Biden's Wife Involved In Car Accident

MSNBC reports that Senator Joe Biden's wife, Jill was involved in a car accident at 9:45am shutting down two lanes of I-95 according to Delaware State Police. No information was offered as to injuries regading the car crash.

A spokeman for the Senator told the Wilmington New Journal that he would not comment on private family matters.

Kucinich Should Be Allowed to Debate, Judge Rules

NY Times: A Nevada judge has ordered MSNBC to include Representative Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic presidential candidate, in Tuesday night’s debate in Nevada, the Associated Press reports.

Of course, MSNBC has filed an appeal. But here is another example of the mainstream media trying to force feed the public into what candidates are viable and what candidates aren't. Including someone like Kucinich would raise the level of debate discourse, unless Russert and Brian Williams ask inane questions.

T Minus 371 Days

"Because he's hiding."

-Aboard Air Force One, discussing why Osama bin Laden is still at large, January 2005

Clinton Attacks Obama - Obama Bites Back

Tim Russert poses the question, Clinton answers with some Obama bashing.

Obama fights back:

I have to point out that instead of telling the American people about her positive vision for America, Senator Clinton spent an hour talking about me and my record in a way that was flat out wrong. She suggested that I didn’t clearly and unambiguously oppose the war in Iraq when it is absolutely clear and anyone who has followed this knows that I did. I stood up against the war when she was voting for it, at a time when she didn’t read the intelligence reports or give diplomacy a chance. …I have to say that she started this campaign saying that she wanted to make history and lately she has been spending a lot of time rewriting it. I know that in Washington it is acceptable to say or do anything it takes to get elected but I really don’t think that is the kind of politics that is good for our party and I don’t think it is good for our country and I think that the American people will reject it in this election.

(H/T) Crooks and Liars

Edwards in a Three Way Race in Nevada

David Sirota writes about the Punditocracy and the MSM insisting it's a two way race for the Democratic ticket:

For those of you who think the Democratic presidential nomination fight is just a two-way race between Obama and Clinton, check out this brand new poll from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Yup, that's right - it shows the Nevada caucus race a three-way, dead heat with John Edwards right in the mix.

He then goes on to rip Lawrence O'Donnell's ridiculous post demanding Edwards get out of the race and mentioning the Reuters article last week headlined "Corporate Elite Fear Candidate Edwards" detailing how Wall Street moneymen and K Street lobbyists are frightened about Edwards populist, power-challenging message against greed and corruption.

...Let me conclude by saying I have no idea if the Review-Journal poll is accurate and/or whether Edwards will win Nevada (or any other state). Unlike most reporters, I don't spend my time covering the horse race, nor judging the candidates' viability only on the grounds of how much corporate cash they've been able to vacuum in. I spend my time trying to figure out which of these candidates represent the most fundamental form of change. One of the ways to judge that is to see who these candidates make uncomfortable. And by that measure, here's what I know: Edwards is generating hostility from precisely the kinds of people who are likely to be most averse to real, systemic change. And that speaks very well for the former senator from North Carolina.

Kucinich at CNN Debate

Oh, what might have been...

I will support Hillary Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee for president, but so help me Jeebus, if I hear the phrases "who is ready to lead on Day One" or "35 years of experience being an instrument and agent of change" one more time, I'm going to stick an ice pick in my temple.

One wonders how Dennis Kucinich's campaign would do if he looked like John Edwards.

T Minus 372 Days

"The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants."

-The NY Times, January 14th, 2001

Kucinich Wants NH Recount

Dennis Kucinich has requested a recount of the New Hampshire primary ballots due to the “unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots.” It seems that every district with electronic voting machines were won by Senator Clinton, while every hand counted, "paper trail" district went to Senator Obama.

BradBlog has more information as well as a warning to Dennis Kucinich:

We would also caution Kucinich and his team to closely inspect the chain of custody for the ballots in question, and what has happened to them, and the vulnerable op-scan memory cards, since the election two days ago, during the period that concern has been widely expressed about the seemingly anomalous results of Tuesday's election. It's important that the chain of custody be both secure, fully logged, and transparent.

Nancy Tobi of New Hampshire for Democracy, a Granite State election integrity watchdog group, previously noted her concerns in earlier discussions about the possibility of hand counting the state's op-scan primary ballots.

"We have no control over the ballot chain of custody and we have learned the pain from the 2004 Nader recount, in which only 11 districts were counted, chosen by a highly questionable person, and then nothing showed up," she wrote recently. "Now all we hear is how the Nader recount validated the machines. A candidate asking for a recount may well be a tool used to 'prove' everything was okay and then that candidate will be further discredited," she warned.

Prius Kicks Explorer Ass

Financial Times: Americans bought more Toyota Prius hybrid gas-electric hatchbacks last year than Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicles, the top-selling SUV for more than a decade.

...While Americans' love for powerful gas guzzlers remains strong, a slowing economy and high gasoline prices are forcing buyers to lower their sights.

When are US car manufacturers going to figure out that they need more R & D and make hybrids for the US market? Looking at Chevrolet for example, they have one hybrid on the market. The fucking Tahoe! It's their second largest truck which can now average up to 21 mpg. We're supposed to get excited about that? ...woo-friggin'-hoo...

Ford comes out with a Focus averaging 35 mpg, the current CAFE standard goal for 2020 thanks to the new energy bill. Make it a hybrid averaging 50 mpg and now we're talkin'. You'd see Ford sales shoot through the roof along with Ford stock and we wouldn't have to bail them out year after year.

At least the consumer is finally starting to get it.

Weekend In Hell's Kitchen

Corpse Wheeled to Check-Cashing Store
Leads to 2 Arrests

Two men were arrested on Tuesday after pushing a corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store to cash the dead man’s Social Security check, the police said.

When Virgilio Cintron, 66, died at his apartment at 436 West 52nd Street recently, his roommate and a friend saw an opportunity to cash his $355 check, the police said.

...There was no sign of foul play in Mr. Cintron’s death.

The roommate, James P. O’Hare, and his friend, David J. Dalaia, both 65 and unemployed, placed Mr. Cintron’s body in the chair and wheeled it around the corner, south along Ninth Avenue on Tuesday afternoon, the police said. The men parked the chair with the corpse in front of Pay-O-Matic at 763 Ninth Avenue, a check-cashing business that Mr. Cintron had patronized.

They went inside to present the check, but a clerk said Mr. Cintron would have to cash it himself, and asked where he was, the police said.

“He is outside,” Mr. O’Hare said, indicating the body in the chair, according to Mr. Browne.
The two men started to bring the chair inside, but it was too late.

Their sidewalk procession had already attracted the stares of passers-by who were startled by the sight of the body flopping from side to side as the two men tried to prop it up, the police said.

I love this town!

T Minus 374/373 Days

"We thought long and hard about what to propose. We proposed a bold initiative that takes equities out of the system, so people are treated fairly."

-Lee's Summit, Missouri, January 2007

Bush: US Should've Bombed Auschwitz

AP reporter Aron Heller described a teary eyed George W. Bush visiting Israel's Holocaust Museum. Bush said the U.S. should have sent bombers to prevent the extermination of the Jews.

That's not the funny part. This is the funny part.

[Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner] Shalev quoted Bush as asking Rice, "Why didn't Roosevelt bomb it?" He said Rice and Bush discussed the matter further and then the president delivered his verdict.

"We should have bombed it," Shalev, speaking in Hebrew, quoted Bush as saying.
Briefing reporters later on Air Force One, Rice said Bush was talking about the rail lines to the camp.

Maybe someone should give li'l George a History 101 lesson and tell him that FDR was DEAD in 1945. Truman might have bombed it, but he was too busy exterminating the Japanese.

Giuliani Uses Olbermann In Commercial...

... and Countdown re-edits it. Just watch and enjoy.

Lawrence O'Donnell Is An Idiot

I just read a post by Lawrence O'Donnell (at Huffington Post no less!) calling John Edwards a loser and that he should get out of the way for the "black man."

Read these words of pundit wisdom:

If John Edwards stays in the race, he might, in the end, become nothing other than the Southern white man who stood in the way of the black man. And for that, he would deserve a lifetime of liberal condemnation.
Maybe Edwards is already not a factor in the campaign because Edwards voters would split evenly between Senators Obama and Clinton if Edwards dropped out. But we'll never know unless Edwards does the right thing and gets out of the way of the only two candidates who have a chance to get the nomination.

I'm wondering if Lawrence O'Donnell was asking Hillary Clinton to make way for the Obama train after Iowa. What a schmuck.

It looks like the readers are fighting back in the comment section.

"best thing to happen is more and more establishment commenters and pundits telling americans that can't handle having a choice, ordaining the frontrunners. inciting backlash.this is a brilliant reverse psychology ploy to catapult edwards to the nomination. well played o'donnell"

"I think it's worth examining Mr. O'Donnell's personal motivations in writing this piece, as his conclusions do not follow from the current facts."

Jane Smiley, also writing for HuffPo has a bit of a rebuttal: Shut Up, Larry

(H/T to Bob Cesca for bringing attention to the O'Donnell post.)

The Surge Protectors

If I hear one more politician or pundit or wingnut talk show host say the words, "The surge worked," my head is going to explode. It doesn't matter who says it or how many times it is repeated. THE SURGE DID. NOT. WORK. The surge is not working. The surge will never work.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of President Bush's "surge" speech in which he laid out the ground work for troop escalation in Iraq , thinly disguising it by calling it a surge. Do you remember that fateful night? I certainly do. I was sitting on my living room couch, wondering what Raisinbrain was going to say. After all, the Democrats had just taken over in Congress after a stirring election in November of 2006, and it looked like we were turning the tide.

There was President Bush, looking all presidential in his purple polka dot tie, standing in front of a library of books he'd never read, that vacant stare in his eye. And then he said this: "The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

Whaaaa?! Holy shit! For the first time in six years, the man actually took responsibility for something. On national television. Did some left-wing operative secretly change the script on the teleprompter? Was this a speech, not calling for more of the same, not asking for the American people to continue to trust him, but actually admitting accountability? Could this be the turning point of a bad administration gone mediocre?

Wait, he wasn't finished: "So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq."

What happened next remains a fuzzy mystery. I think I knocked myself out for a few seconds because my jaw hit the floor. Literally. I can still see the indentation of my chin on the living room floor. Ah, memories.

I did wake up just in time to hear this: "I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people..."

Well at least he got something right. Not the "open-ended" thing, the "support" thing. And there was Bush listing the conditions for the Iraqi government to adhere to if they wanted our continued support:

- Iraqi government must establish authority by taking responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November

- pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis

- spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs

- empower local leaders by holding provincial elections later this year

- reform de-Baathification laws and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution

-deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts for a total of 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades

That was one year ago yesterday. Let's see, check, check, check, check, check and... check. In one year, the Iraqi government has accomplished NONE of those benchmarks.

President Bush was basically giving cover to Iraq with our troops. We needed to give them more time to secure Iraq and lead them towards the path of political reconciliation. That has not happened. Therefore, the surge has NOT worked. The surge has FAILED.

And now John "100 Years in Iraq" McCain and Holy Joe "Bomb Iran" LIEberman write an op-ed piece in the Murdoch Street Journal titled... wait for it... "The Surge Worked." (Boom!)

Here are a couple of tidbits from that stellar article:

"...conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge."
Well, how the hell can you argue with that?

"...Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency's core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst..."
Could that be because we're paying them?

"...violence across the country has dropped dramatically..."
Well, when there's no one left to kill due to ethnic cleansing and with over 4 million Iraqi refugees since the war started, it's not a surprise that violence has dropped. And let's not get carried away with that drop. As Thomas Ricks stated on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, "I think Iraqis recognize that large parts of Baghdad are more peaceful than they were, but violence is basically back to 2005 levels. And that was no picnic, 2005; it's just that 2006 was pure hell."

"As the surge should have taught us by now, troop numbers matter in Iraq."
We knew that from the beginning. So did Generals Shinseki and Zinni. Remember General Shinseki? He was forced to resign after disagreements with the greatest defense secretary ever, Donald Rumsfeld.

So the next time someone tells you "the surge worked," maybe you could explain to them that the whole point of the ESCALATION was to give the Iraqi puppet government time to get its shit together, which hasn't happened, and will never happen while we are still there. Use the list of unattained benchmarks above as talking points. Help them understand that a falsehood repeated over an over doesn't make it true.

Or better yet, just punch them in the mouth and walk away. You'll probably feel better.

Oh, and by the way Wall Street Fucking Journal: stop calling LIEberman and "Independent Democrat." There's no such thing. Either you are a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, a Libertarian, a Constitutionalist, a Green, a Socialist, a Communist, etc. There is no "Independent Democrat" Party. It doesn't fucking exist! And if it did, LIEberman would be kicked out of that one too!

John Kerry Backs Obama; Attacks Clinton

2004 Democratic Presidential nominee Senator John Kerry endorsed Barack Obama today in Charleston, South Carolina in front of 1000 Obama supporters at an outdoor rally at the College of Charleston.

It didn't take long before the arrows flew at Senator Hillary Clinton.

Asked about Clinton’s argument that talking change is different than producing change, Kerry said,“[Obama] produced one of the most significant ethics reform bills we passed. He has been a legislator longer than Hillary Clinton.” And then this zinger: “Health care didn’t pass in 1994 if I recall.”

T Minus 375 Days

"Rarely is the question asked: 'Is our children learning?' "
- Florence, South Carolina, January 11th, 2000

Sir Edmund Hillary Dies at 88

“People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.”


NY TIMES: Sir Edmund Hillary, the lanky New Zealand mountaineer and explorer who with Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa guide, won worldwide acclaim in 1953 by becoming the first to scale the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak, died Friday in Auckland, New Zealand. He was 88.

Music Break! Mel Tormé

Piss and a Crapper, Two Bits!

Pay toilets in New York are back, hopefully permanently. When visiting Italy this past year, I was surprised to see so many public toilets and then it dawned on me that New York City had tried to do this repeatedly and failed.

I'm so happy, I could shit!

... city officials reveled in the toilet paper roll-cutting ceremony (which, fittingly, they did with their hands) on Madison Avenue, between 23rd and 24th Streets. But they couldn’t resist the temptation of scatological humor: “No. 1!” (Janette Sadik-Khan, transportation commissioner), “in loo of” (Adrian Benepe, parks commissioner), “doesn’t block pedestrian movement” (Daniel L. Doctoroff, outgoing deputy mayor for economic development).

One wonders where the rest of these toilets will be installed (no specific loactions are mentioned in the article).