uno

dos

Why July 1st? they have been watching this drawn out fight as long as the rest of us so why not June 5th? Or if they REALLY need the candidates to present their platforms ONCE AGAIN, then have the candidates do it on the 5th and the vote happens on the 6th and we can move on.

damn - missed again!!

dont know the outcome but this is one fucked up primary!!

Digg it

NO SMOKING ALLOWED!!

Jane!

It’s beginning to seem like groundhog day, isn’t it? I just want it to be over !

I want this over too, Jane. We’re in a win-win situation; we couldn’t be in a stronger position.

It is beginning to look like the superdelegates might end up saving the day. My hunch is that if Obama continues to trend the way he has been, the superdelegates will come up with enough votes for him to make Hillary’s fight about seating delegates moot.

I just find it rather ironic that the same people who were quire recently whipping everyone into a frenzy about “deals in smoke filled back rooms” and the end of democracy are looking to that very process and having superdelegates “vote their conscience” in order to pull the party’s bacon out of the fire.

the super delegates will one day save our party and possibly our country

let’s imagine some kind of implosion from both of these candidates where neither become electable

the super delegates can make the differance for a dark horse to step forward

I like the super delegate stop loss and I believe it will one day save our party

So Tweety and BO are coming to my town tomorrow night. Too bad I’ll miss it. Doing mom airport pick-up duty.

I too want it to be over already.

Washington’s written farewell address warns of political parties and the alignment of various interests as a threat to the nation and constitution. Jefferson feared the rise of a corporate aristocracy and using the “color of law” to usurp constitutional checks and balances. Seems both founder’s fears are realized today! Imagine a party whose super delegates trump the will of the democratic party’s voters while the republicans use the color of law to usurp constitutional checks and balances. America wake up! Put your beers down and turn off American Idol. Watch the history channel if you are illiterate. Maybe you will learn something. Asselephants are a dime a dozen!!

There is no inconsistency in asking the superdelegates to settle the thing by July 1, provided that the superdelegates ratify the choice of the voters. If they attempt to substitute a different result, that would be an affront to democracy.

Dean and Reid have to phrase it the way they do to keep the Clinton camp from going nuclear. Pelosi was more direct about it and Hillary’s pet billionaires tried to whack her, a bizarre move since their idea of how to win the vote of the superdelegates seems to be to threaten to cut off the funds of … the superdelegates.

I wish Olbermann would re-focus on the continuing outrages perpetrated on America by our ruling oligarchs. His obsession with the Democratic primary makes me not want to watch. He and his guests say the same things every night, night after night, about the same things.

Relegating BushCo’s crimes to a ninety-second feature called “Bushed” does the nation a disservice.

The piece of *hit should be in jail with his counterpart in corporate colonial crime!

Oh, and the next thing we need to do is to get rid of the superdelegates, or at the least, substantially cut their share of the vote.

I just turned off Keith, Teddy, for the same reason I turned off Hardball about 3 months ago. Gimme some teevee news, somebody.

I get my TV news watching clips on C&L and Think Progress now. Is there a site I’m missing?

Nah, I ain’t givin’ up my hand made Turkish smokes.

Teddy,
Any words you want me to tell the Admiral? He’s coming to the party after my shindig on Sunday.

Excellent observation, Teddy. You are exactly correct. Hope Olbermann resets the balance to feature more brazen Bushco malfeasance that affects us all and less Democratic Primary no-news.

Democracy Now

McClatchy is pretty good. And if you need a good daily paper, the Boston Glob has been doing pretty well, on the whole.

Look like Wal Mart cave on Debbie Shank.

Maybe it’s time for an email surge to Keith. Is he maybe finally being told what to cover by GE?

I think we have Keith to thank for that. Whether or not you like the horse race coverage, he still is way better than any of the others.

Thanks, ES, I bookmarked it.

I love him.

Link?

“We have decided to modify our plan to allow us more discretion for individual cases, and are in the final stages of working out the details,” Wal-Mart’s statement, released Tuesday, reads. “Wal-Mart will not seek any reimbursement for the money already spent on Ms. Shank’s care, and we will work with the family to ensure the remaining amounts in the trust can be used for her ongoing care.”

Wal-Mart ended its statement with an apology “for any additional stress this has put on the Shank family.”

The constitution was ginned up while Jefferson was out of the country
as ambassador to France. He disagreed with Madison about leaving the
regulation of corporations to the states, he thought there should be
something about it in the document. Madison never imagined the press
being bought off at the level it is now, hard to project from that
setting into the world of mass communications, granted, but the whole
edifice of a democratic republic rests on the essential role of a free
press. The blogs have stepped up and are trying to fill the gap… thanx
FDL.

Never mind. Found it.

Loo Hoo, I like the Toledo Blade.
I still watch KO, although he irritates me now.

wow, jane. again, i like it, especially the title.

(i’m in a weird mood, although a good one, a weird one, humor me)

one sunny day, i was sitting in my living room, all of a sudden, i was experimenting with smoke. (artist)

curling, expanding, vrooming, sitting, acrobatics. patterns. i was entranced. and couldn’t figure it out. the patterns that is.

physics.

it’s everywhere.

baseboard heat pushing upward, cool air from windows pushing outward. sun heat whaming it when it hit.

then i started pushing it on purpose, blowing it in different directions, into the heat, into the cool, into the therma.

it did the best, most amazing aerobatics and held the most awe and delight when left alone.

i video taped it. many have seen it, it’s quite incredible.

my friend jake, a physicist later explained it all to me. i had missed out on a little science. on why it worked that way. so i asked him.

so simple.

i liked the magic of it.

i liked that it worked better when left alone.

i think things work better when the rules are changed after the game is over. for the next time, i’ll close the window or turn off the heat. or do it on a rainy day.

but that will be the rules before i play ’salvation in a smoke-filled room’.

changing the parameters in the middle just screws up the natural result.

no magic in the end.

the game is being played with the stragety of the game in mind from the beginning, to change it in the middle changes the game you are playing.

that is not a game, that is chaos.

and the result isn’t as awing as it would have been if you f@ck with it in the middle.

The Good Guys Win?

Someone asked the other day what Jane meant when she said something about a song at the Hammell on Trial show at The Escacon conference. Here’s what I blogged the next morning…

Funniest moment from the party last night, while Hammel on Trial was on.

Scene: Darkened room with inebriated Atriots. Rude Pundit has finished, and doors to room have been secured by hotel staff to prevent escape of naughty words into the local environment.

Jane Hamsher sipping adult beverage while working on her blog and email on her nifty 17 inch MacBook Pro.

Hammel: [stops abruptly mid-song].

“There’s Jane, working on her cyber-tan.”

Jane: [cracks up]

Hammel: “Isn’t she beautiful?” [Sings improvised love ballad to Jane]

Jane: [laughing her butt off]

Hammel: “Her husbands gonna beat the shit out of me for that”

Jane (thinking): “Well, if he doesn’t know I’m not married, I sure as hell am not gonna tell him”
Gromit | 03.30.08 - 10:53 am |

I like the Boston Globe a lot (Charlie Savage is a hero). I’ll read the Toledo Blade. Any particular journalist(s)? Thanks!

I think this bacon is cooking quite nicely, thank you.

I’m beginning to see some of my own serious misconceptions about the long-running race between Dems, considering the 4 MILLION new voters regitered in PA, I can only say that ANYTHING that inspires an outbreak of grassroots democracy has to be good for this country.

SO I’m changing my own mind, I say let em’ roll, and we will all be better for it.

The other thing that is becoming apparent, Obama and Clinton are both gathering more numbers than Mccain, if you add the Dem party loyalists up, it is so overwhelming, there is no way even with a big bitterhead defection from either camp to Mccain in retribution that the R’s can put the kind of numbers together to overcome that HUGE wave of new voters.

So I agree with Bill and Barack, let it roll, if the supporters and staffers who are exchanging unpleasantries want to rant and rave, that is their preerogative. But all the Democratic bickering in the world will never create the kind of defections the media and the McCainers are touting, and the top R’s know it and they have gotten out of the races because they would rather resign than lose.

The rank and file R’s have very little to hope for in terms of their own qualities, they have only delusions to grasp at, and one of those delusins is that these overwhelming odds are somehow going to evaporate.

NOT!

I do not think Leona Helmsley Clinton will accept an adverse result,
nor will her husband… they don’t have anything else to do and have
this entourage waiting for patronage they have dreamed of for years.
It ani’t gonna be pretty.

PS.

As a veteran of many smoke-filled rooms, all I can say is you would have thought it would mellow everyone out…

What, oh, gosh, you mean CIGARS! And good-old boys and girls!

Just goes to show, there’s more than one way to frame an issue.

right on merk……………..

I understand that barring Obama withdrawing for personal reasons that Hilary has no chance to win. But while Obama might have the lead he might not have enough votes to win the contest
So unless the superdelegates from the States Obama won can take Obama over the top wouldn’t some superdelegates have to defect to someone for us to get a winner.

Disagree. I’m going to cry when she says her good-bye. She will stand by Barack, and make a speech that will unify the party. She’s got class.

a bit of entitlement??

excuse my ignorance, but when does the last state vote?

I’m beginning to look on the smoke-filled rooms with some fondness. The Repubs might have chosen a tool, but they never have chosen Dubya - he can’t even speak the language. And the Dems would NEVER have chose Kerry - too above it all.

Montana is the last state to vote. I’ll check date.

It isn’t 4 million new voters, it’s now over 4 million registered dems in PA. This cycle has brought in probably around 200 thousand new dems or crossovers since the fall by the time it’s all counted up and certified. But the margin over rethugs is now measurable. Before it wasn’t.

1,798 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

Oh sister Jane, still beatin’ the dead horse with a different stick? I’m old enough to remember the REAL backroom process of nomination-coronation and all the attempts from 19468 to 1992 to open it up so as to make the process accessible to those without the backin’ of the corporate sponsors and party wheelers and dealers. What we have today is a hybrid that involves ALL the important segments of the party from elected officials who are close to their constituencies and must go back there for re-election to the party activists at the local level who understand the caucus system and fight for local input into party policies and nominations to the registered Democrats who only respond to elections but are none the less an essential part of the base of any political party.

We have Howard Dean to thank that this process as long and drawn out as it has been was allowed to play out to include all three elements of party and party-building including the super-delegates who understand better’n anyone else the wishes of the base of their own constituency. It seems to me that to put the super-delegates in the position they are in today, to have local elected officials casting the deciding votes in the event of a majority candidate not gaining enough committed delegates to win outright, is the best thing Democratic Party activists and progressives who want not only a progressive candidate but an electable one. In this process this year we have EVERYONE who makes up the core Democratic Party involved and reflecting the will of their constituency.

Think about it for a moment, if Howard Dean had not stepped in and got all the players to agree to the primary calendar and process as we see it, keepin’ Florida and Michigan back, the establishment, non-progressive, corporate candidate with all the early money and the old party apparatus would have been able to steal the nomination before a majority of the country’s Democrats got to see, hear and vote for all the candidates.

I am tryin’ ta figure out what you’ve got stuck in yer craw over how this thing is playin out and all I ken think of is that you were early on a Clinton backer who has been gradually disillusioned with yer candidate as this thing has progressed and yer angry about bein’ “betrayed” like a lot of us feel about the Clintons. However, I’m seein’ a lot of progressive women righteously angry with what they now know to be the truth of Clinton’s politics and feel they’ve been conned and are deflecting their anger onto the process and the (mostly male) folks who did the right thing in keepin’ her from buyin’ the nomination early.

I too feel betrayed by both Clinton’s, there’s nuthin’ that cranks my ego like bein’ made a fool of especially by a clever politician…and of course to be conned by a clever female who could give a shit less about real folks like me and my family, well I think we may have somepthin’ in common here…do I read ya right, Sister Hamsher? Is that why Jeralyn is gone off a the deep end and fergot her life jacket?

I hope I haven’t offended you…after all I’m male and I will NEVER experience yer experience and have only my own psychological matrix to try and understand yours…but it’s important enough to me to try ‘cuz it will help me ta understand my daughters and my grand daughters (I understand my wife well enough ta follow directions and that’s the way she likes it).

So…

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, ALL OF US ARE GUNNA HAFTA FIGHT TOGETHER ‘CUZ THE FAXISTS AIN’T GUNNA GIVE UP!!

chosen Kerry. EDIT.

I will be glad to be wrong if it happens that way, but I see real anger
in the face and the rage in the voice is unmasked. I hope you are right.

Yes. The same thing that Ann Richards said about her own defeat after
the dust had settled… it was too much about ME.

Awe shit here we go again…where’s my post lurkin’ Mod?

thanks grommit!

LEONA HELMSLEY???????

oh c’mon, one thing about firedoglake is the pups use their own ’smack’…….gimme a break.

even i wouldn’t use that one.

I think I saw June 4 as the last voting date for primaries but may be mistaken

June 3

Nice thing is you only can speak for yerself!

List of all states and dates:
http://www.votesmart.org/elect....._dates.php

Where’s my post, Moderator??!!!

merk at 50– depends on what lens you are looking through.

I think this all may be really good for us, like Jane said. The rethugs are getting giddy at our infighting and perhaps just a little too confident, and they have to divide their time and money attacking two very different candidates instead of one. In this case, we should be spending our time focusing our attacks on McShrub…. we only have one target, his dead white men have to aim at two.

I think I read somewhere that Puerto Rico has the last contest and June 3 sounds about right.

more censorship….. You are right. The mods are pathetic. More in common with fascists???

dmac, I loved your post on watching and studying the smoke. What kind of smoke was it??!! *g*

??????

merk at 56—same as you!

Unless it’s been changed Puerto Rico is June 1.

repost it Norske, they suck!!!

same thought myself.

No, the difference is these mods have enough honesty ta respond…most a the time!

Where’s the post lurkin’ Moderator?

I think that we are missing something Obama and Hilary are both beating McCain in turnout is several red states. The nonblogger community who watches the news or reads the local paper do know what McCain did worse than our second place finisher.
Knowing that how many hard core GOPers can keep hope alive if McCain never inspires his base. I’m betting many of his base will say why bother and not go to the polls this election.
30% might support the war but how motivated are these folks to show up and vote if they know that they are only 30%?
Do we have any measure of the strength of GOP support for John McCain.

What? Norske doesn’t get censored. If he were censored, his comments about lost posts wouldn’t be here.

What is this findlaw.com “bull*hit” on FDL

I think it’s a good thing to let the voters have a chance to vote.

OK…WHERE’S THE FUCKIN POST??!!!

Refresh your browser and the comment is visible.

They’re not bringing in much money…teehee…

Norske,
I see a long comment up thread by you.

And for what it’s worth I doubt if your hollering will make the mods move any faster. In fact, if I were a mod, it would probably have the opposite affect.

My $.02

loo hoo at 63–my babe, not allowed ’smoke’ anymore…….darn it, was the best possible treatment for my muscle problems………darn, other doc said no…..not allowed. darn, it’s like buying tomatoes around here.

so it was cigs, at least my vice isn’t telling lies, that’s what i say when people comment. negatively.

=======

hey norske—the other day when you flipped that bugger at me, did you get my flip bugger back? /s

it was good.

texas just had its county conventions. we won’t have our state conventions til june 6-8 and then we’ll elect the remaining delegates to the national convention. i was elected by my precinct at the county convention to be a delegate to the state convention.

Seattle?

thank you.

Sure Loo Hoo!!!! Whatever you say?????

1,798 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND..

Firepup Freedom Fighters and any Lurkin’ Moderators:

Sigh…I gotta go ta bed (I work tanight)…please somebody go out in the ether with Jimmi Hendrixx and find my post…

Thanx.

KEEP THE FAITH AND CHALLENGE YER OWN ASSUMPTIONS…LEAVE MINE ALONE!!

Norske, it is at 49, and a good one as usual.

patience isn’t in the make-up of a viking warrior. that’s why he’s a viking warrior.

h/t to scandinavians.

Oh, I think Congressional District and State conventions will be going on throughout June and maybe into July in various states. But the first step of caucus or primary voting will be completed in early June is all.

I always picture Norske as looking like Grizzly Adams - with an axe.

Yeah money is a metric we can use the number of personal contributions and the amount of them compared to what McCain lost gives us a number but how will that correlate with voter turnout?

We confuse democracy with representative democracy. Representative democracy is essentially hierarchical with representatives thinking they know better than the ignorant masses which like it or not is us. Some hope the convention will be deadlocked with Al Gore arriving to save the day. Not only does it seem pretty clear Al Gore doesn’t want to be president (I don’t think he ever did) or why chose Joe L? Doesn’t say much for his judgment.

The fact remains people (including Hillary) hope for various reasons the super delegates choose Hillary over Obama. That might get me to say screw it and stay home knowing the great American experiment is over. Christopher Hitchens has a recent article on Hillary in which she purportedly told Edmund Hillary that her mother named her after him except she was born in 1947 and he didn’t climb Everest until 1953. Eventually she conceded she misspoke much like her recollection of sniper fire in Bosnia. There is something seriously wrong with that woman. As for super delegates, you either believe in democracy or you don’t. If you feel the popular vote should be overruled for the sake of the party, you don’t get it.

after this primary is over, can we get rid of the whole super delegate thing all together? is there any reason to keep it?

Same thing happened to Gary Hart in ‘84… he came into the convention
with the vote and delegate lead, but the supers gave it to Mondale.
Nothing new, really… we have been dead for that long, Clintonism came
to save us in the 90’s and was the new normal til Junya busted out and
gave us another chance at a real election.

FAXISTS LOL good post Dude!

Oh, well, if Harry Reid is on board, then you must take it as a done-deal.

Unless, of course, you’ve been paying even a tiny bit of attention to the Senate for the last year.

twain at 88–me too, i liked grizzly adams.

Norske must have seen the Ed Markey show with the oil boys earlier. Can definitely make one a little testy, with good reason! I just handed all my pathetic wealth to the Electric Company, to see, Oil Company, to heat the home, Mobile to fuel my car, and a tax exempt health insurance corporation, or I will have my state tax return taken by the state next year as they hold me hostage on the chance I my get hurt!! What a deal for the Corporations while Americans are raped and sodomized by corporate scum protected by the rule of “asinine” law, bought and paid for by legalized influence peddling and pandering!

My position on this is strong. While superdelegates can vote their “conscience”, the most significant consideration should be the will of those that voted in the 52-odd Democratic Primaries and Caucuses. The exclusive reason that they should act as a veto upon that bloc of delegates is if a major catastrophe loomed…say an utterly irredeemable criminal act by the candidate, a major ongoing sex scandal with a minor, the candidate falling deathly or mentally ill, something of that nature. Which church they attended or whether or not the “misremembered” coming under sniper fire in Bosnia doesn’t rank up there, sorry.

I also think that the Superdelegates should not feel bound by prior oral committments to candidates. Those who have stated their committment to any candidate should be able to switch. After all, they should vote their “conscience” and an earlier committment cannot be binding. So the Clinton campaigns assertion that Superdelegates can vote their conscience plays both ways. It doesn’t simply apply to those that haven’t enunciated their decision.

The reality though is that what we have here is an example of vote-trading more than anything else. Many of the S-Delegates want to enunciate their support for her, but only if their own votes aren’t decisive. If it turns out that they will flip the result they may, as a collective face the wrath of the Democratic electorate- and that would play out especially in districts where Obama won handily. Thus they actually “benefit” if the race doesn’t narrow to point where she’s within striking distance with their votes. If it does narrow watch several of them actually jump over to Obama.

Puerto Rico just recently moved their Primary back two days to June 1st, thus allowing South Dakota and Montana to have the last shot. I think that they were “talked to” so that their votes would not be the ultimate and deciding contest. It could have been a little embarassing if Obama went into the last day 20 delegates ahead and then Clinton gets enough PR delegates to win. The Repugs would make huge hay about that. But if two heartland contests follow it may not look as bad.

But I don’t think it’ll go down to these last three races. The Texas caucuses actually gave him more delegates in that State…unlike the even split that most tallies had. And he’s going to close on Clinton in Pennsylvania, limiting her delegate numbers there. Then he’s got N.Carolina, which should counter any gains she makes in W, Virginia and Tennessee. Indiana and Oregon might even increase his numbers. By then the Superdelegates will be coming over, too as they see that his lead is insurmountable (or that they don’t want it to appear Puerto Rico is decisive).

The smoke-filled rooms may be anathema to Deaniac populists, but over the last four years losing my political virginity I’ve come to realize that

1) some times a solid sucker punch and a firm kick in the ass out of the camera’s line of sight may be necessary for some folks who do not understand even the clearest of enunciation and the simplest of words;

2) there’s a time when a common and blunt lingua franca is called for, again out of sight of cameras and away from recording devices.

In this case, the smoke-filled room may have put the morons at ease just long enough; the outcome is still going to be the same, only the method of message delivery has changed.

(Believe me, I’ve had to resort to the very same tactics locally inside the last week. How do these morons continually manage to find a second wind and resurrect themselves, obstructing reform and democratic efforts towards GOTV? Even heart attacks — no, I’m not kidding — don’t seem to stop these stupid f*cks. If a smoke-filled room and conversation sotto voce is all that’s required to get it through their thick heads, I’ll make the compromise.)