Wednesday’s Mini-Report

Tim Noah at Slate has a good column on HRC’s wildly inconsistent appeal to various metrics to bolster her case. In it, he links to the PA results, showing that with 99.51% counted, her margin is 9.2%. I don’t think even Clinton’s most oblivious supporters could round that up to 10% with a straight face.

http://www.slate.com/id/2189812/

Karl Rove’s lawyer concedes that Rove received requests to have Patrick Fitzgerald fired, but he didn’t follow up on them. Hmm.

Frequent requests, no less. What is interesting here is that supposedly Rove had no role in the firing of any of the US Attorneys. So you might think he would be the last person someone would go to if they wanted Fitzgerald gone. And it wouldn’t be necessary to even suggest that he didn’t take any actions, because he wouldn’t have been in a position to act.

NYT’s Editorial Board must have forgotten that they had — once upon the time — actually *endorsed* Clinton:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/opinion/23wed1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
While they do a bit of the “pox on both your houses” to keep things “fair and balanced”, they feel that more of the pox is coming from the Clinton house.

* And why, oh why, was top Clinton campaign surrogate and former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe on Fox News last night, praising it as the “fair and balanced” network? Without a hint of irony or satire?

What few people seem to understand is that Obama is a threat to the established order, and that much of Clinton’s behavior (and that of her troops) is a response to that threat. Forget the historic possibility of the first female or first black party nominee — the real defining aspect of this race is that it’s drawn a line between the established power brokers and those who believe that the power of democracy resides with the people who vote.

Faced with extinction, Clinton and her troops stand on the only side of that line they can — which, as members of the established power elite, just happens to be on the same side as the Republicans. Survival is the most powerful motivator and the stakes could not be much higher.

Mary # 2 and Ugh – anything that keeps the media or public from spending even a second contemplating a bush-clinton-bush-clinton string of control for 28 or more years is a “win” for shillary and the criminal cabal behind the current administration.

mcsame=shillary – so they win either way.

It is not rational to think that 2 elite families are the most qualified to rule this nation and the world, we all know it too. America was not suppose to be a monarchy.

Even the lamest, most brain-dead among us know this – so we see and ugly campaign, devoid of issues, and designed to prevent anyone from talking about the obvious.

Americans overwhelmingly want change and they will not get it with from the bush-clinton-bush-clinton crowd.

For the esteemed Mr. Thomas Cleaver: My 10-year-old (the one whop calls Bu$h “the dummy in the White House”) just taped a Charlie Chaplain mustache on that Hillary pic from TNR’s cover.

I thought you’d like to know….

“And why, oh why, was top Clinton campaign surrogate and former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe on Fox News last night, praising it as the “fair and balanced” network? Without a hint of irony or satire?”

Clinton isn’t moving to the right to appeal to Reagan Democrats. She’s moving to the right to appeal to Limbaugh Republicans.

* The Clinton campaign will still trail Obama’s fundraising totals by quite a bit, but this is an extraordinarily impressive one-day haul: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) campaign said Wednesday afternoon it was “on track” to raise $10 million in online donations in the 24 hours since the Pennsylvania primary was called in her favor.”

They’ve reported a 2.5 mil haul, so I’m not quite sure what their math is for “being on track” to 10 mil, except as explained by retr2327, @6. And even that 2.5 mil… I’ll believe it when I see it, especially if it’s supposed to be coming from small online donations, a la Obama’s. But we won’t see the real numbers till early July, when the second quarter will be over and the FEC reports will be in and published. At which point, we won’t be told how much of the total was pulled in when (ie the first 24 hrs or the first 24 days)

What this whole thing sounds like to me is a scam; make people believe they’re raking it in hand over fist and, perhaps, someone will think they’re onto a winner and will actually donate.

IFP – your shtick is getting old. Those of us that don’t support shillary and exercise to express our opinions (as private citizens, not as public servants) as to what she stands for and where her loyalties actually are don’t care about her gender.

You are just distracting from the obvious – America will not support a bush-clinton-bush-clinton dynasty that extends the control of the cabal behind dur chimpfurhere.

The vast majority of America wants change and most posters/readers here understand we will not get it from the folks that created the mess we are currently in.

Spew all the hate you want about gender – its actually about “fresh blood” and realizing that America was not meant to be controled by a ruling class of elitests that hide behind a george bush, bill clinton, george bush, shillary clinton for the next 28 years.

Are you going to support Jeb as our next emperor too?

little bear, IFP is satire. That said, I agree that it gets old. We get enough of that from the real thing (Mary) and I’ve reached the point where I skip past both of them.

At least you know IFP is doing a slam (and a good one) but still…too much, too much and all.

I actually agree with Mary about something. Yuck. The TNR cover is way over the line into misogynistic crap territory.

sorry, messed up some tags …

My #24 was about “…Terry McAuliffe on Fox …”

Actually, I find the need to stand in defense of the Prof on this one. When you can satirize a thing ahead of the rabid dog and its self-righteous wrath, it is synonymous to “putting down” the rabid dog. And—unlike gun ownership—there is no 30-day waiting period before being able to wield satire as a weapon….

Big vote tonight in the Senate on the “Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act,” which passed the House nearly a year ago. Expect floor action in about a half an hour.

And the Republicans kept their filibuster, even though there was a majority vote in favor. Their position was that “this will promote lawsuits.” Remember, “Republican” is always a synonym for “defendant.”

“The Veterans Administration has lied about the number of veterans who’ve attempted suicide, a senator charged Wednesday, citing internal e-mails that put the number at 12,000 a year when the department was publicly saying it was fewer than 800. ‘The suicide rate is a red-alarm bell to all of us,’ said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. Murray also said that the VA’s mental health programs are being overwhelmed by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, even as the department tries to downplay the situation.”

Not just Iraq and Afghan vets. Last year, a good friend of mine, a Vietnam combat veteran, was told that he had been paid $200/month disability too much for six years and they were taking back – reducing checks that were $1,800 each to less than $900 a month for 18 months – his sole income. He was found dead that night, with the letter in his hand. I’m sure the government was able to finance a 20 minute firefight in Baghdad with that.

Steve (#13) – I looooooove it!!!!! 🙂

Posted earlier elsewhere, but more relevant here:

An interesting commentary from someone who directly knows the Sixties history he is pointing out:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080505/hayden

Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream
by TOM HAYDEN
[posted online on April 22, 2008]

My wife Barbara has begun yelling at the television set every time she hears Hillary Clinton. This is abnormal behavior, since Barbara is a meditative practitioner of everything peaceful and organic, and is inspired by Barack Obama’s transformational appeal.

For Barbara, Hillary has become the screech on the blackboard. From First Lady to Lady Macbeth.

It’s getting to me as well. Last year, I was somewhat reconciled to the prospect of supporting and pressuring Hillary as the nominee amidst the rising tide of my friends who already hated her, irrationally I thought. I was one of those people Barack accuses of being willing to settle. I even had framed a flattering autographed message from Hillary. But as the campaign has gone on and on, her signed portrait still leans against the wall in my study. I don’t know where she belongs anymore.

At least Hillary was a known quantity in my life. I knew of the danger of her becoming more and more hawkish as she tried to break the ultimate glass ceiling. I also knew that she could be forced to change course if public opinion was fiercely opposed to the war. And I knew she was familiar with radical social causes from her own life experience in the Sixties. So my progressive task seemed clear: help build an anti-war force powerful enough to make it politically necessary to end the war. Been there, done that. And in the process, finally put a woman in the White House. A soothing bonus.

But as the Obama campaign gained momentum, Hillary began morphing into the persona that has my pacifist wife screaming at the television set.

Going negative doesn’t begin to describe what has happened. Hillary is going over the edge. Even worse are the flacks she sends before the cameras on her behalf, like that Kiki person, who smirks and shakes her head at the camera every time she fields a question. Or the real carnivores, like Howard Wolfson, Lanny Davis and James Carville, whose sneering smugness prevents countless women like my wife from considering Hillary at all.

To use the current terminology, Hillary people are bitter people, even more bitter than the white working-class voters Barack has talked about. Because they circle the wagons so tightly, they don’t recognize how identical, self-reinforcing and out-of-touch they are.

To take just one example, the imagined association between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers will suffice. Hillary is blind to her own roots in the Sixties. In one college speech she spoke of ecstatic transcendence; in another, she said, “our social indictment has broadened. Where once we exposed the quality of life in the world of the South and the ghettos, now we condemn the quality of work in factories and corporations. Where once we assaulted the exploitation of man, now we decry the destruction of nature as well. How much long can we let corporations run us?”

She was in Chicago for three nights during the 1968 street confrontations. She chaired the 1970 Yale law school meeting where students voted to join a national student strike against an “unconscionable expansion of a war that should never have been waged.” She was involved in the New Haven defense of Bobby Seale during his murder trial in 1970, as the lead scheduler of student monitors. She surely agreed with Yale president Kingman Brewster that a black revolutionary couldn’t get a fair trial in America. She wrote that abused children were citizens with the same rights as their parents.

Most significantly in terms of her recent attacks on Barack, after Yale law school, Hillary went to work for the left-wing Bay Area law firm of Truehaft, Walker and Burnstein, which specialized in Black Panthers and West Coast labor leaders prosecuted for being communists. Two of the firm’s partners, according to Treuhaft, were communists and the two others “tolerated communists”. Then she went on to Washington to help impeach Richard Nixon, whose career was built on smearing and destroying the careers of people through vague insinuations about their backgrounds and associates. (All these citations can be found in Carl Bernstein’s sympathetic 2007 Clinton biography, A Woman in Charge.)

All these were honorable words and associations in my mind, but doesn’t she see how the Hillary of today would accuse the Hillary of the Sixties of associating with black revolutionaries who fought gun battles with police officers, and defending pro-communist lawyers who backed communists? Doesn’t the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Hillary attacks today, represent the very essence of the black radicals Hillary was associating with in those days? And isn’t the Hillary of today becoming the same kind of guilt-by-association insinuator as the Richard Nixon she worked to impeach?

It is as if Hillary Clinton is engaged in a toxic transmission onto Barack Obama of every outrageous insult and accusation ever inflicted on her by the American Right over the decades. She is running against what she might have become. Too much politics dries the soul of the idealist.

It is abundantly clear that the Clintons, working with FOX News and manipulating old Clinton staffers like George Stephanopoulos, are trying, at least unconsciously, to so damage Barack Obama that he will be perceived as “unelectable” to Democratic superdelegates. It is also clear that the campaign of defamation against Obama has resulted in higher negative ratings for Hillary Clinton. She therefore is threatening the Democratic Party’s chances for the White House, whether or not she is the nominee.

Since no one in the party leadership seems able or willing to intervene against this self-destructive downward spiral, perhaps progressives need to consider responding in the only way politicians sometimes understand. If they can’t hear us screaming at the television sets, we can send a message that the Clintons are acting as if they prefer John McCain to Barack Obama. And follow it up with another message: if Clinton doesn’t immediately cease her path of destruction, millions of young voters and black voters may not send checks, may not knock on doors, and may not even vote for her if she becomes the nominee. That’s not a threat, that’s the reality she is creating.

Tom, sad, sad story (the first). But I think the firefight that $900 a month would cover would be in milliseconds, not minutes.

The second…excellent. 😀

Boy, that New Republic article is certainly an interesting portrait of life in Versailles, particularly in the Hall of Mirrors. Talk about an “imperial court,” you could cast them all in the update of “I, Claudius” – “I, Clinton.” I’d say it looks like the court in the latter days of Augustus, and the reign of Tiberius.

Was it Obama’s Muslim upbringing that led him to the mistaken view that Rev. Wright is representative of Christianity?

Here’s my two cents for whatever that’s worth these days 😉

The TNR cover goes over the line for what is an otherwise intersting piece of writing.

On pace for $10 million my ass…can you say shilling for dollars?

9.2 point win translates to about a net 8-10 delegate gain…big whup-de-doo! Obama has so got the nomination.

For everyone (who is sane) who thought the TNR cover was over the top, what about it makes you say that? I’m genuinely curious.

I’m also genuinely curious to see what Obama’s fundraising numbers for the last day will be. I know he got some cold hard from me.

CB: Now Yoo, through his lawyer, is saying that he’s not coming.

Someone needs to write a book… but instead of calling it “All the President’s Men” it absolutely must have the title “All the Emperor’s Men.”

Pudgy Yoo is betting he can find shelter under the Emperor’s umbrella. One has got to wonder though… is there room under there for a pudgy academic? He’d make a great fall guy.

WOO HOO!!! 49 to go!

ast of the DRE (Touch-Screen) Voting Machine Vendors Withdraws Attempt for Certification in the Empire State

It’s now official. Liberty Election Systems has withdrawn their DRE from the New York State and has informed the State Board of Elections that they will not pursue further certification testing or fill their one current order. LibertyVote/Nedap was the only remaining vendor offering a DRE in New York. The move represents the end of an era in New York State, and could be a harbinger for what lies ahead in the rest of the nation…
…
So for the first time since HAVA passed in 2002, New York State has no DREs of any type being purchased by any county, or undergoing NYS certification testing for 2009 purchases. For the vendors who for 6 years told us “New York is a DRE state”, we tell you now as we told you then, “Wrong. New York is a paper ballot state.”

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5922

Now if we could get FL on board. I know…not gonna happen.

Damn, doubtful…that would scare the crap out of me! 😀

Can we re-run that hard-hitting, negative ad on Obama one more time? I want you to see it so you get an idea of what a hit job it is on Obama, just to give you an idea of how noble McCain is to call for it to be removed from the air. Once you see the things it says about Obama, you’ll see why only someone who wants to change the tone of Washington would ask for it to be pulled, even though it would be devastating to Obama if people saw it. Roll the tape.

What a hero, I tell ya.

The trouble with Obama supporters

1) Your in college?

2) You think he’ is a Rock Star?

3) Your black?

4) You have to much education?

Thats all that is possible for voting for him. Yes he states he is against the WAR but can he just bring all the troops home? He says he is against lobbist so why does he take their money?

she will stay in the race till the convention, or until her friends prevail upon her…
EVEN THO she must win every primary from here on out by 75%-25% in order to stop his nomination
she will stay in the race till the convention, or until her friends prevail upon her…
EVEN THO he has won every demographic except retired white women
she will stay in the race till the convention, or until her friends prevail upon her…
EVEN THO her negative perception among the voters climbs weekly
she will stay in the race till the convention, or until her friends prevail upon her…
EVEN THO she wins PA, Ohio, and TX by margins attributable to the GOP folk that heeded Rush’s call to throw the vote in her direction…GOPers who will not vote for her in November
she will stay in the race till the convention, or until her friends prevail upon her…
EVEN THO (or maybe because) she is trying hard to turn Obama into damaged goods, assuring a GOP victory in November

Comeback Bill, read the commenting policies of this site or don’t come back. Annoying people with your stupid comments and obvious ignorance day after day is one thing but your #53 is way over the line.

beep i hope you meant #51….since i penned #53

#34 — the site, which was not affiliated with Obama, stated a goal of $1 million to pull a Ron Paul, but only managed to raise about $250,000, far short of its goal.

Clinton has raised $10 million, according to news reports late today. Unsurprising, since whoever seems to be leading tends to attract more money.

Those of you who think misogyny is funny and OK when it is aimed at someone you don’t like probably think it is OK to make racist jokes about a black person as long as he is someone you think deserves it. That’s called situational ethics, another way of saying you have no ethics at all.

Our party stands against racism AND sexism, except for you Obama supporters who stand by yourselves on this one.

How juvenile is it to call anyone who doesn’t support Obama a Republican?

Have things gotten to the point where Obama supporters will say and do anything if it is in service of their candidate? Personally, I believe a lot of what is being said on behalf of Obama and against Clinton supporters is just an exercise in hostility — people taking out the frustrations of the day on others here, because none of us seem real in cyberspace. Sort of like the flame wars that break out over trivialities, like YOUR vs YOU’RE above.

I hope Hillary will use her new donations (whatever they are) to pay off her debts to all of the small businesses (ie not Mark Penn) that have done work for her campaign that haven’t been paid thus far. You can’t claim to be for working Americans when you don’t pay your bills (yet are apparently worth over $100 million).

Mary #59: When Clinton sells her soul in order to suck up to her new “redemptive” BFF Scaife, while Scaife, thru his company Newsmax is blasting Obama, then she might as well be a Republican. That is NOT trivial. And it’s not OK for a Democrat to do to another Democrat.

Mary, Your v. You’re is not trivial when you are stating that you do not have an appreciation for education. It is pointing out something so obvious that one would think even you might get it. Apparently, you can’t see through your hatred to understand – which is as per usual with you.

And if you’re a dem, you are a DINO…but I still think you’re a gooper.

Don’t like it? Tough shit. Read your own words.

I hope you don’t teach students of …

If this is what our education has become, we are beyond doomed to fail. A teacher who can’t put forth a coherent argument or understand the underlying thought to the words presented; who doesn’t understand that dismissing education (or those attempting to achieve) and then using inaccurate words (I didn’t even mention the contraction problem) and says it is a trivial flame war…if that is a teacher, I will gladly and with vigor eat my hat.

It is not racism to refer to a person’s race, especially when that person has made a point of bringing his own race into this election.

That’s correct. It is, however, most definitely racism to bring someone’s race into a discussion that has absolutely nothing to do with race–and then claim that that someone is probably committing a crime or deep ethical breach because of his race. This is what you did in the student loan discussion; it speaks volumes about your own hostile obsession with others’ blackness…and how you likely treat your black students.

You know this. You’re not dumb; you’re just utterly without morality in your fervor for your chosen cause, in your willingness to use any means to your end. It would, however, be better to be dumb than to have reached your level of complete ethical corruption.

Obama is not a victim of oppression. He is a member of a minority group that has historically experienced oppression, some of whose members are currently oppressed, but others not. The extent to which he personally has experienced oppression deserves quote marks because he himself was born into the middle class, attended prep schools and elite universities and has since been a member of a relatively high paying profession. If that’s oppression, then we should all be so oppressed. He grew up in one of the most racially diverse areas of the country, a place more intolerant of whites than anyone of color (with a special derogatory name for them). All of that led to an understandable confusion about how he was to take up the mantle of oppression as a black man. So, he identified himself with liberation theology and Afrocentrism to shore up his tenuous sense of being truly African American. Read his biography.

No one can argue historical oppression, but there is enough about Obama to dislike without reference to his race. One can dislike his failure to address the problem of HIV in the African American community, by embracing the homophobia that pretends homosexuality doesn’t exist among black men. One can dislike his failure to understand how NCLB has damaged education, including and even especially education of minority children. One can dislike his parrotting of Republican talking points about social security, a benefit more important to low income elderly than to the more affluent. One can dislike his arrogance, his lack of respect for more experienced politicians (such as Edwards and those whose speeches he preempted), his belief that two years in national politics is sufficient to qualify him for the top job. One can dislike the way he lets his supporters do the dirty work while pretending to be a “new” kind of politician as they bully caucus goers and break campaign rules and strongarm behind the scenes (NC debate most recently) while claiming that Clinton is the ruthless campaigner.

Maria and Joanne, you seem to think that if you attack people who hold opposing views to your own, then are winning some sort of debate and your candidate will be victorious. You think I am a Republican in disguise because I said I would vote for Nader instead of Obama? This new claim that McCain will win if Obama is not the nominee, so anyone who supports Clinton must be a Republican is typical of the logic you guys use in any of these discussions. So, when you call me a racist or imply that I have lied about my personal info (posted in answer to requests by other posters), you are just illustrating how low Obama supporters will go to bully those with opposing views here. Calling me a bad teacher cannot hurt my feelings when you have never seen me teach, so why do it? Does it feel good to be mean in the name of your candidate? Is it OK to be ugly to others because they vote differently than you do, but I’m the racist? You have lost the right to talk about tolerance of any kind — it is forfeited by your behavior.

I just read more of the commentary and felt compelled to spew.

I’m more than a little tired of every Clinton detractor being accused of sexism. The accusation itself is an attack designed to intimidate. I am uncowed.
I live in Maryland where my Congresswoman, two of three state delegates, my state senator and one of my U.S. Senators is female.

I voted for all of them.

Hilary Clinton is a woman who is NOT getting my vote because she is NOT an impressive stateswoman and I’d sooner vote for any of the women I just listed because they are more ethical and have a better sense of logic and organization. They have a greater ability to forge alliances needed to accomplish and execute law.

I thoroughly dislike Hilary Clinton for many reasons. Neither I nor the sizable number of my friends (many women themselves) that agree with me, hold her sex against her.

Claiming sexism is a comfortable crutch to lean on for those enamored with the idea of a first woman president regardless of how unsuitable she may be, but for the sake of the next credible female presidential candidate, you may need to re-examine this way of thinking so you don’t delude yourself that America was too sexist to elect a woman. You will inappropriately assume that NO woman has a chance simply because this specific, flawed woman was rejected.