July 2008
1 post
Jackson and other nuts
When I was young and idealistic, I served on the county steering committee for the Jackson presidential campaign. Even then, however, I didn’t support Jackson because of Jackson but because of the progressive movement that had surrounded his campaign and was carrying it forward.
I was deeply offended when Jackson, in an unguarded moment, referred to New York as “hymietown.” His...
June 2008
4 posts
McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four... →
First he breaks his own campaign financing laws and now this. What the heck is up with McCain?!
Just a few highlights of McSame's history
McCain Votes to Filibuster Minimum Wage Hike McCain housing policy shaped by lobbyist Bush, McCain plug Social Security McCain blasts Obama’s and Clinton’s attacks on NAFTA McCain in NH: Would Be “Fine” To Keep Troops in Iraq for “A Hundred Years” McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain...
May 2008
8 posts
When your "last, best" just isn't good enough...
Hillary recent wrote to the remaining uncommitted “automatic delegates,” making her case for them to support her effort to be the nominee of the party. The letter and memo reveal a great deal about the view from inside Hillaryland. Let’s take a look at her arguments for choosing her as the Democratic nominee and see what they show. I. Hillary Clinton Will Lead in the Popular Vote...
Hillary: it's over. Honest.
Lately, Hillary has been comparing her epic battle to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations “as is” at the Democratic National Convention to the efforts by the Democratic party to extend the franchise to all Americans. The struggle for civil rights, the fight for women’s suffrage, and Hillary’s lone stand for the voters of FL and MI, we are to believe, are on a par....
Hillary is 404 →
“Asked by reporters what her message was by being at the Speedway, she said:...”
– Okay, I may be totally pissed at her, but that’s a great line. My Way News - Clinton, Obama battle in Indiana, North Carolina primaries
April 2008
13 posts
Two Wrights do make a wrong
It is always interesting to observe someone out of their usual context. I can remember as a child being stunned to see one of my teachers in the grocery store. It seemed so odd that she would need to buy food for her family in the same place and manner that my mother bought food for us. It was disconcerting to see her as a person rather than as a teacher. There are a few professions in the United...
“A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran - and,...”
– Hillary Strangelove - The Boston Globe
“It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the...”
– The Low Road to Victory - New York Times, April 23, 2008
Clintonball: closing the deal in the right place...
Do you remember the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes? I think Hillary is getting her political talking points from the ever-changing rules of Calvinball. As soon as she fails in a metric she has previously touted, the rules change and a new metric becomes the only one that matters. It was difficult last night to watch as Clinton’s surrogates explained that the only state in the nation that...
Public financing
The mainstream media are currently echoing John McCain’s talking point that Obama may be backing out of a promise to conduct a publicly financed campaign if he is the nominee. However, Obama never made such a promise. He did say that he would strive to reach such an agreement with the Republican nominee if he were to win the nomination. But right now, such an agreement seems impossible...
The costs of war
The Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress has released some useful data regarding the cost of the Iraq war. Here are some highlights. The war costs: $434 million per day, which is $3.05 billion per week, which is $13.2 billion per month, which is $160 billion per year. And remember, most of this funding is happening as emergency supplementary funding, which means that we’re slowly...
“VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA. The choice in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential...”
– Philadelphia Daily News | 04/17/2008
If you aren't bitter, you aren't paying attention
“It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” - Obama There are parts of Pennsylvania that use to be filled with real, solid jobs. We’re talking jobs where people used their muscle, brains and guts to...
Felonies under US law, crimes against humanity...
In the wake of the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II, the United States and other Allied nations advanced the notion that some acts weren’t mere crimes against their victims but were so odious, so evil, so fundamentally deranged that they constituted a crime against all of humanity. These acts, genocide and systematic torture among them, would be punished by any court...
What the hell is happening to Hillary?!
The one thing I never doubted about Hillary Clinton was her ability to run a tough, smart campaign. I expected that she would fight smart. I even expected that she would fight dirty. What I didn’t expect was for Hillary 08 to turn into a nightmarish version of the worst parts of Gore’s run for the Presidency. Mark Penn is a nitwit. He may be a brilliant pollster, but anyone who...
We have returned normal service...
Due to circumstances beyond our control, this blog was temporarily interrupted. We apologize to those of you who were left without instructions as to what to think about the important issues of the day. Normal service, as you can plainly see, has resumed. We hope all three of our readers will rejoin us.
Cheney: Insulting to our troops
In an interview conducted by ABC News on March 24, Vice President and Sith Lord Dick Cheney said, in reference to the ongoing unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq, that “The President carries the biggest burden, obviously.” Really, Mr. Cheney? What about the 4012 American men and women who volunteered to serve their country and who have laid down their lives because their trust and...
March 2008
15 posts
Subject: The Real Truth About Barack Obama! As enthusiastic volunteers in the Barack Obama campaign for the Presidency, we have put together a list of facts about Barack so that you will know the truth about him. Please follow the links we have included for documentation of these facts. If you value the truth as we do, please spread this information via email, blog, or any other means,...
Once upon a time, in an election far, far away.... →
Chancellor HRC? Doesn’t that make Penn Jar Jar Binks? And doesn’t that make considerable sense? It does explain the HRC campaign “strategy” of emphasising inevitablity in a year that is all about change.
$341.4 million per day
That’s the cost of the Bush misadventure in Iraq. $341.4 million per day, every day, is leaving our country and going to fight a war that is as needless as it is illegal. I’m working on my own here and trying not to cheat by looking up these figures on the many websites where they are more reliably available. But I’m pretty sure that an elementary school teacher doesn’t...
100 Reasons Not to Vote for Hillary Clinton →
Reason 1, of course, is that if she is the nominee, there is no way she’ll win. And then we’ll have John “100 years of War” McCain running things.
“I’m sorry — I don’t often get moved and inspired listening to...”
– Chris Durang: Obama’s Speech: He Offers Real Hope, We Should Take It - Politics on The Huffington Post
“Someone running for the highest office in the land finally talked about it...”
– Jon Robin Baitz: A Bright, Shining Moment - Politics on The Huffington Post
"I'm here because of Ashley" →
Obama has just delivered the most incredible, most honest speech I think I have ever heard a public official make. Watch it. Read it. This is change we can believe in.
Theories about Hillary
I’ve heard two theories about the Hillary campaign recently. While I have no evidence to support either of them, I find the idea of each of them very interesting. Theory One: the Gerry factor The recent comments by Gerry Ferraro may not have been as unscripted as we are being led to belive. Here is how the theory would have it. A room full of Hillary’s advisers are sitting with the...
Keith to bite Hillary
Keith Olbermann, possibly the most eloquent of the many critics of the Bush regime, has promised that for the first time, he will direct one of his Special Commentaries at a democrat, namely former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Do tune in to Countdown which airs tonight at 8pm on the East Coast on MSNBC. It will, I hope, make you angry enough to whip out your credit card and help Obama...
The Clintons, a horror film that never ends |... →
Best analysis of the Clintons and their never-ending campaign I’ve read to date.
Who won Texas?
If you listen to the media, Hillary beat Obama 3-1 this past week with Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas going to her and only Vermont voting for Obama. But, in truth, Obama walked away from Texas with more delegates than Hillary because the primary vote was very close and Obama won the caucuses. But, you know, that doesn’t make nearly as good a story as the idea that Hillary has ended...
He's the endorsinator!
Last night, John “W” McCain either celebrated his 1,191st birthday or secured the 1,191st delegate required to make him the presumptive Republican nominee for President. Whichever. Today, John “100 Years of War” McCain went to the White House to meet with the Resident and receive his endorsement. McCain said he was “humbled and honored” to receive the...
Victory?
Here are reasonable estimates of what last night meant. Vermont (15 delegates) Obama 9 Clinton 6 Running total: Obama +3 / Clinton -3 Rhode Island (21 delegates) Clinton 12 Obama 8 Running total: Obama -1 / Clinton +1 Texas primary (126 delegates) Clinton 65 Obama 61 Running total: Obama -5 / Clinton +5 Ohio (141 delegates) (actually, I think a delegate or two here could still shift to...
Hillary not qualified to be a Democrat
I know it has been a tough race. God knows, it has been hard enough for us who’ve only had to watch it. I can’t imagine the pressures and pains of being a candidate in the process. However, there are some things that pressure, desperation, and frustration just cannot excuse. “I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I would bring to the White House,” Clinton said...
“If the Republican Party has a coherent philosophy I don’t know what it is. We’re...”
– Texas Republican political analyst Royal Masset in Harvey Kornberg’s Quorum Report.
NATO and Afghanistan
“He was given the responsibility of chairing what’s called a subcommittee in the Congress responsible for the European countries and our alliance with them and as part of that responsibility was NATO… [W]hat you learned last night is he’s never held a substantive hearing or meeting to look at what is going on in NATO, to take a hard look at what’s happening in...
February 2008
14 posts
Rage! Rage against the dying of the campaign!
Hillary is a fighter, as you may have heard. Today, her campaign hinted that they will consider the possibility of suing over the system by which delegates are selected in Texas. In fairness, Texas does have a system that is somewhat unusual. There is a primary election which selects two-thirds of delegates. Then, everyone who voted in that primary is eligible to attend a caucus as soon as the...
“The Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former Governor of Vermont...”
– The Georgetown Voice | Howard Dean talks politics in ICC - February 28, 2008
The Prince and the press
His Royal Highness, Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales, has been serving in Afghanistan as a troop leader for some ten weeks. The UK media were well aware of this, but out of respect for the security issues involved kept quiet. It took an obscure Australian magazine and Matt Drudge of the infamous Drudge Report website to reveal the Prince’s assignment and place both the young royal...
“I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding...”
– Barack Obama
Buckley: witty, charming, odious
William F. Buckley has died. Witty, charming, intelligent and entirely odious in his views, Buckley is quite correctly considered the father of the modern conservative movement. Today there are numerous obituaries remembering his many witty statements and his capacity for maintaining civility and even friendships with those with whom he disagreed. This will not be such a remembrance. Buckley, you...
Blood for oil?
The main culprit is rising crude oil prices, which topped $102 a barrel Wednesday. In play are big-ticket issues like international tensions from Venezuela to Iraq, the weakening U.S. dollar and reports that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates - a move that encourages energy speculators to pay more for oil and gas futures as a hedge against inflation - and which raises oil prices.—...
“If McCain is truly a serious contender for the presidency, it is time the rest...”
– Arizona Republic, McCain’s “home town” paper.