Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Want to know what’s wrong with proposition 8? Ask Simon the Political Tiger.

It’s a matter of the Constitution, see. The Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law to all people. That means that the law has to give everyone equal status, without discrimination. That includes same-sex couples. If heteros get to marry, then homosexual couples need to be given that same right.

No state has the right, through its legislature or through an electoral proposition, to overrule the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Prop 8 tries to do just that - and that’s what makes it an insult not just to same-sex couples, but to all Americans who believe in the freedoms and rights that the Constitution guarantees.

So far, Palin hasn’t said anything that the Republicans haven’t been saying for the last eight years. She’s proving herself to be little more than a parrot for the same old policies that have been given a nice little mask.

And after all the prep she’s had, they never told her the word is pronounced nu·cle·ar?

Yes I know she is only running for Vice President, but lets face it McCain is old and she is devious.

I have been reading as much as I can about Sarah Palin and frankly I am scared that the McCain/Palin team might actually win this election.

The main thing that scares me is the way she presents herself, even when she is hunting for a way out of the wet paperbag during interviews, she comes across as that attractive woman everyone knows from work, the library or coffee shop that seems intelligent but slightly ditzy in a cute 1950’s young wife stereotype kind of way.

That kind of woman has a serious advantage in the normal male to female and female to female dynamic in that most people don’t look past the ditz to see the danger. Others discount her ability to make choices, plans and enemies. People often believe that women like her are harmless and can be controlled. This may seem sexist, but it is just a facet of our current social environment. Like racism and homophobia, sexism dies hard, particularly when people are not even aware they are doing it.

Sarah has somehow managed to convice her supporters (most of republican party and many Hillary supporters) that her tenure as Mayor was a success and that leaving a town of 5k to 7k people with a 20 million dollar public debt, no sewers but a great sports complex makes her fiscally conservative and trustworthy steward of public interest. Forget the fact that Wasilla, AK had no debt when she took office, their annual budget was about $3 million dollars less when she got there than when she left and that she had implemented a personal jihad against those that stood up to her.

They seem to willingly overlook the fact she has admitted, proudly I might add, that she demanded the written resignations of all the top officials when she took office “as a demonstration to my administration”. Since when to public officials in the United States take an oath of fealty to the incumbent?

There has been some controversy over whether she wanted to ban books from the Wasilla public library. Sarah claims that she was only having a “rhetorical discussion” with the head librarian and she would never support banning books. This is an amazingly strange “rhetorical discussion” to have with anyone, much less a librarian, particularly one from whom you have demanded a letter of resignation to show loyalty to your administration. It is also peculiar timing that this “rhetorical discussion” occurred during a time when the church she attends regularly was in the midst of a petition drive to ban books in the public library, the school and in local book shops. The church apparently is not willing, yet, to claim their petition was only a rhetorical one.

I could repeat all the rumours and conspiracy theories here, but I will leave that for others to do. I just want people to think clearly about this woman and her abilities to misdirect attention.

Another great example is the GOP machine and Sarah backers who keep claiming she is enormously popular in Alaska. Funny thing is most interviews I have found with “regular citizens” pretty much declaim her as one step above a feudal lordling with an axe to grind. Not what I would deem popular by even the broadest standard.

So please do us all a favor, read up on her, seperate the wheat from the chaff, then go out a buy a snake to handle while you pray that the witch known as Sarah Palin flies away on her broom.

I am quite disgusted right now.

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.

“If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices,” said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Democrats had clung to the hope of only a partial repeal of the drilling moratorium, but the White House had promised a veto, Obey said.

The House is expected to act on the spending bill Wednesday. The Senate is likely to go along with the House.

“The White House has made it clear they will not accept anything with a drilling moratorium, and Democrats know we cannot afford to shut down the government over this,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “We look forward to working with the next president to hammer out a final resolution of this issue.”

While the House would lift the long-standing drilling moratoriums for both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, a drilling ban in waters within 125 miles of Florida’s western coast would remain in force under a law passed by Congress in 2006 that opened some new areas of the east-central Gulf to drilling.

Just last week, the House passed legislation to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore. It quickly became clear that measure would not get the 60 votes needed in the Senate.

Republicans called that effort a sham that would have left almost 90 percent of offshore reserves effectively off-limits.

The Interior Department estimates there are 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil beneath the Outer Continental Shelf, about half of it off California.

While the ban on energy development will be lifted if the Senate goes along with the House action, it doesn’t mean any federal sale of oil and gas leases in the offshore waters — much less actual drilling — would be imminent.

The Interior Department’s current five-year leasing plan includes potential leases off the Virginia coast but probably would not be pursued unless the state agrees to energy development. And the state is unlikely to do so without Congress agreeing to share federal royalties with the state.

The congressional battle over offshore drilling is far from over. Democrats are expected to press for broader energy legislation, probably next year, that would put limits on any drilling off most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Republicans, meanwhile, are likely to fight any resumption of the drilling bans that have been in place since 1981.

John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has promised to make offshore oil drilling a priority if elected president. He has called for developing the oil and gas resources along all of Outer Continental Shelf and for the federal government to share royalties with states who go along with drilling.

Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has said he would support limited drilling in certain areas — possibly the South Atlantic region — if it is part of a broader energy plan to shift the U.S. away from oil to alternative fuels and more energy efficiency.

The debate over offshore drilling is not expected to subside in the first months of the next presidency — no matter who sits in the White House.

Lifting the drilling ban gives considerable momentum to the underlying bill, which includes the Pentagon budget, $24 billion in aid for flood and hurricane victims and $25 billion in loans for Detroit automakers in addition to keeping the government open past the Oct. 1 start of the 2009 budget year.

But Democrats decided not to use the must-pass measure as a battering ram to carry an extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless past White House veto promises, prompting grumbling among some lawmakers. Efforts to boost food stamps and give states billions of dollars to help with Medicaid bills also fell through.

But the measure would double, to $5.2 billion, funding for heating subsidies for the poor, Obey said.

The measure also would provide more than $600 billion to fund the 2009 budgets for the Pentagon, Homeland Security Department and the Veterans Affairs Department. Nine other spending bills for the 2009 budget year starting Oct. 1 remain unfinished.

Bush had threatened to veto bills that don’t cut the number and cost of pet projects known as “earmarks” sought by lawmakers in half from current levels or cause agency operating budgets, taken together, to exceed his request. Obey said, however, the White House would reluctantly sign the measure.

Democrats have shown themselves to have all the spine of a wet noodle. They’ve got control of Congress and yet they’re still letting Republicans have their way? They’re letting the ban on offshore drilling expire even though we know that all the drilling in the world will do next to nothing to help?

Can we fire all these bastards? Something is very, very wrong when you’ve got one party that’s as red as a stoplight and the only alternative to that way of thinking has turned a pretty dark shade of pink.

Hi, I’m God. You probably have seen my show on QVC, where I sell Tupperware and collectible figurines. Most people don’t know that I also work part time as a political consultant, though.

In fact, I was hired a few months ago by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. She wanted some advice on a natural gas pipeline. I told her absolutely not to approve of it, that it was against my will.

But did Sarah Palin take my advice? Oh, no. She got up in front of the Wasilla Assemblies of God church and proclaimed that the natural gas pipeline is the will of God.

I think it’s time to set the record straight, which is why I made the following video podcast. People deserve to know the truth about Sarah Palin, I think.

The Republicans say that Sarah Palin should be elected Governor because she has executive experience - although it’s in very small communities. Sarah Palin has had experience running a business, however. She was the partial owner of a car wash in Anchorage, Alaska. Together with her husband, she held 40 percent of the car wash’s ownership.

And how did Sarah Palin do with the executive experience of running a small business? Lousy. She ran the business into the ground because she couldn’t be bothered to keep up with paperwork. Sarah Palin failed to file legally required reports or to pay the state licensing fees for the business, and so the car wash was shut down.

In addition to the car wash, Sarah Palin was the owner and operator of a marketing consultancy with the odd name of Rouge Cou. Rouge Cou is a rough translation into French of the American phrase redneck. Actually, the French translation should have been Cou Rouge. Sarah Palin couldn’t even get that right, and the consulting business closed after it failed to get even one client.

With this record of executive failure, why should Sarah Palin be given the position of Vice President under the elderly and most-likely-to-die-in-office President in American history, John McCain?

Sarah Palin is no friend of small towns in America.

How many small town main streets across the USA have died when Wal-Mart parked its trucks on the outskirts of town and built a big box store, stealing all the customers that small business relied upon? Those big box stores can offer low, low prices because they sell stuff made in sweatshop factories in countries like China and India, and because they have powerful lobbyists working for them in Washington D.C.

Big box stores ruin small towns.

So, what did Sarah Palin do as mayor of the village of Wasilla? She welcomed the big box stores to set up shop on the edge of town. Practically rolled out the red carpet for them.

Wasilla resident Anne Kilkenny says of that when she was mayor, Sarah Palin, “turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots.”

If you want America to turn into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots, then Sarah Palin is your kind of politician. If not, then you need to take a stand now and join with those Americans working to make sure that Sarah Palin is never placed within a heartbeat of being President of the United States.

The name Democratic Underground is a great idea. If only the DemocraticUnderground.com web site would follow through with the underground approach that its name suggests.

The people over there pretend to have a lot of guts. They dish out the abuse when it comes to attacking George W. Bush. One person there blasted Bush’s decision to ignore Cindy Sheehan, saying of Bush, “He didn’t have the balls to even talk to Cindy Sheehan!”

Ooh, but what does the Democratic Underground do when the Democrats start to support George W. Bush? What happens when it’s Nancy Pelosi who refuses to debate Cindy Sheehan?

Well, then the Democratic Underground just whistles and looks the other way, pretending there isn’t a problem. Or, worse, they censor dissent, kicking people off their web site for daring to criticize Nancy Pelosi and praise Cindy Sheehan.

That’s what they did to the following video: They banned it from being shown on DemocraticUnderground.com. Open discussion of politics isn’t allowed there. It’s just a place for Democratic dittoheads to parrot the party line. How pathetic.

Democratic Underground? Please! They’re more like Democratic Overground.

Obama cites faith as key to change, says today’s headline for the Boston Globe (Actually, it’s an Associated Press article - the newspapers don’t bother writing their own stories much any more).

Is it true? Is Obama right? Is faith the key to change?

Well, gosh, but that’s sure how it looks with the FISA Amendments Act.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act isn’t a cover up of Bush’s criminal spying against millions of Americans without any criminal suspicion, any search warrant, or any notification of any court as required by law and the Constitution. Yet, the FISA Amendments Act gives retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that helped George W. Bush break the law, preventing information about the illegal program against the American people from entering the public record. Gosh, that sure looks like a cover up. Oh, but Barack Obama says it isn’t, so have faith, and don’t think about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the recent Inspectors General report into illegal hiring practices is a “strong example” of how there might still be some accountability for Bush’s crimes, in spite of the FISA Amendments Act blockage of the normal forms of investigation. Yet, the Inspectors General report that Obama cites resulted in no accountability whatsoever for anyone responsible for the crimes it describes. Gosh, that doesn’t look anything at all like a “strong example” of accountability. Oh, but Barack Obama says it’s true, so have faith, and just don’t think about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act will stop George W. Bush’s massive programs of physical searches of Americans’ homes and eavesdropping on Americans’ electronic communications. Golly, if you take the time to read the FISA Amendments Act, though, it allows the President to continue those programs, without any actual restraint. Oh, but Barack Obama says that all the spying is going to stop, so have faith, and don’t worry your little head about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act restores the exclusive jurisdiction of the FISA court to control George W. Bush’s big spying programs against Americans. Gee whillikers, though, the FISA Amendments Act that I’ve read actually gives the Attorney General of the United States the exclusive power to both operate the spy programs against Americans and to be the watchdog of those same spy operations. The FISA Amendments Act that I’ve read actually cuts the FISA court OUT of the process. Oh, but Barack Obama says it isn’t so. He says it’ll be okay. He says you don’t have to worry. He says yes you can send him a big donation. So, have faith.

See, with the power of faith, there can be change! The change in this case, is that the FISA Amendments Act and its attack on the Constitution gets passed, but who needs to be picky?

Change is change, right? Who cares about the details?

Yes we can! Baaa! Change we can believe in! Baaa! Hope! Baaa!

Barack Obama wants my money. He’s got people emailing me left and right, telling me I ought to take my hard earned paycheck and give it to the Obama for President campaign.

Why? Why should I help Barack Obama?

Barack Obama isn’t helping me.

Why should I lift a finger to help elect Barack Obama when he is betraying everything I believe in?

Barack Obama is selling out the Constitution to do a big favor for George W. Bush and powerful telecommunications corporations. Obama will help out the powerful, but will he protect me from the prying eyes of the government? Heck no. I’m only worth one paycheck’s worth of a donation.

Now Obama is saying that he’s going to expand George W. Bush’s unconstitutional mixing of church and state - the “faith-based” initiative slush fund.

Hey, Obama, leave unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, get it?

I don’t trust Obama any more. Obama has lost my vote.

Oh, but I guess some evangelical telecom CEO is going to take my place in the pro-Obama ranks, huh? I judge you by the company you keep, Barack, and that company is looking more and more slimy.

At best, I was a half-hearted supporter of Obama’s. I was never overly enthused by him, though there were some periods where I thought I’d be able to call myself an Obama supporter with a measure of dignity. Over the last few weeks, that illusion has been shattered.

For all his talk and all his charm, Obama’s showing me now what I can expect in the future; more of the same old G.W.B. bullshit. As I look on his stances on the FISA amendments and now the faith-based bullshit, I can’t help but be left to reflect on our current situation.

Over the last 8 years, two presidential terms, George Bush has pulled some of the most unlawful actions in American history with impunity. Anything he wanted, he got on a golden platter. Anything illegal he did was turned a blind eye to by those sworn to uphold the rule of the law. I am now convinced that this attitude has forever ruined American politics and will lead us into a new age where corruption runs unchecked.

Obama now knows he’s got a 50-50 chance of getting the presidency and that Americans are pretty pissed at Republicans so the pressure’s pretty well off him now. And he’s been shown that the president can snub his nose at the law and Congress will roll over like the impotent, toothless tiger that it’s become.

And really, what choice do we, the people, have but to grin and bear it? There’s nothing that I know of which can force a reform to the corrupt politicains we now have in office. There’s no third party I can vote for because rarely, if ever, does a third party get on the ballet here in Oklahoma. Any time a third party gets media attention, it seems, it is laughed down until it crawls back under it’s rock.

The only thing I can think of, which I’ve mentioned before, is revoke the guarenteed spots on the ballots for Republicans and Democrats, but I know that won’t happen with the government the way it is now. I honestly want to know what can be done to change the way things are. I know, call my senator and voice my opinion, but even then the shit that shouldn’t be passed through congress is still being passed.

I thought I was going to vote this year, but I’m now seeing myself with the same options as when I thought Hillary Clinton was going to get the nomination; a choice between a Republican and a Republican Lite. Which one will shit on the Constitution less?

Obama, I thought you were the voice of change, I thought you were a voice of hope, but now I see what’s under the sheep’s clothing and I’m not impressed.

Will America ever return to the way it was before Bush got into office?

I just quit MoveOn. It isn’t because I disagree with their politics. It’s because they have compromised their politics.

Just yesterday, I got an email from MoveOn expressing their opposition to H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act. That’s the right stand, because the FISA Amendments Act is a terribly abusive law that violates the Constitution and breaks trust with the American people. It allows massive, unrestrained spying programs by the government against American citizens, without any search warrant or any form of probable cause required.

The people who voted for the FISA Amendments Act won’t tell you this. They’ll tell you that the powers granted under the bill are just fine, and there’s nothing to worry about. But, have you actually read the legislation? Don’t believe what they tell you until you’ve read the bill yourself.

It’s bad enough that 105 Democrats in Congress turned coat and joined forces with George W. Bush to pass the FISA Amendments Act. What’s worse is that Barack Obama has announced he will join them. Barack Obama is betraying the supporters who helped him win the Democratic nomination.

What about MoveOn? They’re pretending nothing has happened. They’re moving ahead with fundraisers for Barack Obama.

That’s not the kind of politics that MoveOn is supposed to stand for. That’s why, until they repudiate Barack Obama or convince Barack Obama to change his position, I have quit MoveOn.

I encourage you to do the same. Here’s the short message I sent to Moveon explaining why I’ve quit.

“Barack Obama just endorsed the FISA Amendments Act. MoveOn says it’s against that law, as it should. It’s a betrayal of the Constitution and an abuse of our trust. Barack Obama should lose the endorsement of MoveOn because of this betrayal. When MoveOn repudiates Barack Obama, I will rejoin MoveOn. Until then, I will not be with you - and no bake sales for Obama.”

Just when you thought that Barack Obama had every single constituency wrapped up comes one more important endorsement: Caterpillars for Obama.

Why not? Caterpillars, with their penchant for metamorphosis, epitomize change we can believe in. John McCain, on the other hand, doesn’t even seem to believe in the butterfly stage. He’s stuck just being an old worm.

I’ll leave it to you evaluate the importance of this buggy endorsement.

Are you feeling wistful at the news that Barack Obama has clinched the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination? Did you have another first choice? Hillary Clinton, maybe, or Christopher Dodd, or John Edwards? Well, here’s a way to express that wisty feeling while still supporting Barack Obama in the general election:

On this, the day when Barack Obama finally clinches the Democratic nomination, there are two different ways to look at what lies ahead. One way is to say that all the work is finally over. People who follow that way will let the summer begin, and not even think about lifting a finger to support Barack Obama until September.

That’s a tempting way, because it’s an easy way. There’s a problem with it, though: Do you think that John McCain and the Republicans will take that approach?

Don’t you bet on it. The trouble is that, with the long Democratic primary, the Democratic National Committee has almost no money left. The Republican National Committee, on the other hand, has a lot of money - about 40 million dollars on hand.

With that money, within the week, the RNC is going to start sending out vicious attack ads against Barack Obama. They’re going to try to make Obama into mud before he even has the chance to start his general election campaign.

Are you going to let that happen? No? Okay. Then there’s the second way: That way is to get to work NOW, to help the Barack Obama for President campaign hit the ground running, prepared to deal with the nasty Republican attacks to come.

To take this second proactive approach, I suggest two steps:

1. Go to Barack Obama’s official campaign web site and sign up as a volunteer. You don’t need to give money, but giving your time is essential.

2. Get a bumper sticker for your car, a button for your jacket and a lawn sign for your yard. These all spread the message that ordinary people, folks who live in your neighborhood, support Barack Obama. That kind of statement is much more effective than an impersonal television commercial, no matter how slick it is. This campaign is going to have to be a grassroots one, and showing campaign gear is a great way to demonstrate a grassroots Obama presence in your community.

Here are some sources we’ve got for Obama campaign gear:

- Obama 2008 t-shirts made in the USA made over at Skreened

- Campaign Lawn Signs and Banners for Obama

- Obama bumper stickers over at My President and New White House

- Barack Obama campaign buttons and magnets over at Irregular News

Each of these different sources has unique Barack Obama campaign gear so that you can stand out with a pro-Obama message that’s just right for you - to keep. This stuff will have greater historical meaning as the years pass, and you’ll be able to take these things out to prove to your children and grandchildren that you were there, helping to elect Barack Obama as President of the United States.

Two sets of financial numbers in the news are the focus of my attention tonight:

First, the price of regular unleaded gasoline where I live is not four dollars per gallon yet. It’s three dollars, ninety nine cents and nine tenths of a cent - a whole whopping tenth of a penny less than four dollars per gallon.

Second, Open Secrets reports a huge difference in the character of the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The amount of money from PACs (political action committees) taken by Barack Obama: $250
The amount of money from PACs (political action committees) taken by Hillary Clinton: $1,216,842

My wife says that Randi Rhodes says that the Washington Post says that some anonymous insiders in the Clinton and Obama campaigns say that there are secret meetings to figure out how to introduce Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate!

Yeah, or maybe not. Notice how this story line sounds an awful lot like that of the urban legends, in which someone’s cousin knows someone who knows someone…

The Hillary Clinton campaign is kicking its public relations efforts into high gear, desperately trying to manipulate the media to buying into their hype about Hillary Clinton being chosen as VP by Obama. After all, it’s Clinton’s last chance to get her White House back.

The truth is obvious - there is no way that Barack Obama could have Hillary Clinton as a Vice Presidential running mate. She has become poison to both Democrats and Republicans. She would only drag Obama down.

That, and there’s no way that Barack Obama could ever trust Hillary Clinton, or her loose lips husband. He could not operate effectively as President with those two trying to mess him up at every step.

The Hillary Clinton for VP talk is just desperate talk from Washington D.C. insiders who once thought that their power was inevitable, and now find themselves on the outside, just like everyone else.

There is no story.

Babe, either you go quietly or we send in the Flying Monkeys.

Usually, you know, he wears a suit with the sleeves down. But in this picture you can see his forearms and everything. I wonder if he will get a burn that way. Probably keeping the sleeves down at most outdoor events is a good idea.

Democracy is about the will of the people, right?

In a democracy, the will of the people is expressed through their votes, right?

Well, if you count up all the votes from all the primaries, who has the most?

Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton has the most votes.

The will of the people is for Hillary Clinton to be the next president.

Tennessee Representative and superdelegate John Tanner endorsed Hillary Clinton for President yesterday, in news ignored by the Mainstream Media but just as important in determining the outcome of the national presidential primary election! Congressman Tanner is just the sort of moderate American politician who appeals to ALL Americans, and his decision to support Hillary Clinton is a sign that Hillary Clinton can and WILL WIN in November. Says Tanner, “In my opinion, the best person to lead this critical effort is Hillary Clinton. Hillary is a smart, pragmatic leader who understands the grave situation our country faces, with a $9 trillion debt, much of which is borrowed from foreign countries. Now, more than ever, our nation needs a leader like Sen. Clinton who can work with others to return to fiscal sanity.”

Barack Obama is a nice young man, but he just decided to run for president last year. Hillary Clinton has been part of running the country for SIXTEEN YEARS! With John Tanner’s help, I will be proud to see my new president, Hillary Clinton, take the oath of office on January 20, 2009.

I am now officially admitting that I am politically depressed.

I think I’ve been politically depressed for several weeks now, but I haven’t allowed myself to acknowledge that depression. The news today puts me over the edge, way past deniability.

Hillary Clinton is releasing advertisements on television that strongly imply that if Barack Obama becomes President, we may likely be attacked by Osama Bin Laden, and Barack Obama won’t be able to handle it. It’s an absurd attack, that preys on the fears of American voters.

The sad thing is that, like the Clinton 3:00 AM telephone call, it works. Voters buy the message. They’re willing to sell their hopes out for the sake of fear. Clinton’s consultants know this, and they’re going whole hog because, above all else, they want to win, win, win.

A few voters get it. They see how despicable this line of attack is. The rest don’t care. They really believe it. It’s these voters, and not even the Hillary Clinton campaign, who depress me.

It depresses me to live in a nation where people are too cowardly to live in freedom, and too lazy to get involved in their own government, and too stupid to tell the difference between a scare tactic and “experience”.

I’m not writing this to try to score points for Barack Obama above Hillary Clinton, and try to affect any election. You know why? I’ve finally realized that I am too little and too powerless to have any affect. In a nation of 300 million people who care more about whether Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake have really finally broken up than they do about the Bill of Rights, I’m not going to be heard. I’m not going to make a difference.

If I try, I’m going to fail.

I’m going to keep on trying, just because it’s a damn old habit that I don’t think I can shake. Nonetheless, I no longer have any expectations of success. My voice won’t be heard. Things won’t get better. America is on the way out, and the American government is just going to get uglier and uglier.

Tonight, Pennsylvanians are going to reward Hillary Clinton for her scare tactics. Hillary Clinton will stay in the race, gleefully running around cheering “I won! I won!”

And then we’ll go on to Guam… and Indiana… and Nebraska… and the next state… and all the way to the end… and Hillary Clinton’s tactics of never asking the American people to think big or step out on a limb will be vindicated.

It will be a stalemate, and although Barack Obama will have won the majority of primaries, and have gotten the majority of primary-elected delegates, Hillary Clinton will be made the Democratic nominee, just because she has more powerful people who owe her favors.

We’ll slump on toward Election Day, and maybe Hillary Clinton will win and maybe John McCain will win, but most Americans won’t really care. They’ll just want to make sure that the election coverage on TV doesn’t interfere with their favorite weekly TV show.

I’ll still care, but I don’t expect that this year’s election will change anything. Clinton won’t bring soldiers home from Iraq, and she won’t close Guantanamo, and she won’t have the Patriot Act repealed, and her health care plans will be forgotten within a year, and we’ll continue to watch America slouching into the margins as Bill Clinton has one last fling at sexual independence with some middle-aged barmaid he meets on the outskirts of Peoria.

We had a chance to do something better with this country, but people just don’t give a damn. Damn it all to hell.

Oh, dear Zoroaster wake me up! The ABC News presidential democratic debate, likely one of the last opportunities for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to earn the support of voters, should have been a lively event.

Instead, the first 45 minutes was spent on superficial nonsense like 1960s Weatherman bombings, who’s bitter, Bosnia, and disowned preachers, with followup questions.

Then, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous went hunting for inconsequential distinctions such as who, between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, thinks that Iran should not have nuclear weapons the most.

Help me! I want to care. I want to be motivated. I want to be active and a good citizen, but I have been struck by the ABC News hypno-mind-mister laser beam, which has caused me to hear the words coming out of Clinton’s and Obama’s mouths as if they are spoken in Czech.

Is there an antidote?

Am I the only one who found this last weekend’s Faith Forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania to be an excruciating display of humiliating and yet pointless pandering?

America is having a presidential election. We’re not selecting an interim minister for a church. Yet, religious groups have pushed to be granted the power to submit presidential candidates to an onslaught of religious test, interrogations designed to see whether the candidates are sufficiently Christian to be President.

For a reason I wish I didn’t understand, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton agreed to go along with the parade of shameful faith-based nonsense.

Here’s just a short selection of the irrelevant nonsense that came from the Messiah College team of inquisitors (read the rest):

“You said in an interview last year that you believe in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. And you have actually felt the presence of the Holy Spirit on many occasions. Share some of those occasions with us.

CLINTON: You know, I have, ever since I’ve been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life. And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining. But, really, ever since I was a child, I have felt the enveloping support and love of God and I have had the experiences on many, many occasions where I felt like the holy spirit was there with me as I made a journey.

It didn’t have to be a hard time. You know, it could be taking a walk in the woods. It could be watching a sunset…”

Why on earth do we need to know whether Hillary Clinton really believes in the doctrine that heaven contains a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? What does that have to do with being President of the United States?

They might as well have grilled Clinton and Obama about what their favorite color really is. It would have been about as relevant.

Senator Obama, I know that you say that blue is your favorite color, but as we all know there are a lot of different shades of blue. Will you finally get specific about what kind of blue is actually your favorite?

In the context of Barack Obama running for President and everything, with questions about the worthiness of his Christian church, or whether he’s a secret genetic Muslim, I thought it would be important to bring news of a pretty shocking statement that a radical black activist made about “religious bigotry”.

He said, “We must never adjust ourselves to religious bigotry.”

Well, how dare he say such a thing, insulting religious people like that!? He must be just an elitist who, as Hillary Clinton said of Barack Obama, doesn’t understand the importance of faith in ordinary people’s lives! How could we allow someone who could insult religious people, saying that people of faith are nothing but bigots, to go anywhere near the White House?

Oh, the inhumanity! Oh, the pathos! Oh, the outrage! Guard your women and children!

You won’t believe it when you hear who this radical black activist leader is. Did you know that he spent time behind bars? Hmm. Wait a minute… where did I put his name?

Oh, never mind. You can find out here.

Dear, oh dear. It is an outrage, isn’t it?

I just saw an article at AfterDowningStreet.org claiming that Hillary Clinton, when employed by the House Judiciary Committee in investigating Watergate, was dishonest and unethical. The writer spoke to, among others, the committee’s chief of staff, Jerry Zeifman. Clinton was working on a memo supporting the position that Nixon had no right to counsel before the committee; Zeifman told her she should read and cite a recent case that gave the opposite precedent; when she finished the memo, he found that she had (a) ignored that case, and (b) removed it from the committee’s files. Apparently, she was taking this position in the first place because her political patron was tied to the Kennedys, who didn’t want Nixon defending himself too well—he could have excused his own abuses of power by digging up JFK’s.

There’s more (including from the chief Republican counsel), but, to me, that’s the worst of it. If this is true, then Clinton probably committed a crime, in order to strengthen her patron’s political standing.

All Easter weekend long, we heard radio voices weighing in on Obama. How do white people feel about his blackness, how do black people feel about his whiteness? Absent from the discussion is any awareness of what he’s actually done. Where has he landed his punches? During Obama’s brief political career thus far, what issues has he acted on? Much has been made of his pastor’s disparaging comments about America and 9/11. So has Mr. Obama spent his young senate days hanging with the fringe wing of the Democratic party that pushes 9/11 conspiracy theories? Has he lent his voice to the view that 9/11 was Americas just comeuppance? No. If anything, Mr. Obama was a bit timid as a young senator, watching in dismay as his idealistic bits of legislation got watered down over time.

Obama himself is a bit of a Rorschach Test, in that commentators superimpose on him what they think should be there. For this reason, Obama is often linked to Black Liberation Theology. This is silly, because he was never a radical. In his youth, he never went through a Chicago Seven phase, all fist-pumping, Bobby Seal haircuts and incendiary speeches. If anything, Obama was an eager but cautious Harvard law student with an eye on social justice issues, but apt to keep his options open. Not “options open” in a cynical sense, not soft-pedaling his views, but rather, living according to a belief that brash, extreme opinions only alienate those who might otherwise be your allies. Like many young black leaders, Obama saw the limitations of racially-charged politics, the futility of replacing one racial stereotype with another. Thus, he would find ways to discuss inflammatory issues in reasonable, nuanced tones.

It looks like this year, America has a candidate that prefers to shed light, rather than heat. Are we up for it? If Obama loses, it won’t be because he’s black. It’ll be because America’s not ready for a President that talks to you as if you have a brain.

Last night Barack Obama campaign staffer Christopher Hass admitted that Senator Obama relies on the help of his subordinates to run his campaign for him:

“Thank you to everyone who helped canvass, made phone calls, and contributed to one of the largest voter registration drives that Pennsylvania has ever seen, resulting in a record number of registered Pennsylvania Democrats.”

See? Barack Obama is a weak, weak man who cannot be Commander In Chief from Day One! He can’t even campaign for President on his own. He needs helpers to go out and make telephone calls to make things easier for him!

They said this on Barack Obama’s official campaign web site!

Barack Obama isn’t strong enough to stand up to his opponents. Also, he is being too tough on Hillary Clinton.

Furthermore, Barack Obama was made a secret genetic Muslim as a toddler, in a ceremony by his atheist father. That’s why I’m glad that Hillary Clinton has exposed Barack Obama’s terrible involvement in the Christian Trinity Church in Chicago.

Finally, Obama’s feet smell… and he doesn’t like oatmeal!

Obama bad man!

On CNN, March 1, 2008, Hillary Clinton warned against making Barack Obama the Democratic presidential nominee, saying, “…everyone knows that John McCain will make this election about national security, that is a given. And it will be imperative that we have a nominee who is able to stand on that stage with Senator McCain, and I believe I am the person best able to do that.”

That, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. In a year when the Republicans are weak, she plans on allowing the Republican nominee to determine what the election is about. In the meantime, she will just stand on the stage, content to be there.

Barack Obama understands that the strongest Democratic presidential nominee will be the one who doesn’t wait around for the Republican to set the terms of the election. Barack Obama has the key concepts to set the terms of the election according to strong progressive Democratic values, not according to mere response to Republican tactics.

Democrats deserve a nominee who doesn’t begin the race by surrendering the terms of the contest.

How clean is John McCain? For that matter, how clean is the news media? Bloomberg news, which as a telecommunications company is mixed right up in the very telecom lobbying business it purports to report objectively upon, has quoted “a senior adviser to John McCain” as saying that John McCain is not inappropriately influenced by the large number of lobbyists that he associates with. This “senior adviser to John McCain”, Charles Black, is quoted as saying that “John McCain does no favors for, nor gives no special treatment to, any lobbyists — even if they are a friend of his.”

The thing is, Charles Black isn’t exactly a neutral, objective source in the matter. Charles Black is a top official in the John McCain for President campaign, but what’s more, Charles Black is a lobbyist himself.

Charles Black is the chairman of BKSH & Associates Worldwide, a powerful lobbying company. Here’s what BKSH itself has to say about its lobbying work “BKSH’s capabilities encompass a broad range of economic, social, domestic and international issues. Our professionals have managed “front-page” issues and have worked quietly on behind-the-scenes projects. Our mission can be as targeted as securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation, or as broad as strengthening the bilateral relationship between a foreign country and the United States.”

Charles Black runs a lobbying firm with the goal of “securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation”. So, what is he doing serving as a top adviser of the presidential campaign of John McCain, a member of the U.S. Senate? Why is John McCain forming close political alliances with lobbyists who have openly declared their intention to help their corporate clients manipulate congressional legislation?

Furthermore, why does Bloomberg News cite Charles Black, a lobbyist who is professionally dedicated to influencing legislation in Congress through contact with politicians like John McCain, as a credible source to reassure Americans that John McCain does no special favors for lobbyists?

To use lobbyist Charles Black as a source on this story, Bloomberg reporter Edwin Chen makes himself appear either incompetent and naive or as corrupted by the influence of media business lobbyists as John McCain.

Supporters of Hillary Clinton are getting very upset that their candidate, who they thought a few months ago was “inevitable”, is now losing to Barack Obama. They’re using arguments against Barack Obama that just don’t make any sense.

One of my favorite arguments they use is that Barack Obama will never be able to withstand attacks from the Republican Party because the only Republican he’s ever had to run against is Alan Keyes. What these Hillary Clinton supporters don’t seem to understand is that such an argument only works in Hillary Clinton’s favor if Barack Obama is not winning in the electoral competition against Hillary Clinton.

Think about it for just a little bit. If Barack Obama really is such a sissy wimp who will be ripped apart by the Republicans, and Hillary Clinton is such a tough campaigner who can take on anybody, then how come Hillary Clinton is losing to Barack Obama?

Another argument that Hillary Clinton supporters have begun to use that I really don’t like is that Barack Obama will be defeated by the Republicans because he isn’t Republican enough. This argument suggests that the Democrats ought to nominate a Democrat who supports Republican policies, in order to get the Republican vote. It’s the best justification that they can come up with for Hillary Clinton’s vote to help George W. Bush go to war in Iraq.

That argument was used by Thomas Buffenbarger, a Clinton supporter in Youngstown, Ohio who took to the stage at a Clinton rally yesterday to warm up the crowd before Hillary Clinton herself arrived. He didn’t speak much in praise of Hillary Clinton. Instead, he attacked Barack Obama. Here’s a sample Buffenbarger had to say:

“The Barack show is playing to rave reviews sold out at college campuses after college campus. Standing room only crowds to hear his silver-tounged orations. Hope, change, yes we can? Give me a break! I’ve got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak. This guy won’t last a round against the Republican attack machine. He’s a poet, not a fighter.”

This latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing slur ought to sound familiar. It’s the same attack that the Republican Club For Growth used against Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004. Why are surrogates for Hillary Clinton using Republican attakcs against Barack Obama?

I would like for the Hillary Clinton campaign to come out and explain what it has against lattes, and why Birkenstocks are to be hated. I would really love for Hillary Clinton to explain why she is arranging for people to speak on behalf of her campaign who hate hybrid cars.

I’ve got news for the Thomas Buffenbargers of the Democratic Party: If you think that you can arrange for Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination by attacking environmentalists, attacking young people, attacking institutions of education, and for goodness sakes attacking people who like coffee, you’ve got another thing coming.

Me Ooma. Me come from Bloodfang Clan. Me for Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton say Obama bad. Hillary Clinton say, “It’s about picking a president who relies not just on words, but on work, hard work, to get America back to work!”

Obama rely on words. Bad man. Bad, bad word man. He no work. Lazy man go Senate take nap. Lazy Harvard Law Review President. Lazy lazy community organizer. Lazy professor use words man! Bad. Obama no smash rocks!

Hillary Clinton no rely on words. Hillary Clinton no talk. Hillary Clinton work. Hillary Clinton be good president smash rocks.

That why Hillary Clinton say — Wait!

Hillary Clinton say?

Hillary Clinton use words! Hillary Clinton rely words! No worky! Hillary Clinton no smash rocks hard work? Hillary Clinton two face word user!

Me Ooma say — Wait!

Ooma say?

Ooma rely words! Bad Ooma! Bad Bad talky Ooma!

Ooma go smash rocks!

I was listening to the speech that Hillary Clinton gave recently at the Wisconsin Founders Day Gala this afternoon, and I just couldn’t help getting a tear in my eye when I heard Senator Clinton talk about her strong leadership on the issue of the war in Iraq. She said,

“We also have to do everything we can to make it clear that restoring our leadership and our moral authority in the world starts with ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home responsibly and quickly. I have said that I will start bringing them home within the first 60 days. From my position on the Senate Armed Services Committee I’ve been working to make sure that we are prepared to do that.”

This is what Barack Obama supporters are so unfair about. They never give Hillary Clinton credit for making America ready to bring soldiers home from Iraq in 60 days. Hillary Clinton has been working hard on the Senate Armed Services Committee, getting everything in place, and standing strong against the Bush Administration, like she has from the start on the issue of Iraq.

Finally, American soldiers are ready to come home within 60 days. Everyone recognizes that. But, as usual, no one is willing to give Hillary Clinton credit. There’s that glass ceiling again.

Without Senator Clinton’s hard work on the Senate Armed Services Committee, getting a firm withdrawal date set and pushing President Bush to accept the Democratic position on the war, we would still be in the middle of a war without any direction, and without any end in sight.

I will give credit where credit is due. Thank you, Hillary Clinton, for making this possible from your position on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

If we had listened to you from the beginning, Hillary Clinton, we never would have invaded Iraq in the first place. I will never forget the strong speeches you made trying to get Americans to wake up to the gathering danger of an unwise rush to war. Thank you, Hillary Clinton, for your forward vision.

It’s that vision, seeing the best course in matters of war and peace before anyone else, that makes Hillary Clinton my choice for President of the United States.

Barack Obama has got the endorsement of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The hometown newspaper explains,

Who wants to relive the soap operas of the 1990s?

Bill Clinton says his wife excelled at “making positive changes in other people’s lives.” Consider that construction. Then listen as Obama talks of bringing people together to change their own lives.

America needs a fresh start. Barack Obama is the Democrat to provide it.

Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray has also endorsed Barack Obama, and was out in Youngstown campaigning for him yesterday.

Obama has the endorsement of Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman too.

Of course, the endorsement that matters is the endorsement of Ohio’s voters, and that won’t be given for another two weeks.

Whatever happened to the days when people would patiently wait in line for their turn? The great unspoken issue of the 2008 Democratic presidential election is that it is not Barack Obama’s turn to be President. It is Hillary Clinton’s turn.

For all of her life, Hillary Clinton has selflessly worked to promote her husband Bill. She has put up with more Monica Lewinskies than we will ever know about. But has Hillary Clinton stepped out of line? No, she has waited, patiently, for her turn.

With all that Hillary Clinton has been through, she deserves to be President of the United States. People in the Democratic Party who have any sense of decency can understand that. Others, who are trying to push their way ahead in line, need to remember their place.

The following is from a conversation I had with a white woman, maybe fiftyish.

We need to have a Methodist for President.

First of all it’s not true that Methodists are going to all vote for Clinton. The ones that are voting for Obama have their own reasons.

The country is really messed up after so many years of Bush, so we need someone really pious in the White House. It’s going to take someone really religious, like a Methodist, to straighten everything out.

Did I really have this conversation? No, of course not.

If the statement is true, then it’s a stupid thing said by one person. Is there a trend of such stupid things being said, on the record? Are such things being said by the Clinton campaign? If so, then that’s a worthwhile basis for conversation. If not, then it’s just about as informative as me saying that I had a conversation with a person who said that we should not vote for Bill Richardson because Hispanics should be working at gas stations.

Let’s set this issue straight with some direct documentary facts proving that Barack Obama was against the Iraq war from the start - before the war began, and has stood by that position. These videos have historical footage of Barack Obama speaking out against the Iraq War before it was begun, and since then.

Barack Obama’s rivals cannot produce such video documentation of their early and consistent opposition to the Iraq War. There’s a simple reason why. They were in favor of starting the Iraq War from the start.

John McCain was an eager booster of invading and occupying Iraq. McCain even said that the whole operation would be quick and easy.

Hillary Clinton supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq from the start too. Since then, what’s Hillary Clinton’s position on Iraq? That’s really difficult to say - I’ll let Clinton boosters try to explain it. The simple fact is that Hillary Clinton gave her assistance to George W. Bush and helped him start the war. When a million Americans took to the streets to demonstrate popular opposition to the invasion of Iraq, Hillary Clinton did not join them. In fact, Hillary Clinton spoke out against the agenda of the antiwar protests.

Has Barack Obama always done exactly as I would have liked him to do on the issue of Iraq? No. However, only one presidential candidate has gotten it anywhere close to correct on Iraq from the start. Thus, only one candidate deserves our support for President of the United States. That candidate is Barack Obama.

I was just having a conversation about the 2008 presidential election, and the reasons that so many people have decided to support Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Some people might express it in terms of which candidate is better able to strongly campaign against John McCain. Bill Clinton himself has said that Hillary Clinton and John McCain are such great friends that any campaign between the two of them would probably put voters to sleep if they ran against each other. Bill Clinton couldn’t seem to understand that such a thing would be unattractive to Democrats.

What the trouble of a Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain presidential campaign boils down to, however, is that Hillary Clinton is just too much like John Kerry. She’s got the same vulnerabilities, the same indefensible position of criticizing the Iraq War while refusing to say that it was a mistake to start the war, and having gone along with Bush’s whole Iraq invasion idea from the start. Hillary Clinton was for the Iraq War before she was against it.

Not Barack Obama. Barack Obama was against the Iraq War before he was against the Iraq War.

I just found the results of the Green Party caucuses in California on Super Tuesday, provided by the League of Women Voters. I have to say that I’m pretty disappointed in the results.

The candidates who have been out and hustling their way around the Green Party state meetings for months and months now got a minority of the vote.

Cynthia McKinney got 26.0%

Elaine Brown 1,330 got 4.6%

Kat Swift got 3.1%

Kent Mesplay got 2.0%

Jesse Johnson got 1.8%

Jared Ball 467 got 1.5%

Along comes Ralph Nader, waltzing in at the last minute, with his surrogate Howie Hawkins, suggesting that he just might, maybe, run for President, but he’s not sure. How much of the California Green vote did Nader get? 61 percent.

I’m groaning. Ralph Nader fails pathetically in his Green Party presidential run in 1996. So, what does the Green Party do? They nominate him again in the year 2000. Then, in the year 2004, Ralph Nader ran as an independent candidate, courted Republican support, and trashed the Green Party. So, now, in 2008, what are the Greens doing? Nominating Ralph Nader for President again.

Pardon me, is the Green Party really a political party, or is it just a stage upon which we all get to watch the Ralph Nader melodrama unfold in excruciating slow motion?

It’s honesty time. Although I’ve written some things in favor of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, the truth is that there are a lot of things about Barack Obama I don’t like. Here they are:

- Playing footsie with anti-gay sentiment. It’s not just Donnie McClurkin. Look at his statements against gay marriage.
- Antiwar record gone soft. The military occupation of Iraq is a useless drain of hundreds of billions of dollars, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of lives lost. Can we please just end it?
- Against impeachment, and wouldn’t even support censuring Bush.
- Promotes new coal burning technology
- Seems to think he really is as charismatic as everyone says he is
- Tries to play both sides on separation of church and state
- Isn’t talking about undoing the Bush laws that take away civil liberty

These things about Barack Obama bug me. Still, I think he’s the better choice on the Democratic side. An honest supporter can admit imperfections. Can Hillary Clinton’s supporters be as honest about her many flaws?

Given the considerable dominance of Bill and Hillary Clinton in New York State Democratic party politics, it was never a question that Hillary Clinton would get the largest share of presidential convention delegates in the 2008 primary. What is surprising, however, is that she had to work so hard in New York State to maintain her victory.

Barack Obama made a surprisingly showing in the New York State Democratic presidential primary yesterday. Hillary Clinton got 91 congressional district delegates, with Barack Obama not far behind at 60 delegates.

The solid wrap-up of New York’s large number of delegates wasn’t delivered. That will make it all-the-more challenging for Hillary Clinton to get the presidential nomination, and leads to the question of how much New York State Democrats really approve of the job Hillary Clinton is doing for them in the U.S. Senate.

You shouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton because her husband Bill Clinton abused his power when in office? What an outdated, outmoded and frankly sexist way of looking at things, as if a woman inherits the sins of her husband. As if! What’s next? The return of the “rule of thumb” whereby a woman can be beaten by a small stick, just don’t make it too big? Hillary Clinton should be judged on her merits, not the demerits of Slick Willie. And Hillary Clinton has the greatest command of detail of any of the presidential candidates including John McCain. Hillary Clinton is prudent in her pursuit of policy options, not wild crazy and out of hand. Hillary Clinton doesn’t have to be a good or bad president for women. Hillary Clinton has to be a damned good president for EVERYBODY. I am confident that with her diligence and her attention to detail, she will be. Hillary Clinton will never give up on you. Don’t you give up on her.

The headline was the first thing that struck me as off-target: “So many questions, so little time”. The article was about the 2008 presidential election. Reading that headline, I thought, it’s been over a year since the current presidential candidates declared their intention to run. Who hasn’t had the opportunity to consider questions about the qualifications and agendas of the candidates?

Oh, but that’s not what the writer, NBC News political editor Chuck Todd, was talking about. On the eve of Super Tuesday, Chuck Todd is in no mood to talk about substance. Here are the questions Todd had on his mind:

- Is Hillary Clinton perceived as the defacto incumbent in this race?
- What will have a greater impact on viewers Tuesday night? The dead even delegate fight between Clinton and Obama? Or the potential for one Dem to win a plurality of states by 52-48 while still splitting the delegates evenly?
- What if Obama wins California narrowly plus a bunch of other swing states but trails in the delegate count by, say, 50? Will the media treat Obama as the winner of Super Tuesday because of an upset California win? Or what if Clinton wins a majority of states, including California, Missouri and Arizona but the delegate count is basically even (another likely outcome)? Will Clinton be treated as the winner?
- The question is, who will come out on top?
- In how many states will John McCain break the 50 percent threshold and should that matter?
- How valuable will Mike Huckabee be for McCain?
- What about Obama’s percentage in New York vs. Clinton’s percentage in Illinois?
- Could Obama net a greater share of delegates out of Illinois than Clinton does out of New York?
- Assuming he believes he’s the presumptive nominee after Tuesday night (and he needs a victory in California to lay claim to that title), how will he begin to position himself for the general election?
- Will he continue to try to make the case to conservatives that he’ll look out for their best interests or will he start to make an appeal to the middle?
- And at what point does McCain pick his Democratic foe? Will McCain’s camp attempt to influence the other primary and if so, how?

What a boring, insipid bunch of questions.

Chuck Todd is treating the Super Tuesday presidential primaries as if they’re the Super Bowl, and that it’s just a game, and that the ideas promoted by candidates don’t matter, except inasmuch as they help a candidate win.

How spiritless.

You’d think that the political editor for NBC News would have more on his mind than who wins. You’d think he’d be able to keep in mind what politics means, and consider the likely impacts of the candidates’ proposed policies.

You would think that, if you didn’t know how NBC News and the rest of the mainstream news media work. The last thing they want to do is encourage their viewers to think about things of substance… that might cause them to ignore the commercials.

I saw this calendar in the shopping mall today, and it pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the presidential campaign of Rudolph Giuliani.

Giuliani was engaged in a giant sadistic bet. He was betting that Americans would still be so terrified of the weak terrorist threat that they would clamor to him, begging to be rescued. Save us, Rudy! Save us, Sir Rudolph! So, Giuliani sat, counting down the days, waiting for the terrorist attack that he was sure would come, to propel him to victory. Alas for Giuliani’s plans, but nicely for the rest of us, no terrorists have had the werewithal to attack. The spectre of a looming attack has proven to be just a spectre.

So it is that Giuliani’s new year has been stuck in the past, right next to Father Knows Best calendars, as at the shopping mall. Giuliani’s time is long over.

Bye bye, Rudolph.

In dissecting what went wrong for Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, some attention needs to be given to the issue of time. Exit polls show that Clinton’s greatest segment of support came from people who had made up their minds over one month ago.

That means that it’s likely that something happened in the last month that made undecided voters choose to not vote for Clinton. What was it that happened? It’s hard to say for sure. It might have been Barack Obama’s come-from-behind victory in the Iowa caucuses.

On the other hand, it might have been the attacks that went back and forth between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over the last couple of weeks. The same exit polls show that while 70 percent of voting South Carolina Democrats thought that Clinton’s attacks against Obama were unfair, only 57 percent of voting South Carolina Democrats thought that Obama’s attacks against Clinton were unfair.

Whatever the reality of which attacks were accurate and fair, it seems that Clinton came out of the squabbles looking the worse.

Robocalls are tacky even when they carry the best of messages. I hate it when I get a telephone call in the middle of dinner, and it’s just some machine playing a pre-recorded message to me from some politician who wants my vote. The message doesn’t let me talk back and give my opinion. It just gives me that robotic message and then hangs up.

How rude.

This politician thinks that I’m going to vote for someone who doesn’t even have the decency to have a human being talk to me? No. Politicians who use robocalls are indicating the disrespect they have for voters, and suggest that if they’re elected, they won’t listen.

Robocalls get even worse, though, when they’re used by a politician to attack another candidate. That’s what Hillary Clinton has been doing in South Carolina, and she’s been doing it to attack John Edwards. John Edwards, for goodness sakes!

Maybe this is why Hillary Clinton had such a miserable showing in South Carolina.

Interrupt voters’ private time to have a robot spew a negative message at them over the telephone? Only the Clintons could be so arrogant as to think that would help their campaign.

Whatever little tender moment Hillary Clinton was able to create in New Hampshire has been destroyed with tactics like this. Why can’t she learn to stay positive?

In his latest eruption of idiocy, Bill Clinton says of his wife Hillary, “She and John McCain are very close. They always laugh that if they wind up being the nominees of their parties, it would be the most civilized election in American history and probably put the voters to sleep.”

Ha. Ha. Ha… What?!?

Since when would it be a good thing to put the voters to sleep?

This statement by Bill Clinton is doing Hillary Clinton no favors. It exhibits everything that’s wrong with the Hillary Clinton campaign. As a senator, Hillary Clinton has made cozy allegiances with Republicans, and voted along with them to advance their agenda.

Hillary Clinton has become “very close” with John McCain, and will be civilized if she runs against him for President, but she treats Barack Obama like a dog, with robocalls that slur “Barack Hussein Obama”.

Why the hell would Democrats want a presidential nominee who treats Republicans with kid gloves, but attacks fellow Democrats with savagery?

Bill Clinton’s comment is also a not very subtle warning to the activist progressive Democratic grassroots: The Clintons will run a “civilized” campaign, which means that the backbone gets thrown out the window. Uppity grassroots Democrats who demand strong action against the Republicans will not be tolerated. Progressives will be shut out of the process. This confirms my suspicion that Bill Clinton is determined to keep new Democratic voters out of power.

Hey, if you want a Democratic presidential nominee who will go soft on the Republican agenda, and follow the Joseph Lieberman path of giving a big hug John McCain and his plans for an American presence in Iraq of 50 years, then Hillary Clinton is a good pick for you.

If you want a Democratic presidential nominee who will actually represent Democrats, then you’ll need to vote for someone else.

As for myself, let me make this clear, Bill Clinton: This Democrat will not go to sleep.

En lieu of the recent posts on the main blog about the FISA ordeal, I thought I should share this little story I came across when I logged on to Yahoor today.

(Link)

Senate delays eavesdropping vote
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 39 minutes ago

The Senate on Thursday signaled support for granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the government conduct warrantless eavesdropping, a sign that the contentious provision may be headed for approval next week.

On a strong 60-36 vote, senators rejected an amendment that would have killed the immunity provision and strengthened the powers of a secret court to oversee the surveillance of phone calls and e-mails that involve people inside the United States.

Further action on the legislation was delayed until Monday, pushing Congress closer to a Feb. 1 deadline for enacting a new law. If a new law is not signed by the president by then, some eavesdropping practices that are now legal would be prohibited.

The Bush administration is insisting that any new law also protect from potentially crippling civil lawsuits those telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, R-Nev., blamed Republicans for the delay, saying they were trying to block a series of amendments majority Democrats sought to offer.

“It appears the president and Republicans want failure. They don’t want a bill,” Reid said.

The draft bill, written by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law, first enacted in 1978, dictates when federal agents must obtain court permission before tapping phone and computer lines inside the United States to gather intelligence on foreign threats. Agents may tap lines outside the country without court oversight.

It was the second time in six weeks the Senate had taken up the FISA modernization bill, only to see action stymied. Reid abruptly closed down debate in December when it became clear the Senate couldn’t finish work before the holiday break.

Most vexing to the intelligence agencies, without an extension of the law the government would return to needing individual court orders to listen in on any communication that passes through U.S. telecommunications switches and computer servers — even those that are between people who are outside the country. This is not required by FISA, according to legal experts, but became the practice over time to provide firms with legal protections.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., on Thursday proposed extending the existing law for 30 days to buy the Senate additional time to produce a bill. The House completed its version of the bill last fall.

In a move to resolve the immunity issue, the key impasse on the legislation, the White House ended months of resistance Thursday and agreed to give House members access to secret documents about its warrantless wiretapping program.

The Bush administration is trying to persuade the House to agree to retroactively shield from liability those companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without the approval of the FISA court. About 40 such civil lawsuits are pending against telecommunications firms, and the administration says if the cases go forward they could reveal information that would compromise national security. It also contends that the companies could be bankrupted if the lawsuits are successful.

The companies were helping the administration carry out the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, a still-classified effort that intercepted communications on U.S. soil without oversight from the FISA court from Sept. 11, 2001, to Jan. 17, 2007.

Reyes and Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House intelligence panel, requested access to the White House documents in May. House Democrats say they will not support telecom immunity without seeing them first. Some senators were given access to the documents last fall.

The documents include the president’s authorization of warrantless wiretapping, Justice Department legal opinions going back to 2001, and the requests sent to the telecommunications companies asking for their assistance.

I’m trying really hard to be surprised these days…really hard…

I’ve got a theory about Bill Clinton’s obnoxious behavior, coming up with inaccurate and crude slurs against Barack Obama. I think he knows that he looks like a jerk, and I think he knows that it disgusts voters, and I think that’s exactly what he wants.

The Hillary Clinton for President campaign has never sought to build a real network of grassroots support - not of the kind we saw developing in 2004. They know too that Barack Obama is attracting new voters to the presidential primaries, and that new voters are those who are the most likely to lose their resolve and not show up to vote when they become discouraged.

Hillary Clinton’s support, on the other hand, tends to come from the institutional Democratic Party and its extensions at the state and local level. Longtime Democrats who have been regular voters are more likely to support a candidate who reminds them of Democrats in the past, rather than someone who challenges Democrats to break with the past.

If voters are getting turned off by Bill Clinton’s smarmy attacks against Barack Obama, and want to stop participating in the 2008 presidential primary elections, it’s more likely that those who walk away in disgust will be Barack Obama’s supporters. I think that Bill Clinton knows that, and is purposefully trying to create low voter turnout in the Super Tuesday primaries, so that Hillary Clinton can win.

Consider how, every time that one of Bill Clinton’s stupid comments gets publicity in the news, he doesn’t apologize and back off. He comes out the next day and says something even more outrageous. Bill Clinton knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s trying to drive everyone out of the Democratic primaries except for the people who are supporters of the establishment Clinton machine, and will put up with anything that Bill Clinton does.

What in the world will poor Mike Bloomberg do now? He was all ready to buy the 2008 presidential race with his billions of dollars, on the premise that only a billionaire could fairly represent the American people. The idea, set up for him with the Unity08 public relations machine, was that there just wasn’t any room for a vigorous contest for the Democratic and Republican party nominations. As Unity08 used to whine, Iowa and New Hampshire get to determine who the presidential candidates are, and we all just have to sit back and take whatever they give us… so it would be far better to take a candidate instead that would be picked for us by the Unity08 cadre of PR hacks and lobbyists.

With the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire, it became clear that the Democratic nomination would not be decided by Iowa and New Hampshire. Now, with the Michigan primary giving a victory to Mitt Romney, Bloomberg and his Unity08 toadies can’t claim that Iowa and New Hampshire have a stranglehold on the Republican Party either.

For both political parties, it seems that the nomination process won’t be decided until Super Tuesday, February 5, and quite likely not even then. So, Michael Bloomberg sits on the sidelines, waiting, finding that the American people are not clamoring for him after all.

Don’t be sad, Mr. Bloomberg. You can always go buy yourself an island, or something.

I’m rolling my eyes at the headline in the New York Times today that reads: “Calls Grow for Bloomberg to Make Up His Mind”.

Where? Where are these calls growing for Michael Bloomberg to make up his mind about whether he’s going to run for President or not?

I haven’t heard any such calls. No one I know is growing impatient, longing to hear what Mike Bloomberg will decide to do in 2008. There never has been any clamor for Michael Bloomberg to do anything among the people I know.

It seems to me that the only people who are calling for Michael Bloomberg to do anything are a bunch of Bloomberg’s fellow media tycoons and power brokers. Maybe they’re calling each other in a heated fury of anxiety, wondering if their favorite billionaire will represent their interests as President. I don’t know. I don’t have their telephone numbers.

But “Calls Grow for Bloomberg to Make Up His Mind”? Give me a break, New York Times.

I know that Bloomberg’s people have been planting little seeds in the ears of reporters, trying to create the impression that the “right” people are backing Bloomberg, but when it comes to the nearly 300 million of the rest of us who are not the “right” people, Michael Bloomberg could move to Antarctica and study penguins for all we care.

Earlier today on the Irregular Times front page, Jim issued a request for any actual evidence of vote suppression against Ron Paul in the New Hampshire primary election this week.

I didn’t think that I’d see any concrete evidence, so I was surprised when I came across this bit of news from the Ron Paul Forums. Someone only identified as mlingley made the following specific claim:

“My mom, aunt, and dad all voted for RP today in my hometown, My mom and aunt both work passing out ballots, and checking them off. I just looked at the politico map and it says their town has ZERO votes for Ron. Now i know that there isn’t corruption on voting in that little town, so where they reported it must be. What do I do, anyone know???

Originally Posted by sstjean View Post
This was posted to ronpaul-801 tonight: “This town numbers are wrong wrong wrong on this map. I am from Sutton originally and my parents and one aunt all voted for Ron Paul today and Sutton says 0. So this is wrong. This is a town that had 20 people counting the ballots and I have no reason to believe that they cheated. Small town and I was born and raised there. The real numbers will come in by morning. The electronic machines in the big towns are the ones we have to worry about.”

So, here’s one specific piece of evidence: Someone in Sutton, New Hampshire alleges that their mother, father and aunt all voted for Ron Paul, but no votes for Ron Paul were shown for Sutton.

A reader of the Ron Paul Forums reacts, “This is fabulous We’re gonna have to check every county in every state”. How would this be fabulous for a Ron Paul supporter? Do they want there to be voter suppression? Of course, there is a definition of the word “fabulous” that does not mean something good.

There are a couple of obvious problems with this supposed evidence, however. First, mlingley is anonymous. Second, mlingley cannot know who his or her relatives really voted for. They could have just told mlingley that they voted for Ron Paul, and actually voted for someone else.

As it is, the Ron Paul Forums now claims, without any more citation than mlingley’s original claim, that “apperantly this issue was adressed and the vote totals where changed, someone sent me a pm saying this I didnt confirm it, so check for yourselves, lol”.

Check it for yourselves indeed. So far, the evidence for anti-Paul skullduggery isn’t even skin deep.

The two words have become, in the last week, buzzwords. They’ve becoming annoying, as many candidates start trying to insert them into every sentence they can, without knowing anything more than that doing so is what their campaign consultants tell them to do.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking, however, that these words mean nothing. In the election of 2008, hope and change have profound meaning.

The meaning of hope is best understood when it’s remembered that hope is not just some vapid, foggy notion of good things happening in the future. Hope is the opposite of fear.

Hope requires courage. An authentic message of hope is a signal to all who are brave enough to unbow their heads and heed it that there is no more need for cowering. Hope is the understanding that there is no need to “balance” freedom with security, because freedom is our security.

Hope is the idea that we have the power to turn our backs on fear and walk away from it.

Change means that things don’t always have to be the way that they have been. Change is the answer to those who say that we have to make choice between our ideals and our actions. Change is the argument against those who say that America just isn’t ready to do what’s right.

Change is the idea that prove ourselves ready to do what’s right by doing it, not by hoping that the time will be right some time later.

This week, there have been a lot of presidential candidates using the words “hope” and “change”, thinking that just by using those words, they will catch enough of the persuasive power of Barack Obama to have a chance of winning the New Hampshire primary.

Here’s where I get a hokey: I believe that there’s a difference between them and Barack Obama. I believe that Barack Obama understands what the concepts of hope and change mean, and understands why they are important, in a way that the other presidential candidates, with the possible exception of John Edwards, do not understand.

It’s more than just a little exasperating the way that many Americans are only now paying attention to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, only considering his candidacy when it became popular to do so. However, we here at Irregular Times have been following Barack Obama for years now.

I won’t speak for the other writers here, but here’s what I have concluded about Barack Obama: I think that he understands the historical moment in a way that the other candidates do not. I also think that, often, Barack Obama loses sight of that understanding. Sometimes, it’s quite clear that Barack Obama becomes distracted by the political moment, and forgets the significance of the historical moment. It’s then that he loses track, and betrays the promise of hope and change. Look around here at Irregular Times, and you’ll find my strong objections at the times when he has lost track in the past.

However, I am willing to cast my vote for Barack Obama. It’s not because I think that he’s a hero. It’s not that I think he will change things for us, or give us hope.

In fact, if Barack Obama could change things for us, or give us hope, I think he’d be the wrong choice. Democracy is not something that anyone can do for us.

Rather, I am willing to cast my vote for Barack Obama because I believe that he’s seen and comprehended an authentic vision of hope and change for America. Because of that, I believe that he’ll be more likely to listen to the side of America that is willing to say that we can do better, and that we no longer need to be afraid.

Barack Obama may, like many successful politicians, become arrogant. It then becomes our duty to speak loudly against his arrogance. In fact, even as Barack Obama surges toward the Democratic nomination, it is our duty to remind voters of Obama’s shortcomings, as well as his assets.

In doing so, if he is willing to listen, we will help Barack Obama gain political strength, by keeping him close to the course of his motivating vision.

If I’m wrong, and Obama is not willing to listen, then he isn’t worthy of the presidency, and our criticism will have the merit of preventing his corrupted influence on the government.

I’ve said that I am willing to cast a vote for Barack Obama, but I am not committed to doing so. In America, we should not so much elect presidents as hold them on a leash.

That goes for Barack Obama as much as anyone else.

The recently budding elitist echo story about how great it would be if a billionaire could run for President on the basis of his having a lot of money and the support of a group of powerful Washington D.C. insiders is based upon the assumption that the American people have very short memories. Given my experience in discussing political issues with other Americans, that’s a pretty safe assumption. It’s a sadly calculating foundation for a presidential campaign, though.

The billionaire is, of course, Michael Bloomberg. Think about it now… as you’ve gone about your daily business, have you ever heard anybody say, “Oh, if only Michael Bloomberg would run for President!” Of course you haven’t. That’s why Bloomberg will need his billions of dollars to spend on television advertisements, to try to convince you that you’ve just been dying to hand over power to him.

The thing about Michael Bloomberg, is that for all his talk about “unity”, he complains a lot about problems made by bad people. Which bad people? Well, Mikey never says, exactly… because… he’s one of them.

Today, at Politico, Bloomberg was quoted as whining, “People have stopped working together, government is dysfunctional. … There’s no accountability today,!”

The government is dysfunctional? Michael Bloomberg helped to put the government into place, remember? He sent out his New York City police to infiltrate groups of anti-Bush protesters, to spy on them and bring the information back to New York City Republican headquarters. He did it for George W. Bush, his big buddy in the White House.

Remember 2004. George W. Bush and Michael Bloomberg were the best of friends. It’s only since the Republican Party became unpopular that Bloomberg has tried to re-cast himself as an independent.

Independent. Oh, sure. A big city mayor with immense personal riches and Wall Street connections who first was a Democrat, and then a Republican, and then neither. When Mike Bloomberg says “independent”, what he means is “opportunistic”.

Opportunistic, like a rat jumping from a sinking ship, now telling us that he’s been with us all on dry land all along.

Beware of billionaires who complain that the system isn’t working. Their idea of a solution will be worse than the problem.

Rudolph Giuliani just said, in the Republican presidential debate, that “America is not moving in the wrong direction.”

So, Giuliani thinks that an increasing disparity in income between rich and poor is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that gas prices at around $3.50 per gallon, and crude oil at $100 per barrel is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that increasing temperatures and regional water wars is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the housing crisis is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the credit crisis is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the exploding federal budget deficit is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the shrinking Bill of Rights is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that two wars going on for years and years with no plan to get out is the right direction?

What kind of idiot would say such a thing? Is Rudolph Giuliani so out of touch with the current American reality?

If Hillary Clinton loses the New Hampshire primary this coming Tuesday, it’s a sign that her campaign is serious trouble. A failure to come in first in New Hampshire could even put Clinton’s adopted home state of delegate-rich New York into play on Super Tuesday February 5th. If Hillary Clinton has to defend home turf, it will make it all the more difficult to her to win in other states.

It seems that Hillary Clinton’s vote in favor of George W. Bush’s plan to start a war in Iraq is finally coming back to haunt her. The strategy of the Clinton for President campaign of trying to establish her as invincible before any primaries or caucuses, as if the actual Democratic voters didn’t matter, was apparently also not a great way to endear her to the Democratic rank and file.

On top of Hillary Clinton’s stumble in Iowa, there’s news that the mood among New Hampshire Democrats is turning decidedly against her presidential campaign. At the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s 100 Club Dinner yesterday, Democrats booed when Hillary Clinton tried to attack Barack Obama and John Edwards. When Barack Obama took to the stage, however, the Democratic crowd erupted into enthusiastic applause, chanting his name and his trademark, Fired Up Ready To Go.

At another moment during Hillary Clinton’s speech, a Time Magazine reporter who attended writes, the Democratic audience let out “a noise that sounded like a thousand people collectively groaning”.

Things are not looking good for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. That doesn’t mean the election is over for her, but it does mean that all the hype for most of 2007 about her invincible status was nothing but the babbling of Washington D.C. insiders ignorant of the mood of actual Democratic voters across the country.

Yesterday morning, Senator Joseph Biden was all full of bluster. “You can’t tell me this race is over,”, he said.

Um, yes I can. Senator Biden, your race is over.

Maybe if you had spent less time talking about what a great guy you are, you could have lasted until New Hampshire. Then again, you were relatively clean and articulate… though not as much as Barack Obama.

In 1972 I was 21 years old,  town campaign manager for the McGovern Presidential campaign,and as idealistic and devoted to McGovern as any young Obama supporter today.  What a high we experienced the night that McGovern won the nomination; what disappointment we felt the night of the election.  In time, information was discovered that the Republicans had hoped for, indeed, planned on a McGovern candidacy, as they viewed him as the weakest candidate. Yes, McGovern enjoyed tremendous support from a new generation of young voters; and yes, we couldn’t have made the Republicans — and I do mean Richard Nixon et al — happier.

One of the most disillusioning revelations post-election 1972 was that many Republicans had influenced the outcome of primaries by registering as Democrats precisely in order to vote for McGovern. It was, in fact, the first time that voters were allowed to switch their party on primary day in NJ, and the Republicans evidently took advantage of it. Over time, I learned the painful truth that political decisions do not necessarily reflect the will of the supporters of any position or candidate; elections and voters can be and are manipulated in many ways. Voter idealism is an opportunity for exploitation by manipulators with less than idealistic goals.

In 2008, I see this blind idealism again in the young, first-time-voters and caucus participants in Iowa and elsewhere. And it raises for me the same concerns that I wish I had seen in 1972 but could only perceive and understand retrospectively some years later.

Specifically, I find it alarming that, as of January 2nd,  70-something-% of Iowans who supported Obama and were polled were first time caucus-participants. 20% were reported to be Republicans who planned on changing party to support Obama in the caucus. And I believe around 30-40% were Independents who had not been drawn into a caucus ever before.

While this all sounds quite positive for Obama, lets stop and consider, first of all, that 20% of his supporters are Republicans. How likely is it that Republicans in Iowa — a state which has never elected a woman governor, congressman or senator, no less a Black one — are switching parties to vote for the first serious Black Democrat contender? Were they closeted progressives all these years, just waiting for the most sincere and true Democrat for change to run? If so, how did they miss Howard Dean in 2004? I think that the 20% Republican support can be explained as well if not better by the hypothesis that the Republicans are again trying to tip the caucus in favor of a candidate who ultimately would have great difficulty in winning the national election.

The 30-40% Independents who have never before found a candidate of either party to support at a caucus are equally, if not more, suspect. Mind you, these are people who would have not even come out  to support Iowa favorite son Tom Harkin when he ran in the past in Presidential primaries. Most Independents I know are proudly and stubbornly independent — they’re suspect of politics in general, eschew registering allegiance to ANY party, Dem, Repub or 3rd party, and do not mind one bit not being able to choose a party candidate during the primaries by maintaining their independent status. Are we to believe, without question, that such a large number of Independents have somehow shaken loose from their prized independent status because Obama is such a great candidate? I don’t think so.

Which brings us down to the great NON-QUESTION of the 2008 primaries: are Caucasian Americans really ready to vote for a Black/minority president? Well maybe this is less of a non-question than it is the non-discussed question of the season. Listening to a panel of supposed election experts from the far-right Enterprise Institute discussing possible primary outcome scenarios, I was almost convinced, as they insisted, that there just was no reason at all to think that race would influence voter preferences. I actually had to stop and think: wait a minute, there still is a serious underclass in the U.S., isnt there? and that underclass contains most of the 16% of Americans who are Black, right? (As Obama correctly noted recently, there are still more college-age young Black men in prison than there are in college — a statistic that has not changed since I first heard it reported 20 years ago.)  Of course other minorities are found in the underclass, but the majority of Blacks are found there.

Who keeps Blacks in the underclass? Certainly predominately white communities, companies, law firms, professional schools, etc.  But it happens daily in many ways and is ignored and hence implicitly supported by most Caucasian Americans.  Support for Obama is very real in some sectors, very politically correct in others. Don’t tell me that MANY Americans, of both parties, have not considered the possibility of and experience some trepidation when they envision a government dominated by Black Americans.

I’m not saying I’m among them. But when it comes to evaluating Obama’s true chances for winning a national election that requires winning the hard South and Conservative Western states, one simply can’t ignore the issue of race and how it could influence the outcome of the election.

Prove me wrong. Let’s start a real discussion of this important issue NOW, while the primary season is in its infancy. Let’s be conscious of the possibility of cynical manipulation of our youngest and often our most idealistic voters. Let’s pick a presidential candidate with our eyes, ears and minds open to the most critical question of electibility in November 2008.

Here’s a great indication of the difference between the current state of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party: During the Iowa caucuses, the web site of the Iowa Democratic Party is running smooth and fast. The web site of the Republican Party of Iowa, however, is running as slow as slugs, taking minutes to load, when it loads at all.

Take note, voters, of which political party is better able to execute a plan.

Here at Irregular Times, we aim for substance over style.

Just this once, however, I couldn’t resist. Seeing the photo of Matt Stoller with Mitt Romney over at Open Left, I found the answer to a question that has been dogging many a political junkie this year: How does Mitt Romney keep his helmet hair just so?

Now it can be told: Hair gel. Just look at that shine. It looks like an entire tube of hair glop goes into Romney’s hair at least twice a week.

After all, what does a little thing like logical incoherence on energy policy matter to the American public, when compared to hair?

It makes Romney “Reaganesque”, see.

Since when is Reaganesque a good thing?

Since Mitt Romney is running for the United States of Hair?

Oh, the folly of follicles. Evolutionarily, we should have gone past the point of using hair as a good indication of adaptability.

Oooh. Bumper sticker idea: Mitt is Maladaptive

John Edwards supporters ought to be ashamed of themselves for bragging about the endorsement from Ralph Nader. Have they forgotten how Ralph Nader threw the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush? Now that Ralph Nader is endorsing John Edwards, a vote for Edwards is practically a vote for Bush.

Besides, John Edwards has really put all of his cards on the table. It’s Iowa or nothing for John Edwards, because he’s invested his campaign’s wealth there, organizing in the caucuses. If John Edwards doesn’t get first place in Iowa today, his campaign is dead in the water.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, doesn’t need to win Iowa at all in order to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Even if she comes in third place in the Iowa caucuses, it’s a sign of strength in her campaign, which invested little in Iowa.

Which kind of leader would you rather have for President - the kind who loses in second place, or the kind who wins even in third place? Hillary Clinton is the clear choice for voters today.

It’s becoming more clear that the real contest in the 2008 Democratic Party nomination is between Barack Obama and John Edwards. Hillary Clinton depended on the institutional support of right wing Democrats like James Carville, and a parade of corporate executives and lobbyists. She even hired the president of the PR firm that defended Blackwater mercenaries in Congress to be her campaign manager. She’s a longtime member of the right wing Democratic Leadership Council.

Put simply: Hillary Clinton is the Republican candidate of the Democratic Party, the Joseph Lieberman of 2008 presidential election.

So, it’s between Barack Obama and John Edwards to get the core of the Democratic Party vote - the support of voters who are smart enough to look for more than just nostalgia for the 1990s with the name of Clinton.

John Edwards got the support of Ralph Nader this week. Barack Obama got the support of Dennis Kucinich. That shows the world of difference between Barack Obama and John Edwards.

John Edwards spent just one term in the U.S. Senate, then quit when he couldn’t get re-elected. He’s done good work outside of the government, but he just can’t seem to manage to effectively use any government position. Isn’t Ralph Nader kind of like that?

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has been successful in using the power of government to do good from the state legislature in Illinois all the way on up. Obama sticks with it. Isn’t Dennis Kucinich kind of like that?

I say that in 2008, we need a President who is good at government, not someone who is good at picking from the outside.

In one of the most surprising endorsements of the 2008 presidential election, Ralph Nader has thrown his support to John Edwards for President, just a couple of days before the Iowa caucuses. The reason for Nader’s endorsement is very clear: Hillary Clinton is heavily associated with big corporate interest groups, and John Edwards offers the strongest voice in this year’s elections against corporate influence over America’s democratic government.

Nader said of Senator Clinton, “She has experience in the Senate, and what that experience has meant is going soft on cracking down on corporate crime, fraud, and abuse, soft on cutting tens of millions in corporate subsidies.” Yes, Hillary Clinton has experience, but it’s the wrong kind of experience - like her experience on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart.

Hillary Clinton is the wrong choice for the Democrats, and John Edwards is the strongest alternative.

Though some Green Party activists are still trying to draft Ralph Nader for President in 2008, it’s becoming very clear that Ralph Nader will not run, and that, if he does, almost nobody will vote for him. Endorsing John Edwards was the best play for influence that Nader could make.

Mitt Romney is so obviously a phony that even Republicans admit that his political speeches are nothing but a load of bull. Check out what Mike Huckabee had to say about Mitt Romney: “What Gov. Romney has said is off the charts in terms of being inaccurate and not just inaccurate, but being blatantly untrue.”

Well, if even the infamously corrupt Mike Huckabee can see the dishonesty of fellow Republican Mitt Romney, why should any of the rest of us trust him?

Mike Huckabee loves to tell people about how he is an ordained Southern Baptist minister. What he has been more reluctant to share is that he took tens of thousands of dollars from a cigarette company while he was Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas.

Forty thousand dollars is more than what many Americans make from an entire year of work, but it’s what Mike Huckabee got for making just one speech in front of the group representing a secret source of money, which was in turn funded by a cigarette company. Huckabee claims not to have known about that, but witnesses place him meeting with an executive from the cigarette company about the fund and where its money came from.

Taking money from big corporations while he was in public office was no big deal, says Huckabee. If that kind of payoff is okay with you, then Mike Huckabee for President may just be your favorite campaign. If not, vote for a clean, progressive candidate for President instead.

(Source: Newsweek, December 17, 2007)

Ron Paul has personal religious beliefs that lead him to the theological conclusion that human rights begin in complete form from the moment that an egg is fertilized - even before the fertilized egg implants itself in the womb. The idea of a fertilized egg floating around in a fallopian tube being a full person is odd enough, but Ron Paul has odder ideas too, and seeks to spread those ideas using the power of government.

For example, Ron Paul has on multiple occasions introduced legislation to forbid any federal program from spending any money on family planning programs. The reason? Ron Paul seems to have something against contraception. If a married couple has limited resources and can’t afford to provide for additional children, or if a single person doesn’t want to make a child without a stable family situation, contraception is a responsible choice. However, though the government will lose quite a large amount of money providing services to assist families in raising children, Ron Paul is opposed to helping families make the relatively unexpensive choice of when to start pregnancy and have children.

Abortion is not the issue. The legislation that has been introduced by Ron Paul forbids all family planning services, not just family planning services related to abortion.

Whatever Ron Paul has against families using contraception on his own personal basis, it is uncompassionate, socially unwise, and economically unsound for him to work to restrict American families’ efforts to make responsible choices about when to expand their families.

(Source: Library of Congress)

Back in 1998, asked by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette why he left being a Southern Baptist preacher to become a politician, Mike Huckabee said, “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.”

I’m confused. Mike Huckabee and his ilk say that the United States is a Christian nation. If that’s true, why do they need to take the United States back for Christ?

Furthermore, I’d like to know who Mike Huckabee thinks he’s taking the nation back from. It seems that Mike Huckabee thinks that Non-Christians should have America taken away from them.

Finally, what “alarm clock” is Mike Huckabee talking about? Is he one of those people who thinks that the End Times of Armageddon are just around the corner? How is that a part of his decision to enter politics? Does Mike Huckabee intend to pursue public policies from the White House that are designed to facilitate the End Times in order to bring Jesus back from the dead in the End Times?

It appears that Mike Huckabee’s design upon entering politics was theocratic from the start.

(Source: Arkansas Democrat Gazette, June 8, 1998)

I’m really disturbed at the number of people who came by yesterday and gave a positive rating to Proud Partisan’s article, in which it was declared, “Whether or not we agree with all the policies and positions of a particular Democratic candidate, it is time for us to unite behind one Democratic candidate for 2008. The time for debate is over.”

The time for debate is not over. There hasn’t even been one official vote cast in even one state primary election yet!

The idea that we have the duty to unite behind a single candidate, even if we do not agree with that candidate’s policies and positions, is more than absurd. It’s profoundly anti-democratic. I mean that with a small “d” - something Proud Partisan seems unable to understand.

I find that Hillary Clinton’s supporters are more of the lock-step, fall-in-the-party-line, voters-must-obey variety. That’s one of the reasons I prefer Barack Obama.

Will the Clinton for President campaign have any staff left at the end of this week? I ask this question in light of last week’s discovery of the Clinton campaign’s shameful activities spreading malicious rumors about Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has become more successful with voters than Hillary Clinton, as voters have considered Senator Clinton’s questionable connections with corporate interests, and her less-than-progressive voting record in the Senate, including Clinton’s infamous vote to help George W. Bush start the war in Iraq.

In response, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has started spreading false rumors about Barack Obama’s religion, which shouldn’t even matter, and about Barack Obama’s behavior as a teenager, which has even less relevance.

When Clinton’s campaign was caught pushing these false rumors around, it fired a couple of staffers, as scapegoats, blaming the trouble on them. Hillary Clinton wouldn’t take responsibility herself. Besides, those campaign staffers were only fired after the story went public.

You don’t see Barack Obama engaging in this sort of skullduggery. He might criticize Hillary Clinton, but it’s on the issues. That’s why I support Barack Obama for President, not Hillary Clinton.

Ron Paul’s answer to the question, “What do you see as the role of the Environmental Protection Agency?”: He said, “You wouldn’t need it.”

Really? You wouldn’t need the EPA? So, we don’t need the work the EPA is doing to stop arsenic and PCBs and mercury and raw sewage from entering our rivers? We don’t need the work that the EPA is doing to control acid rain, or smog? We just don’t need it?

I suspect that what Ron Paul meant to say is that big corporations wouldn’t need the EPA. That’s precisely why we don’t need Ron Paul as President.

(Source: Grist, October 16, 2007)

There’s only 24 hours left to help Beth raise funds for her PA 18 race against naughty Tim, whether it be 5, 10, or 25 dollars to help Tim start packing. Please consider helping out PA-18 because this is sadly our current Congressman in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUT3BEfcl-s

oh wait and also here on KDKA news:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwh-OCFCOTc

You can help us change direction and priorities by donating the the Hafer campaign at:
www.gecturf.com/bhafer

Your donation is greatly appreciated in these last 24 hours!!!
Check out Beth’s recent labor endorsement at www.midatlanticlabor.org

Had cancer? Got multiple sclerosis? How about diabetes?

If you’ve had any medical troubles in the past, and we get a Republican elected President in 2008, then you’re out of luck. People with pre-existing conditions just wouldn’t be covered under the health care plans proposed by the top Republican presidential candidates.

“People with preexisting conditions would not be able to get coverage or would not be able to afford it,” says economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. “Unless it’s in a state that has very strong consumer protections, they would likely be denied coverage.”

Hello Everyone,

The online fundraiser for Beth Hafer, leading candidate in the PA 18th District starts at midnight tonight and lasts until 11:59pm on November 29th.  Please consider giving 5, 10, or 25 dollars to help us get the change we sorely need in leadership in PA-18.  Check out the challenge BELOW! With your help we can keep the great momentum going:

http://www.gecturf/bhafer

Also, for those of you who want to check out her webpage: www.haferforcongress.com to read about her recent CWA endorsement as well as events coming up in the Keystone state.  Your help is greatly appreciated! 

I guess Beth Hafer, the leading Democratic candidate to take on Tim Murphy in the PA 18th Congressional is having an online 72 hour fundraiser on November 27th to the 29th.  Help western PA with a 72 hr version of small change for bigger change.

The link is: http://www.gecturf.com/bhafer/

Seems like there has been alot of excitement and a great reponse for Democrat Hafer, who has great views on immediately changing course in Iraq and supporting working families instead of the large interest groups and CEOS (like Tim).  Tim Murphy recently voted against the Bridge fund to change course in Iraq from occupation to transition, as well as a program geared at providing assistance for those workers who lose their jobs as a result of bad trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA.  This war has costed Pennsylvania alot and we’ve lost over 202,000 good paying manufacturing jobs because Tim Murphy chose to rubber stamp President Bushes anti-worker policies.  Hafer’s successful first quarter was comparable to freshmen Congressmen Altmire and Murphy. 

Jesse

Westmoreland Co. PA

I really didn’t think they could be this out of touch with the American people.

GOP Rivals Argue Who’s Most Conservative

GOP rivals argue who’s most conservative
By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press WriterMon Oct 22, 6:31 PM ET

Republican front-runners Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney defended their conservative credentials in the face of pointed attacks from campaign rivals Sunday night in the most aggressive debate to date of the race for the White House.

“You’ve just spent the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don’t want you to start fooling them about mine,” Arizona Sen. John McCain bluntly told Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson made Giuliani his target, saying the former New York mayor supported federal funding for abortion, gun control and havens for illegal immigrants.

“He sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues,” added Thompson, referring to the New York Democrat who leads in the polls for her party’s presidential nomination.

The clashes in the early moments of a 90-minute debate prompted former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to say he wanted no part of a “demolition derby” with others of his own party. “What I’m interested in is fighting for the American people.”

Whatever their disagreements among one another, the eight rivals agreed on one issue. They took turns criticizing Clinton, the Democratic front-runner.

Asked whether she was fit to be commander in chief, Romney replied, “I’d vote no.”

Giuliani said he agreed with one thing the former first lady said recently. “I have a million ideas. America cannot afford them all,” he quoted her as saying as laughter filled the debate hall. “I’m not making it up.”

McCain said Clinton had recently tried to spend $1 million on a Woodstock Museum, commemorating perhaps the most famous counterculture event of the 1960s.

“Now my friends I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,” he said.

“I was tied up at the time,” he deadpanned, and the audience rose to applaud the reference to the five and a half years McCain spent as a prisoner of war during Vietnam.

The debate was the first since Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas dropped out of the race, winnowing the field. The remaining rivals stood on a stage at a resort 10 miles from Walt Disney World, fielding questions at an event broadcast by Fox News Channel.

The leadoff Iowa caucuses are scheduled for Jan. 3, 2008, for Republicans. In their most recent debate, Oct. 9, Giuliani and Romney swapped charges with each other, vying for primacy in the race.

This time they largely ignored each other. Instead, Giuliani’s lead in the nation polls, as well as Romney’s perceived strength in early voting states, made them obvious targets for McCain and Thompson.

The first question went to Giuliani, asked whether he was more conservative than Thompson. “I can’t comment on Fred,” the former mayor said.

He then added that he had brought down crime, cleaned up Times Square, cut taxes and eliminated the city’s deficits. “I think that was a pretty darned good conservative record,” he said.

Giuliani took a more conservative position on gay marriage than he has thus far, saying he would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage if states begin to legalize it.

Giuliani lived with an openly gay couple after separating from his second wife, Donna Hanover, and one member of the couple said at the time that Giuliani promised to marry them if gay marriage was ever legalized.

Attacked by the former Tennessee senator moments later, Giuliani fired back at his antagonist. “Fred has problems, too,” he said. He said Thompson was the “single biggest obstacle” in the Senate to legislation limiting the ability of individuals filing lawsuits to recover unlimited damages.

“He stood with the Democrats over and over again” on the issue, Giuliani added.

Thompson said he believed states should decide whether to limit lawsuits in their own states.

Republicans in Congress tried for years to pass legislation that would cap damages in lawsuits, but never succeeded before losing their majority to Democrats in 2006.

Romney was asked about McCain’s earlier claims that he had shifted positions on a number of issues to appeal to conservative Republicans.

The former Massachusetts governor responded that he was proud of his record, particularly since the state had an overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature. “I fought to make sure we kept our taxes down. I fought for pro-growth strategies. I cut taxes,” he said.

Moments later, though, McCain personally turned on Romney.

“Governor Romney, you’ve been spending the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don’t want you to start fooling them about mine,” he said.

Saying he would run on his record as a conservative, McCain added, “I don’t think you can fool the American people. I think the first thing you’d need is their respect.”

Coming up next, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain debate the looming threat of of a domino effect of the Red Menace. Stay tuned!

A constant question I have asked a lot of friends is “Why not re-elect GW Bush?”  It is obvious that he has all the answers.  He’s the president, isn’t he?  He has the right way to complete the job he started.  He started it didn’t he?  And he now has the background (if not the backbone) to do the job.  Plus he has the power to ignore the constitution that says that he can’t run again.  Everything is in place.  I say ‘W 2008′!  Wanna buy a bumper sticker for your SUV?

Ha!

In North Carolina, Democratic candidate for the United States Senate Jim Neal has acknowledged that he is gay. Actually, he has never hidden that he is gay, so it’s kind of like Liza Minelli acknowledging that she has short hair.

The major point of communication from the Jim Neal for Senate campaign is that Neal’s sexual orientation is no big deal. My reaction to the news so far is in line with that. I read the news with a “hmm” and not much more.

What would be a big deal is if the North Carolina Democratic Party now rushes to find another candidate to challenge Senator Elizabeth Dole, because the Democratic Party isn’t willing to support an openly non-heterosexual candidate. That would be a big deal. It would be a sign of craven cowardice.

Good day. I would like to share with you the latest news from Bill Richardson on Mukasey and Waterboarding:

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10-19-07

In response to U.S. Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey’s refusal to say whether waterboarding is torture, New Mexico Governor and Democratic Presidential candidate Bill Richardson this morning issued the following statement:

“Waterboarding is torture, and anyone who is unwilling to identify it as such is not qualified to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America. If I were in the U.S. Senate, I would vote against Mukasey unless he denounces such specific forms of torture.

“Torture does not work. Mistreatment backfires and destroys our international leadership, as we saw with Abu Ghraib. Torture also endangers our own troops. The standards we adopt may well be what our own troops are subjected to.

“Anytime one makes a person think he or she is being executed, the very nature of waterboarding, it obviously is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, international law, and basic human decency.

“ABC News has described waterboarding as follows: ‘The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face, and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in, and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.’

“If another nation engaged in waterboarding against American citizens, we would denounce that country and call the practice barbaric, and rightly so.

“We must stand against torture without equivocation, without compromise, and without exception. Torture is a violation of everything we stand for as Americans and as human beings.”
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Bill Richardson is the only candidate to stand up to George W. Bush and his designee Mukasey on Waterboarding. Vote Bill Richardson in 2008!

Peregrin Wood made an essential point last night when he observed that George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin have steered the United States and Russia into a new Cold War. Russia is now in a military alliance with Iran, and has sworn to protect Iran from any military attacks. American political leaders like Bush, and far too many Democrats, are at the same time pushing to start a new war against Iran.

What’s at stake? Imagine open warfare between the USA and Russia. Imagine nuclear war.

In this context, Hillary Clinton continues her insane brinksmanship, joining in the push to bomb Iran, saying that, “If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table.”

Hillary Clinton’s approach to foreign policy is reckless. Clinton proved unable to show mature judgment when she supported George W. Bush on invading Iraq. She is now showing herself willing to repeat the mistake.

I want to vote for a President who will say no to the nonsense of more and more wars. I want a President who has enough imagination to see a world without Cold Wars against Russia. Hillary Clinton offers the same old path of destruction and failure.

My pick is Barack Obama, who has the courage to see a new generation of possibilities, and is not afraid to leave behind old, Washington insider ideas that just don’t work.