fuck?! Ladies and Gentlemen, Republican Presidential Nominee, Hillary Clinton!
"There is no secret plan.... The Clinton campaign has been vocal in stating that the votes of 2.5 million people must be respected. Hardly a day goes by when a Clinton official doesn't publicly declare that the votes of Michigan and Florida count and that the delegations from those states should be seated."
The campaign's public assertions stand in contrast to its response to inquiries prior to publication of the story. At that point, Clinton aides insisted on keeping all comments either off the record or on deep background, or did not respond to questions at all. The campaign statement appeared to be designed to try to reduce the significance of the story.
Perhaps if either Clinton and Obama had campaigned in Florida, or if Obama's name was actually on the ballot in Michigan, I might find this legitimate. But facts being what they are, I just find it desperate. And for all their bluster of having a real shot at the nomination, doesn't something called a "nuclear option" sound like a last resort?
"The point now is how do we work together to achieve important goals. And one such goal is a democracy in Germany."
The group’s opposition is centered around the partisan think tank that will be attached to the library. The institute reportedly under the control of Karl Rove will have no academic oversight by SMU. But there may also be some concerns about associating the school with some of Bush’s policies. “Many are offended by the contempt shown by the administration in areas like torture,” says Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D. a minister and psychologist in Brooklyn, New York. “Torture is not a value of the Methodist church.”The governing body of the United Methodist Church has come out against the George Bush Library being constructed on the campus of Southern Methodist University. This rejection overwhelmingly passed 844-20 on Wednesday morning at the 2008 Quadrennial General Conference of the United Methodist Church that is still meeting in Fort Worth.
I believe the main reason for the rejection is the preference for someone to have a library named after him, he would have needed to at some point in his life, read a book.
Well at least Rev. Weaver is on the right side of this controversial position. After all, if it's good enough to be a value of the United States government...
"We ended the rule of one of history's worst tyrants, and in doing so , we not only freed the American people, we made our own people more secure."
McThuselah is losing his mind.
“My friends, I will have an energy policy which will eliminate our dependence on oil from Middle East that will then prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East."
Again? Prevent us from sending our kids to the Middle East... AGAIN?! Five years ago, when "No Blood For Oil" was being chanted by anti-war protesters, the right wingnuts were calling that theory absolutely insane and the tinfoil hat liberals were at it again, conjuring up some crazy conspiracy to defame the intrepid president and his astute administration officials.
Of course McCain's campaign tried to wipe off the shit he stepped in and expected us to be stupid enough to believe that Mr. Double Talk was speaking about the FIRST Gulf War. When pressed, McCain conceded he wasn't thinking of Gulf War I. Nice try, fellas.Republican John McCain was forced to clarify his comments Friday suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. He said he was talking about the first Gulf War and not the current conflict.
...The expected GOP nominee sought to clarify his comments later, after his campaign plane landed in Phoenix. He said he didn't mean the U.S. went to war in Iraq five years ago over oil.
"No, no, I was talking about that we had fought the Gulf War for several reasons," McCain told reporters.
One reason was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, he said. "But also we didn't want him to have control over the oil, and that part of the world is critical to us because of our dependency on foreign oil, and it's more important than any other part of the world," he said.
"If the word `again' was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean," McCain said.
McThuselah is making it a habit of misspeaking, although he would like us believe it is we who are "misconstruing" his words. The "no more blood for oil" gaffe comes on the heels of blaming the deadly Minneapolis bridge collapse on too much pork-barrel spending... and then backing off that one too.
I suppose the campaign should just hire an interpreter for Grandpa Moses and have him attached at the waist at all times, so they can decipher what he means to say from what he actually says.
“Sometimes I feel like the Goldilocks of this campaign, not too much, not too little, just right. And I think we should have a gas tax holiday and pay for it."
Yay! Holiday! Woohoo! Will it be a federal paid holiday? Will we be off from work?... No?... What? Oh... it's not a "holiday"? What the fuck?! Is Clinton giving us a holiday or not?
Well if by "holiday" the Clinton campaign means suspending the gasoline tax for three months and losing 300,000 highway construction jobs and $9 billion in highway trust fund revenue in the process, only to jack up the tax again after Labor Day, which will be called a "tax hike" by Republicans and blamed on the Democrats, then... yes.
But don't worry, she's proposing a "windfall profit tax" to offset those lost monies, even though a windfall profit tax has already been brought up by Sen. Byron Dorgan and has died in Congress (surprise, surprise...), and even though she's already spent that money by saying revenues from a windfall profit tax would be used on researching and developing renewable energy.
Good job, Golidocks.
Here comes the avalanche! Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew of Indiana has flipped his endorsement of Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama."This has got to come to an end," former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew told reporters in his hometown of Indianapolis just days before Tuesday's crucial state primary. He said he planned to call all the other superdelegates he knows and encourage them to back Obama.
...In a lengthy letter explaining his decision, Andrew said he is switching his support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists (Republican) John McCain."
"The ship is taking on water right now," Andrew said at the news conference. "We need to patch those holes, heal the rift and go forward to beat John McCain."
...Andrew said the Obama campaign never asked him to switch his support, but he decided to do so after watching Obama's handling of two issues in recent days. He said Obama took the principled stand in opposing a summer gas tax holiday that both Clinton and McCain supported, even though it would have been easier politically to back it. And he said he was impressed with Obama's handling of the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
..."He has shown such mettle under fire," Andrew said in the interview. "The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party."
That's what I'm talking about! A Democrat with... how shall I put it... "testicular fortitude."
Today is the fifth anniversary of Bush declaring victory in Iraq aboard an aircraft carrier. If that doesn't piss you off, I'll add visual aids.
Don't you just loooove the tabloids?
Because she pumps gas! Or maybe not... ...The Clinton campaign arranged for Mrs. Clinton to “commute” with a sheet-metal worker on his way to work; she rode shotgun in a white Ford pick-up truck and to stop by the gas station to fret over the cost of filling up. Of course, it was meant as a compliment. If an opponent had said something like this, well, who knows what the campaign reaction would be or what claim of misogyny they would come up with. But are we really surprised what comes out of the Clinton campaign anymore? A staged event, making a man drive forty-five minutes out of his normal commute to pick up Clinton at her hotel in a truck that isn't his, only to have her talk on her cell phone the entire length of the trip and then to stop for a fill up at a gas station that's been closed to other customers for security and press reasons (who knows how much money they lost during that time) and then speak to the press about how she knows the hardships of Joe Average even though she hasn't pumped gas for herself in at least the last 16 years if not more. Yes, she is "in touch" with the average voter. There's always the full service pump, Hill. Here's Keith's take on it.No elitist here. Oh, no. ...Ooh look, the numbers turn fast!
No shock, but David O. Selznick could not have staged the thing better.
The Marathon gas station was effectively closed to other customers for more than an hour as 30 reporters and photographers gathered at the station to await Mrs. Clinton’s visit. A caravan of 10 vehicles – 10! – finally arrived, including a van carrying cameramen to record the drive, and a white Ford pick-up truck driven by the “commuter,” Jason Allen Wilfing, with Mrs. Clinton in the passenger seat.
And it turned out the pick-up belonged to Mr. Wilfing’s boss; they used it so they could fit a Secret Service agent and Mrs. Clinton’s traveling aide in the back seat.
Reporters speculated beforehand about whether Mrs. Clinton would pump the gas herself, but it was not to be...
...Mrs. Clinton said she had not pumped gas in a long time, given the Secret Service role in her life since 1992.
Surprising that she wouldn't pump her own gas after endorsements describing her as making "Rocky Balboa look like a pansy" and having "testicular fortitude." I shit you not.
Here's her reaction after the comparison to being ballsy.
"It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber."
Bush had a pretend press conference on the economy today... and tried to blame the Democratically led Congress for the administration's problems. Watch and be appalled.
And that's not all. According to Crooks and Liars, Raisinbrain got testy with Martha Raddatz for asking him a question relating to Afghanistan, not the economy. I guess he didn't have his propaganda notes for such questions.Q: Can I just add to that, a couple weeks ago —
THE PRESIDENT: No, you can’t. This is the second follow-up. You usually get one follow-up, and I was nice enough to give you one. I didn’t give anybody on this side a follow-up, and now you are trying to take a second follow-up.
Q: Can I just say —
THE PRESIDENT: They just cut off your mic. You can’t, no.
What a dick.
Worst. President. Ever.
For anyone who still watches this "news" organization and thinks it's worth its weight in shit, please read a book... any book will do.
In trying to characterize Senator Clinton's challenge to Barack Obama to debate "Lincoln-Douglas" style, the MENSA members over at Fox & Friends tried to put up a graphic of what video they might find from those debates in a cute little segment. Here is what they came up with:
Should anyone bother to tell Fox that the "Douglas" in the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 was Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, not abolitionist and freed slave Frederick Douglass ?
...Oh, nevermind. Idiots.
... a little more forcefully this time.WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – For the second day in a row, Senator Barack Obama sought to distance himself from the remarks made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and forcefully denounced the incendiary comments he feared would provide “comfort to those who prey on hate.”
“I’m outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to reporters here today. He added, “I find these comments appalling. It contradicts everything that I’m about and who I am.”
Seeking to quell the political damage the controversy is dealing to his campaign, Mr. Obama called a press conference after a town meeting here this afternoon to raise the volume of his criticism of his former pastor. In his speech on race last month in Philadelphia, where he tried to put the matter behind him, Mr. Obama said he gave Mr. Wright the benefit of the doubt. But after watching three days of Mr. Wright’s commentary in televised speeches and interviews, Mr. Obama said, “there are no excuses.”
“They offend me, they rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced,” he said. “That’s what I am doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.”
I was having a debate with a family member about this issue yesterday. He felt I was siding with the spin of the media on the Wright issue and that Wright had said nothing wrong. But the difference here is, that Wright made appearances and comments over the weekend in direct contradiction to Obama's defense of Wright with the speech in Philadelphia last month.
For Wright to say that Obama did not denounce his comments and infer that Obama said what he said because he's a politician, basically calling him a liar - wink, wink - was the equivalent of throwing Obama under the bus. And what made things worse, in my opinion, was the arrogance with which Wright made his statements.
Here's the skinny: John McCain is suggesting a gas "tax holiday" between Memorial Day and Labor Day - about 3 months - 13 weeks. I'll do the math for the extreme end of savings. 18.4 cents per gallon multiplied by a 15 gallon tank equals $2.76 per tankful. Assuming you fill up your tank weekly, multiply that by the 13 weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day... that equals $35.88. For a 20 gallon tank, the total savings is $47.84. The savings for a 12 gallon tank is $28.70 or basically less than a tank of gas. Great solution, huh?
Yet McThuselah calls Barack Obama "out of touch" with what poorer, low-income people need because Obama rejects the idea of a tax holiday for two reasons: it does little to ease the strain on the pocketbooks of consumers and it would deplete the highway trust fund by $9 billion and would cost 300,000 highway construction jobs. The man who married a $100 million beer baron heiress - Mr. Campaign Finance Reform, who had been using his wife's private jet for campaigning through a loophole in the rules - thinks he's more in touch with the common folk.
Here's Obama telling the truth himself.
Obama: Half a tank of gas. That's [John McCain's] big solution...this is at the same time he is proposing hundreds of millions of dollars of more tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Americans...that's typical of how Washington works, there's a problem, everybody's upset about gas prices, let's find some short-term, quick fix so that we can say we did something, even though we're not really doing anything...and then we pretend like we did something. So I'm here to tell you the truth. We could suspend the gas taxes for six months, but that's not going to bring down gas prices long term...we have to go after the oil prices and look at their price gouging, we've got to go after windfall profits...and we have to stop using less oil, that means raising fuel efficiency standards on cars, and developing alternative fuels, that's the real honest answer to how we're gonna solve this problem, that's what you need from a president, someone who's gonna tell you the truth, who's gonna tell you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear.
I've been working on a post in my head about the flip flops of John McCain; there are so many, it's taken me a little longer to write than I've anticipated. But in the meantime, here's one that was recently uncovered.
On military presence in Iraq -
John McCain, January 2008: "Maybe a hundred [years]. We've been in South Korea, we've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That'd be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."
John McCain, January 2005: "...I think one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence. And I don't pretend to know exactly Iraqi public opinion. But as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be."
Now you can say that he's re-evaluated his stance on judgments he's made between then and now - which is fine - but 1) being in Iraq strategically doesn't change the fact that our military presence is resented which then makes whatever mission du jour harder and more dangerous and 2) if a Democrat had said this, the GOP and the media would be jumping all over this as a classic case of flip flopping and not looking at the "nuance" of the answers. So, if it's okay with the Republicans to criticize in this manner (because you know it's coming), then it's okay for Democrats to respond in kind.
Please forgive the light blogging these past few days (I'm feeling a bit under the weather) but I had to get something off my chest before I hit the sack.
Has the Republican National Committee gone fucking nuts?
"As a legal matter,'' RNC chairman Mike Duncan said today, this is a "maliciously false'' campaign ad. "The advertisement in question falsely and maliciously'' quotes Sen. McCain as saying that extending the war in Iraq for 100 years would be fine with him, and places it in a context of images of combat. "Clearly this ad is just another attempt by the DNC to mischaracterize Sen. McCain's statements.''As Mark Ambinder writes:
The RNC provided no evidence to support their charge that the communication was illegally coordinated, aside for a few newspaper articles pointing out that some Democrats work for both a candidate and the committee, like pollster Cornell Belcher. DNC chairman Howard Dean said this morning that neither campaign saw or heard the ad before the put it out.
The RNC is ginning up the threat of legal action to give weight to their criticism of the ad's content. Cairncross would not say whether the party will sue CNN or MSNBC, the two cable networks airing the ad, if they refuse to kill it.
The RNC's content charge is not black and white. The DNC wrote the ad carefully. Nowhere does the narrator or any chyron state that McCain is fine with the Iraqi war persisting for 100 years. The visuals -- explosions, bloodied troops -- take care of that association.
"We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation tha will make - it would hope - put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see."
"Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican."
The Democratic National Committee seems to have decided that since Hillary and Barack are still fighting with each other, they might as well do their job and start questioning John McCain, since we can't expect the MSM to do it.
Here's their latest ad - hard to argue with actual video, eh, Maverick?
Click on portrait for a complete list of President Obama's Executive Orders, Presidential Memoranda and Proclamations
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