Wahoo!

Cannabalism

Jane!

I hate this shit.

This year more than ever in modern times it is imperative that following the primaries we ALL support the candidate. WHICHEVER candidate.

If a Republican takes the Oath of Office in 2009, I am not confident that the United States will ever recover. We need extensive reform and repair to the infrastructure of Federal governance, to say nothing of the restoration of the Bill of Rights, and the removal of corporate influence over Congress.

Say what you will, in a result oriented world, Obama sure looks like he’s running the best campaign …

I agree.

We need to spend less time on American Idol The Presidential races, and more time on issues we can motivate toward meaningful change.

{{{{Jane}}}}

I saw that 3 hours ago and it’s still bothering me…

This is really bad blood and it’s only the beginning…

Not good…

HRC is drop jaw pissing me off. Edwards showed a lot of class on KO.

Hear Hear !!!

… any plans of coming to Toronto, ET ?

And I heard Hillary say that whomever the democratic candidate is, we will all get behind him/her. What a difference.

Bon Soir, Ma Cheri!

CT, nice to see ya on the tubes again. how many days were you without tubes?

I must confess that while I may ultimately grit hard on the bullet and pull the lever for Hillary Clinton, I am finding it more and more difficult to do so.

This is really making me question whether I must stand with party even at the expense of voting for someone I may not want to see as President.

Yes, I understand the dangers of a McCain Presidency, and the potentially comedically apocalyptic dangers of a Mitt Romney Presidency, and I will never vote for either.

But goddamn. If the Clintons are good at anything, it is testing my party loyalties. And testing them hard.

5 looong agonizing days… *g*

Interesting. I’m feeling the same way about Obama. I find his emerginly evident hubris like nails on a blackboard. And his empty-suitness.

… any plans of coming to Toronto, ET ?

I’m putting off or rescheduling any concert appearances outside of Alaska until after the November elections, so I can put a lot of time, energy and presence into getting Don Young and Ted Stevens defeated.

I dunno. I first supported Edwards ’cause of the “electability thing.” Nobody’s come along that convinced me not to support him anymore. this is something that ahs to be talked about and dealt with. I’m tired of losing Presidential elections and I think Hillary is the least electable of the Dem candidates. Although i thibk she’ll still win.

This is probbaly gonna get analyzed to the point opf making me take another sabattical from the campaign. There’s no there there. Obama didn’t say much of anything. He asks a legitimate question. Now can we move on?

Obama’s making an electability argument–maybe not a very good one–but this seems within bounds.

In that endeavor our great hope & fondest wishes are with you.

hey ted, i agree with wholeheartedly.

gee, ct, that’s a long time with no !!!’s

H. Clinton will never, ever get a vote or support from me, or others who remember how Bill Clinton ravaged his labor and environmental supporters.

Thanks for NAFTA and media consolidation, Bill!

As the great David Brower said:

an original founder of the Sierra Club, that” President Clinton has done more to harm the environment and to weaken environmental regulations in three years than presidents Bush and Reagan did in 12 years.”

from his renunciation of voting for the least worst at

http://www.earthisland.org/eij…..urnalID=57

won’t fall for that again, oi vey.

Predicting election results is not a science. Anyone who claims to know which of the three dems is more electable is fooling themselves, IMHO.

Every time I start to like either Hill or Barack they open their pie holes and I change my mind.

Alaska’s gain … our loss … we’ll see you on November 8th then ?!! *g*

the more they snipe at each other, edwards looks better and better*
*usual caveat, not made up my mind, etc.

There is some evidence to rely on. In the last Gallup poll Hillary Clinton had a 46% unfavorable rating.

I agree that the electability argument is not one I want to hear from any of the candidates.
It is not a forgone conclusion that all the animosity towards HRC is a matter of gender. She has the second most polarizing surname in Amarican politics as well.
I am voting for the Demogratic candidate in November, but I have to admit that neither of the two front-runners has shown me anything that I will be particularly passionate about.
In 2004 I couldn’t help agreeing with the picture of Kerry7 and Edwards under the sign “We can do better” and agreeing in a way not intended by the friggin genius who came up with the slogan.
The effin Avis of politics.

The question is: How do we get ‘our’ candidates to stop leading the circular firing squad so effectivly. Do we just stop listening?

The Elko NV votes went to his head. He also had a bad time on the “Today”. Show

True, CT. Why are you short-changing the exclamation points? Lost all of your excitement after being down?

Even tho I’m an Edwards fan I know that there is a definitely a possibility that I will have to choice between either Hillary or Barack….

Gawd help me…

What can I say?
This sniping and maneuvering is not going to go away, even after Super Tuesday. All that is going to change is the intended target.
I personally don’t care for Clinton or Obama either one and I am really pissed off that Edwards is getting the bums rush by the media. Either way, I am sick to death of the never ending prostate exam with a rusty hammer that has been getting rougher by the day.
I am voting Democrat no matter who ends up on top of the heap. There is no alternative to that.

Marcel Marceau for President

Butr her unfavorability isn’t going up, and Obama’s would.

OBAMA: I think there is no doubt that [Hillary Clinton] has higher negatives than any of the remaining Democratic candidates, that’s just a fact. And there are some who will not vote for her. I have no doubt that once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her. Now the question is, could she get the people who voted for me?

Jane…you’re right that other candidates veil the same statements in their remarks. But this is pretty explicit, and suggests that he would not work to bring his supporters to the eventual nominee if he doesn’t win.

And I’ve seen this site filled with the same logic by supporters of each of the candidates…usually made on personal grounds that they won’t vote for X if Y doesn’t win. I even read one letter to the editor today from someone who claimed to be a “liberal” saying that “Hillary is Republican-lite, and I’m going to vote for McCain if she is nominated”….Huh! You’d vote for a guy willing to keep us in Iraq for 100 years, whose ideas about healthcare is “private sector” and who doesn’t support anything but cuts in corporate taxes as an economic stimulus?

I have my issues with ALL the Democratic candidates, and am critical of all their stances on different issues. And I think that all want to be President (other than Kucinich, Gravel and perhaps Dodd) just a little too much. These are people with big egos, not just big ideas.

I’ve spent some time going over their legislative histories and been disappointed. I’m not to happy with their employment records, or their supporters and contributors.

But I realize that short of running myself no one is going to have precisely the same values as I, and I probably could not perfectly vets who donates or makes statements in my stead. And I just imagine how people could manipulate my past.

So despite my issues with these candidates, many of their policies and their supporters, I’m going to weigh who will be better (not best, because I’m not running)…BETTER for the country. I don’t wan’t another Nixon, Reagan or George W. Bush, sorry!

Jane, I love you and respect you but please, read a blog here and there because there is a tidal wave of angry democrats, myself included, who are flat out done with the Clintons and their act. Black, white, latino/a, male, female, young, old, Obama supporters and Edwards supporters alike.

busted, i would say you nailed the bottom line but that rusty hammer still has me saying ouch

I’m really freakin’ tired of people who say they won’t vote for one of the three Dem candidates in the General election. Especially when they say it is because of particular issues that the Republicans are 1,000,000 times worse with. It’s not rational. Voting is strategy. It’s not some sort of spiritual affirmation of the candidate.

Go find your own playground to play in, please.

Is that an upswing rating because I think I’ve heard even more unfavorable ratings than that regarding Hillary….

Let’s be clear: if Mitt Romney is the nominee, then a 19th Century oak chiffaobe is more electable than him. Presidents on 24 are more three-dimensional and less cartoonish compared to Willard. Electability will not be an issue if he is the nominee.

But if it is McCain/Lieberman (mark my words), then there’s trouble in River City, kids.

I think that after the “Twin Clinton Attack” that has been waged on Obama, a lot of blacks believe that they have been duped by the Clintons and their supporters.

Its the same old same old about being good enough to push or pull the wagon, but not being good enough to ride in it.

That’s actually really funny.

Go Diane!

If you don’t like Democratic candidate X, consider that your alternative will be Republican candidate Y. You may not get everything you want from X, but you will get NOTHING you want from Y. Nothing.

The ship of State is listing hard to starboard and shipping water. You can choose which side of the ship to stand on, or you can hide in the bilge. Your choice.

I also saw all three candidates give their statement this evening and had a different reaction. Ideally, all DEMs and many Indys will support the Democratic nominee. However, Hillary and Edwards were stating a hopeful wish and Obama was making a truthful observation. No candidate can guarantee that their primary supporters will fall in line behind the nominee. Who is most electable and who can bring along the largest share of the Democratic Party and the Indys is a crucial question that needs to be addressed. I particularly thought Hillary was being arrogant when she clearly asserted that all DEMs would fall in line. That is simply not true, especially for her with her high negatives. Anyone that reads the blogs knows that ‘anybody but Hillary” is a frequent theme. Should Bloomberg enter the race if she is the nominee, the race is further complicated. We all want a DEM Administration, but counting on enough DEMs and Indys to support Hillary should be carefully analyzed.

So you’ll support a Republican candidate instead? I can read all the blogs in the world and never reach that conclusion.

I’m not saying there aren’t other reasons to oppose her, but because there is a lot of mysogyny and racism leading people to these decisions people have to be careful when making that argument that they aren’t unleashing dog whistle stuff.

I received an e-mail from an organization asking me to contact my senators and ask them to oppose telecom immunity. It included an e-mail to my senators for me to sign, which the organization would deliver to them. I decided to edit the pre-written e-mail and spice up the language a bit to emphasize the points I thought were important. Here is what I wrote:

“I am another one of your constituents opposed to immunity for telecommunications companies that broke the law and violated our privacy rights while helping the Bush administration illegally spy on millions of American citizens.

You know all the details about the telecoms’ involvement in the National Security Agency’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program. No doubt you have also heard arguments for and against immunity for the telecommunications companies.

I hope you have thought long and hard about the news reports detailing how some of the telecommunications companies cut off their wiretapping services when the government failed to pay its bills on time. This is a sure sign that their true motivation was profits, not protecting the nation.

I want to let you know that your constituents care deeply about the Constitution and are outraged when their privacy rights are violated — either by the government or by entities working with the government. When such violations occur, every entity involved should be expected to explain its actions in court. If you do not defend this principle, you are undermining the document that serves as the foundation of our nation.

So tell me, Senator: will you stand up to defend our Constitution, or cave in to the corrupt interests of the profit-motivated telecom companies while also shielding the lawbreakers in the Bush administration from the criminal liability that discovery in telecom lawsuits would surely expose? Please choose, instead, to support the Constitution and your country by opposing immunity for the telecommunications companies for their illegal acts.

(signed, neurophius)

Sure, but what matters is the dynamics of the campaign, how each candidate campaigns, and if you want to focus on negatives, what their negatives will be on November 2nd. It’s an unknown.

excellent letter, neuro

No candidate can guarantee that their primary supporters will fall in line behind the nominee.

Didn’t sound like a statement of fact to me. Sounded like a petulant child who would pick up his marbles & sulk off to home.

Let’s see…
All Gooper candidates are completely insane, save one, and he’s a brain-donor…
Versus Hil, Barack, John…
There is a difference, Ralph.

Say what you will, in a result oriented world, Obama sure looks like he’s running the best campaign …

He’s obviously embracing a tactic that succeeded for his mentor Sen Short Ride [I-Lieberman].

But hey – the Chicago machine pols have a long history of success at the polls in seeking office.

Sen Suited Smile [D-Rezko’s side yard] is blessed with an abundence of “results oriented” advisors.

yep

I hope you have thought long and hard about the news reports detailing how some of the telecommunications companies cut off their wiretapping services when the government failed to pay its bills on time. This is a sure sign that their true motivation was profits, not protecting the nation.

Rather amusing, eh? At least the NSA is still recording’em…! ;-)

’m really freakin’ tired of people who say they won’t vote for one of the three Dem candidates in the General election.

Me too. Obama is by far my least favorite but if he is the nominee, I will “pull the lever” with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. Ruin to the Thug Party!!

Good for you!

What happened to unity?

Hey Kirk, how’re you doing ?

Obama has popped off a few times like that now.

The other really bad one was the ‘likeable enough’ comment to Hillary.

Doesn’t sound hopeful to me.

-G

Back to the circular firing squad.

Obama made the electabiltiy argument inartfully. Instead of saying “I’m more electable in the general” he appeared to be saying “don’t vote for Hillary in the general.” But let’s face it, with Hillary Clinton, electability is an enormous consideration. She’s not going to win 60% in November. Alot of independent are not going to vote for her. There’s Clinton fatigue…etc.

Ditto my 63

Maybe you ought to read FDL.

Jane and other progressives boosted Ned Lamont to a primary win over JoeLie only to have Bubba and HRC give it back to JoeLie in the general.

Jane nailed it and she’s holding all three candidates to the identical standard:

Which is all the more reason for any Democratic candidate, when they’re making that argument, to say that they’ll do everything in their power to get their supporters to line up behind the eventual nominee, no matter the outcome.

Can’t really talk regarding other folks here but…

Just because I’m not in love with some of the other Dems on the potential prez dance card doesn’t mean I’m not going to vote for them if push comes to shove…

The very thought of McCain or Romney as a potentially serious consideration is beyond ridiculous…

I live in solid blue Maryland, which will go for Obama, Clinton, or Edwards no matter what. So I have a little luxury in knowing that my Presidential vote will not hold significant sway.

With that in mind, if Hillary and the disconcertingly more and more vocal former President keep up with their current anything-to-win strategy, I may take solace in writing in the Democrat I want to hold the office.

Who knows. What I do know is that if Hillary Clinton is the nominee and wins the general, then I am going to place every radio I own up on e-bay and clear every blog bookmark I have, because we are in for four or eight more years of the kind of House Divided nonsense bullsh*t we heard from the Right. It will make the 1990s look like a goddamned meeting of the local Optimists Club.

As we speak, right now, somewhere in the world, Matt Drudge is genitally engorged at the prospect of another Clinton presidency, as is Jonah Goldberg. And yes, they may in fact be in the same room, together, enjoying the…uh, the moment.

I’m in the camp of thinking Obama’s remarks are being overinterpreted — he’s saying he can get Republicans and independents to vote for him, whereas the “polarizing” Hillary won’t.

He’s having to be blatant about it, and about calling Clinton a liar, because… well, because Super Venti Tuesday is coming up, and he needs to make up a 10-15% gap in the polls nationwide.

Of course, Barack’s still being naive (or deceptive) to pretend that the same people who helped make the Clintons “polarizing” aren’t licking their chops to do the same thing to him if he’s nominated.

Hey! Nobody told me Rumsfeld left the Pentagon.

This was one of the major themes in one of Rumsfeld’s first post-Pentagon public comments at a conference today on network centric warfare sponsored by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement. According to Rumsfeld, the United States is losing the war of ideas in the Muslim world, and the answer to that, in part, is through the creation of this new government agency.

Another missed opportunity for the Democratic Leaderchimps.

-G

My motto is any D candidate is better than any R candidate. I don’t vote for R’s any more.

I think his ego is such that he actually believes the Republicans will vote for him. Appearing on the CBN, sending out Christian messaging campaign packets, Donnie McClurkin and Kirbyjon Caldwell; I would like to know what David Axelrod is smoking.

Who is most electable and who can bring along the largest share of the Democratic Party and the Indys is a crucial question that needs to be addressed.

Addressed how? There’s no objective measurement of such a thing. At most, there are only two categories: “Electables” like the top three and obviously “unelectables” like Gravel. But beyond that, it’s just a bunch of pointless squabbling among Democratic voters. Any of the top three could win or lose.

I will vote for whoever takes the strongest stand regarding FISA and other constitutional issues, because I think that corrupt congressional leadership and the executive branch are de facto destroying the constitution, or at least setting very dangerous precedents. So, looks like that will be Edwards, given that Dodd is out.

Regarding the Democraic presidential nominee… whatever. Any one of them would be a thousands times better than any possbiel GOP candidate. I never have, and do not know understand the personality cult aspect of presidental politics. I hate it. I will turn the channel when a ‘presidential historian’ shows up to nincompoop away on TV, that is how strong my aversion is.

For me, congress is vital. That is the most important race. We need an aggressive congress with many more and much better Democrats, who will kick out Reid and Pelosi and restore constitutional government.

Even the best president cannot fix the mess the current scum have gotten us into. It is simply impossible -not even within their ability to do so. Congress congress congress! That is what is important.

Any Dem is fine. And rather than ‘analyzing’ Clintons supposed negatives, more important to persuade your friends and family about the extreme danger presented by any one of the GOP candidates.

I think US voters should think more about platforms of ideas plans and proposals, and less about personality driven presidential politics, which I think is dangerous narcissstic nonsense, and contributes to liberal and progressive difficulties in elections.

Okay, does that mean these wiretappings could be traced from the ATT bill that wasn’t paid for?…..

After all the circular firing is done, who do want putting someone in the Supreme Court.. Any of the Democrats or any of the Republicans.

It’s a simple question.

-G

P.S. John Gibson is a dick.

But hey – the Chicago machine pols have a long history of success at the polls in seeking office.

Just ask Alice Palmer.

Institute for Defense and Government Advancement.

Sounds ominous to me, COG rules might be advanced around November… 8-(

Hi backatcha, petro – I’m well amidst the rain and cold.

How are you up in that lovely democracy?

Even the best president cannot fix the mess the current scum have gotten us into. It is simply impossible -not even within their ability to do so. Congress congress congress! That is what is important.

Any Dem is fine. And rather than ‘analyzing’ Clintons supposed negatives, more important to persuade your friends and family about the extreme danger presented by any one of the GOP

Exactly

I guess I worry that Obama always seem to have so much explaining to do… my initial reaction with this and the Reagan/party of ideas, etc. is just a gut-felt, “ICK!”

Excellent question… I wonder…?!

Well, sadly enough, I think that, objectionable as it may be, he’s up against that odious e-mail smear campaign and he has to convince a lot of low oxygen brains that he’s a Christian and not a head chopping Muslim.

It is pathtetic, but I am sure that is forwardmost in their minds with such egregious stuff.

-G

It’s cold outside but we’re well stocked with heating fluids … *g*

I agree with Jane that any Dem is better than any Repug, I just wish you had better choices … hint to Al Gore …

I do not think the location of the wiretap could be traced back from a non-paid bill (I could be wrong) but I think we could certainly get a count of the number of wiretaps not paid out of each billing office and then extrapolate that number to other billing offices that did not have wiretaps service cut off.

he’s saying he can get Republicans and independents to vote for him, whereas the “polarizing” Hillary won’t.

He can do it without using Republican talking points, even if those talking points are true!

I think US voters should think more about platforms of ideas plans and proposals, and less about personality driven presidential politics, which I think is dangerous narcissstic nonsense, and contributes to liberal and progressive difficulties in elections.

Ding!

If people want to make the choice that feels best, I’m all for it – when buying sex toys.

On candidates, I care about policies, not personality and frisson.

(Besides, I wouldn’t wannna sleep with a Senator anyway. They’re all skanky. Blergh. Lobbyist cooties.)

Howie at Downwithtyranny is a respected, high traffic blogger, who is often linked to approvingly by your Alpha frontpagers here at FDL.

yet he has said things like

There is no way to teach Democrats to vote in the interests of the grassroots unless the grassroots stand up and let them know there is a price to pay for perfidy.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspo…..crats.html

which is what I am saying. It is tripe to say you have to eat some rancid DLC meat, because the (R) offering is more rancid. As good mainstream American consumers, you know better than this, you have lots of choices in all markets except politics. They don’t own you, and they certainly won’t represent your interests much better than the (R)’s.

If H. Clinton launches a nuclear first strike against Iran, I wouldn’t want to have a vote for her on my conscience.

Second that.

I read his “hope” book. He’s actually kind of charming when he talks about his own background (didn’t read his memoir), and he’s certainly glib. As a graduate of a (girl’s) Ivy League, I’m used to that sort of thing, so am not impressed. (Simiarly Hillary, who often impresses other people with how smart she is.)

Hard to articulate what I find missing in Obama. Let’s try “soul.” Though that doesn’t quite capture it, there is some lack of passion evident in his kumbayah message. I don’t want an ideologue’s passion, either. But just don’t find anything there.

I also have a strong visceral dislike for Obama, for completely inarticulable reasons. But I am old enough to know that when I tag someone as a bad guy, I am almost always right. I have a sinking feeling that if Obama is the next prez, we will have many many regrets.

Petro, from your keyboard to Al’s ears.

Clinton had actually the only approval ratings over 50% back in September. No candidate had such high figures since. Her disapproval ratings were also high then. But these haven’t changed very much.

Other candidates had lower approval ratings and bigger question-marks….but also lower disapproval ratings. This was simply because a) not as many people knew about them, and b) fewer people had any strong feelings for or against them.

As the campaigns have trundled on the disapprovals for Obama and Edwards have increased. Obamas support has increased, but his disapprovals have too. Edwards has pretty much stayed the same, with a slight increase in disapproval, mainly from the previous undecideds. Hillary has lost support, while her dislikes remained high.

I suspect the latter was due to drift from previous soft supporters who went to other candidates, and might return. And there is likely a 10% group in this bunch who say they won’t support Obama or Clinton that will not vote FOR any of the Republicans.

In a sense that brings the dislikes down for Clinton and Obama as these folks are not going to jump TO the opponent in the General election. Sadly, this is why the “battle is in the middle” over those that might vote FOR you and NOT for a Republican candidate. That person is a +1/-1. A progressive who might be lost is a +1/0. The same is true whether the individual is a independent or Democrat. Thus if McCain can with over a voter from an Edwards, Obama, or Clinton it’s a loss for the Democrat and a net win for him. But if he loses a fundamentalist, it’s not a gain for the Democrats but simply a loss of a vote.

Obama will nominate a Supreme who will vote with the majority, in the interest of bipartisanship.

We, progressives, got one fricking U.S. Senator, Chris Dodd, to stand up against retroactive immunity.

We have to scratch and claw at the grass roots level. That’s where we can have the greatest impact.

We’re not going to get a Presidential candidate who is progressive. We’ll be making significant progress if the next President doesn’t try to further destroy the Constitution and also appoints reasonably sane Federal and SC judges.

Such a fine orator on some occasions, such a verbal stumblebum on others …

Mind, I’m yet another of the many around here who in this Nov. election would vote for a real live yellow dog on the Democratic line over any available Republican, let alone any of the actual candidates. That’s because I regard the situation of the country to be that dire, and the Republican party to be materially responsible for that fact. I just wish all of the Democratic candidates could agree on the same principle above all else, and try to motivate their followers likewise.

Please, lets keep our eyes on the prize. The White House. We in this home will vote for the nominee of our party (Democratic) and will support that nominee with all our might. Regardless of who that nominee is.

Goodnight. ;0)

As we speak, right now, somewhere in the world, Matt Drudge is genitally engorged at the prospect of another Clinton presidency, as is Jonah Goldberg. And yes, they may in fact be in the same room, together, enjoying the…uh, the moment.

Visual cortex bleach, STAT!

g’nite kiddo

Just because the bills weren’t paid doesn’t preclude the fact the intended ‘wires’ weren’t recorded by NSA, if the FBI was shut off, it doesn’t mean the NSA was…

55 gal drums of brain bleach are located near each entrance and exit to the lake. in addition, there are one gal jugs at each power strip station

I’m sorry Jane, but I cannot see myself voting for Hillary Clinton. Her and Bill’s actions in the past few weeks have solidified the uneasiness I have had since she announced about dynastic politics.

If Hillary wins the nomination, I have every intention of voting Green this year. I will vote my conscience rather than make the same political calculations I made in the past two elections.

I have been calling everyone who might know him, imploring them to convince him to run. He has put up a video in favor of gay marriage … stop teasing us and Run Al Run

Heck, I would come down there to volunteer for his campaign …

Okay all—time for tea and to wrap this up—great group you pups—stay safe and warm—

Good-nite all!

g’nite ticktock

The annoying thing about Obama — why his campaign has such a narcissistic tinge — is that so much of his message is based on self-congratulation.

He hasn’t proven jack about his ability to draw Republicans and independents AFTER the GOP launches a scorched-earth campaign to “redefine” him. (Remember how they took on John Kerry’s “war hero” image?) And he’s certainly not proving much right now about his ability to change the tone of the political debate.

Instead, he just says, “If you want these things, vote for me.”

Please, lets keep our eyes on the prize.

Excellent book and PBS series.it is sad that Juan Williams “sold out” to FOX.

Do you agree that if Hillary or Obama ran the kind of campaign Edwards has, that she/he would be in third place ?

If Hillary wins the nomination, I have every intention of voting Green this year. I will vote my conscience rather than make the same political calculations I made in the past two elections.

Heh, I’m of the opposite pole, and, I blame Shrub… I don’t rue my past votes of conscience since Gore and Kerry won my State handily, but, enough already…

I never have, and do not know understand the personality cult aspect of presidental politics.

I’m with you on that. My main motivation comes from seeing all the damage caused by the conservative movement and the Republican party. That party is an organized crime syndicate. The conservative movement is a total catastrophic failure across the board. Millions of people have been damaged, driven to desperation or killed by conservative extremists trying to remake the world in their image. Against that horrific backdrop, Clinton, Obama and Edwards make for an excellent alternative.

However, Hillary and Edwards were stating a hopeful wish and Obama was making a truthful observation. No candidate can guarantee that their primary supporters will fall in line behind the nominee.

Obama tends to make these “college professor” remarks of analysis. He did the same thing about Reagan being what Americans wanted (at that time)…new ideas. But it’s different being a professor, or discussing image-making with ones advisors, to presenting these publically as rationales of support. I think that the big issue is that Obama himself made no committment to the eventual nominee unless it was himself. What if Edwards or Clinton had made a similar statement without saying that they would support Obama.

Obama, by his statement and failure to express support for the eventually nominee, may have, in fact, created the very situation he was talking about. Alternatively, for those who REALLY want an end to the 8 years of Republican malfeasance and outright insanity, he may have lost the support of that element.

For whom are swing voters in swing states most likely to vote (assuming the voting machines haven’t been tampered with)? If you held a gun to my head I would have to admit it would probably be John McCain.

But ya see, Jane, he was asking whether his voters would support her. You (rightly) focused on the independednts. That’s why I think this is much ado about nothin’. BO asked whether his people will vote for her. I think probbaly as much as hers will for him. It’s not a big deal. Whether indedependents/non-voters/hardly ever voters will vote for HRC more or less than Obama is the much bigger question. I don’t agree with the “dog whistle” theory. Electability is always important and always discussed. As long as there are pollsters asking questions gthat relate to electability, people are always going to talk about it. Again, I’m sick of losing presidential elections. Damn right I care about electability.

We have to scratch and claw at the grass roots level. That’s where we can have the greatest impact.

Yep. That’s the only solution for having winnable prez candidates we don’t like, and a weak candidate we do like.

Voting green in protest is just repeating the Nader mistake of 2000 – those votes that went to Nader would have defeated boosh iirc.

Bull. That’s what primaries are for. Not general elections.

BTW the WH has renominated Steven Bradbury to run the OLC. This would be for the 3rd time. He has been the acting head for the last couple of years. I’m not sure his status as acting head is exactly legal. There are supposed to be limitations on that and I think he has exceeded them. Anyway, Bradbury is the guy who wrote two memos saying that it is only torture if it “shocks the conscience”. Good to see the Bush Administration reaching out to Democrats this way.

I’m thinking he’s gone all in on whatever his mysterious strategy is, he’s gotten rattled and now he is in the process of scorch-earthin’ himself…

whatever it is is not too appealing to us old timey Democrats…

The annoying thing about Obama — why his campaign has such a narcissistic tinge — is that so much of his message is based on self-congratulation.

He hasn’t proven jack about his ability to draw Republicans and independents AFTER the GOP launches a scorched-earth campaign to “redefine” him. (Remember how they took on John Kerry’s “war hero” image?) And he’s certainly not proving much right now about his ability to change the tone of the political debate.

Instead, he just says, “If you want these things, vote for me.”

Ding ding ding. We have a winner. Obama is completely unproved.

A lot of people who follow Congress closely, and the Clintons’ positions closely (Bill has taken to refer to the candidacy as “we” this week as he should), I know won’t vote for Hillary Clinton, and have had it with her husband’s trying to drag her over the finish line with hatchet jobs on Obama.

Clinton could be spending his time and his biggest bully pulpit megaphone in the world weighing in on the wiretapping bills, but he is mum on this, the way his 30 year old daughter has been mum on leave from her $150,000 grand Hedge Fund job for which she has no experience whatsoever.

She’s more of the worthless Congress we now have–and shares the same DNA as Harry Reid, the DNC, Pelosi, Hoyer, and Jello Jay, Kit Bond, Cheney, and Addington.

Clinton is a Bush ditto head when it comes to performance on every vote, and it’s why a lot of us won’t ever vote for her, and no we’re not voting Republican. We just won’t vote for her. We’d vote for Edwards. We hate the Republicans, and have followed their disintegration of the Constitution and this government closely. Bush has trashed nearly every agency including the DOJ and Clinton has helped.

And as far as standing up for the downtrodden, during Bill Clinton’s 8 years, two bills were passed to make it very difficult for poor inmates including African Americans to appeal their convictions. One was the AEDPA of 1996 Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton remained mum about the egregious foreclosure of civil rights that occurred when this happened but his chiefs at DOJ lobbied for this heavily, including Jamie Gorelick, who is currently lobbying for Telco/Comco immunity and participated in a number of coverups while on the 911 Commission.

A study by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York found that death-row prisoners bringing Federal habeas petitions succeeded almost 40 percent of the time in demonstrating that significant constitutional flaws undermined the reliability of their convictions or sentences. Many of those appeals are forbidden under the Clinton so-called anti-terror legislation, the group said. This legislation had next to nothing to do with preventing terror, but was designed to make it much more difficult for state and federal inmates to file habeas and other appeals.

Habeas, by the way, is hardly limited to feeing the body.

Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1996 when Clinton pushed this bill through Congress, said that gutting the habeas corpus provisions had nothing to do with fighting terrorism. He noted that most terrorists were prosecuted under Federal law and in Federal courts and that the provisions in the legislation would have their greatest impact on state prisoners, convicted under state laws in state courts.

… and we’ll never know how many people decided not to vote at all, after hearing Nader tear down Gore …

BooRdadley@94:
I agree. Grassroots action for state houses and Congress is the best hope. Problem there is that people hate legislatures in general but usually 51% think their own guy or gal aint so horrible. But this year is the opportunity to change that. Voters will be willing to vote no on their poor old slob, because things are going way down fast and he or she just aint cutting it.

The presonality and presidential fixation is worse than a distraction, it prevents us from talking about important issues about which most of the voters agree with us, and have a focused concentrated frame of mind, and very importantly, have a fresh memory of the exact nature and mechanism of GOP lies and scams. That last is very important. Many swing and ticket splitting voters know the anatomy of GOP lies, BS, smears, and talkingpoints inside and out, and they know it is all crap. They really really understand and know the con game and drill, and will be more resistant to it this year. That GOP lie, smear, wedge, scare machine is clearly running of fumes. Need to take advantage of that, focusing on Congressional races.

Obama tends to make these “college professor” remarks of analysis. He did the same thing about Reagan being what Americans wanted (at that time)…new ideas.

I don’t think he thought of himself as a professor when he made those remarks. He was seeking the endorsement of a right wing news paper editorial board.

If Obama does not win the Democratic nomination, perhaps he will form a new party (say, “Obamans for Obama”), claim to be an “independent Democrat,” and run against the Democratic nominee. Such things are not unheard of.

Only in swing states, particularly, FLA! Gore won the popular vote pretty handily, Suz!

I forgot to put in the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01…..ce.html?hp

If Hillary wins the nomination, I have every intention of voting Green this year. I will vote my conscience rather than make the same political calculations I made in the past two elections.

And if the Republicans win, that should be on your conscience as well.

He was seeking the endorsement of a right wing news paper editorial board.

Precisely one of his major prolems. What respectable D would WANT a right wing endorsement? There are no votes in the middle. Either go with the values you support or get out of the race.

KO rerun is starting now. I will watch.

LOL

Hmmm. Again Obama tells the truth and gets castigated. Many of the college students who went to Las Vegas to work for Barack witnessed caucuses run by open Hillary supporters, and house rules bent in her favor. They will never vote for Hillary. And some of them will not participate in our ‘democratic’ process again for a long time.

The way many young people see it, Barack inconveniently intruded on a staged election that was fixed long ago.

Alright!
I haven’t been able to see KO in a long time!

Fuck Bill O’Reilly.
Even my Dad finally agrees.
Heh, one down, millions to go.

It’s like saying “I vote for the man/woman not the party.” If you are a Dem you have certain things you believe in. If you vote for a Repub you are voting against your own ideals because if that person thought the way you do, he would be a Dem. Makes no sense to me.

I stopped listening for about a week. I recommend it. Read the sports page, comics, all kinds of stuff. But I don’t agree that this has reached the level of circular firing squad (yet). They’re critical of each other and usually about bullshit stuff and not issues. That’s frustrating, but hey, they are adversaries, after all. I think the Dem party will come out of its copnvention in good shape.

Damn, Idon’t remember Keith being so grey.

RIght you are about seeking the endorsement. However, I bet his standard defense in such situations is to say something like he was just being analytical. I bet those who’ve known him for a while knew it was coming.

Since many of us are Edwards’ supporters, we see exactly the things you mention that Obama supporters see. But we are old & wise enough to realize that any D is better than any R, and that in a winner-take-all political game, 3rd party votes are a vote against the lesser bad.

sporkovat January 23rd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
25
H. Clinton will never, ever get a vote or support from me, or others who remember how Bill Clinton ravaged his labor and environmental supporters.

_________________________

i do not doubt the sincerity of your convictions, but they represent the one way in which the Republican candidate can win in November. Karl Rove (remember him?) is certainly smiling and encouraged with your declaration.
i am not an expert on federal legislation and the environmental record of Bill Clinton but i find it extremely hard to believe that he caused more damage to the environment than the Reagan Administration. i am very sure that
he didn’t cause more damage than the Cheney Administration has caused.
politics is not a simple matter. you seem to offer no room for compromise. that’s a good way to get something worse than Hillary Clinton is likely to bring about.

another High Status Blogger, frequently linked to approvingly by front page Alphas at FDL is Glenn Greenwald, who says today:

Is there any remaining aspect of our government which Congressional Democrats haven’t damaged severely through their toxic, weirdly consistent mix of passivity and complicity — all in one short year of ostensible “control”?

why should a political faction that is complicit in so much damage to our country deserve such blind loyalty?

does the Constitution and the rule of Law and the principled opposition to State murder come before loyalty to some political party, or do you just do what the Party orders you to do?

A lot of people who sat out the 1968 election now regret that choice

no matter what President Humphrey would have been better than President Nixon

Just as any Democrat is better than any gooper
and I’ll bet that Fla Nader voters probably have a qualm or two as well

I think Al Gore would be our Fred Thompson. A saviour to alot of people. But he doesn’t want to do it and, if he ran, that would quickly show.

For a guy running on hope and a new type of non-divisive politics he sure is a jerk.

I was deeply saddened by the Obama-Hill/Bill meltdown… I thought John handled it well, and scored serious points for it… We do not need to prime the RNC’s pumps… 8-(

I’m an Edwards supporter and I’ll hold my nose to vote for either Hillary or Obama when the time comes (preferably Hillary). But I don’t have much of a problem with this statement of his, since it’s pretty much, you know, the truth. I take it to mean an admission by Obama that he is more like the Republicans, or at least like the Connecticut for Liebermans, than Hillary is.

The problem I see is not that he’s making sexist dog whistles. The problem is that he is overtly selling out to/appeasing/placatating the implacable Republican monster.

And sorry, I don’t think my anti-Obamaism is due to any residual racism on my part, since aside from his skin color and exotic name, his midwestern roots and the white side of his family seem to have produced a more caucasian demeanor than my own. I do not have any of the negative reactions to him that I sometimes have to black politicians like Marion Barry (my mayor for many years), Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. My negative reactions to him are the kind I have toward smarmy snakes like Joe Lieberman, Rahm Emmanuel, and even toward the Big Dog himself, Bill Clinton.

But if Obama would just show up in DC for a few days and help with the filibuster agains FISA, I would GLADLY take back anything bad I have ever said about him and proudly vote for him in the primary and the general. If he would just show some willingness to take actions instead of empty rhetoric against what is happening in this country I would be so enthusiastic and hopeful about next year (Same goes for you, Hilary). Until then, call me a cynic.

Nader won 97,421 votes in Florida. If 1% (974) of those had voted for Gore he would have defeated any of the spurious recount efforts.

I’m not sure why you object to the statement by Sen. Obama. It is becoming more true as the campaign presses on. Within my small community, Sen. Clinton was the prohibitive front runner. She was respected and had had the loyalty of a majority of those who were engaged. However, her attempt to drive up Sen. Obama’s after negatives after Iowa has become ugly. And that’s not a partisan observation, just a report of what’s happening. More than one formerly strong Sen. Clinton supporters have commented to me within the last 3 days, that they would not support her any longer win, lose or draw. (Politics is a hot topic of discussion these days) The conduct of this campaign is drawing more and more concern within the Democratic leadership and base among uncommitted and HRC supporters.

Sen. Obama will never be able to persuade some of these lost voters to vote for Sen. Clinton if she continues in the current manner. The Clinton’s have had the support and loyalty for many years of the majority of my small community. That support is eroding quickly with a bitterness I haven’t seen before. I doubt the campaign will become any less volatile, but I sure wish it would.

Nicely put.

Yep. Agree with every one of your points.

Anybody remember talking to Nader supporters back in 2000? They were fiercely passionate in their attacks on Al Gore. He wasn’t pure enough for them.

You can draw a straight line from those people who voted for Nader, which cost Gore the election, to the disaster in Iraq, the failure to confront global warming, tax policies favoring the rich, etc. etc.

If you get a chance, read the news item about the insurgent groups in Iraq.

The sand is running out of the Awakening Council hour glass real fast.

-G

I agree that he should only run if he’s 100% prepared for the barrage the other side would unleash.

Having said that, Gore is the one candidate who would get lots of people pumped up to canvass and volunteer for him, and I don’t just mean Americans !

A way-against-the-odds positive beats a sure negative.

I say this as someone Glenn would have trouble outranting on the subject of the current Congress, or frankly the Congress of most of the time since they got caught flat-footed enough to actually have to threaten to impeach Richard Nixon.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner. Obama is completely unproved.

Ding to the 5th power. We sure do. We have a lot of good reasons never to vote for Clinton. And we have no substantive reasons at all that she has proven competence legislating or doing anything else since she married the guy trying to drag her accross the finish line by hatcheting Obama. I see a lot of “Hillary is proven comments” but I don’t see anything substantive showing what she’s proven herself doing.
Clinton has proved to have no regard whatsoever for civil librties and Constitutional rights. She and her Siamese twin Bill, the desperate candidate for Co-President, have a track record in destroying civil rights.

Check out what your local New York bar association said when the Clintons passed the AEDPA which did nothing for terror, but foreclosed on the basic rights of appeal that were guaranteed by the Constitution, code sections, and case law.

Ding ding ding ding da ding ding.

And when the Clintons pushed this through, along with their leiutanant Jamie Gorelick at DOJ who is now lobbying for Telco Immunity and against Chris Dodd for money, Senator Clinton was mum despite her Yale law degree and a course in Constitutional law.

This bill did nothing whatsoever to protect anyone against terror although Anti-terror was what the “A” stood for. It did a ton to foreclose on appeals and has been condemned by Bar Associations and constitutional law professors all over the country.

Bill accepts Obama’s challenge and Obama weasels out.

Mr. Obama was asked at last night’s debate whether Mr. Clinton was “the first black president,” as Toni Morrison, the novelist, has said. Mr. Obama replied that he would first have to see whether Mr. Clinton can dance before calling him a brother. It was a brief moment of levity in a contentious slug-fest of a debate with Senator Hillary Clinton and former Senator John Edwards.

link

Obama’s handlers were nearly ready to meet with Clinton to discuss the possibility of bonus points when Clinton was spotted practicing at Le Pied Chaud Studio in Charleston.

“My God, the man was on fire,” said June Renault, an instructor at the studio. “He said he wanted to learn a few new steps, but truth be told, he already knew more than I did, so I said he should just work with what he has. I mean, I put on ‘Funky Cold Medina’ and he just mopped the floor with me.”

Obama released a statement this afternoon saying that he was far too busy to dance, and besides “it wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of an old man.”

link

It’s like a cat playing with a mouse. The Thugs will mop the floor with him unless he “shapes up” very quickly.

LOL. Front page alphas.

As someone who has pinned hopes on HRC when she first ran for senator, and only to watch her make sure that the only people that mattered in her district, were Republicans in Upstate New York.
People in the Bronx never saw her and any significant announcement that she had to make, was made in the Republican district Upstate New York.. She simply courted them at every given opportunity.

You seem to be really pissed at the “Alphas” at FDL. So why the hell are you here? How about you go find another playground?

I’m not blindly faithful to the Party, which is why I support running many of these boobs out of town in primary elections. Reid should be pushed out of the leadership.

More and better Democrats.

I don’t like Hillary either.

But I fear Obama would be worse.

Stupid thing for Obama to say. And Yes, those southern boys can dance.

We do not need to prime the RNC’s pumps

We aren’t helping the Thugs one bit. They have volumes already written on Obama/Rezko.

Absolutely!

Nader voters should hang their heads in shame. Every day. IMHO, of course.

I do feel that Clinton can be grating, and sometimes I wince when she is stridently making a point,I wish she would tone it down. And I have no doubt she will cut corners in caususes. Like… that is unusual? But I really do not give a rats ass about it. Obama can come off as narcissistic and he is too vague. Edwards has consistency issues -it is weird to hear him explain how seems like every one of his Senate votes was a mistake. They also pull classless stupid petty high school election tricks when the country’s form of government is in danger.

But who gives a shit… they are humans. Actually, no, in many ways we normal-er people would probably find them all to be complete horses asses. But who fricken cares? I wonder how many of us would do better in similar circumstances.

And think about Romney, McCain, Huck… man, what can you say. We all have to take the lead with wavering voters we know personally and explain some basic facts about the choices facing us. We complain about leadership, we have to show some leadership in persuading people we know about what is the best thing to in November.

And then, again, I truly believe that there is rottenness that only a better Congress can fix. No president can restore Congress’ ability to do its job and assert its rights and live up to its responsibilities. Congress has to be full of people who want to do that.. THat is why I think a new and better Congres is essential, more essential than which Dem gets the presidency.

Stupid thing for Obama to say.

Seems to be a pattern.

More and better Democrats Progressives.

I wish…! *g*

Speaking of “moral consciousness” that Edward mentioned on KO…

The level of consciousness of the public on the current wiretapping bill is so low that it never occurred to KO to ask Edwards what he’s doingor the other candidates, to defeat Telco immunity. That’s a testament to the Telco lobbyists who are huge contributors to Clinton.

And we wonder why it goes so swimmingly in Iraq and why the economy is in such good hands and the constitution Bruce Fine goes on about is protected by such as these…”the best and the brightest”. Why one would think that Edward’s strategy is to get name recognition all the while waiting for Wyatt and Calamity to shoot it out on Main at High Noon and he stands there and shrugs his shoulders and says “Gosh, guess its me after all.” Then someone else might think it’s the Village idiots once again with their far sighted, down the road, best for the party and country thinking…nahh, go have a beer.

Around Thanksgiving everyone was united in their disgust with George Bush. And now internal bickering is the order of the day. I like Edwards the most of the Big 3, but there’s no doubt that my November vote is for the Democratic nominee, because it will be a vote against the Republican train wreck.

But why show up in Washington just to vote “present’?

You can be pissed at the alphas and still hang out. lotsa people here besides the alphas have opinions worth liostening to and considering.

Stick around sporkovat.

And then, again, I truly believe that there is rottenness that only a better Congress can fix. No president can restore Congress’ ability to do its job and assert its rights and live up to its responsibilities. Congress has to be full of people who want to do that.. THat is why I think a new and better Congres is essential, more essential than which Dem gets the presidency.

Certainly something that needs to be rectified is the current batch of do nothings and give the farm away bastards we scream at almost daily.
Come November I fully expect to hear the mourning keen of millions of 28%’ers.

we have two choices:

1. Democratic President

2, Republican President

make a choice. there isn’t anything else. work for the choice you think is best. if you do anything else you give up the only choice you have.

For a guy running on hope and a new type of non-divisive politics he sure is a jerk.

Ouch!

I think the problem is, that even if Obama does not win the nomination in the end, he is now one of the senior leaders of the Democratic Party. And he does not yet seem able to say that first and last, his efforts of persuasion will be for the party’s nominee, whether that be he or someone else.

That lack of recognition would be difficult at any time for those who believe in party loyalty. I am not one of those, though I consider myself a Democrat. However, that lack in this time also raises the question of whether Sen. Obama is fully engaged in the historical moment of the country whose President he seeks to be. That moment seems to be so dire as to overshadow much that is important to us in normal times. Since one of his great connections to us in the public is through speech and oratory, it would be reassuring to hear some acknowledgement of this criticality that seems to flow naturally from him as a person.

Now that I have used the word criticality in a sentence, I must stop before my computer explodes.

You go to an election with the party you have, not the one you wish you had. Ah, the good old days of Rummy.

More and better Democrats Progressives.

I wish…! *g*
reply

I was thinking about “progressive” today. I am getting tired of the term; we are just admitting that the wingnuts are right and Liberal is a dirty word. Those Libruls in the Democrat Party…fuck the wingnuts.

zactly. Me too.

once again an outbreak of Naderitis. Here’s the medicine:

So Al Gore was the choice of Florida’s voters — whether one counts hanging chads or dimpled chads. That was the core finding of the eight news organizations that conducted a review of disputed Florida ballots. By any chad measure, Gore won.

Click for Printable Version

Gore won even if one doesn’t count the 15,000-25,000 votes that USA Today estimated Gore lost because of illegally designed “butterfly ballots,” or the hundreds of predominantly African-American voters who were falsely identified by the state as felons and turned away from the polls.

Gore won even if there’s no adjustment for George W. Bush’s windfall of about 290 votes from improperly counted military absentee ballots where lax standards were applied to Republican counties and strict standards to Democratic ones, a violation of fairness reported earlier by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Put differently, George W. Bush was not the choice of Florida’s voters anymore than he was the choice of the American people who cast a half million more ballots for Gore than Bush nationwide.

and

So let’s get this straight. If all of Florida’s “undervotes” are counted and a standard of “clear intent of the voter” is applied – including perforated ballots and those with indentations in more than one race, indicating a malfunctioning voting machine – Al Gore won the state by 299 votes.

If a more liberal standard – counting all ballots with an indentation only on the presidential race – Gore’s victory margin increases to 393 votes.

In a different age, the Miami Herald’s lead might have been:

“Gore won Florida if all undervotes are counted.”

from http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/040501a.html

Citizens of the USA are free to vote their consciences, ferchrissakes.

Guilt trips about Nader in 2000 are not on point. Where was Nader in 2004? Those elections were stolen, and that didn’t bestir the (D) team to take meaningful action, just as nothing will make them restore the damage BushCo has done.

It looks like mouth breathing closeted sociopath Mike Wiener Savage is starting to bleed advertisers.

How anyone would put him on the air is beyond me.

-G

Sorry, Dude! Won’t go there… I have no such qualms… However, I shall now vote Dem period! Fortunately, the down ticket for me is pretty impressive… *g*

Hopefully whoever comes out on top of the Dem primary will no longer resort to petty attacks and distortions and be able to simply and straightforwardly hammer the R nominee on the merits of major policy positions alone.

For a guy running on hope and a new type of non-divisive politics he sure is a jerk.

Ouch!

lisadawn has been on fire today.

Sorry,I don’t believe any progressive who says they won’t vote for Hillary in November.
You are either not a true progressive or you are posturing.
I understand you may dislike the Clintons, but how do you feel about Ginsburg and Breyer as compared to Roberts and Alito?

I’ll have some of that, pass it over ‘ERE

Do you really think that Obama would “hammer” the Rs. His raison d’etre is that we can all get along.

So, what exactly is Obama going to do about it?

OT..Another thug bites the dust..

NY-25: Jim Walsh to Retire

link

Obama is not only a fine orator, but he’s a master rhetoritician. He wasn’t “stumbling;” he knew exactly what he was saying.

What bothers me about him is he often uses that talent to give subtly snarky, almost cruel, comments, such as when he said to Hillary “You’re likeable enough.” On the face of it, not bad….you had to see it. And when he said, at the last debate when talking about the real historic election, he began okay, but then ended with “an African-American, a woman, and….John.” Again, this was the truth, but it was unnecessarily mean.

That said, I think any one of our Democratic candidates are light years better than any Republican. I don’t vote to make a statement; I vote to elect someone. Obama is actually my #3 choice, but I’ll vote for him willingly should he win the nomination. Until then, I’ll vote for my first choice in the Maryland primary.

I’m with you.
I feel like we’re in a war zone and a terrible epidemic has broken out. Finally, medical supplies arrive! Yay! But wait, the doctors are all arguing over which antibiotic is best. Hey, someone’s dying over here! People are dying…

I am not pissed at the alphas, they are linking approvingly to the sources I am citing!?!?! I’d wager I’ve been around longer than you anyway, but that has nothing to do with the points I was making.

have you found a bumper sticker that says “my Country, Love it or Leave it” ?

sounds like you get a lot of your thinking from bumper stickers.

Stupid thing for Obama to say. And Yes, those southern boys can dance.

A lot of people thought it was an honest, intelligent thing for him to say.

Bill, one half of the the hatchets of the Siamese Clinton twins, has said a number of stupid things this week, and the music both Clntons dance to is the music of large companies.

Corporate Dance Partners for the Two-Headed Clinton Monster Tag Team

So,
Vote Nader: Because we got away with it the last time?

Sorry,I don’t believe any progressive who says they won’t vote for Hillary in November.
You are either not a true progressive or you are posturing.

It is a very good thing for Clinton to doubt our loyalty. What’s she going to do to win it? Will she show up and stand beside Senator Dodd to defeat the telcos, who are led by her advisor Jamie Gorlick?

Re Obama’s voting present, the Illinois State House is run largely by the party leaders. Individual members have little power. The politics are byzantine. So on the one hand voting present can be seen as an acceptable voting tactic. But it is still important to remember that the purpose of this tactic is to weasel out on an issue.

Holy hell. Will there be any Republicans left in Congress to turn the lights off at the end of the day?

One can always hope so… ;-)

Obama is not only a fine orator, but he’s a master rhetoritician.

Do you want a prez whose claim to fame is that he makes a good speech? We had Gov. Cuomo in NYS, who made a great speech but was pretty medicocre as an executive.

why should a political faction that is complicit in so much damage to our country deserve such blind loyalty?

does the Constitution and the rule of Law and the principled opposition to State murder come before loyalty to some political party, or do you just do what the Party orders you to do?

uhhh – when the Dem Nominating Convention came to LA in 2000, I was on the committee that bottom-liined organizing the convergence space for the anti-DNC protests.

I co-coordinated the medical care for the protests/convergnece space – and was the designated “go to” person when the CDC got a false report about food poisoning in our kitchen.

I despise (and despised) Clinton’s triangulation and the forests it killed. I despised (and despise) Gore’s role in gutting Kyoto.

As a Californian, I knew I could vote Green and not tip the state to Bush.

And I was right.

And I told my “liberal” West LA friends who looked askance at the DNC protests that the Dems and Rethugs were equally bad.

And I was so forkin’ wrong.

From my perspective, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama all suck.

As much as they suck, I want one of them to win instead of a Rethug.

Not beacuse of what the gucci’d K Street ho’s that pass as Dem leders say.

But ’cause I’ve seen the Rethugs destroy us faster than those three will.

[Personally, I’d like Kucinich (in most ways), proportional representation, and a majority Green government. ANd I think that - if the corporatist “leaders” don’t destroy the nation/planet - I’ll live to see the latter two.]

OK Jane. Look at the title of this post and what you are actually saying. :)

Okay, I didn’t really see anything wrong with what Obama said. He’s not saying that his base supporters won’t vote for Hillary. He’s saying that, in the general election, he has a better chance of attracting the 5-10% of the voters at the middle of the political spectrum that have decided the last few elections. I don’t really see that as a terribly controversial statement.

Obama insists that he delegates well.

Honest and intelligent? I think not. It was rude and unnecessary. You don’t just say someone is old and expect to be taken as a compliment. Obama may be younger but he surely is not smarter than the Big Dog.

David Brower, founder of the Sierra Club and the Earth Island Institute, ought to qualify as a progressive, and he says:

Having fought for the environment for more than 50 years, I see planet Earth as not only our father and mother but also as our child, demanding our care and nurture. Neither of the major parties comprehends the seriousness of this responsibility.

http://www.earthisland.org/eij…..rnalID=507

many, many thousands who take their politics seriously could never support another Clinton.

http://powerofnarrative.blogsp…..pport.html

You go to an election with the party you have, not the one you wish you had. Ah, the good old days of Rummy.

I know where the Democrats stand too. They stand east, west, south and north somewhat.

Just like W!

I am as confident as a Chritian holding four that there is a better chance of her showing up for this fight than McCain.

Hi all and Jane. I’m just in from work, school, music and see where they have rushed the fisa bill to the floor? Today? huh? Thought that was for Monday? Sorry, I’s behind *blush*

On topic: Obama’s voters are strong against Hillary. Make no mistake, he is the anti Hillary vote. He’s just less likely, slightly, to get lieberman as a running mate. I like the man, though I need to see what he’s going to do regarding the status quo.

I will vote for John Edwards and then that’s it. If Obama secures the nomination, I will vote for him because I’ll be left no choice. If hillary is the nominee, I will not vote that line on the ballot. If that nullifies my entire ballot …… well, the DNC should have realized their insanity by promoting her so heavily. I will not vote to go backwards. Forward only in my life. Its a core value.

Andrew Sullivan, who I’m pretty sure you’ll bang outta the park on this, had a poll today “Are We electing Bill Clinton to a Third Term?”…… 65% says YES. And I agree. The public is electing Bill Clinton to a “Third Term”.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlan…..-back.html

I don’t know if Obama voters would pick clinton as second. I only wish there had not been the pre-voting buzz creation every where. I think its unstopable at this point. But ya never know…… I have hope that people wake the fuck up soon. Very soon :-)

John Edwards is veteran of the swift boat attack, which he would have handled differently. He’s a veteran of the entire process. Of the three, I know he could and will drive the 27%ers over the edge of their flat earth. I’m in for that fight.

Do you really think that Obama would “hammer” the Rs. His raison d’etre is that we can all get along.

You betcha we do. We really do. And a lot more effectively than the two-headed Clinton monster. Clinton is the one who has been voting for everything Bush has dictated. It’s on the record. The Clintons (since they are now officially “we” in this run, also pushed hard to curtail basic federal and state appellate rights, disgusing the Constitutional foreclosure as an Anti-terrorism bill. By the way it was denounced by Dodd and Biden, Feingold, and Kennedy.

Details, details. I know they get burdensom.

Yup!

As much as they suck, I want one of them to win instead of a Rethug.

Not beacuse of what the gucci’d K Street ho’s that pass as Dem leders say.

Both Clintons learned the same lesson in 1980..”Ideas don’t mean shit if you can’t win”..cynical but basically correct.

Kirk: respect to your points, experience, and tone. This is someone of sound judgement who has diligently come to his own conclusions.

My advocacy is basically against unthinking devotion to anointed (D) candidates.

Signing off, to the relief of multitudes.

I just want to say this about the Democratic candidates and their campaigns so far.

They know what they’re doing, and they’re doing a terrific job. And it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They’re also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that’s what’s going to happen here.

I wont vote for either Clinton or Obama if they dont join the filibuster on FISA. they will be dead to me.

Yea Margot,
You go girl! This was very clever.
Chris

Both Barack and Hillary are boomers — they differ by 13 years. It’s not that big a difference.

They know what they’re doing, and they’re doing a terrific job. And it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.

Hugh, this sounds very Rummy to me. I’m very surprised at you. *g*

Regarding some of the discussion of how Obama or Clinton are revealing weaknesses through their banter and clumsy (or rude, or clever, or whatever) jokes and snarks: it means nothing. We know the GOP gameplan is to construct a narrative to attack everything about a candidate. It makes no difference at all what the candidates do, it will be turned into attacks that are either vicious, or silly, depending on your frame of mind.

I think better to try to persuade and educate people you know on the issues and tactics of the GOP.

I don’t have to worry about supporting a ‘corrupt’ or ‘naive’ Democratic candidate, for two reasons. First, as several commenters above have said -you cannot escape responsibility for helping either a Dem or GOP candidate win in Novermber. And second, is my belief that Congress is more important. We need a Congress that is strong enough to stand up to a McCain or a Romney and their GOP partners in crime. If they can do that, they can stand up to whichever jerk Democratic candidate wins.

Hear! Hear!

*gentle reminder*
disagree about the message but insulting another commenter may result in your comments being removed from the thread.

I beg to differ. Those 13 years are a gulf of difference. Lessons learned from VN & the 60s.

My advocacy is basically against unthinking devotion to anointed (D) candidates.

Signing off, to the relief of multitudes.

That’s not true, on either…

Honest and intelligent? I think not. It was rude and unnecessary. You don’t just say someone is old and expect to be taken as a compliment. Obama may be younger but he surely is not smarter than the Big Dog.

I think he is smarter, and I’d be happy to pull up Clinton’s rude, attrocious, and totally unnecessary remarks towards Obama–or recent remakrs of both of the Siamese twins if you’d like.

This thread requires popcorn. Shall I make enough for everyone?

And winning doesn’t mean shit if you must become what you were fighting against to win. “What does it profit a man…”

Okay, I seem to be in the minority here, but I think Obama is doing the best he can given the situation he’s in. He’s being tag-teamed by Bill and Hill. Bill is one of the shrewdest politicians of all time. Hillary is one of the smartest. The media may spin them as a disgraced albatross and a robotic shrew, but it simply isn’t the case. (And I think it’s more than a little petulance, since the two of them have made the media look like fools so many times.) Obama’s handling of Bill’s dance challenge was the best he could do. I have no doubt that Bill really would have shown up and danced, and Obama would have come out looking worse for the exchange. He threw a back-handed compliment and moved on. It’s all he could do. Sending his wife out to dance against Hillary wouldn’t have worked, even though it would have clearly illustrated his complaint that he’s running against two people instead of one.

Why are all of you Hillary haters so afraid of a balanced budget and a thriving economy like we had in the 90’s?? I made a lot of money back then because the stock market was stable and jobs were plentiful. We had sound environmental policies and were well respected around the world. During natural disasters, FEMA was actually well-organized and under the competent leadership of James Lee Witt. I don’t understand where all this hatred towards Hillary is coming from. Don’t you think both Obama and Edwards piss me off at times too?? But I know they’re both good people—as are Hillary and Bill.
If all of you people are miffed at Hillary because you think she’s being harsh with Obama NOW, then you better get ear plugs and a blindfold in case he wins the nomination—because you ain’t seen nothin’ yet from the Republican camp. My favorite line is from someone who posted a possible McCain ad, “I was a POW while Obama was snorting!!” And isn’t Rezko suppose to go to court Feb. 25th? That should be the Obama White Water. Let’s face it, none of the candidates are perfect. If Edwards was the front-runner the line would probably be, “I was a POW while John Edwards was getting his hair styled.” And Feingold has a list of things Edwards voted FOR, before he was against them. Well, I’m for Hillary, but I like all the candidates. Everytime I see them debate, it’s hard to hate any of them.

So far as what Sen Suited Smile (D-Chicago Machine) said…

Pretty audacious to write about hope -

and despair of convincing your Dem supporters to vote Dem.

If Obama can’t persuade his own supporters to go for Dem plicies, why does he think he could persuade the Rethugs?

one fo the things that bothers me about the Telco lobbying and contributions is just how LITTLE it costs to buy one of these senators. I mean they sell out for less than half a million, sometimes a lot less.
these Companies have ad and lobbying budgets in the hundreds of millions prolly combined billions and these freaks roll over for low six figures.
As i said, if clinton and obama get rolled on the fillibuster and dnot join Dodd, Kerry, Kennedy, Boxer, et al. they will be dead to me.
I could not vote for them.

I like this Rachel Maddow, smart,witty and 180 degrees from normal TV,
more like this please

Okay, I seem to be in the minority here, but I think Obama is doing the best he can given the situation he’s in.

He can certainly do better than praising Reagan’s impact and the GOP for their ideas.

Please do.

(And I think it’s more than a little petulance, since the two of them have made the media look like fools so many times.)

That is a very good point!

Dead Bang Right, OldCoastie …

OldCoastie at 82

I guess I worry that Obama always seem to have so much explaining to do… my initial reaction with this and the Reagan/party of ideas, etc. is just a gut-felt, “ICK!”

That was the overwhelming impression of Barack Obama that I came away with at the S.C. debate: The guy looooves the sound of his own voice and he is always on the defensive … parsing his replies, over-explaining.

Obama went on and on and on and on, slicing and dicing his explanations on

(1) Rezko the Chicago Slum Lord and Racketeer whose trial starts Feb 25, barely 3 weeks after SuperTuesday. And no matter how much Obama greases it — it was just a widdle non-profit church defense by a widdle bottom-of-the-totem pole lawyer recently emitted from Harvard Law — there’s still the matter of ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS that Rezko and his buddies gave to Barack Obama after 1995. Was that for alms for the poor?

And does Barack really think we won’t ask about the 168K nor that the Repukes won’t start another war with that info?

(2) Obama droned me to tears with his parsing explanation to John Edwards about Obama’s MORE THAN 100 “Present” votes in his elected capacity … so no one can accuse him of having a Yay or Nea position on ANYTHING. How squishy and kumbaya is that?

(3) And that was after the staged Roman Bread and Circuses scrapping over whether or not Barack liked Ronnie Alzheimer’s Reagan. Or not.

I told an Obama supporter friend of mine — somebody has got to tell Barack to shut the f*ck up. Nobody wants to listen to his defensive droning. It’s starting to creep the Normals out, cuz they are not hanging on every nuance of this election.

So this is just more dreck on the BO pile — but but but I wasn’t saying I’m the only electable one; no no no, let me finish boring the crap outta you cuz I really wasn’t saying I would not support the Democratic nominee … even if I used those words. STFU, Barack.

beg to differ. Those 13 years are a gulf of difference. Lessons learned from VN & the 60s.

Hillary was 10 years old when the summer of love went down. What the hell did she know of the sixties?

I think Rudy is following in his overblown footsteps. He’s down to third place and even with REv. Goody Chucklenuts.

-G

P.S. I say we skip Iran and go right into Pakistan.

Let me make this clear. I will not vote for Hillary Clinton. I will not vote for any Republican. I know many people across my state and the nation who will choose the same as me. Most are registered as Democrats. This is not a luxury or self-serving decision. It is about justice, peace, and democracy. It is about integrity.

One only has to study history to see the dark side of our nation, under Democrats and Republicans, in terms of imperial goals and willingness to fill the pockets of corporations at the expense of human carnage. The neocons and the “Bush Doctrine” only enthroned the shadow side of the U.S. that was gaining in power and in doing so has laid bare just how much we have moved away from any moral legitimacy and into the despicable.

Choosing Democratic leaders that will not lead us away from the moral morass we are in, will only lead us further to the right. So I and others believe. While it can be argued well that the Republicans are worse, voting for Clinton essentially means, to me, there will be no real opposition party in the U.S. There is hardly one now. I believe in compromises to a point.

If a candidate will not move us away from war, away from prostituting ourselves at the altar of corporate greed and the forces that desire domination, away from an obscenely bloated military budget that takes money needed for human and ecological needs, then we will not change.

Many of us believe the only hope is in putting out the voice that we must unite for a change in direction, and I mean change.

The challenge for those who keep insisting that we rally behind the Democratic nominee is to decide how to deal with this movement of conscientious voting like mine. You will not get anywhere by slandering us. It is you that must move, must organize with us, for that change.

Obama, if he is insightful, might have some inclination that there is a constituency that will not be swayed by his or anyone’s appeal for unity behind the nominee. Those days are over. No more sick pep rallies. The issues are far too serious.

No candidate who supports war should get any of our votes.

Who represents my views the best? Dennis Kucinich. His positions are what most Democrats, and many in this country, share. Next I go to John Edwards for challenging the corporate horde. Obama might bring some change, though he equivocates too. But Clinton. No way. Neither Kucinich, Edwards, or Obama, could dictate my next vote. I will vote outside the two parties. Maybe the Libertarians will put Ron Paul on the ticket.

Will I listen to others who wish to change my mind? Yes, I will and I have. Respectful dialogue and cogent reasoning, based upon justice, are essential. Appealing to me out of fear will not.

I am committed to the long struggle.

Peace,
lhkfreecitizen

I agree.

I find Obama very shallow and disappointing. He seems to have borrowed Giuliani’s 911 strategy: a verb, an adjective and 911. In Barack’s case, it’s verb, an adjective, and “Hope”.

If he wins the nomination and goes on to take the White House, I more than suspect his administration will likewise be based on Hope.

He and his staff will hope he can manage the country, hope he can manage foreign policy, hope he can manage the economy, all while he, the hoper-in-chief, hopelessly refuses to view bills, reports, white papers, intelligence estimates and other vital printed matter until 2 seconds before he thinks he needs them “because I might misplace them.”

Frankly, I think he’s even now giving “Hope” a bad reputation. I just hope he doesn’t cause it to be deleted from the dictionary.

I’ll take salt but hold the butter. Thanks.

I was down for an Edwards/Kucinich ticket at one point until kuch said he’d have ron paul as his vp……. no. I don’t give a damn how much other sense he made, once he said he’d ligitimize ron paul, forget it. I like ron paul only to stick it to the pubs in their primary. Other than that he’s off the beam.

I’m pretty please to be FOR a candidate. That feel good. I don’t want to have to spend my vote any other way. I wish you luck in your choice.

btw, gore is over, the past. He as much as handed this shit to bush with his non-fighting self. I voted for Gore and I was never more astonished that he would not fight for us in that moment that mattered. We all see now how that moment mattered. Huge. I’m very supportive of gore in the business sector as that’s where we need him most right now. He can make a difference in our re-direction from a war/hate/bombs based economy to sustainable environmental lives and businesses. It will matter. In this election, if he comes out for hillary though, I will never support a single thing he does or says. He’ll have sold us out again.

:-)

Read the black blogs. I think Obama said what he said because he knows that after the stunt the Clintons pulled, many, many blacks won’t vote for her if she wins the nomination AND he endorses her in the general. You all don’t know how people feel. It’s personal with a lot of them, because they feel they’ve seen something they’ve seen many times, just from a completely unexpected source. That “something” is the feeling that no matter how good (in the sense of both competence and morality) a black person may be, in the end, he/she will still be treated like a n****r. At this point, many feel as if they can’t vote for the Clintons AND retain their self-respect. There’s even some wishful speculation about a possible Bloomberg/Obama ticket.

She was gun running for Castro, dealing dope and had her own abortion clinic at that age.

-G

Why are all of you Hillary haters so afraid of a balanced budget and a thriving economy like we had in the 90’s??

Honestly? I’m just sick and tired of political dynasties. I don’t want to have another President Clinton and then another President Bush. I’d like to go back to the idea that anyone can be President, not just relatives of previous Presidents.

sure, I’ll take some popcorn eCAHN…

She was born in 1947. Was the summer of love in 1957?

Some Soviet secret police boss said “Give the person and I will give you the case you want” That is the GOP method. They are probably trying out different angles on all three of them on focus groups already. So, I will sign off with last warning that trying to parse and devine the realtive strengths and weakness the candidate reveal through minor tactical skrimishes in the primary is futile. It all means nothing. It doesn’t make any difference whether Obama, for instance, is naive fool, or cynical jerk, or more polished Gore choirboy type. The GOP will construct a narrative that they can sell and think will damage, and whatever he does will be spun to fit that attack. Same for Clinton, same for Edwards.

Popcorn’s ready. Hold out your bowls.

Okay, but not that microwave stuff……. lots of butter please, no salt ;-)

An early adapter?

-G

If Obama can’t persuade his own supporters to go for Dem plicies, why does he think he could persuade the Rethugs?

Obama has persuaded us to go for Dem policies, that’s why we’re not voting for Clinton. She’s been supporting Republican policies consistently for years, and she’s owned by large corporations like CitiCorp and the Telcos.

Many of Bill’s major players at DOJ are now lobbyists for the Telcos.

The voters that will be repulsed at the Rethug record aren’t going to be the Ditto Head Rethugs or Dems in Congress that are ushering Telco Immunity through. They’re going to be the undecided and Rethugs who aren’t the lemming Evangelical base.

The Clinton Administration was then. This is now. Iraq, the War on Terror, the Bush Administration, the subprime meltdown, the War on the Constitution happened. And during all of that where was Hillary Clinton? She was, like many Democrats, by turns silent or complicit. But she had a stature which many of those Democrats lacked so her responsibility is greater.

Yummy!

extra butter please and thank you eCAHN

I think Hillary was born in 1947 or 48, making her 20 years old in 1968. Obama was 7, or thereabouts.

beg to differ. Those 13 years are a gulf of difference. Lessons learned from VN & the 60s.

Hillary was 10 years old when the summer of love went down. What the hell did she know of the sixties?

If she was born in 1947, she was more like 20.

If I bring smor’s, can I come sit on your couch?
Christine

mmmmmmmmmmm…. good stuff!!! Reeeeeeeal buttah!!! You rock! ;-)

Never do microwave popcorn. Besides the fact that my son cooked my microwave 15 years ago & I have never replaced it, it takes exactly 4 minutes to microwave it, and 4 minutes to do it properly. The choice is obvious.

The 90s were not so good for workers displaced by NAFTA. Unlike you, I made no money, nor did any of the middle class and blue collar folks I knew. A lot of this is just bullshit mythology. Bill lied to the unions, saying he would oppose NAFTA, and then became with Rubin, its biggest booster. That with WTO really accelerated the state of the current account. For a good account read Jeff Faux’s Global Class War. Bill pushed Reagan’s hatchling to the end when he could have authentically pursued health care. I’ll never forget, and I know exactly whose interests he is promoting. The Clintons are masterful politicians but transparent opportunists. Bill was so good that he could make you believe he was not inserting the knife you could see with your own eyes (let’s throw single welfare moms in the streets – yeah, that’s good policy). HRC is not nearly so good. Just wait and see.

Hillary was 10 years old when the summer of love went down. What the hell did she know of the sixties?

I am a few years older than Hillary..I think for most areas of the country the 60’s happened between ~’68 and ‘76.

Hillary was 10 years old when the summer of love went down. What the hell did she know of the sixties?

Hillary was born in 1947. She would have been 19 during the summer of love in 1967. She would have been old enough to know plenty of what happened during the 60s.

And where was Obama? Making nookie with LIEberman?

spewing popcorn – dayam, i need more popcorn now

You funny.

Hey Chris!

Plenty left. Hold out your bowl again.

sure, come on over… but you’ll have to push the 2 giant dogs – who seem to think they are LAP dogs tonight – off…

‘course, they will do just about anything for a cookie…

I didn’t think she was that young … so that shr might knmow something of the Summer of love

Late I know, but so much to read…

hey nahant, what time is your surgery tomorrow? i want to make sure i send warm, healing positive thoughts at the proper time.

Hey OC,
I’ll be over with my slippers and two cookies.

Please do!

I was 14 in 1967, and Hillary’s older than I am. I remember…

“and do good things”…….

That’s most hopeful post I’ve seen on here ….. evah!!!! Thank you for that, Hugh! :-)

Do you mean Senator Suited Smile, Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review and magna cum laude of the Harvard Law School? Think his smile did that for him? I’m a graduate of HLS and I can tell you that the political acumen required to scale those heights is almost indescribable. It also speaks volumes of the man that he passed up the immediate opportunity that opened in the wake of such an accomplishment – U.S. Supreme Court clerkship and and a partner track job in the law firm of his choice leading to salaries in excess not only of the office he is seeking, but also in excess of the crony jobs that these guys get after leaving office.

Couldn’t resist one more blast before I go for evening.
This is true. to be blunt about it, she has been a self-interested self-serving jackass. Obama, same. Edwards, same. Me, not so much, and not so publicly… but…. there are some similarities.

The system’s rotten, 90% of the the people working in the system are rotten. As voter and citizen, my job is not to display my integrity or prove my self-righteousness, but to help improve things with the tools at my disposal. Jesus’ fine saying “Be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove” comes in handy. In terms of my intentions goals, I will strive to be innocent as a dove, but in terms of how to move from this rotten situation to something better, I will be as wise and wiley and subtle a serpent as I possibly can be (because Jesus told me so!)

Now that I have finished, I realize that only the first paragraph was a direct response to Hugh.

Peace.
Gnite.

Hold out your bowl. Sorry I missed you on the first round.

Why are all of you Hillary haters so afraid of a balanced budget and a thriving economy like we had in the 90’s?? I made a lot of money back then because the stock market was stable and jobs were plentiful. We had sound environmental policies and were well respected around the world.

Uh , glad you made out in the 90’s, dude. Hope all the possessions broought joy.

I spent the 90’s watching (and aiding in) the massive battle to prevent America’s old growth forests – some World Heritage sites – falling to loggers.

Old growth forests on US Forest Service lands.

Destroyed by Clinton’s deliberate choices.

Clinton’s Forest Wars drew activists from around the globe to assist EarthFirst! and a host of other groups get out in the woods to get arrested, hold and declare “free states”, and do every damn thing (non-violent) possibel to save the trees from Clinton’s execrable cave-ins to Big Timber.

Clinton’s Gene Wars steamrolled objections to GMO’s in favor of Monsanto – acts of global infamy even today for the GMO campaigners.

The only global respect for the Clinton’s enviro policies was from those of in the US amazed by all the great allies it brought to eco-defense.

Clinton and his policies scared the whole damn planet – that takes chops.

well, hpmf! Obama says:

“I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill. No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people – not the president of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program [… T]hat is why I am proud to stand with Sen. Dodd and a grassroots movement of Americans who are standing up for our civil liberties and the rule of law.”

wonder if that means he’ll show up and help? guess we get to find out if that’s words or actions…

linky to OpenLeft

I apologize for being so blunt, but the GOP is going nuclear against the Democrats this time around.

Goodnight.

-G

Hey, I didn’t get no popcorn! Who ate it all?

I was married during the last half of the 60’s so I really missed most of it except for the tear gas and sewing up scalp and foot lacerations. So I didn’t get the candles, dope and one nighters until the early 70’s.

g’nite greg

Good night BN.

g’nite busted

I have to be there at 7 am but thats just to get comfy as they say. Actual procedure starts at 9:30 in Radiology. My sweetie will drop you an E-mail around noon as she has to teach in the afternoon and make sure Tucker is taken care of. Can’t let the pup get to lonely, he pouts when dad isn’t around!!

‘nite Busted Peace to youse. :-)

Clinton’s environmental policies, which put many new acres under protection, were worse than W’s? Or worse than St. McCain’s or Romney’s would be? Let’s hear it for Healthy Forests and Clean Air.

Hey busted sleep well!

thanks, nahant – will send em and wait to hear from your sweetie

Aloha, GSD and Busted… and any others I missed…!

And let’s not forget she wanted to make a park of Woodstock!

Peace, love, dove.

So, Obama has already said he better get elected this time, because he won’t run again. He shaded it in terms like, “I won’t understand you people anymore,” but it was a veiled threat. He says Reagan was a transformative presidency, and sure, it was, especially if you don’t give a rats ass what things were transformed to. Now, he is saying, well, my people won’t vote for Hillary.

Why on earth would we want someone like this for president??? All his transcendant bullshit is is a foil for his EGO. I want to like him. He is funny, articulate, and he has a nice face. But, show me how he is different from GW Bush?? Is the man incorruptible? Spout Republican talking points all you want about the Clintons, but at the end of WJC’s presidency fewer people were in poverty, we had a surplus, welfare was reformed yet people were getting a hand up and out of generations of welfare. Obama would cheerfully chuck their successes for his own gain.

You know, he is right. You can make people refuse to vote for a candidate from their actions. But, I would rather have an honest asshole like HRC or McCain than a phoney Obama. As if he could hold the Whitehouse more than one term without strong Democratic support anyway. If he runs as a Democrat, he better damn well be one, cuz our side switches. You can get the GOP to vote for a pig with lipstick, but that is not the way Democrats swing.

Could you spare a few good vibes for a friend of mine who’s undergoing bone marrow analysis tomorrow around 10EST because they suspect her breast cancer might have metasticized?

Obama has persuaded us to go for Dem policies, that’s why we’re not voting for Clinton.

Uh, do we have Royal blood at the Lake, or should I be studying up on parasitology?

:)

absofuckinglutely

Thanks. I’ll be with her.

What Obama’s saying is,

if you got the cards, play them.

Does anyone know whether the government is currently still able to spy on everybody in lieu of the fact that I read that they didn’t pay the bill to the telecom companies, so they quit providing the service. In other words, the telecoms won’t let the NSA play with their toys anymore? Is that still operative?

OR….. a REAL Edwards…… jes sayin’. :-)

Guess I’ll go ask the same question upstairs, since there’s a new post up.

Clinton’s environmental policies, which put many new acres under protection, were worse than W’s? Or worse than St. McCain’s or Romney’s would be? Let’s hear it for Healthy Forests and Clean Air.

Wow – bringing up an assertion never made (or suggested) in my text.

Such an original rhetorical technique.

Sure am sorry I wasted my time on the sciences, instead of the debate team….

I’l be with her too, eCAHN

He can certainly do better than praising Reagan’s impact and the GOP for their ideas.

This has been pointed out to you sixty ways to Christmas and repeatedly.

There it goes again–Obama has made it clear he was praising having ideas. He has condemned their content for years, including in his book, but the ghosts of Rezco, Leiberman, and Raegan and the distortions of these ghosts are alive and well at the Lake, floating around like little duckies. They are weak substitutes for arguments on the issues. I though they would die down, but I’m sorry to see they will continue to substitute for arguing the issues.

I agree one of the good things that Clinton did was at the end of his Administration when he approved the Roadless Rule which set aside around 1/3 of the nation’s forests or some 58.5 million acres. I’m cribbing off my scandals list here item 209. The Bush Administration has spent the last 7 years to undo. It’s still wending its way through the courts. It is another reason why it is important to elect a Democrat President this year. Since it is in the courts, it will be easier for a Democratic Administration to undo what Bush has been trying to do.

You’re right – she was old enough to be College Republican chair during the Vietnam War.

And she was.

_______

Totally different note:

Good luck and good energy in surgery – blessings on you, your care, and your family.

Sending his wife out to dance against Hillary wouldn’t have worked, even though it would have clearly illustrated his complaint that he’s running against two people instead of one.

Actually Michelle Obama could pound Hillary on her Bush votes and foreclosure on civil rights when the Clinton twins pushed through AEDPA. I’d love the chance to do it.

If I might:
If a Gooper gets elected, and pursues one tenth the policies of Chimpy wrt the environment, foreign relations, domestic policy, and Constitutional plunder, it would be 100 times worse that anything the Dem might do.
Some people here call themselves Democrats. Rethink the hatred.

You’re right – she was old enough to be College Republican chair during the Vietnam War.

And she was.

Guess Bill’s pretty convincing, having the ability to convert a College Republican chair, and all. But then again, he may have had to marry her to convince her. *g*

Yep, I mean Senator Suited Smile.

The Harvard Law School grad who passed up a cahnce to clerk at the Supreme Court..

and did work representing criminal slumlords.

PR: The audacity of smoke.

Does anyone know whether the government is currently still able to spy on everybody in lieu of the fact that I read that they didn’t pay the bill to the telecom companies, so they quit providing the service. In other words, the telecoms won’t let the NSA play with their toys anymore? Is that still operative?

That situation was very narrow and selective, and had to do with a screwup in the division of FBI that was supposed to pay the bill, unless it represents deeper wrong doing. They are “investigating” why it happened, and claimed it didn’t compromise any ongoing investigations.

They are still wiretapping you and me without fail, and they have a billion dollar biometric project up and running that has a 20% accuracy rate at night.

They are still spending billions wiretapping American citizens, and fighting like hell to make sure that Administration officials and Telcos get immunity. Watch the Senate tomorrow and Saturday to get a bird’s eye view.

Actually, as I said, Obama is my #3 choice of 3. My candidate is John Edwards. No, I don’t want someone whose only skill is speechmaking, although it would be nice if he or she were coherent, after what we’ve suffered through in the last seven years.

My point was that Obama’s sometimes mean-spirited statements are deliberate

After some of the diaries at Daily Kos, I can easily believe that committed Democrats would refuse to give their support to Hillary after the way she has acted. Thereisnospoon stated that he might not even vote for her. Hillary has also lost teacherken as far as the primary. Hillary can easily run a classier campaign than she has been doing and still win.

Thereisnospoon and teacherken do not exactly have a record of being excitable people.

As Jane has perceived, if Hillary joins the Dodd filibuster and Obama does not, there may be some heads exploding.

I deeply respect both of them, but I sure as hell don’t always agree.

As Jane has perceived, if Hillary joins the Dodd filibuster and Obama does not, there may be some heads exploding.

Yep. The best qualification for leadership is… leadership.

On Saturday, I announced my proposition: I’ll wholeheartedly support whichever of the democratic candidate(s) shows up and stands by Chris Dodd in his FISA fight.

The first qualification for life on this planet: show up.

and did work representing criminal slumlords.

Actually Obama had hundreds of offers every day at Harvard. It shut down the switchboards, and clerking at the Supreme Court was just one avenue he could have explored easily.

That’s not the facts; you parroted a Hillary Snark phrase she pulled out in the debate. I’m sure you take more a more careful history day to day, and look at lab once in a while.

Characterizing Obama as representing slum lords is exactly like saying psychiatrists exist to cause tardive dyskenisia and suicides, or exhorbitant rates at psychiatric hospitals, including many who have settled with the DOJ, paying huge fines for upcoding and fradulent billing exist to make a great deal of money instead of for clinical efficacy. It’s a pure distortion of the facts, and if you’re interested in votes for another candidate, that approach is backfiring.

You’re also resorting to name calling.

You also know the facts–that Obama worked for a law firm that championed civil rights. He didn’t represent “slum lords” at all.

Get the facts–but I doubt that’s going to change your approach. It’s analagous to taking a history. Here’s the information for your workup:

Facts on Obama

Obama received his B.A. degree in 1983, then worked at Business International Corporation and NYPIRG before moving to Chicago to take a job as a community organizer. As Director of the Developing Communities Project, he worked with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development. He entered Harvard Law School in 1988. In 1990, The New York Times reported his election as the Harvard Law Review’s “first black president in its 104-year history”. He completed his J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1991. On returning to Chicago, Obama directed a voter registration drive. As an associate attorney with Miner, Barnhill & Galland from 1993 to 1996, he represented community organizers, discrimination claims, and voting rights cases. He was a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

Thanks for the completeness of your answer. That seems to be the consensus. On that note, I think I should retire for the night. Goodnight all.

Yeah Jane, it was funny but it has a kernel of insight as well. We over analyse and cherry-pick the thousands of utterances from the candidates. Usually, we do so in a way that supports the view of our chosen candidate. If you are a Hillary supporter (like you), you tend to read this as a suggestion that Obama supporters abandon the party if Hillary wins the nomination. If you are an Obama supporter (like me) you read it as a simple (and accurate) assessment of the reaction of many Democrats to the way in which the Clintons are campaigning against Obama. Like others have said, electability is a big issue here because many of us think McCain will beat Hillary. I see your point about Obama frequently being required to explain what he really meant. There are two causes of this. First, the Clinton strategy is to twist his words and records (she knows he didn’t praise Reagan and she knows why he voted present). The other reason is that he does not just deliver canned sound bites – many of his public statements are lengthy and nuanced. He tends to reject the sound bite approach. This opens him up to quotes out of context.

Yeah Jane, it was funny but it has a kernel of insight as well. We over analyse and cherry-pick the thousands of utterances from the candidates. Usually, we do so in a way that supports the view of our chosen candidate. If you are a Hillary supporter (like you), you tend to read this as a suggestion that Obama supporters abandon the party if Hillary wins the nomination. If you are an Obama supporter (like me) you read it as a simple (and accurate) assessment of the reaction of many Democrats to the way in which the Clintons are campaigning against Obama. Like others have said, electability is a big issue here because many of us think McCain will beat Hillary. I see your point about Obama frequently being required to explain what he really meant. There are two causes of this. First, the Clinton strategy is to twist his words and records (she knows he didn’t praise Reagan and she knows why he voted present). The other reason is that he does not just deliver canned sound bites – many of his public statements are lengthy and nuanced. He tends to reject the sound bite approach. This opens him up to quotes out of context.

Thanks for the accurate, prescient comment.

He can certainly do better than praising Reagan’s impact and the GOP for their ideas.

This has been pointed out to you sixty ways to Christmas and repeatedly.

There it goes again–Obama has made it clear he was praising having ideas. He has condemned their content for years, including in his book […]

I’m referring to what he actually said:

“Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America […] He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. […] we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

And later:

“I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10 to 15 years …”

That was his message, and I expect that in nine out of ten focus groups those passages would be seen as praise for Reagan and the GOP.

What are you (and others) talking about? The “race” thing? That was largely baseless and no one calls out Obama for the absolute shit they pulled after NH and in Nevada (not denouncing the UNITE-HERE ad).

She’s more progressive than Obama. She gets more Democratic votes than Obama. If people can’t vote for Hillary how they hell can they vote for Obama? Check the polls: his negatives are damn high–and the GOP hasn’t even touched him yet. And of course there’s Rezko.

He perpetuated Reagan myths.

He knew full well that Clinton didn’t disrespect MLK and he didn’t say so. He knew he lied about his stance on single-payer universal health care and he flat-out lied about it. He lied about his Reagan remarks during the debate. We can go on.

Look at the policies. Look at her voting bloc (Dems). Look at HIS negatives.

Thank you. I can’t believe that people are still falling for the lie, “All he said was say Reagan was transformative.” No such thing. He perpetuated the right-wing frame for that entire era.

people, people, people! that’s just the attitude we don’t need! sure, the republicans have beaten us the last two presidential elections! they’ve got the dirtiest campaign techniques. they’ve got the best advertising money can buy. hell, every candidate they’ve got running has their own personal fact masseuse. not masseur. masseuse. but it doesn’t matter! i tell you it just doesn’t matter! it just doesn’t matter!

and even if we win, if we win, hah! even if we win! even if we campaign so far above our expectations that our noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if god in heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the electorate; even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn’t matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the republicans because they’ve got all the money! it just doesn’t matter if we win or we lose. it just doesn’t matter!

everybody: it just doesn’t matter! it just doesn’t matter! it just doesn’t matter!

Citizens of the USA are free to vote their consciences, ferchrissakes.

And as George Santayana said “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” We are really not talking here about people not voting their conscience, we are talking about what sometimes happens when people demand ideological purity. Similar things happened in Weimar Germany in the early 1930’s; and in Austria prior to the Anschluss when splits between the Communists and Socialists resulted in the Nazis gaining just enough seats to form a coalition with Conservative parties on the right to take power. Splits between the Republicans, Anarchists and Communists in Spain probably led to Franco defeating them in the Spanish Civil War, as chronicled by numerous essays by Orwell and other rueful survivors.

Guilt trips about Nader in 2000 are not on point. Where was Nader in 2004? Those elections were stolen, and that didn’t bestir the (D) team to take meaningful action, just as nothing will make them restore the damage BushCo has done.

Your citing the fact that Gore won in Florida on almost all counts, except a few which gimmicked the results shows just how much the Katherine Harris-Jeb Bush Cabal had to reach to fix the election. As I said, if a mere 1% of those Nader voters had supported Gore he would have won on ANY of the recounts. ANY! The Supreme Court couldn’t have changed that, Harris couldn’t, Bush couldn’t.

I recall Nader ran again in 2004, and people who had supported him didn’t. Some may not have voted at all, others may have held their nose and voted for Kerry-Edwards. At that point Bush had control of most of the equipment in the country, a situation he would not have had if he had not gotten into the Presidency. Once Rove had the power to appoint crooked Attorney Generals and to issue vast kickbacks from everyone from to Fox and MSNBC to evangelical “faith-based intervention” groups it was pretty much a done deal without Nader.

BTW Precisely where could Gore have taken things once the Supremes had ruled on the matter? Another challenge would have likely have reached the same result. The only way to have won was by winning those votes. And if Kerry had done so…not a chance under the Supremes at that time.

Yet because ENOUGH people were disgusted with the War and the repeated insults of this Administration even Rove couldn’t throw the Congressional elections in 2006. Collective support does mean something. People WERE voting to end the war.I think they’ll be voting to end the war this election, too. As well as voting for a number of critical economic issues.

The only way the Republicans can win and maintain the Bush Neo-Con Christian right policies is if either the left forgets the lessons of 8 years ago, or if enough of the the center votes utterly against their interests (once again).

You can cling to the way you’re contexting Reagan who is dead, and ridiculously over-rated and the phony distortions of Rezco and slum lords like the one I just saw here and responded to, but they aren’t going to help your candidate get any votes on the street–focus groups and all.

You can’t believe that Obama won’t go after the mischaracterization by the Clintons and the word twisting that they are so well known for–

“Ah didn’t have sex–depends on the meaning of is–etc.

These distortions cost Clinton millions of dollars and his license to practice law, and the Republican reaction to them cost the taxpayers millions more dollars in the ridiculous White Water investigation that got 3 people onto the federal bench.

Hope you enjoy the Rezco trial–voir doire screening starts tomorrow but it has nothing to do with Obama, and Rezco’s not running for office.

Mr. Obama seems to have a bad habit of saying things that cannot be backed up by fact. You might want to take a look at this latest poll that Kevin Drum mentions:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.c…..012960.php

Hillary handily beats McCain in a national matchup, while Obama does not. Notice also how many republicans and independents Hillary gets compared to Obama. Hillary gets a couple percentage points more in both categories. Those are the people he keeps saying will only vote for him. Once again, he doesn’t know what he is talking about, but doesn’t hesitate to make divisive statements anyway. Kind of like a kid losing, so he’s going to take his ball and go home so no one else can play.

What really seems to be happening here is that he is in a panic and can’t help stepping in it because he has never run a campaign against anyone who is competitive before. He’s just making himself look bad, and people are starting to talk about it. Don’t believe me? Google “Obama whining” for laughs. 238,000 entries. Yes, people are noticing, and it’s not pretty.

You’re beating dead horsies with Leiberman, Reagan and Rezco, and they’re backfiring and not getting your candidate whoever it is votes.

Keep doing it and keep trying to dodge the issues. It’s going to implode on the Clintons. Party on.

Nader voters should hang their heads in shame. Every day. IMHO, of course./blockquote>

Actually I don’t even expect them to apologize. I just hope that the last eight years was a lesson learned…that “the two parties are the same” was a myth that got us a fascist Administration that has destroyed the Justice Department, created chaos in the Middle East and South Asia, destroyed the economy to enrich the wealthy, left millions without healthcare, created a Supreme Court that will take generations to correct (and WILL get worse if they help elect a Republican), etc. No apologies, no penance, simply don’t let it happen again!

The Clinton Siamese Twins have a bad habit of distorting every fact and lying about them. They’ve been lying to each other and the pubilc since Arkansas, about their parallel affairs and everything else.

Clinton’s voting record has been egregious in the Senate, and people are looking at it and will continue to look at it.

The Clintons curtailed basic Civil Rights pushing the AEDPA which had nothing to do with terror, and everything to do with denying appeals to the poor and disenfranchized. None of the people impacted worked for the large investment funds and Telcos who are the infrrastructure of Clinton’s contributors.

This isn’t about Rezko, Clinton, or what I believe or feel. This about the specific words that Obama spoke and whether or not they constitute “praise” in the mind of the average American listener. I’ve not run a focus group, but it is my impression that when the man or woman in the street hears those exact words, they interpret them as praise for “Reagan’s impact” and for the GOP.

OT..Another thug bites the dust..

NY-25: Jim Walsh to Retire

Great news for a Blue America candidate…Dan Maffei. Unless, of course, Walsh knew that he had an indictment hanging over his head (a la Doolittle).

This isn’t about Rezko, Clinton, or what I believe or feel. This about the specific words that Obama spoke and whether or not they constitute “praise” in the mind of the average American listener. I’ve not run a focus group, but it is my impression that when the man or woman in the street hears those exact words, they interpret them as praise for “Reagan’s impact” and for the GOP.

If the Reagan comment is all you have in your quiver, than you keep going for it by all means. It’sgoing to fall way short of any substantive vote getting though. You can cling to it through 2009 I suppose.

Having voted for Nader in California – with full knowledge Gore would take the state – I owe no apolgies or lesson learning on that vote.

I grok that whole Electoral College thing.

I do hope Team Gore will always hang their heads in shame for their failed appeal strategy in Florida – had they appealed all county’s counts, their position would have been stronger before the Supremes.

Of course, the CA Nader voters probably caused that, too ;)

Pete – as an Edwards supporter, I feel fairly comfortable asking you this…

Is there a chance that at a certain point, you will spend as much time talking about the wonders of Senator Obama, equivalent to one fifth the time you spend maligning the Clintons?
Your case for Senator Obama gets weaker and weaker as your bile for the Clintons rises.

And, just asking – If Senator Clinton is your parties nominee, will you vote for her?

Pete – as an Edwards supporter, I feel fairly comfortable asking you this…

Is there a chance that at a certain point, you will spend as much time talking about the wonders of Senator Obama, equivalent to one fifth the time you spend maligning the Clintons?
Your case for Senator Obama gets weaker and weaker as your bile for the Clintons rises.

And, just asking – If Senator Clinton is your parties nominee, will you vote for her?

I will spend plenty of time pointing out why Obama is superior on the issues.

I doubt I can vote for the Clintons–I know too much about them. There is no clear line of demarcation between the tag team of Hillary and Bill.

I won’t be voting for any Republicans ever, and I think you understand that.

Do you think that the fire puppies who believe they got a pot ‘o gold in the comments about Raegan are ever going to stop flogging them and distorting them like Hillary has? I don’t.

Notice the difference between the campaign that Edwards is running and the Clintons are running. It’s hardly as if Edwards doesn’t have all the research he wants about the Reagan comments or the phony slum lord allegations or the extent of Obama’s relationship with Rezco or the legal skills to deal with him. Edwards is 1000 times the lawyer either Clinton ever was.

What I said was:

He can certainly do better than praising Reagan’s impact and the GOP for their ideas.

At this point, if I had to choose between Obama and Clinton, it would likely be Clinton. But, so far, I’m very disappointed with both of them, and how they respond to Jane’s and Glenn’s invitation will make a great deal of difference to me.

I should have added(and think you know)I and a lot of Obama supporters could easily and happily vote for John Edwards.

You make my point for me.
As arguably the most fervent supporter and defender of Senator Obama’s candidacy that I have seen anywhere, you keep the debate about this alive within FDL. And, for the record, I believe that Senator Clinton bringing Rezko up in the debate was a scurrilous thing.

But your defense of, and indeed your support for Senator Obama is so ghastly uneven, to the point sometimes of pointing out physical attributes of his chief opponent on occasion, that you ensnare your arguments in such utter bias that they are easy to dismiss, regardless of their factual accuracy (a topic we can discuss later wrt your accusations that Patrick Fitzgerald has acted to launch the Rezko case to coincide with the primaries, an assertion that I believe you have offered no substantial proof of, short of pointing out that Fitz failed to get Shooter and company, so it must be that).

At this point, if I had to choose between Obama and Clinton, it would likely be Clinton. But, so far, I’m very disappointed with both of them, and how they respond to Jane’s and Glenn’s invitation will make a great deal of difference to me.

I’ve commented at length for 2 days on the situation with Jane and Glenn and I believe Christy’s invitation as well. All three of them believe very fiercely as many of us do, correctly, that this is a central Constitutional issue,and they’ve expressed themselves very well and spent many, many hours trying to marshal the most contstructive influence they can trying to keep immunity from passing.

Harry Reid and many Democrats i Congress have been particularly duplicitous, disingenuous, and frankly hypocritical in saying they oppose immunity. Reid had every opportunity to make it easier for immunity to pass, and he put every obstacle known to man in front of it.

None of the candidates but Chris Dodd has been particularly active in opposing immunity, as have Kennedy and Feingold in the Senate.

The schedule has been insane for these primaries. It has forced all the candidates to make agonizing decisions.

The pressure is least right now for Edwards, who is an incredibly fine candidate, who makes me prouder of him every day. Clinton has clearly conceded South Carolina to Obama, and he will beat her decisively there, so what’s to stop both Clinton’s, Uber Bully Pullpit bill and Hillary from launching a major initiative and assault on immunity in D.C.?

Florida is not until Tuesday. Super Tuesday is a week later. Why aren’t the Clinton’s in D.C. for this morning and tomorrow to rail against immunity? They won’t be.

The DNC set this up. The House voted their ill on August 3-4. WTF was the Senate (Reid doing) to let the vote come right before Super Tuesday?

You tell me.

All candidates can purchase tickets. All can, and have, cancelled events to make it to important official duties. I’ll judge them on how they perform. Action talks; bullshit walks.

But your defense of, and indeed your support for Senator Obama is so ghastly uneven, to the point sometimes of pointing out physical attributes of his chief opponent on occasion, that you ensnare your arguments in such utter bias that they are easy to dismiss, regardless of their factual accuracy (a topic we can discuss later wrt your accusations that Patrick Fitzgerald has acted to launch the Rezko case to coincide with the primaries, an assertion that I believe you have offered no substantial proof of, short of pointing out that Fitz failed to get Shooter and company, so it must be that).

I have never focused on physical attributes of any candidate, and certainly not those of Clinton–either of them. I don’t keep any debates alive but I respond to snarky and ignorant comments about slum lording, Reagan or Rezco. I don’t bring them up–my comments are all respnses– check ‘em out.

The reasons why Fitz indicted no one else but Libby (anyone he indicted or convicted would have been either selectively or totally pardoned but he still should have done it) are complicated. We don’t know enough as to why.

Marcy has written a book on the Plame trial, and the efforts to cover up Iraq by outting Plame and has done some terrific analysis on emails that are either hidden or destroyed in all probability, and I urge you to read them at EW.

We have not been allowed by Mukasey to see Fitz’s interviews of Cheney, Rove and Bush. We know that Fitz did not get to see most of the emails that would have been crucial for him to seek indictments–they’ve been destroyed or hidden.

I was critical of two people who had complete control of the timing of the Rezco trial as to their timing. I suggested that Amy St. Eve coordinated the timing (Rezco was indicted back in 2006–it’s 2008 today). St. Eve’s notable work prior to getting the bench reward was as a loyal Republican girl scout working for Jahn and Starr on the ridiculous White Water investigation. Ever the loyal Bushie, Amy St. Eve continues to pay back her reward of the bench after little work litigating at DOJ, and I stand by my comment.

As LHP has pointed out, there is a long tradition back before the DOJ was damaged goods and certainly is trash now, that you didn’t schedule federal trials prior to an election that could influence the outcome.

Obama has no jeapordy, and Rezco isn’t running, but Fitz and St. Eve did their damndest to schedule this trial to try to dredge up old , failed retreaded accusations against Obama.

If you can list for me the reasons why Fitz didn’t indict anyone but Libby besides that he was denied the emails he needed because the bastards destroyed/or hid them, speak up.

If you can tell me why Mukasey hasn’t released Fitz’s interviews of Cheney, Rove, and Bush, speak up. I’ll give you a hint–

O-B-F-U-S-C-A-T-I-O-N!

All candidates can purchase tickets. All can, and have, cancelled events to make it to important official duties. I’ll judge them on how they perform. Action talks; bullshit walks.

These 3 candidates haven’t purchased airline tickets in years. Obama did stop flying the Fed Ex planes that would pick the congressperson up and chauffer them to a FedEx plane flying them wherever they needed to go with a selected Fed Ex brass on to lobby them last year or late 2006. Clinton continued to use them.

If you think these candidates are coming off the trail for any Senate vote, then don’t hold youyr breath because it’s not happening.

If you have a bitch about it, you bitch to Reid. The House passed their bill Aug. 3-4 denying immunity. Reid could have brought this thing to the floor months before the primaries–let me spell it out for you.

Reid and most of the rest of the Democrats fucked you on S. 2248 and the fucking continues through this weekend. Get used to it.I’ve commented in considerable detail about the votes, the bills and the timing for the last two days.

So in your perception, the bullshit is walking. They’re coming back wouldn’t make that much of a difference, and Bill Clinton has been mum on the issue. Why is that? He has the biggest bully pulpit on earth. Why isn’t he hauling his ass out of South Carolina?

Hillary is campaigning in California and Super Tuesday states. She isn’t coming back to D.C. for a damn thing.

By the way does the near 30 year old daughter of the Clintons actually talk?

I have never focused on physical attributes of any candidate, and certainly not those of Clinton–either of them.

I’m afraid you have done just that. Here.

Can you locate any? Watch where her fat ass is when it comes on the floor and what she says next week when the spotlight is on her.

And this tired gem…

The reasons why Fitz indicted no one else but Libby (anyone he indicted or convicted would have been either selectively or totally pardoned but he still should have done it) are complicated. We don’t know enough as to why.

Yet, later you say

“Obama has no jeapordy, and Rezco isn’t running, but Fitz and St. Eve did their damndest to schedule this trial to try to dredge up old , failed retreaded accusations against Obama.“

Please substantiate this claim.

*putting on moderator hat*

Pete, just what exactly does the Clinton daughter have to do with anything? Are you trying to violate FDL’s policy of not attacking the children of candidates intentionally?

Interesting link at the end, Jane. Any intended connection to Obama’s endorsement of Lieberman?

This is going to have to continue later. I can’t stay up all night and work the way some people seem to be able to.

This is one comment out of thousands:

Watch where her fat ass is when it comes on the floor and what she says next week when the spotlight is on her. Today through Saturday are S. 2248 day in the Senate.

Now you’re getting into comedy. Marcy Wheeler doesn’t know all the reasons why Fitz didn’t go further, and she wrote a great book on it. Read and get some education on the EW threads.

If you’re such an euridite expert on the Plame investigation, you tell us why Fitz didn’t go further before you accuse any of us of a “tired old gem.”

We don’t know why he didn’t go further. We suspect most of the emails that would have helped them are hidden. You’re as mum as Chelseas Clinton so instead of flinging mud my way–you tell me why Fitz didn’t indict Rove, Cheney or Bush.

I’m all ears. You said my reasons were tired old gems–what are the prescient crisp current new reasons you have? I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.

I’ve spelled out clearly that St. Eve has scheduling discretion in the federal trial. Brush up on the discretion that federal trial judges have in 94 federal districts–call a lawyer friend and get them to spell it out for you. I’ve tried to explain to you –the timing of the trial is to cast the same Swift Boating aspersions that I’ve seen Firepups cast tonight against Obama who are getting desperate for facts. I Nothing in the weak attempt by St. Eve trying to repay Bush for her bench appointment is going to implicate Obama. They are trying to do the usual swiftboating by timing the Rezco trial so that the fools, and some are here, who dredge up Rezco can keep doing it as Rezco’s trial makes the papers.

I’ll pick the rest of your assertions up much later if there are any. I’m out until much later. You can only chisel and trephine through skull tissue for so long.
The facts on Rezco are HERE:

I take it you have facts that link Obama to Rezco wrong doing but you’re just shy about them and need to be coaxed out of your cocoon. I take it you and Hillary have damaging information and I’m delighted to see you come out of your cocoon to implicate Obama in Rezco wrong doing.

Tweetie had an editor from a Chicago newspaper that underscored what I just said.

We’re all waiting for your Rezco information you’ve been so reluctant to share. Instead of focusing on me (I’m not running) let’s see your facts on Obama/Rezco.

You may be able to stay up 24 hours but I can’t. I have to do stuff besides FDL during the day. It’s called work.

What facts do you have

Pete, you were asked for proof of your allegation and instead come back with a non-answer answer.

And, you again drug the clinton daughter into your tirade. I ask again: Are you doing this intentionally in violation of our policy of not involving the candidates children?

Pete – You have claimed you didn’t disparage an Obama opponent. And then you reprint the very comment…

You have insinuated that Fitzgerald had a hand in the timing of the Rezko matter. Proof or evidence please.

You say I’m claiming to be an aspiring Plameologist, and I never claimed such. Then you ask me for theories…
BTW, I bought 20 copies of Marcy’s book as gifts, and I kept one for myself. And I read it.

You said, “St. Eve has scheduling discretion in the federal trial.“.
And, “They are trying to do the usual swiftboating by timing the Rezco trial so that the fools, and some are here, who dredge up Rezco can keep doing it as Rezco’s trial makes the papers.“
And to this claim, you bootstrap the assertion that the Rezko matter is politically timed. You offer zero proof, but you insinuate it as fact.

And I have never, ever, suggested that there are substantive links between Obama and Rezko. You are confusing me with someone else. I would like it dispatched soon, so we can go on vetting our candidates, though.

I return to my original contention: that repetition is your thing, and it serves neither you or your candidate well.

Pete, just what exactly does the Clinton daughter have to do with anything? Are you trying to violate FDL’s policy of not attacking the children of candidates intentionally?

The 27 year-old Clinton daughter has a $125,000-$150,000 job at a large 12 billion dollar hedge fund. It’s doubtful I’m picking on someonne mentally handicapped, and her behavior on the trail as a mute has been indeed strange.

You characterize the situation as if I remarked on a minor child, and also it’s a pretty cheap shot of yours calling my attention to rules ad hoc I’ve never seen nor heard of; and I don’t see a link to them anywhere. No doubt you’ll be delighted to provide said link.

How disingenuous can you get Suzanne? First of all I haven’t violated anyone’s policies. I don’t have a link for any of FDL’s policies so they must be unstated known only to a select few–the same clique who use inside baseball one and two word esoteric “in the club” phrases on the late late night threads.

Instead of invoking ad hoc FDL rules that you make up as you go along on the fly, attempting to spring them onto people who dont support your candidate, who is either the Clintons or Edwards, why don’t you refer me to a list of them?

I don’t post snarky comments like “slum lord” who could have been a Supreme Court clerk that I saw posted by an M.D. who probably wouldn’t appreciate being characterized as a shrink who lived to cause EPS’s and tardive dyskensia as his career epitaph. Those are cheap shots at someone who has had an outstanding career.

Chelsea Clinton is a 27 year old woman, and she’s of legal age–she hasn’t been a minor child for many many years. She received the two jobs that she’s had since getting out of school via political connections and had no training for them whatsoever. I’d love to see a video of her day to day activity. They are political plum jobs provided by years old Democratic contributuors. She didn’t go out and compete for her jobs with McKinsey and the current Hedge Fund with Capital Avenue Group at $120-150,000 K to start because she had the background and trianing to do the job.

There have been plenty of potshots at Romney’s 5 sons here, and they aren’t minors either.

The media has been raising the same questions for years.

I’ve spent a good amount of my time in the last 2 days trying to point up Senate Rules and the actual contents of the bills that have been hinted out, and in detail why neither candidate will be returning during the next two days to vote on S. 2248, why Bill Clinton could speak up but has not, and how Harry Reid had over 6 months to schedule a vote when it wasn’t in the middle of Super Tuesday campaining since Clinton has conceded S.C. to Obama.

I trust you’re going to refer me to the list of FDL rules you alluded to. I’ve tried to post as respectfully as possible, and when candidates use their positions to get jobs for their grown children as the Clintons have, the Romneys have, Bush 41 has, and Bush 43 has, they are fair game and in the public domain.

I am happy to abide by any FDL, but deeply puzzled why you didn’t link me to them since you alluded to them. Surely thereis a link isn’t there? Or could this new “rule/policy” about the conduct of a nearly 30 year old woman have sprung up on the fly?

We aren’t talking about children here the age of the Obama daughters. I mean–for most of us–30 years old is legal age and the fact she is remaining silent is frankly odd.

If my father were running for President, and I was 27 years old as Chelsea Clinton is, I’d feel like an imbecile standing up on a stage with a shit eating grin saying nothing.You enjoy your percepti0on and I’ll enjoy mine.

And BTW Senator Clinton’s characterization of Obama as an attorney for slum lords was a cheap distortion. While White Water was a waste of time, and I’ve condemned it frequently, Clinton was on the board of Walmart–she did not lift a finger for unionization of an very abusive company.

Try picking up Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed that is an excellent account of a mess Walmart Board Member Clinton did not lift a finger to correct on your next trip into a bookstore or at Amazon or the site I just linked.

There are plenty of snarky things on FDL said about the daughters and sons of people, and I don’t see the distinction of whether their parents are running for office.

What I said hardly fits the category of the egregious smear launched by Rove and team Bush at McCain in South Carolina.

What I said was true–and can be documented about a 27 year old woman with no financial background who has a $125,000-$150,000 job at one of the most exclusive hedge funds on the planet. I know people who work at Hedge Funds, and none of them got their jobs with the lack of training and experience that Ms. Chelsea Clinton had.

And, you again drug the clinton daughter into your tirade. I ask again: Are you doing this intentionally in violation of our policy of not involving the candidates children?

And again, none of us has ESP to discern the “policies” you allege exist. Why not show them to me?

When we register for this site, we provide an email address. No policy was emailed to me. You have not stated a set of rules that comprise a FDL policy. Maybe you have ESP, but most of us do not. If you have rules that you expect people to comport with, then instead of crowing about them incessantly, why not refer me to a place where I can read them, and why haven’t you linked them?

You can’t expect people to sign up every day knowning the rules by some kind of mystical ESP. If Jane Hamsher has rules/policies, no doubt she’s posted them somewhere.

Just refer me to where instead of invoking a rule for the convenience to counter something that you don’t like what is being said about an adult who is near 30 years of age.

For the second time, where are the policies you’re trying to smack me with? What in the world has prevented you from pasting them or linking them already?

You have insinuated that Fitzgerald had a hand in the timing of the Rezko matter. Proof or evidence please.

You’re exposing your ignorance of how federal trials are scheduled. The Judge (St. Eve in this case) and the AUSA and in this case the US Attorney (Fitz) have complete discretion as to when the trials happen. I know you don’t understand this, because you don’t have an experience dealing with them. Fitz has been quoted that he is aware of the Swiftboating implications going on against Obama and has said he could care less. It’s not going to help anyones cause though. I am through trying to teach you how federal trials are scheduled. Get Christy or LHP, bmaz, JayT or someone else to help you with this.

A defense attorney can try to reason with either of them, often to no avail–and there’s not anything that can be done about it. They know that the government has endless resources and often spends hundreds of thousands of dollars routinely in a trial. The Judge and the AUSA, or in this case the US Attorney have cokmplete control of the schedule. The defense has next to none. Welcome to federal criminal trials.

Secondly I didn’t say you made the sleazy references to Obama as a slum lord. I said Hillary Clinton did, and several commenters the past few days, including Dr. Kirk Murphey here I’m not about to get into a semantic battle with you, wasting my time repeatedly, and you can toss any mud my way you like. I hope this got dispatched on a time frame suitable to you, and I was careful not to say you specifically trumped up the slum lord Rezco shit but Kirk and many others have and they’ll continue to do so until the Clintons get out of the race and probably long after.

I guarantee you that Kirk would not be happy with an analagous cheap, distorted characterization of his medical career that represented hard work, and Obama wouldn’t either and I wasn’t happy with either Clinton’s slum lord remarks or Murphy’s based on equal doses of ignorance and I said so.

I suggested Dr. Murphy practice taking a history before he launches allegations not based on facts. The Chicago press has been all over the slum lord/and or Rezco allegations and they came up dry and they’ve been all over TV the last two days emphasizing that.

No one can prove anything when you ask for reasons or answers and then you passively agressively block and or/delay the response for an hour Suzanne LOL–and if you block it here I’ll make it known that you blocked the answers and quote your questions. Do you have a lot of conversations with yourself?

I believe that most members of the African-American community will take a pass if Hillary is the candidate. Most of us who comment here have no real understanding of how much this community has been offended by the trashing of Obama by Team Clinton. And having Andy Young and Co make sweet statements about Bill’s “blackness” is not going to work this time.

I am a woman and I will never vote for Hillary Clinton. I just don’t like her. She has a desperation to have her will done that I can’t tolerate. I disapprove of her and her hubby’s steamroller political tactics to get rid of her competition.

BRAVO!

“If H. Clinton launches a nuclear first strike against Iran, I wouldn’t want to have a vote for her on my conscience.”

So, you’ll accept the infinitely more likely possibility that John McCain or Mitt Romney launches such an attack. Your conscience may sparkle, but its only because your thought is pretty shallow.

YES! Obama supporters have been quick to say they won’t vote for Hillary if she’s the candidate. And now, he’s put that out there as a suggestion, threat or warning. That is NOT the mark of presidential character. That is the mark of a selfish, destructive, divisive man.
To those of you who intend to walk away, withhold your vote, if Hillary is the candidate, remember: that means you have decided to give another Repugnican president another 4 to 8 years controlling not just the WHITE HOUSE, but also THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT (d’ja like Gonzo), FEMA (Brownie?), the FCC (Michael Powell?), THE SUPREME COURT, ALL THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY THROUGHOUT ALL THE STATES, and control of EVERY SINGLE FEDERAL AGENCY THAT IMPACTS OUR LIVES DAILY.
It’s not just the WHITE HOUSE you’re giving to them.
Obama’s primary concern is his own advancement, not that of the country.
This latest ploy by him makes that so clear.

From Jack and Jill Politics:

Which brings me to the second point – An Obama victory in South Carolina doesn’t REALLY count as a win because of the sizeable Black population in South Carolina.

So, let me get this straight – Hillary Clinton wins White women in New Hampshire, and it’s this great victory, but if Barack Obama wins South Carolina, after ten months of campaigning, because of sizeable Black support, it doesn’t REALLY count?

What is this – are we back to being Three-Fifths once again?

The Black vote doesn’t count as much as the White vote?

I’m going to say this as obviously as I can:

YOU DO NOT WANT TO GO DOWN THIS ROAD.

You simply don’t.

There is this underlying condescention that has been creeping into the “Progressive” blogs that, ‘ oh, well , THEY – meaning Blacks- have nowhere else to go. So, the Clintons and their proxies, who are actually race-baiting, but we’ll say that they aren’t, and tell those Blacks who are informing us as to what they see that it’s in their IMAGINATION – well, they’ll shut up, go SIT IN THEIR PLACE and turn up in November like they’re SUPPOSED TO. ‘

That’s not a bet you want to take.

Black folk don’t have to vote for McCain or any GOPer. They can just STAY HOME in several critical states, and the GOP wins. Thinking that you can scare folk with the GOP Bogeyman after you’ve been disrespecting Black folk, is both offensive and disrespectful.

James Brown said it:
We’d rather die on our feet
Than be livin’ on our knees

I am part of the Hip-Hop generation, and those of us who are Post Civil-Rights have learned our lessons well. We learned to hear the Dogwhistle of Racial Politics; our parents taught us that for SURVIVAL, but what they afforded us that they didn’t have, was the option of getting off of our knees.

I see the blogger Prometheus has commented on the Jack and Jill Poltics post I pasted above:

“You cannot blame Black folks for refusing to accept Billshit (not a typo). Sliming Obama is one thing. But you keep disrespecting Black folks and you’ll find the Democratic Party can die, just as the Republican Party can. I will muster every quantum of energy I can to make it so. We got four years after this one to find or construct an alternative.”

No, Obama isn’t saying he won’t back Hillary if she wins the nomination. He’s saying that a lot of his supporters won’t vote for her even if he does endorse her.

Except for the fact that I’m not a “Hillary supporter,” but I understand they only pass out one lens with the kook-aid.

Obama is correct to point this out.

I won’t support Hillary. She is the farthest to the right of all the Dem canidates. She’s a flat-out liar which can be seen from he attacks over the past few weeks. I’m not going to replace the worst president of my life with one who uses the same tactics. And then there’s the whole subversion of the 22 amendment.

Electing or supporting Clinton is to throw the Rethuglicans a life vest in a storm.

I choose my candidate based upon how I perceive their sincerity the issues and how each candidate will achieve their goals.

If Obama (or Edwards) is not the nominee for the Democratic party I cannot in good conscience support Hillary. I will either not vote, go indy, or possibly (ugh) cross-over depending on the nominee.

Extremely well said. I agree and will do the same with the exception of voting for Romney or McCain, one of whom will be the Republican candidate. I have never seen such damage to the country as from the Republicans, and the Democrats who want to install Clinton.

I have never seen a candidate more owned byinvestment banks than Clinton. I have never seen a more hypocritical, nasty campaigner, and Clinton has spawned a new generation of fire puppies who continue to repeat the same old Raegan slum lord crap that is cheating them out of their ability to vote for a candidate not tied to the Clinton machine, who rewards large contributors on the model of a brothel.

I noticed that the pantsuit of Senator Clinton is absent from the debate on the floor of the Senate, and it is far from Washington as it slings mud for another day. Senor Bill Uber Megaphone is absent from Washington and is either clueless or intentionally silent on S. 2248 because his wife is owned by ATT, Verizon, Sprint, Comcast and her other large Telco contributors.

Let’s be clear here. I’m not voting for a woman who is lying about the career of a man who is a role model for African Americans and Whites alike. She has slandared Obama by claiming his career has been to represent slum lords. This is a false statement in every sense of the word.

The Clinton woman is owned by large investment banks and Telco/Comcos. That’s why she isn’t fighting agains the most important assaults on the 4th Amendment by the most hypocritical people on earth. I hardly need to be lectured about what Republican government has done to this country. Check out my posts. I know how to read sources that keep me informed.

I’m aware of an administration that manipulates lies about security, only to risk your security for their cheap political ends. The Plame affair was a prime example. The hiding and destruction of emails that has gone on is another. The trashing of DOJ to win elections, which will not be repaired in two more generations is yet another.

The fact that windbags like Hatch and Chambliss can drone on trying to showcase their expertise in federal law when neither has actually done a nanosecond of federal litigation in a courtroom
isa prime example of Republican hypocrisy, not to mention their insulting mischaracterization of a bill I can read with far more legal understanding than Orin Hatch or Saxby Chambliss or the dried up old Republican white men in the U.S. Senate who lie about it.

It is further insulting to many of us to watch Jay Rockerfeller who never lifted a finger to work for a penny in his life whoring himself to ATT and other Telco/Comcos and then to insult the American public, many of whom can read these laws with far better understanding than Rockerfeller or Kit Bond.

Most of these Senators have not been allowed to even see papers that were to shed light on the law breaking by the Telco/Comcos and Leahy wrote a letter to DNI McConnell requesting that they be informed nearly two months ago.

And I want to be clear. Whatever Orin Hatch/Saxby Chambliss think or don’t think, I’d be ashamed to have such legally ignorant, vocabulary challenged individuals speak for me.

McConnell’s intention to wiretap every one of us legally was made quite clear in the Jan. 21, 2008 New Yorker. Get a copy and read it. Had it been on line, or when I can find it on line (the magazine has not put it on line) I’ll link it.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/200…..401-04.htm

President Bush signed NAFTA in December 1992, but sending it to the Senate for ratification would be up to the next president. Facing stiff questions from labor unions-a core Democratic Party constituency-candidate Bill Clinton declared that he would support NAFTA if it included side agreements on labor rights and the environment.

There are MANY more references. Just Google “Who signed the NAFTA agreement.

To you and all the other Hillary haters. You have a perfect right to be as illogicol, braindead, unreasonable and out of contact with reality as you wannabee. After all, the meat puppet befouling the WhiteHouse thinks he has an invisible friend in the sky who talks to him and tells him everything is AOK. So you just go on bein all that you can be. We know you’re doin the best you can, poor Dear.

LOL after a long day, completely out of contact with politics, the first Fire Puppy vital sign popping up on my computer makes me *g*.

Another grin is Tom Delay’s shit eating grin face popping up on the screen, oblivious to the fact he’s going to jail for years, lengthening the procedure with the world’s longest interloculatory appeal in the brilliant state of Texas which produced Supreme Court Justice Gonzales, Supreme Court Justice John Cornyn, and the current Supreme Court Justice

For the record, that twit in the Whie House was put there by a 5-4 vote of your Supreme Court, includig Swinging O’Conner who has stated and written that she regrets her vote. A little too late a revelation for “Sandy Baby”, as a drunk John Riggins once called her in a restaurant.

We keep getting into this discussion about what Obama meant. Not really a good sign in itself.

I’ve heard the electability argument before. It’s not new to this campaign and anyone who thinks it is has the short memory disease that afflicts so much of the American body politic.

What’s different here is that line:

“Now the question is, could she get the people who voted for me?”

In a sense it seems that he’s giving permission to bolt.

Now I suppose that could be interpreted several ways, but, if you’ve ever played on any kind of team, that kind of talk is verboten. Try it and you’re on the bench or off the squad.

What must happen here is the team and the team and the team. PERIOD.

What’s beyond all good reason are some comments here which display increased fury over Clinton’s statement of unity:

“As soon as we have a nominee, we will be strongly united because the most important thing is to put a Democrat in the white house starting in January 2009.”

She’s saying, in effect, that she wants her supporters to back the eventual nominee whoever that may be.

If that increases your hatred of Hillary Clinton all the more I suggest that you have a real problem and no small part of that problem is your complete lack of any kind of decency or maturity.

The hard reality is that this nation cannot tolerate another Republican president at this time.

If you think it’s just Bush then you don’t really have a clue about the way anything works.

Beyond policy is the President’s power to appoint. Although nominating at least one new Supreme Court member will be on the agenda soon after inauguration day, the President makes many other far less sexy appointments. The people who will direct (below the cabinet secretary level) all the various federal agencies are also appointees.

If a Republican is elected he will appoint people from the same general pool that the Bush administration drew from. Basically hacks, incompetents and ideologues who have a negative view of the agenciies they’d be running. Indeed they will be charged with running agencies they don’t believe should even exist.

So for you spoiled brats who will bolt if your candidate isn’t nominated please do you country a favor and at least leave the Presidential slot on you ballot blank. Don’t kick your country in the teeth by voting for a Republican.

I’m an Edwards supporter but I will support and vote for whoever the Democratic Party nominates.