boy camel jockeys?

Yer kiddin!

2nd ???

Sorry quick OT, but Hill’s mouthpiece is trying funny buzziness on CNN re, delegates…sorry no linky..

Ah. Back to bidniss as usual, then. Guess they gotta do something after Obi picked up another couple of Supers over the weekend.

McCain and the Lobbyists: great name for a satirical, progressive band, no? Maybe the Asylum St Spankers cold change their name, just through Nov 5th?

FunnyD

Oh,,, Duggggggg :)

can McCain please just get it over with and hire Mark Penn?

Progressive dems: Don’t fence us in, take our Penn, please!

FunnyD

Shit

This bullshit about the delegate count has both sides lost in Spin Land…

The Obama people are perhaps the most creative- effectively disenfranchising the super delegates by demanding (for reasons totally out of their assholes) that superdelegates MUST vote the same way as the other delegates, thereby making their votes meaningless.

The Clinton people, on the other hand, want to include Michigan and Florida in the total number- PLUS the supers- making the majority number much higher than the Obama number.

It’s all pure bullshit and will be over soon.

Clinton with another 2 to 1 lead in Kentucky (63-28)

Obama ahead by somewhere between 14 and 4 points in Oregon.

OT – i’m way late today with the weekly hearing list… there are a lot of potentially interesting ones. here are just a few of tomorrow’s (details, links and the rest of the week’s list)

10 am – Senate Judiciary
To hold hearings to examine global internet freedom, focusing on corporate responsibility and the rule of law.

10 am – House Education and Labor
Workforce Protections Subcommittee
Hearing on “ICE Workplace Raids: Their Impact on U.S. Children, Families, and Communities”

10 am – House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment
Oversight Hearing: Burma in the Aftermath of Cyclone Nargis: Death, Displacement, and Humanitarian Aid

10:30 am – Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Financial Speculation in Commodity Markets: Are Institutional Investors and Hedge Funds Contributing to Food and Energy Price Inflation?

11 am – Senate Appropriations
To hold hearings to examine proposed budget estimates for fiscal year 2009 for the Department of Defense.
Witnesses:
The Honorable Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense
Admiral Michael G. Mullen, USN, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

2 pm – House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight
Oversight Hearing: City on the Hill or Prison on the Bay? The Mistakes of Guantanamo and the Decline of America’s Image, Part II

2:30 pm – Senate Judiciary
To hold hearings to examine protecting the constitutional right to vote for all Americans.

2:45 pm – Senate Foreign Relations
Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs Subcommittee To hold hearings to examine Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) challenge, focusing on securing one of the worlds most dangerous areas.

As always, selise, we are most appreciative of your research to bring us the news of these hearings. I have watched so many of them just because you bring us this schedule. Thank you!

Is this the reason for this afternoon’s inter-campaign sniping ???

Thank goddess it’ll be over soon.
However, I don’t have a problem with the Supers giving the will of the voters, as expressed in primaries/caususes, very significant weight in making their decisions. That’s not meaningless to my mind. I’m not so hot on the “electoral college” argument that they’re there to somehow save us from ourselves, just in case they somehow get some crucial piece of information we don’t have at the very last second. It’s bad enough their votes are worth about 10,000 times what mine is. To me, letting the Supers decide the nomination without really listening carefully to ordinary voters/caucus-goers would make this whole primary circus, and my participation, meaningless. Which would be much, much worse, IMHO.

FunnyD

ah, you thought of it too..John McCain and the Lobbyists. Of course, my favorite group is Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, but that tends to date me..

want to link to this morning’s discussion of which of the Oregon numbers is more likely to be correct?

FunnyD

crikey – link doesn’t work

Patty Solis-Doyle in talks with Obama campaign for job in the general election campaign

and I’ll date myself by saying that McCain and the Lobbyists reminded me of Josie and the Pussycats.

FunnyD

A good argument can be made that the superdelegate thingee ought to be eliminated- but since they are currently legal voters for the nomination- I can see no reason why their vote should be worth less than anyone else’s.

They should vote their preference and let the chips fall where they may.

To have em- but to say that they can only vote the way the vote has gone prior to their vote is about as silly as anything I have ever heard.

But that’s just my opinion.

And if they take her, they are in-sane.

Naw

We already DID that.

May 27th McBush and his BFF the real Bush will be having a fund raiser
Bush to headline McCain’s Phoenix fundraiser

The Phoenix event, to be headlined by President George W. Bush, will take place May 27 at the Phoenix Convention Center. It includes VIP treatment for supporters bringing in $25,000 for McCain’s presidential effort and other GOP causes.

That is $25K per couple……. Holy Smokes….. the peace groups are gearing up for a big protest….

There is a problem at the link..it’s saying story moved or lost??

Raising money from gooper fat cats is about all Clusterfuck can do now.

which is why I propose pointing those who weren’t here for the discussion to that thread. Since all the questions about poll accuracy are still valid for the KY number you mention.

Thank goddess OR and KY are tomorrow. Don’t think I could stand another whole week of this.

FunnyD

jackie – see my 16

Toby – the overall grand but failed design of HRC campaign was that of Messrs Penn and Wolfson – with the help of the Clintons themselves – doncha love how “the gurl” gets fired rather than they admit their mistakes

[Mod: we repaired your link]

And, if you didn’t like the old GOP, here’s the new and improved model..now with electric windows and white wall tires: http://www.thecarpetbaggerrepo…..15583.html
New agenda doesn’t mention being anti-gay or anti-abortion…and the Democrats elected in the three special elections were accused of trying to make themselves look like Conservatives?

Yeah—we can put up with a couple more weeks- cause we HAVE to and because so little hangs on the outcome of these things….

I’d say after tomorrow- few will pay attention to who wins South Dakota, Montana, or Puerto Rico.

‘the gurl’ always gets fired before the guys do…that’s the rule.

Warren Buffet, the Sage of Omaha, the world’s richest man, speaks in support of Barack Obama and proves he’s not too shabby in the snark dept. either.

“They say in the stock market … buy stock in a business that’s so good that an idiot can run it because sooner or later one will,” he added.

“Well, the United States is a little like that. We can take a little mis-management from time to time,” Buffett said.

Furthering the you had your chance, now it’s our turn meme….

Then we’ll have to agree to disagree, because pretending that putting some constraints on how the supers should decide makes their votes somehow _less_ valuable than mine, when they’re already weighted about 10,000-fold compared to mine is just as silly.

Try that “we got ‘em, let ‘em do what they want” argument with members of the Electoral College and see how far it flies. Because technically, they’re allowed to vote their preferences, too, iirc.

Sorry, Cliff and pups. I’ll stop flinging poo now.

FunnyD

Let’s see now, who will be more enraged and offended by this: Ultra right religious conservatives, who have had a sneaking suspicion that they were ‘had’ in the last several elections? Or moderates who will figure that the other stuff has been put in storage for a while and would be brought right back out again if McCain is elected (see Supreme Court of the US, The.

Would you agree that if we decide that it’s a rule that the supers must vote the same as what the public has voted for declared delegates, then their vote is TOTALLY POINTLESS?

Which is sad for them, but a whole lot more states have gotten a whole lot more attention than usual this cycle.

FunnyD

Thank-you :)

okay, I was wrong,

this is probably the reason for this afternoon’s inter-campaign snipe fest:

HRC backer Saban offers Young Democrats of America $1M to endorse Clinton

Ooooh, funsies. Wolfie is teasing and TPM has the press release of the WH pushback against the interview with NBC.

Penn and tell ‘er (it’s over) – comedy gold

more OT – from bernhard (who is german) at moon of alabama:

Yesterday I pointed to an Associated Press ‘IMPACT’ piece headlined Thousands killed by US’s Korean ally. It ran on the general Associated Press feed at Yahoo news. Like AP, I expected it to have some ‘impact’. Like AP, I was wrong.

The piece is the summary of a big investigative report that must have required quite some time and effort. There are a lot of new and so far unreported details in it.

In the early 1950s the South Korean dictatorial regime, under tutelage of the U.S., killed over 100,000 of its own people because they were suspected of being somewhat on the political left or otherwise not assumed loyal to the U.S. instantiated regime.

Just like German SS Einsatzgruppen killed ‘undesirable people’ of their own blood in the 1940s – hundred-thousands of them – the South Korean a few years later did just the same. Unlike the Germans, the South Koreans were under U.S. control and the ‘incidents’ happened in attendence of U.S. officers.

My German ancestors in the 1930s/40s killed a lot of people in a crazy rampage and under a insane philosophy and state of mind we still try to understand. By we at least talk about this in the open and our media doesn’t shy away from reports about it. Hopefully this will help us to keep such pathologies in memory and never again take such path.

All people have such historic stigmas. Some acknowledge them, some don’t. I am worried about my U.S. friends.

delurking for a moment

This is a joke or an exaggeration, right?

no.

link here

Yes, but I never advocated such a rule, so don’t equate me with your straw man. My point is as their votes are numerically soooooo much more important than average rank and file voter, they have a responsibility to take our wishes into account in a very meaningful way. Anyone who wants their vote to be 10000 times more important than mine, yours and ours but vote their “preference” as though they’re equivalent and not be pressured by us plebes to look beyond their rarefied party insider world deserves to be greatly disappointed in that wish.

Besides, can _you_ agree that if Supers are allowed to vote their personal preferences or prejudices, no matter what anyone else thinks, that my vote, yours and every other non-Superdelegate’s becomes JUST AS MEANINGLESS?

I’m just not buying that Supers are somehow becoming terribly, terribly disenfranchised right now. Makes me wanna visit that famous Russian waterway: Crimea River.

FunnyD

wow. a bit speechless here.

*sigh*

Hi, Wobbs. How’s WeeBits today?

FunnyD

“Besides, can _you_ agree that if Supers are allowed to vote their personal preferences or prejudices, no matter what anyone else thinks, that my vote, yours and every other non-Superdelegate’s becomes JUST AS MEANINGLESS”

Certainly not- that would only be true if the superdelegates represented a significant majority of those voting- rather they reperesent a relatively small minority who only have any influence if the race is very close (as this one is).

My only interest in the issue is to see how effectively the Obama people have spun it to their advantage– probably one of the better examples of political spin out there.

As I have said repeatedly, I could care less which candidate wins- I’ll vote for em.

The President responded: “You know, my policies haven’t changed, but evidently the political calendar has. People need to read the speech. You didn’t get it exactly right, either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you’ve got to take those words seriously. And if you don’t take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn’t take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolf Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon.”

Heeeellllloooo! Ahmadinejad said regime change!

Both Israel and the US needs regime change.

Bush can’t open his mouth without bushit coming out.

Hi FunnyD

She is doing well. Her eyes are now fully open. She ate and crawled around for a while. She started to fall asleep so now she is in her momma sling (scarf tying her close to my chest) purring

you are what you eat

10:30 am – Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Financial Speculation in Commodity Markets: Are Institutional Investors and Hedge Funds Contributing to Food and Energy Price Inflation?

I’m sure HoJo and Collins will get to the bottom of it! ;-)

Don’t need the hearing; I can tell you from what I see in my job(I get to see natural gas prices on a daily basis in terms of generating electricity)that there is some heavy duty speculation going on. Even in the depths of winter in the worst winters we’ve had, you would never ever see prices like we are seeing now. These prices are one and a half times what they would be in the worst winter…and this is at a time when it should be way low because of the spring weather. There is also no problem with supply or anything happening on the demand side.

This funny…from the WH Gillespie letter:

“I noticed that around September of 2007, your network quietly stopped referring to conditions in Iraq as a “civil war.” Is it still NBC News’s carefully deliberated opinion that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war? If not, will the network publicly declare that the civil war has ended, or that it was wrong to declare it in the first place?”

WTF????

Enron redux, eh? Those hedge fund managers need to recoup their real estate losses…

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law…abridging…the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Actually, the First Amendment says the citizens can petition the Government. But, it does not say Foreign governments have the right. These governments may be (or certainly are) acting against the interests of our citizens. So we could and should also have a law that no person can accept money from another country (or a foreign owned corporation) to influence our government.

It also does not say Corporations have rights, only people.

lol. of course!

i don’t know anything about the witnesses, but here are the other members of the committee (from the website):

Joseph I. Lieberman Chairman (ID) (CT)
Carl Levin (MI)
Daniel K. Akaka (HI)
Thomas R. Carper (DE)
Mark L. Pryor (AR)
Mary L. Landrieu (LA)
Barack Obama (IL)
Claire McCaskill (MO)
Jon Tester (MT)

Susan M. Collins Ranking Member (ME)
Ted Stevens (AK)
George V. Voinovich (OH)
Norm Coleman (MN)
Tom Coburn (OK)
Pete V. Domenici (NM)
John Warner (VA)
John E. Sununu (NH)

Worries me too.

good. Sounds like you’re training up a lap-cat!

FunnyD

per TPM:

STATEMENT FROM NBC NEWS

Richard Engel’s interview with President Bush has been available, unedited, in its entirety, for the past day, on our website. Our reporting accurately reflects the interview. Just as the White House does not participate in the editorial process at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or USA Today, NBC News, as part of a free press in a free society, makes its own editorial decisions.

yep, on the backs of consumers come June, July and August.

lol yup, Gillespie is all about truthful news.

Mr. Capus, I’m sure you don’t want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the “news” as reported on NBC and the “opinion” as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines. I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network’s viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don’t hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.

Maliki’s surges are taking care of that little matter! Later today I’ll have a post up at M&C about his latest surge in Mosul and all the prisoners he’s taking…!

Bush:

“But one thing is for certain – we need to prevent them from learning how to enrich uranium. And I have made it clear to the Iranians that there is a seat at the table for them if they would verifiably suspend their enrichment.”

I’ve been on a budget plan for my gas bill for the past 4 years. It’s fluctuated between 50-65 a month in that time. My new budget for this year is 150 a month.

And now they want the balance due for the overage for the winter by the end of the month. I got that news a couple days ago.

Only a gooper could argue that when you have segments of a country trying to kill other segments and to toss out the govt. with force- that you DON’T have a Civil War..

If we don’t have a CIVIL WAR- then we don’t have a war at all- bring em on home!

Seems that they already KNOW how to enrich uranium- it’s central to the Clusterfuck thesis….

I’ll be looking for it.

I think the only decent questions asked will be from my Sen. Akaka, and Tester, maybe Levin, too… But that’s it…! 8-(

I can’t believe they went public with such a blatantly partisan, anti-free-press crock of BS. But then again, I don’t actually live in BushWorld (well, physically I have to, but not spiritually or intellectually.)

FunnyD

talking about not talking to terrurists

will be interesting to see if they show up. i’m hoping for something from tester.

I’m gonna take a wild ass guess here and say that Clusterfuck’s JAR ratings won’t benefit from his trip to the middle east or from anything he’s said about em.

1,847 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Frank33 and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

“It also does not say corporations have rights, only people.”

No, Citizen Frank33, the SCOTUS in a ruling jest before the turn a the twentieth century bestowed on corporations the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. That why ol’ Teddy Roosevelt’s “trust bustin’” was a big kabuki dance choreographed by Teddy and J.P Morgan. The trusts disappeared and the corporations popped up pacifyin’ a gullible public by offerin’ stocks on the open market to let folks think they owned a share of the wealth and not the entirety of the debts.

KEEP THE FAITH,THE WHOLE SCAM IS GOIN’ PUBLIC!!

laura flanders with grit tv upstairs

For your calling/faxing pleasure:

Alphabetical list of Senate phone and fax numbers

and some more GritTV upstairs

you get zed?

You should see what the Arab press has been saying about Shrub’s jaunt… It’s a riot…! ;-)

thanks for zed alert :D

Back in the old days, before ‘deregulation’ the electric part of the company I used to work for owned, in partnership, a generating plant in PA that sat right on top of a coal mine, so they had quite a bit of control over their input costs. Now that the utilities in our state have had to divest themselves from their generation capacity, they are at the mercy of the generators and the generators are at the mercy of the speculators that are driving up the cost of the inputs, like natural gas. It’s a horrible situation.

OOOOOOH! You, you DAREDEVIL, you!
Although any positive bump could easily be a significant “percent improvement” in his JAR, it would be meaningless in the real world where more than 75% of the country thinks we’re going in the wrong direction.

FunnyD

very nice. i’m still using the vCards – but that may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Hum a few bars an we’ll all sing along!!

no. i don’t have anything clever or useful to use for a zed. very much like yours though!

Oh, that was meant to be good-natured agreement with your wager, not hostile snark.

FunnyD

I need to try to imprt those into gmail. surprised google hasn’t made gFax yet!

This is meant to be good natured appreciation of your agreement.

Selise and CT Tuttle -

Senator Collins may ‘appear’ to be all strong at this hearing – her opponent is breathing down her neck and showing youtube to Mainers about how soft she was on Iraq Contractors, Her lead is down to 10 pts and falling

Halliburton’s Essential Senator

I think it is most important.

and i should update the vCards for the Representatives – there’s been some changes since i did them last fall.

i don’t know if anyone has imported them into gmail yet – mostly, i think just for desktop apps. if it works, let me know and i’ll post and update.

amen!

Take a look at this article and this one… for starters! ;-)

I give it a try! Handy for all those petitions i sign that has a second page for share with your contacts >:]

Since switching from mac to linux I now use claws-mail. Works great with gmail IMAP but i’ve no idea how it handles contacts.

Hard to be two-faced in a connected world!

nice, justaposition of links, btw.

There are two other recently released polls that are showing the trends going just the opposite direction.Portland Tribune Poll shows Obama up by double digits in Oregon.

While Survey USA shows it just about ten point difference, but with those that are submitting later votes going overwhelmingly to Obama. As well it shows that women and men of all age groups and educational classes are shifting to Obama. Hillary still holds women over 65…but Obama has massive support in younger age-groups in Oregon.

I suspect turnout may make a difference in the differential tomorrow…and that turnout will be heavier IF Clinton looks to be winning big in Kentucky. The time delay between the results being announced may play a role in what happens in Oregon as far as turnout.

No turnout- it’s all vote by mail.

It’s all over in Oregon- we just don’t know the result.

Would you agree that if we decide that it’s a rule that the supers must vote the same as what the public has voted for declared delegates, then their vote is TOTALLY POINTLESS?

“Must vote” and “should vote” are two different concepts. The Super Delegates were introduced to act as an emergency valve to cope with some critical emergency with a particular candidate. Actually they were a retention of the old selection system that was rapidly being swallowed up by a hodge-podge caucus and primary system in the late 1960’s. The problem then was that candidates would only run in a handful of selected states rather than compete nationally. They’d pick and choose which states to compete in…then come to the convention…bargain for the delegates of the drop-outs or ‘favorite sons” and win the nomination.

Now every state has either a caucus or primary, and the caucuses are much more open. Candidates pretty much have to compete in every State.

While I’d say that under the current rules every “super delegate” has the right to vote counter to the popular vote, the elected delegate vote, and just about any other measure of whom the overall participating electorate wants…they certainly should place considerable weight on “the will of the people”. They have an ethical responsibility to do that if not a strictly legal one.

Otherwise they could just as easily vote for McCain…or sell their vote for a $1 million (probably nothing in the law or rules against THAT either).