NY Times: Remembering Bo Diddley
...vote today, the final two primaries of this long process. If Obama takes these states as he is favored to, I wonder what excuse Clinton will come up with to say these votes aren't important? Or maybe she sees the end after all.NY TIMES: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton invited fund-raisers and other supporters to an election-night rally in New York City where, aides said, she was prepared to deliver what they described as a farewell speech that summed up the case for her candidacy. They said Mrs. Clinton was not likely to withdraw from the race on Tuesday night, probably waiting until later in the week, once Mr. Obama’s victory appeared clear.
Sensing an opportunity to shut down the nominating contest, Obama campaign advisers said that they were orchestrating an endorsement of Mr. Obama by at least eight Senate and House members who had pledged to remain uncommitted until the primaries ended, and that the endorsements would come the moment the South Dakota polls closed on Tuesday night.
The new number is 2,118. The Democratic Rules & By Laws committee has ruled to award Florida and Michigan all of it's delegates with ½ votes each.
As of this post, Obama leads Clinton in the delegate count 2,076.5 to 1,918. Of course, the news brought out the worst in Clinton supporters, who claimed the Democrats have just thrown the general election to the Republicans, and some claimed to vote against their own best interests.
It figures.
...that the Rules & By Laws Committee meets to figure out what to do with Michagan and Florida's delegates. My wife looked at me this morning like I had a hole in my head when that was the first thing I said when I woke up this morning.
"Actually I - this may sound a little West Texas to you, but I like it. When I'm talking about - when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking about myself, all of us are talking about me."
Isn't it interesting that when someone makes charges against an employer, the immediate reaction from said employer is the "disgruntled employee" excuse?
Following the blowback from Scott McClellan's new book, in which (surprise, surprise) he is critical of the Bush administration and George W. Bush, all we heard from the White House is how it was all "disgruntled employee" claptrap and "That's not the Scott I knew." You're right. The Scott McClellan you knew would lie his motherfuckin' ass off for the Bushies, so yes, maybe this Scott was unrecognizable to you as a man whose conscience ate away at him until he had to come out with something a little closer to the truth than the standard Bush White House fare. I still have a problem believing that he "unknowingly" lied, but that's up for debate.
But for all those who still think, and I wouldn't have the first clue why, that the media has an obvious "liberal bias" comes the newest Disgruntled Employee of the Day: Jessica Yellin.CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin said Thursday she was referring to her time spent at MSNBC when she said she felt pressure not to report stories critical of the Bush administration during the time leading up to the Iraq war.
During her CNN appearance, Yellin said the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives to make sure the war was presented "in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings."
The higher Bush's approval ratings, the more pressure she felt from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, she said. Pushed by [CNN's Anderson] Cooper to explain, Yellin said her bosses would turn down critical stories about the administration and try to put on positive pieces.
MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines... didn't dispute Yellin's claim that she did some Washington and Pentagon reports while there.
"She had little to no contact with editorial decision makers, and certainly was not a part of the editorial process on a daily basis," Gaines said. "Given how her story has changed so dramatically since her appearance on CNN - her current employer - less than 24 hours ago, we find it hard to believe that anyone would take this disgruntled former employee's comments seriously."
And how did her story change? She specified that it was MSNBC she was working for when she felt the pressure to report the favorable stories as opposed to being critical. Why are these people still trying to defend what we already know to be true? The media ginned up the drumbeat for war as much as the Bushies did. We all know this. Even that "liberal rag" the New York Times had Judith Miller marching in lockstep with the White House and their WMD claims. But is "disgruntled employee" Yellin telling the truth?
I think we can all remember the cancelled Phil Donohue show on MSNBC, the same time slot that Countdown with Keith Olbermann now fills.The charges against MSNBC aren't new, however. A prime-time show with Phil Donahue received consistent pressure to present panels tilted in favor of the war, said Jeff Cohen, that program's former senior producer. Donahue's show was on for less than a year before being cancelled less than a month before the war began.
He once witnessed a producer scolded for organizing a discussion with pro- and anti-war sentiments presented equally, said Cohen, a liberal activist who wrote a book about his experiences with TV networks.
...From the other side of the podium, McClellan offered criticism of the media's performance. He said reporters were "complicit enablers" by covering the preparations for war instead of more aggressively questioning the need for it.
Finally, and although it comes five years too late, it's a start... coincidentally just in time for a Democratic president to be in a position to take over the Oval Office January 20th, 2009.
But it is far from over. The mainstream media is still caught in a rut of propping up instead of examining independently and letting the cream rise to the top. A perfect example is how the McCainstream Media handles the Maverick with kid gloves even though we know that Mr. Straight Talk Reformer has sided with the current pResident 95%-100% of the time in the last 18 months.
That's some agent of change, huh?
UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has more on Politico and their equating "critics" of the war to "left wing haters" but ties in the point of the push back on those claiming deferential treatment of the media towards the Bush Administration.Politico reporter Mike Allen, formerly of The Washington Post and Time, appeared yesterday on the show of right-wing radio host Mike Gallagher. The two of them guffawed together at how absurd are Scott McCellan's claims that the media was "deferential" to the Bush administration and then Allen said this:
ALLEN: And indeed, Scott does adopt the vocabulary, rhetoric of the left wing haters. Can you believe it in here he says the White House press corps was too deferential to the administration?
We only believe it because it's true, Mr. Allen.
By now, everyone has weighed in on the new McClellan tell-all on the Bushies' back rooms, but I think there are two trains of thought for Scotty's book.
1 - Now he tells us? And
2 - Maybe this will open the floodgates.
Either way, cracking the door open on a extremely secretive administration can only be a good thing. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The White House has obviously come out with guns blazing in their attack on McClellan in response. But there is one former aide who came to his defense.One former Bush aide... is sticking up for McClellan, arguing that the former Bush press secretary is "getting savaged for saying what everyone knows to be true."
Mike Turk served as the eCampaign director for President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. As such, his tenure corresponded with that of McClellan's. No longer connected to the administration, Turk is now one of the few (if any) voices with connections to that crowd who are saying, quite simply, that the book "What Happened" is steeped in little more than truth.
Maybe he'll be the first on many.
"This administration is doing everything we can to end the stalemate in an efficient way. We're making the right decisions to bring the solution to an end."
"So on behalf of the well-oiled unit of people who came together to serve something greater than themselves, congratulations."
I haven't written very much because of my schedule lately, but I just read a Huffington Post item that I couldn't let pass.
I speak with fellow blogger Armadillo Joe and our habit of surfing around and comparing our findings of posts we read blaming everyone and everything - the media, misogyny, sexism - for Hillary Clinton's downfall, rather than where it should truly lie, her terrible campaign leaders and campaign strategy, GOP-style negative smear tactics and "insert both feet" gaffes that have wasted her name recognition status and cause over half of voters to find her untrustworthy, when once she was the odds-on favorite to win the party nomination for the presidency.
"How Dare You!" written by Jill Iscol is just another example in a long line of reasons that Hillary Clinton's campaign has failed time and again and why any good will towards her has diminished. Iscol's first few lines read like a parody. I was waiting for it to get funny and show it's sarcasm and irony, but that paragraph never came.We need to talk. How dare the leadership of the Democratic Party turn on Hillary Clinton! How dare they betray Bill Clinton! How dare they not speak out when Hillary is disrespected by words like bitch, whore and the "c" word!
Really? Who called her a "whore" or a "cunt"? Did anyone from her own party talk about Hillary that way? Did Obama? The only one I remember calling Clinton "bitch" was Tina Fey on a Saturday Night Live skit, and it was "in a good way." Did that offend women or were they pumping their fists in agreement?
Iscol describes herself as a "Hillary supporter... along with millions of Democrats throughout our country" and is outraged at the treatment of her preferred candidate and that the Democratic leadership is not sticking up for her. What she doesn't mention is that, unlike millions of other Democrats throughout the country, she isn't just a supporter but a Campaign Finance Chair for Clinton. Not much disclosure there, huh? She goes on:...This is not the party I thought I belonged to. ...That Party stood proudly by a president who many called the first black president because both he and his wife had demonstrated a lifelong commitment to civil rights and human rights.
That is until Bill Clinton compared Barack Obama's win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson's primary wins in 1984 and 1988, inferring that he won because of the black vote. And Geraldine Ferraro revealing herself to be a passive racist, the kind that live next door and smile to your face but peer out from behind their blinds to make sure you're not doing anything of which they'd disapprove. And Hillary Clinton's "hard-working Americans, white Americans" gaffe.Women are outraged. We are still fighting for her, and we are ashamed of how our candidate, a woman who has devoted her adult life to serving others... has been treated not just by the media but by her own Democratic Party.
Yes, it's true women are outraged. But not just female Clinton supporters. How about the outrage of Obama supporters who happen to be women? Do they not count? Are they so vapid that they don't know what they're doing and therefore dismissed?
I said it once, I'll say it again and now I'm putting it in writing: Hillary Clinton is not losing/did not lose the Democratic nomination because of her gender, no matter how many times you may scream it at the top of your lungs. She lost because she was the hare, and thought she could take a break after February 5th, while Obama the tortoise looked at the whole race and didn't nap under a tree after Iowa.
And as far as the "treatment by her own Democratic party" is concerned, let's take a look at at how Hillary Clinton has treated "one of her own" in the Democratic Party, as well as her foot-in-mouth disease, and her thoughts on the Democratic process itself:- your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls had been few.
- your misspeaking about Martin Luther King's relative importance to the Civil Rights movement.
- your misspeaking about your under-fire landing in Bosnia.
- insisting Michigan's vote wouldn't count and then claiming those who would not count it were Un-Democratic.
- pledging to not campaign in Florida and thus disenfranchise voters there, and then claim those who stuck to those rules were as wrong as those who defended slavery or denied women the vote.
- the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad.
- fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer.
- accepting Richard Mellon Scaife's endorsement and then laughing as you described his "deathbed conversion."
- quoting the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove.
- the 3 a.m. Phone Call commercial.
- President Clinton's disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson's.
- Geraldine Ferraro's national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man.
- the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility.
- your declaration of some primary states as counting and some as not.
- exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
- exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC.
- boasting of your "support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"...
- repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama's expense, and your own expense, and the Democratic ticket's expense.
This Olbermann list doesn't even mention her comparison of the Democratic party process to the Republican one and how she claimed if we were playing by their rules, she'd be the nominee by now. For anyone still using that argument and the threat of not voting for Obama, the Democratic candidate, when he wins the nomination, I say, "Please review your party affiliation and re-register to vote as a Republican. We don't need your triangulating, Republican-lite kind around here."
But now, Senator Hillary Clinton, after shooting herself in the foot countless times, often with Mark Penn's finger on the trigger, takes the sawed-off shotgun and sticks it in her mouth on her own with her awful comment regarding the 1968 election and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. When I first heard this secondhand, I thought surely there was some mistake. Did she actually use the word "assassinate"? And of course, I know that she doesn't want any harm to befall Barack Obama, but how brain dead or "sleep deprived" do you have to be to make such an idiotic comment?
I was still confused about her comment, not knowing what to make of it. Then I remembered a pundit on Countdown (I believe it was Howard Fineman) speaking of a previous Hillary comment ("Obama's not a Muslim.... as far as I know.") and saying that Clinton doesn't say anything without thinking about it. Wow. Could she be thinking, "Let me stick around... you never know what can happen... remember Bobby Kennedy?" Then Keith Olbermann set me straight.
The fact is that it doesn't matter what Clinton was thinking. In fact, it shows that if anything, she wasn't thinking when she made that comment, effectively ending, in my opinion, any possible shot of wresting away the nomination from Obama.
Comparing the media's treatment of Hillary to that of Obama's is a bad joke. How do you compare the Rev. Wright's six week debacle (where Obama renounces his Christian Pastor and there are still 11% of voters at this point who still think he is Muslim), questions of patriotism and lapel flag pins, the sham of the ABC debate, pundit after pundit during primary after primary trying to make it look like a horserace, asking why Obama can't "close the deal" when in fact they should be asking why the well-known Hillary couldn't "close the deal", how does Clinton compare that to anything the media has thrown at her?
Jill Iscol's delusion of how the Democratic party has "betrayed" Hillary Clinton is laughable when in fact it is Hillary that has, at almost every turn done or said practically anything to try and stop the Obama tidal wave from flooding her dingey of a campaign with a bailing bucket the size of a thimble. Any excuse save reality keeps these people grasping for something that they themselves have squandered.
NY Times: LOS ANGELES — Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like “The Way We Were,” “Tootsie” and “Out of Africa” were among the most successful of the 1970s and ’80s, died Monday at home here. He was 73. The cause was cancer, said the publicist Leslee Dart, who spoke for his family.
I just stayed up to watch HBO Films' RECOUNT about the 2000 Presidential Election. The movie is riveting from the get go and immediately makes your blood boil... if you care about justice. And after it was over, I couldn't help the overwhelming feeling of sadness that took hold of me. How different our world would be these eight years later had it not been for a conflagration of the worst characters and worst decisions made in our nation's history.
I highly recommend it to anyone and will gladly make copies for those who don't have HBO.
For those of you who know about the unfortunate events of the 2000 Election, or think you know what happened but are unclear about certain facts, watch and learn.
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
Final vote 75-22, which means it has a veto proof majority.
Here are the 22 Republican shitheads who voted "Nay" to which I ask, "Why do you hate the troops?"
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lugar (R-IN)
McConnell (R-KY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Oh, and our Vietnam War hero, Maverick McCain? He didn't vote. He was too busy campaigning in California to make it back to Washington. I guess it wasn't that important to him. It doesn't matter anyway. If he had the balls to actually cast a vote, the list of "Nays" would have been 23 Republican shitheads.The Arizona senator has never said that he does not support the bill because it is “too generous.” He has stated concerns that offering education benefits as early as the Webb bill allows would discourage people from re-enlisting.
...And despite McCain’s opposition to the Webb legislation, retiring Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia told FOX News: “This GI bill, one way or another, will be the law of the land.”
From the LA Times:McCain, a former prisoner of war, said he supported an alternative that would not encourage troops to leave the service "after they have completed one enlistment."
I mean, fuck, even Joe "The McCain Shadow" LIEberman voted Yea.
But his position pits him against some of the Senate's other veterans, including Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.), both former Navy secretaries.
After the vote, Warner said, "I don't know of any day that I'll cherish or remember more than this one" in his 30 years in the Senate.
Clinton also spoke out for the GI benefits. "We often hear wonderful rhetoric in this chamber in support of our troops and our veterans. But the real test isn't the speeches we deliver, but whether or not we deliver on the speeches."
Asked about the GOP support, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who opposed the domestic spending portions, said, "I would say that's why we're not a majority anymore."
"If a person doesn't have the capacity that we all want that person to have, I suspect hope is in the far distant future, if at all."
- Washington DC, Hispanic Scholarship Fund briefing, May 22, 2001
How the monkey has fallen.HuffPo: According to 29-year CIA veteran and former NSC official Bruce Riedel, Wednesday's announcement of joint peace negotiations between Israel and Syria revealed President Bush's diminished standing in Middle East affairs.
"Think of the irony," Riedel said. "George Bush goes to Jerusalem last week. He gives an impassioned speech about never dealing with nasty regimes [that sponsor terror]. He basically says 'don't make agreements that appease [them].' And less than a week later, the Israeli government announces it is engaged in peace negotiations with the Assad dictatorship in Syria. We're talking about a rather distasteful regime that likely had a hand in the murder of [former Lebanese Prime Minister] Rafik Hariri. I guess [Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert didn't think the speech was meant for him."
So Bushy had a rather sucessful trip, no? He makes some asinine comments for domestic political gain that are ignored by Israel, and then goes to Saudi Arabia to kiss ass and ask for an increase in the oil output, to which the Saudi prince chuckles and pats him on the head. "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Georgie." That's our powerful leader!
While praising Barack Obama and needling McCain, Senator Chuck Hagel had this to say about Bush and his administration:When asked to respond to rumors circulating within political circles that the Bush administration was ginning up the possibility of war with Iran, the Senator even raised the specter of impeachment.
“You’ve got the power of impeachment, now that is a very defined measure if you are willing to bring charges against the president at all. You can’t just say I disagree with him, let’s impeach him,” said Hagel. An attack on Iran without Congress’ consent, he added, “would bring with it… outstanding political consequences, including for the Republican Party.”
"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? ... That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."
No surprises here. Terrry McAuliffe: "Hillary Clinton has now received more votes than any candidate ever running for president in a primary." Even if you change the rules and fully seat Michaigan [sic] and Florida and count them for the popular vote totals and don't count any portion of the Michigan "uncommitted" (which were understood a the to be for Obama) vote for Obama, Hillary is still behind in the popular vote total. The only way she moves ahead in popular vote is if you do all that and don't count four of the caucus states.
Will someone explain to Hillary Clinton and her campaign that she can't keep claiming that she has more popular votes than Barack Obama?
From Josh Marshall at TPM:
Some stuff is just too ridiculous to let pass.
Well hell, looks like Gravel can still win this race too by that standard. Only count the 27 votes he's received and don't count any others.
Oh, and by the way, when you get to the point of trying to remain viable because Karl Rove said so, it's time to hang it up. I don't know if you remember Turdblossom, Hillary, but he was the guy who got us into this mess in the first place with the idea of a perpetual Republican Party rule. I know it's been ages since he's left the White House and you're probably sleep deprived and don't recall, but I'm guessing chances are Rove is saying exactly what he needs to say to help the Republicans.
The longer the race goes on, the longer the McCainstream Media will ignore the Maverick's shortcomings and continue the fallacy of a horserace on the Dem side. At this point, fine - take it to June 3rd and then thank everyone and bow out gracefully. Everyone will have voted, which is what you've been touting all along, isn't it?
Whether you're a Clinton supporter or not, everyone knows she's galvanizes the GOP, and if they have any chance of winning the general election in November, they need voters to come out in droves not so much to vote for McCain, but to vote against Hillary.
So if Hillary Clinton is taking any stock in what Karl Rove is saying, either she's a complete fool, or she thinks we are.
Thirty-two sponsors of a crap-ass bill in the House of Representatives think it's a good idea that every hire, EVERY HIRE of the 55 million yearly in the U.S. be approved by the government. You're applying for an engineering position? Making ends meet with a part-time job at the local Home Depot? How about garbage collection or a job at McDonald's? We'll have to verify you are a U.S. citizen or legal immigrant. Isn't that what having a Social Security number is all about? ...Business groups opposed the idea of the state requiring companies to use E-Verify. ...the U.S. Government Accountability Office... said a mandatory system could be vulnerable to fraud and abuse and questioned whether the system could detect employees who present genuine but stolen Social Security numbers.
What's the problem with the New Employee Verification Act? Who in the hell is going to manage this colossal administrative nightmare? The Department of Social Security, the same department that is already understaffed and way behind on current issues. But we can trust the government with this one right? I mean, the No Fly List works so well now.
$10 billion cost to run, in an already understaffed department, spells doom for Social Security. Isn't that the ultimate goal? Who'll take over the system you ask? Ask Dubya. I'm sure Wall Street will be magnanamous and take that $8 trillion off our shoulders to invest for us... for a small fee.
They worried that mistakes in the system could result in qualified legal workers being turned down for a job. This mirrors concerns nationwide, in addition to worries that the system is ripe for abuse and is a potential bureaucratic quagmire.
...Caroline Fredrickson, chief of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington office, said the legislation would create a “no-work list” in the Washington bureaucracy.
“Americans should not have to ask their federal government if they have permission to accept a new job,” she said.
Barbara Kennelly, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said the new workload would overwhelm an understaffed administration. Already, she said, “disability cases are piling up and needy people are waiting years to receive their benefits.”
...There is no official cost estimate, but some think it could run as much as $10 billion over nine years for such things as additional workers, equipment and online capacity.
NY TIMES: ...Tests performed over the weekend at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston indicated that Mr. Kennedy, 76, has a type of cancer known as a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe, the upper left portion of his brain. Mr. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, suffered a seizure on Saturday in Cape Cod and was airlifted to the hospital for treatment.
...“The usual course of treatment includes combinations of various forms of radiation and chemotherapy,” Dr. Lee Schwamm, the vice chairman of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Larry Ronan, a primary care physician at the hospital, said in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon.
"Government can hand out money, but government cannot put hope in a person's heart, or a sense of purpose in a person's life. Government happens when a loving neighbor puts their arm around somebody who hurts and says, 'I love you' and 'Can I help you?'"
C&L: For years now, FOX News pundit William Kristol has been wrong on nearly every subject he’s chosen to write about or speak to. His follies at Fox are legendary, and since bringing his special brand of fact- & research-free hackery to the pages of the New York Times, he’s made not one, not two, but now three glaring gaffes to add to his comical body of work.
Think Progress: In his New York Times column today, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol tried to find reasons for conservatives to be optimistic about 2008 elections,
despite the claims of some Republicans that “the Republican brand is in the trash can.” To support his argument, Kristol pointed to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) 41-point loss in the West Virginia primary:
On Tuesday night, while the G.O.P. Congressional candidate was losing in Mississippi district George Bush carried in 2004 by 25 points, Barack Obama was being trounced in the West Virginia Democratic primary — by 41 points. I can’t find a single recent instance of a candidate who ultimately became his party’s nominee losing a primary by this kind of margin.Apparently Kristol didn’t look hard enough. Writing at Room Eight, New York political consultant Jerry Skurnik says it took him “all of 2 minutes to find what Kristol couldn’t find.” On Feb. 5, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney beat presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by 85 points in the Utah primary.
What an embarrassment to the New York Times that this schmuck is on their payroll. He should be removed immediately along with the idiot who hired him.
UPDATE: Glen Greenwald
" ... Hillary Clinton lost Kansas to Obama by 49 points; lost DC by 51 points; lost Hawaii by 52 points; and lost Idaho by 62 points. So by Kristol's reasoning, Hillary Clinton -- just like Obama -- couldn't possibly be a strong candidate because she lost some primaries by more than 41 points (granted, some of those were caucuses).
Somehow, though, that reasoning doesn't apply to John McCain, who lost Utah by 85 points. In addition to his 85-point loss in Utah, McCain lost Arkansas by 40 points to Mike Huckabee and lost Kansas by 36 points to Huckabee. For some reason, those facts didn't make it into Kristol's column either."
No. No. No.
I'm listening to Thom Hartmann online and he's theorizing that an Obama/Clinton ticket can win in November. Whether that's true on not I don't know. But the main problem I have with this idea is that Obama has been running on the message of change. How much change would that be with the old politics one seat away from the presidency?
If Obama picked Hillary as his running mate, his message would be seen as empty rhetoric and another avenue for the GOP to blast Obama.
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."
Click on portrait for a complete list of President Obama's Executive Orders, Presidential Memoranda and Proclamations
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