No Nader

The ego of this guy just drives me nuts. If you want to tell him not to run (or to run) the link is above.

I'd forgotten how bad he made things, update: Crooks and Liars

Reflecting on conservative policies

Bush did not look very confidant last night. He sounded like it, but the only attitude I picked up from both he and Cheney was, "I can't believe we're still here saying these things."

Today, we have blatantly obvious evidence in the housing market that UNREGULATED capitalism is bad for our economy, our nation, and our people. We need oversight, competition and fiscal responsibility.

Today, it is obvious that we can't afford two foreign occupations, or to bail out our banks, or to fund children without health insurance, when we give enormous tax breaks to the rich.

Republicans, as evidenced by the FISA fight in Congress and the Presidency right now, are wrong when they put the rights of corporations to break the law ahead of civil rights. This is not constitutional, it is fascism. It is the extreme representation of how far certain members of our government will go to let our banks and businesses off the hook from old fashioned, patriotic responsibilities toward our common good.

Obama vs. McCain

Via TPM.

Pell Grants for kids $20...thanks Greg Palast.

God forbid we fund the SCHOOLS instead of the millionaires and get rid of No Child Left Behind's multi-millions money-making test scheme. I wake up every day and think, "In what way is Bush a Christian? Bush's worldview is 'Let those of us on earth fund the millionaires, for they are God's best."

Dividing Feminists

Wow, I'm just in shock. Of course, I am one of those "men" who believes "not this woman." Does NY NOW think that critics of Margaret Thatcher are really misogynists underneath? Please. Did official feminism regress to adolescence in the past two decades?

In my college in the 1990s, there were competing types of feminism. One was historically angry, bomb-throwing, and segregating, and the other was based on human morality, empathy and understanding. I liked both in different ways and for different purposes (sadly, the first one put many of my friends off of feminism so they never discovered the second option or a combination thereof); but what I really liked about the empathetic version was that it didn't use GUILT to persuade people that women are equal and valuable. That "Carol Gilligan" kind of feminism preached acceptance.

When Hillary Clinton made her cookies comment years ago, it showed me (and a lot of non-feminist women) that she didn't accept some women's choices (or perhaps didn't see us as having choices). As an educated artist and stay-at-home mom, either view of women is still abhorrent to me; and simply does not reflect mainstream American attitudes. Today, girls and women are expected to do anything men can do, in school, in work, in the military. This is quite different from the country where I was born; England still has well-defined roles for women and men. So this type of accusation against mostly American men (and women like myself, really) is Clinton/Bush-style politics, folks. Slice and dice...I'm through with that.

Peace, your raging feminist.

Obama's vision frames MSNBC commentary about Bush's SOTU

There was no "big think" about our nation.
There was no "what can we do for our country?"

Next Time

I was just in my kitchen imagining next year's State of the Union. Who will be the next President? What will those themes be? Will it be fear, legislative issues, or new hope and dramatic change? There's only one human being I'd like to hear speak that day, and I'm thankful I heard him today. That is Barack Obama.

The Democrats have begun to show up...

Reid begins to acknowledge that Bush is the bully on the playground...and at least for today, we have been the party that does not fear that bully, does not play by that bully's rules, and peacefully offered an alternative to satisfy the Bully's desire to extend FISA's powers 30 days (although I wouldn't have bothered with the latter which seems PR-based).

It's a start.

Three Lies

I listened to Hillary Clinton's comments on this TPM post.

1) Bill Clinton will be minimized in her campaign and she blatantly says the opposite.
2) She does not always "stand our ground" to Republicans in defense of Democratic ideals in VERY important ways. This was Barney Frank's point, too, that we shouldn't be uniters, that we need to fight! Who has been fighting for us in Congress? Feingold, Dodd, Kucinich. At least Obama doesn't pretend to be partisan! Yet I think he has been and will be the most progressive!
3) I don't think this was in the video, but she has denied that Clinton's Jesse Jackson comment was racial, or that they are race baiting. B.S. As Maureen Dowd points out, they dissed MLK [my comment on this incident was that they could have logically and clearly made their policy point merely by mentioning just JFK and LBJ; they didn't need to bring in MLK at all] as someone who couldn't get policy made, and now they are comparing Obama's win to someone, who's connection to Obama just happens to be that they are both "black," who didn't win the nomination.

A bridge to the Spanish-speaking and older liberals?

I hope this changes the polls in CA!

On This Day

Today, the Kennedy, progressive and liberal mantles were passed to Obama. The vote on FISA this afternoon is a test of progressive policies vs. fascist. Is this the DLC's death knell?

Backing out of agreements with our party

Via TPM. It will be interesting to see if the DNC bows to the Clintons and allows her to retroactively take Michigan's delegates, and now Florida's, when she was the only one on the ballot in MI. This is stunning.

Obama in DC on Monday

So the Kennedy's are good friends with Chris Dodd, I'm praying they're telling Obama to vote against immunity tomorrow. Politico article found via Schmog's post today and TPM. Has anyone heard anything?

Thanks, Republicans and Democrats!

I'm listing these guys so I can give them a call tomorrow and give them the news that they are helping Bush win even more power!!:

Bayh (202) 224-5623
Carper (202) 224-2441
Inouye (202) 224-3934
Johnson (202) 224-5842
Landrieu (202)224-5824
McCaskill (202) 224-6154
Mikulski (202) 224-4654
Nelson (FL) (202) 224-5274
Nelson (NE) (202) 224-6551
Pryor (202) 224-2353
Salazar (202) 224-5852

Poor Bill, he was born with a silver tongue...

The Clintons seem to be constantly set up with ideally framed questions from their audiences and so victimized!

Cheney and the Telecoms

I heard him say that if we don't let corporations break the law upon government request then we'll have another 9-11. CORPORATIONS BROKE THE LAW AND COMPLIED WITH GOVERNMENT REQUESTS BEFORE 9-11, DARTH.

Lame!

No one believes that Obama started the negative attacks, so to say, "Oh, he's attacking back when he said he wouldn't attack!" is the pot calling the kettle black. And then to act as if his attack, which sounds accurate to me, that Hillary will say anything to get elected, is so over the top that it hurts Hillary, well that just doesn't seem possible. She's mad, not hurt, not offended, and simply, pegged.

A Very Decent Post

Outlines the "slum lord" connection.

Bush and the Middle East

I was reading the Economist this morning and Bush just sold 900 bombs to Saudi Arabia and begged them to produce more oil for us to buy. We gave Israel 10,000 bombs, and Israel is bragging that they are "smarter," thus ticking off and undermining our deadly "gift" to Saudi Arabia. Oh, and thanks for bailing out our banks with billions. Could we be more stupid, could we be more self-defeating?

In the last debate Hillary said...

something like, "We are not going to use race and gender in this campaign." Well, that lasted about an hour. Outrageously, here is Bill saying that "black" people will vote for Obama, and that women will vote for Hillary. Someone should ask him, who does he expect "black" women to vote for? What a racially aware guy this is--he's talking to "white" folks here, the slime ball.

Tucker's guest says Obama loses by becoming the "black" candidate

Okay, it is truly stunning to hear a "white" talking head named Margaret Carlson (Bloomberg News) say, "In the first two weeks of 2008, suddenly Obama became the 'black' candidate." She credits the Clintons comparing him to MLK for this. Now he's just like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

Well, he's ALWAYS been the "black" candidate so what is she really implying? He's transgressed some "white" line? Margaret's solution for Obama is to throw "white" people a bone by saying he's against something like affirmative action on the federal level.

I can't even stomach this kind of talk--no wonder I hardly ever watch this stuff.

Is Governing Hard?

This looks like Democrats are thrilled to have a financial crisis so they can avoid the hard stuff. It stinks.

The Health Insurance Debate

I find Robert Reich's comments particularly helpful.

Hillary's swamp

"[To Obama] We need you to speak in the sacred voice of authentic power.

When you do it, you will win the nomination, the White House, and the chance to bring a new era of strength, universal opportunity, and universal prosperity to America and the world."

Update:
The Rove Legacy: Hillary Clinton

Hmm, something to remember...

Choice is still important in 2008.

Here is Obama's latest statement:

Freedom of Choice Act

Is this how Clinton won in 1992?

I just don't remember the primary campaign at all. Any memories folks?

Great editorial

National unity is a value Obama holds, that's a great observation. However, I don't think he holds the usual liberal "let's all get along and compromise our other values." I think Hillary is a big example of this, and although Edwards sounds like a progressive now, his voting record in Congress was a lot like Hillary's. Obama isn't a compromising type of guy, as we can see from his debate last night, he stands by his words and actions and tries to do the right thing for everybody.

Don't call us on our B.S. or we'll call you an enemy

I can't stand the Clintons right now. I want them no where near the White House again--as my husband pointed out, it would be another family dynasty. Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. I'm tired of their divisive politics! I think they, along with the Republicans, will keep this country fighting against itself.

Obama is so clearly a gifted, honest, thoughtful candidate and it's amazing to me that Josh Marshall will say he isn't good at defending himself. Perhaps Marshall didn't hear his defenses since he didn't lose his temper the way that Hillary does.

The plus here is that Hillary and Co. are actually preparing Obama to take on the right-wing nuts in the general election.

Obama and the truth

My husband and I have spent a week hearing Democrats attack Obama for "supporting" Reagan. It's ridiculous. I'm so glad he made the point I've been trying to make on his behalf tonight in the debate. He would like to draw support for his policies from Republicans and Independents, just as Reagan drew support from Democrats (against their own economic interest...let's see, can someone on our side get the same effect? Rich people voting against their own economic self-interest??).

I will be beyond sad if Hillary wins the nomination. I think she is the farthest person from a transformative, truth-telling political figure. As Obama said tonight, she'll, "Say anything to win."

Peace.

Funny!

Go, Mitt!

Stereotypical blather in the L.A. Times

It's stuff like this that helped us decide to dump this newspaper subscription; we read it every day.

What wasted breath. If you're going to go after Hillary for being too eager, why not just cite her desperate, Rove-like tactics that are shown below. The pro-choice newsletter, the cocaine comments by her people, etc. There's nothing particularly male or female about her ambition, it's human. It's going after the gold ring.

But future generations are going to cite crap articles like this to prove how sexist we still are.

I think I could watch this all night...

I particularly like Matthews' "antsy-pantsy" line...

IDs and illegal immigrants in the West

I went to Arizona in 2004 to register Democrats to vote with a clip board and paper registrations. We went to places like Wal-Mart and Costco. There were definitely immigrants around, and probably illegal ones at that. They wouldn't come near us.

They do not vote.

Republicans on this are corrupt, lying bastards. Let's hope the Supreme Court doesn't buy their arguments.

Volatile Voters

Josh Marshall outlines three possible explanations for the fact that both polls and exit polls showed Obama comfortably ahead in the New Hampshire primary. He leaves out another one: FRAUD. Pundits are all very uncomfortable with the results but few seem ready to acknowlege fraud and I just don't get it.

Are 40% of the voters actually relying on Diebold machines in NH? If so, can we do a recount of those ballots to verify the machines' results? If they are correct, we can establish some trust for them, so should we even go there? I certainly think we should no longer look the other way when exit polls and results don't match, even when the Daily Kos asks us to (I think the comments make some good points for investigating this anamoly). I think it's lunacy to trust without verfication:

Diebold Lunacy Post

Update: I'm leaning more toward believing that her victory was the success of Hillary's anti-choice and tax hike propaganda that she accused Obama about. Everything will get more negative from them.

Mountains of mole hills

Can we move on from the townships of New Hampshire? Crikey people, we're talking about roughly 300,000 Democratic voters and even fewer Republicans. There are more people in a single L.A. neighborhood. To make assumptions about anything with such a small sample of Democrats (and highly volatile and suggestable Democrats at that) just doesn't go very far.

Hillary squeaks to a win, should it be a surprise?

What a difference a few days makes! If we look at the last month, Hillary actually LOST some of her lead in New Hampshire, she didn't "come back" from anything! The real story is that she still won even though Obama had eroded some of her support. I think people are giving too much attention and weight to the possibilities that helped her win, instead of the possibilities that eroded her stronger lead.

This is just wrong

Hillary, acting like a Republican attack machine. This is just so hard to understand. It says, "I'm willing to give voters a FALSE impression so that Obama won't win and I can win." It's cheating to every child.

A poisened well

The first time I saw the emotional Hillary video I hadn't heard or read the intro question and I thought, "Hey, she's human!" Then I saw Obama's bus interview and actually cried after he talked about his daughter and praying for G-d's will to guide him (he reminded me of my husband at that moment). I still thought Hillary's emotion was welcome.

Then, I was listening to NPR and I heard a reporter phrase the question that was asked of Hillary:

"How do you, how do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?"

I immediately had visions of George Bush's "town halls" that had planted questions like, "You are such a great President!" and then I remembered how Clinton has already been busted for planting questions. I felt a little sick when I again heard her emotional answer that didn't really say anything deeply revealing about her.

I came away from the NPR interview thinking, "This could be genuine, but there's every reason to believe it's planted and staged." That's been her political operation and she's poisoned the well.

The Democrats

I've taken awhile to write this because my 2-1/2 year old is suddenly scared of the bath so I've been reading up on childhood fears as well as checking out the Republican debate. I have to think that Republican's fears were never appropriately met in childhood!

So last night Edward's made his campaign for President personal. That's okay I guess, but I'm not sure what he was implying about the other candidates by that. If he's been so moved by his humble beginnings why did he fall in lockstep with the DLC when he was in Congress? I realize he says he's had a change of heart since he ran for V.P. with Kerry and voted for the war, but the whole thing makes me a bit nervous about him. With the exception of a clear anti-nuclear plan (praise the Lord), he failed to differentiate himself from Obama's policies much (and I was hoping he would challenge Obama on these differences).

Obama was much more specific about some things, like how he ideally wants a single-payer healthcare system, and he maintained his cool "it's not about me" vision and managed to stay above the Hillary defensiveness. The whole Richardson/Hillary experience vs. inspiring vision was a waste of time.

I thought Hillary started strong because she stopped saying she was experienced and demonstrated her perspective on world events with the Pakistan example. She was right in the groove there, then she moved on to the same old defensive attacks and entitled attitude. This is what I posted on the Political Wire:

I liked Hillary's resume points, particularly standing up to a veto threat (if she indeed did so), but I felt her defense of her own record was communicated through anger and resentment; perhaps because of a sense of entitlement, or a feeling of not getting credit, etc. And then topping off what could have been a sincere defense with a fatalistic statement about false hopes (which seems to undermine her own claims to be able to make change) puts her right back on the attack track AND again converges her with Mitt Romney's attitude who also said we couldn't combat global warming in 10 years like Huckabee wants to. No thanks to those who put limits on our abilities before we even begin--plus those limits seem defined by corporate interests.

I actually think this was a good debate for her, but I still think Obama wins by his grace and confidence.

Emotion in Politics

I thought this was a very interesting post, particularly apt description about how so many liberals are tied to rationality above all other principles or appeals--sometimes to our detriment.

Funding Blackwater

I want to know how Congress allows the Pentagon to contract paramilitary units. I believe this is unconstitutional.

Obama's query to the Pentagon

I guess Obama has no standing to ask the Pentagon to stop hiring military contractors as a lone Senator, but I think this is a good question for Obama to answer. Would he allow the Pentagon to hire private military as President? As Naomi Wolf points out, our government having the capability to send private paramilitary troops into U.S. cities is a chilling sign of the threats of fascism.

McGovern

Schmog is reading Schlesinger's Journals and Schlesinger notes that the McGoverns voted for Ford, not Carter, in 1976. McGovern is not a blind partisan. In any case, this is a meaningful and welcome move on his part.

The Republicans

It was so interesting seeing all the Democrats and Republicans on stage last night. The animosity was absent because right now they are not fighting with each other. The links between them were fascinating.

By the time I was thick into the Democratic debate, I had such a sense of cohesiveness among the arguments made, and trust for these sharp, experienced, articulate folks (not so much Richardson) that I realized the chaotic structure of the Republican debate was absent from this one. I remember looking at the stage of Republicans and thinking that Huckabee was the only one who seemed decent and somewhat grounded--and he's a zealot. It occurred to me that his zealousness for his religion is probably directly tied to his patriotism, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since he was the first to cite the Constitution when Gibson asked what the candidates principles were. My husband pointed out to me long before that moment that the #1 job of the President is to defend the Constitution, not to make us the strongest, toughest nation (McCain, Mitt). McCain seemed petty and defensive, even when he didn't need to be. Thompson is out to lunch and wings it. Paul is a theoretical purist who ignores historical precedents that blow serious holes in his extreme libertarian, anti-federal philosophy (although it's fun to see how he runs circles around his peers). Mitt seems like a policy wonk who likes social policies and loves pharmaceutical companies, but doesn't think we can change global warming in ten years (like Hillary?). Huckabee was pretty impressive with his compassionate rhetoric (is it real?) and he seemed calm and humble compared to the rest. Giuliani seemed confidant and sounded sane but he's full of misstatements (do Republicans still believe we have the best healthcare in the world? Does Fox tell them that?) and only about 30% of the country believes we should still be shaking our fists at the world in that bullying post 9-11 way.

I'll post about the Democratic paradigm later today.

Tacit Hillary support from O'Reilly and Fox

While complaining about allegedly being blocked for a shot at an Obama rally, O'Reilly and Fox News plays images of "good girl" Hillary who spoke to O'Reilly at a rally before the Obama event. Yuk.

Love this cartoon!

Obama is a force. I think Hillary Clinton is going to HELP him get elected. She, and the folks around her, appear to be throwing a tantrum and I think they are so deeply entrenched in a fog of entitlement that they won't realize that they have to take the path of light instead of smears and attacks. Whenever I hear Hillary speak she's saying, "Me, me, me...I, the great me, will rule in this manner" (Huckabee does this too, but not only this). Obama says, "This government isn't about me."

History Made!!

What a great day! I was a puddle shortly after Obama and his family left the stage. This is something we have never seen in this country, and it is awesome.

Peace.

Grow up, Democrats.

I swear, if we can't take a poke from our own every once in awhile, what are we?

Update: As my brilliant husband consisely put it, "Why can't we just admit the truth that the country was/is divided and the he is a candidate that might unite it?"

This does fall under the "Obama's right, but why say that..." banner. Gore wasn't the most popular and inspiring candidate when he was running in 2000, and Kerry, well, ARGH, and I defended that guy then. I remember thinking Gore was an academic boob at at least one debate (and I can be one too). The truth is, this is a divided country and the Republicans and Democrats in Washington and elsewhere keep it that way. They have so much more to run on when they are in opposition while they both take cash from some of the same lobbyists. Give me a break, lefties.

The Kos

This post takes me back to that debate when Obama said Clinton's criticisms, something like "That's raising taxes," to Obama and Obama's heated response was something like "That's something Romney or a Republican would say!" Which is true!! It's such a paradox; we are not mortal enemies, those Republicans and Democrats, but we DO want to separate ourselves from their anti-American tactics. So it is not EVIL to say that Clinton is like a Republican, but it behooves us to differentiate ourselves from their B.S. Obama is not engaging in B.S. when he is accused, by Democrats, of using Republican talking points. Obama's attacks are real criticisms of policy and just because they could benefit Republicans doesn't mean we shouldn't voice them. Besides, we need to stop stepping around Republicans and what they will make/say/do of us ASAP. Who cares what fear-mongering they are going to engage in? If they don't have facts they'll just make crap up, so all that matters is how we respond to THEM, when the time comes.

Blue Collar Brilliance

Damn, I'm speechless. Edwards latest Iowa ad.