The Mad Rants of an Unconventional Soccer Mom

I sat all morning watching the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting. Yes, I know. I have no real life to speak of. But I was on pins and needles waiting to see how they would determine what to do about seating the Florida and Michigan delegates - the two states that broke the rules by moving their primaries up. The end result was what I expected. The states will be seated at the convention at half strength.

Obama emerged from the RBC proceedings with a grand total of 2,052 delegates, just 66 short of the now 2,118 required to win the nomination. Clinton has 1,877.5 delegates, 240.5 short of the number needed to win. There are only 290 delegates left. On Tuesday, after the polls close in Montana and South Dakota, Obama will have clinched the nomination. On to the general!!!

The one that bothered me about the proceedings was some of the very ignorant Clinton supports in attendance causing a ruckus with their protest inside and outside of the meeting. What an embarrassment these people are. It's hard for me to fathom that these people are really part of the democratic party -- the Big Tent Party. If you don't know what I am talking about, check this out:

For her to say Barack Obama, who is Harvard educated and a SENATOR, is an "inadequate" black man is truly disgusting. Imagine what type of message that would send to any young African American striving for something better in life.

I’ve been writing very little lately because I’ve been so angered at how the primaries have been playing out, and I felt that I was just beating a dead horse with my complaints. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not angry that they are still going on. I’m angry that Clinton has decided that she would rather stay in and tear the party apart by playing victim, then focusing on defeating McCain. In the last few weeks she and her surrogates have blamed her fall on misogyny, bribed super delegates, and threatened to leadership that if Clinton was not the nominee they would take their money and leave the party.

Let them. After the unforgivable thing she said yesterday, she needs to be thrown out of the party and she can take all of her corrupt, old establishment with her. This is about a new time in our history. What she said should be the final nail in her coffin. And she of all people should have known better.

Death threats came early to Obama judging by how early the Secret Service stepped in to try to protect him. I suspect, the death threats come in greater numbers for him than any Presidential candidate before him. And yet, he still stands before us. He stands before us with his family by his side. Think about that.

Think about what it would take for any of us here to believe so strongly in the need to change our country that we could handle constant death threats. That we could handle the danger inherent in our campaign not just to our spouse, but to our children?

Think about Wing-Nut radio show hosts who feel free to joke about the possibility of him being assassinated. And the good Rev. Mike Huckabee? Didn’t he joke just last week about someone shooting at Obama? How funny, right!?! Apparently, it's still OK in this country to many people to joke about shooting and killing a black man – even if he is probably the next president.
And yet, Obama stands before us, offering himself to us. He does it in venues of 15,000, 30,000, 50,000, 75,000 people. Do you think all of them have gone through metal detectors? We've seen reports of the Secret Service getting a certain percentage of people close to the stage through screening with metal detectors, but no way can they get everybody through. And yet, he stands before us, an act of courage day after day.

While he stood before crowds of people yesterday talking about change and making our country better, Clinton was talking about her political gain through the possibility of his assassination.
To take jokes from Republicans and wing-nut radio hosts is one thing, but to take it from a Democrat is something else. And to take it from a person claiming to be fit to be President, is something else entirely. All I can say is that she is shockingly despicable.
Don’t you think that she should know better then anyone else what it is like to protect your family against all the wing-nuts? All the threats?

Yes, she knows what it's like to need the kind of protection Obama has - for her daughter to need it and her husband to need it. And don’t you think it has to be even worse for Obama, a black man who dares to think he can break through hundreds of years of racism in this country and be President?

It is unforgivable. And don’t let her brush it off as some kind of mistake when she spoke. It wasn’t the first time she used the assassination of Bobby either. Here she is in a Time interview two months ago:

TIME: Can you envision a point at which--if the race stays this close--Democratic Party elders would step in and say, "This is now hurting the party and whoever will be the nominee in the fall"?

CLINTON: No, I really can't. I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.

So it has nothing to do with the excuse she gave that the Kennedy’s were on her mind this week because of Teddy’s terminal cancer diagnoses. This is a tactic of hers. What a shameless, horrible person she is. She is not fit to be president.

This week in Dublin, representatives from more than 100 nations gathered to develop a treaty that would ban the use of cluster bombs:

Cluster munitions are among the weapons which pose the gravest dangers to civilians, according to the CMC.

Dropped from warplanes or fired from artillery guns, they explode in mid-air, randomly scattering bomblets -- ramping up the risk of civilians being killed or maimed by their indiscriminate, wide-area effect.

They pose a lasting threat to civilians as well, as many bomblets fail to explode on impact.

Cluster munitions caused more civilian casualties in Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq in 2003 than any other weapon system.

In the Middle East, Israel's widespread use of cluster bombs during the 2006 war in Lebanon caused more than 200 civilian casualties in the year following the ceasefire, the CMC said.

Under the draft treaty, signatories would never use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer cluster munitions. They would also have six years to destroy their stockpiles.

Guess what countries weren’t represented there and why:

Notably absent from the conference include China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States -- all major producers and stockpilers.

The United States of America is the largest manufacturer of cluster bombs. This weaponry maims and kills thousands of innocent human beings globally each year but reaps huge profits for the defense industry. Thus, our absence is no grand mystery. It’s always about profits.

In 2006 a vote came up in the senate. It was senate amendment 4882: Statement of Purpose: To protect civilian lives from unexploded cluster munitions.

Here’s the full text:

No funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act my [sic] be obligated or expended to acquire, utilize, sell, or transfer any cluster munitions unless the rules of engagement applicable to the cluster munitions ensure that the cluster munitions will not be used in or near any concentrated population of civilians, whether permanent or temporary, including inhabited parts of cities or villages, camps or columns of refugees or evacuees, or camps or groups of nomads.

Not a single republican voted in favor of this amendment and neither did Clinton.

Did that sink in? Clinton voted against banning the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas. Think about that: Should our military be permitted to use cluster bombs in civilian areas, with each exploding bomb covering the range of a football field? Yes or no? Senator Clinton said yes. Senator Obama said no.

I guess Clinton didn’t want to appear to be soft on terror. I can just hear the rational from the supposedly progressive women fiercely pushing for her "Yes, she does vote for horrible things, but she is a woman! Vote for her anyway.”

It amazes me that the grandson of Prescott Bush has the nerve to bring up Nazi enablers and giving comfort to enemies:

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave laborers at Auschwitz.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

You see, Prescott Bush made a considerable share of the family fortune through his dealings with Nazi Germany. Prescott Bush was a partner and executive in the Brown Brothers Harriman holding company on Wall Street and a director of one of its key financial components, the Union Banking Corporation (UBC).

Together with his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, Prescott Bush owned the Hamburg-Amerika shipping line, which was utilized by the Nazi regime to transport its agents in and out of North America.

Another subsidiary of the Harriman group, Harriman International Co., struck a deal with Hitler’s regime in 1933 to coordinate German exports to the US market.

You can read the Federal Register from November 7, 1942 here were you can see Prescott Bust listed as having assets seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

And if you act now you can own the china used by Adolf Hitler’s elite bodyguard on Prescott Bush’s ships. They are being auctioned off tomorrow:

Nazi guards would eat their meals served on the 30-piece set as they traveled incognito on the Hamburg-American shipping line, protecting Hitler against communist attack.

All the plates and dishes carry the symbol of the “Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler” (LAH), the name of the elite guard, in elaborate gold lettering. They would only be used in the guard’s private quarters.

The Leibstandarte-SS lived in comfort on board the ships, which were partly owned by George W Bush’s great grandfather, Prescott Bush, often posing as passengers or crew.

I look forward to the day that I vote for the first woman President of the United States, but it won’t be this November. I know a lot of Hillary’s most stalwart female supporters feel that their candidate is a victim of misogyny. I don’t believe so. Sure there are some idiots out there that don’t believe a woman should be president, but there are also many idiots who don’t believe there should ever be a black president. The fact is that this is a truly historic time. We have the first viable woman candidate and the first viable African American candidate. Unfortunately that means that one long oppressed voice has to end up being disappointed.

But to think that Hillary’s downfall was that she is a woman is wrong in my opinion. Up until February she was believed to be the presumptive nominee. Her average lead in national polls was 20% over Barack. Did all of the sudden an epidemic of sexism infect the country? I don’t think so. Hillary’s downfall was her own making. She didn’t read the political climate correctly. This is a change election, and yet she decided to align herself with the establishment and also on the wrong side of the ideological divide. I was more then disappointed that she chose to use divisive tactics and to make herself a comparatively conservative candidate when all indications were that people are tired of Rovian politics. Her votes on the AUMF and Kyl-Lierberman were absolutely egregious and unforgivable. And I never in my life thought I would hear a democratic candidate so flippantly talk about obliterating a nation.

So Hillary being a woman has nothing to do with why she fell behind. I think if a white man were running the exact same way against Barack that he would lose, as well.

I hope that feminist groups like Emily’s List realize this soon before it is too late. I know they are deeply disappointed, but this call to boycott Barack is reckless and has the potential to severely damage the women’s rights movement for generations. Is tying yourself to Hillary’s failed candidacy really worth it? How does working to destroy Barack’s chances in the general get you anything? Do you really want to risk a McCain presidency? Is he not the man who said just last week that he would not support equal pay for women? Is he not the man that said he would install Supreme Court judges in the tradition of Scalia? Are you really that spiteful that you would risk young girls having to resort to back alley abortions rather then supporting another progressive candidate? How sad is that?

Barack has a stellar record of defending woman’s right. Yet you would rather deny the Presidency to this man - this man who was raised by an extraordinary, progressive woman and also married one - just because Hillary is not the nominee. All this talk of voting for McCain is foolishness if what your true goal is to promote women’s rights. The only thing that should really matter is that a president is elected that would be a champion of women. Please think about this. Why would you cut your nose off to spite your face?

Washington met with the British; Eisenhower met with Stalin; Truman met with Korea; Nixon met with China; Reagan met with Russia and IRAN; GHW Bush met with Quaddafi. And yet, according to W’s foreign policy doctrine you should never talk to the “enemy” - that is unless he’s doing, like when he was negotiating with North Korea, which is a state sponsor of terrorism. That’s ok! Or maybe the only time it is wrong is when a democratic leader wants to find a peaceful, diplomatic solution with an adversarial nation instead of attacking it – then they are no different than “Nazi appeasers”:

In a particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of “appeasement” of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II.

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

The remarks seemed to be a not-so-subtle attempt to continue to raise doubts about Obama with Jewish-Americans.

What a sad little war mongering pathetic man. All Mr. 28% has is fear. He certainly doesn’t have any class, intelligence, or honor. He flew halfway around the world only to deliver a cheap and foolish political shot at the Obama. You know, I expect this kind of behavior from a half-assed third world strongman like Robert Mugabe, but not the President of the United States of America. Oh and will someone please get him a dictionary already? In his illiterate mind diplomacy is equivalent to appeasement. It is not.

Luckily, we will soon have a President that believes in statesmanship and diplomacy. It will be none too soon. Obama immediately responded:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in the statement his aides distributed. "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

Oh and McCain decided that he wanted to jump into it and stuck his foot in his mouth when the press asked him about it:

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,'’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’

Umm...McCain isn't doing a very bad job of remembering history? The Iran-Contra scandal, where Reagan funneled weapons to Iran in return for hostage releases, was kind of a big story. Mr. Foreign Policy Experience has been making a lot of gaffes lately.

Puzzled raised some questions in a comment in my last post, so let me clarify. I believe that everybody has a duty to vote. That is why I am a volunteer with Vote for Change, which is a six-month 50-state voter registration and mobilization drive to try to get everyone involved in the process - not just “eggheads and African Americans” (as Clinton talking head Paul Begela calls Obama’s base). Clinton has targeted a specific base of voters - women and the one’s she calls “white, hard working Americans” (which I find insulting). She does extremely well in rural or mountainous white areas, especially if there are a lot of elderly. If you look at the voting patterns for both candidates you will see what I mean:

This graph shows the counties that Clinton received at least 65% of the votes during the primaries (pre West Virginia). Do you see a pattern? She does phenomenal through Appalachia and Arkansas and virtually no where else in the country. And it can’t be denied that there is also a huge racial divide throughout these areas as well.



You can take a look at the exit poll data from the West Virginia primary here. It's depressing to me.

Look...I was not pointing out the demographics in my last post to be a snob or an “elitist” or to demean anybody. The areas that she does well in are white, rural, poor areas where women and elderly make up the majority. Like I said, those are the facts. Her West Virginia win was expected. It was not a game changer. And if you want a sports analogy: her win was like a 12/0 team (Obama) losing to a 6/4 team (Clinton) during the last game of regular season. Does it change who goes to the championships? No. And Clinton acting like it was the most important contest and saying that Obama shouldn't be the nominee because he can't get "white, hardworking Americans" to vote for him does nothing to start healing the party and unifying it. How does Clinton and her surrogates going around to every news channel proclaiming that this win means that Obama would fail in November because he didn't win West Virginia help anything?

And yes, I do want every voter to have their say. Clinton has every right to stay in as long as she wants, but she shouldn't be trying to kneecap Obama, since it is clear that he is the nominee and the only way that Clinton can win is if she somehow steals the election. What she should be doing is helping to bring everyone together by stressing the weakness of McCain. She has the power to reach out to her base and start the healing process. She hasn't used it. Instead she has constantly said that Obama is not electable and has praised McCain. It is ludicrous and only hurts our chances in the fall.

And another point that I want to be very clear on is that I don’t look down at the people in these regions at all. The only issue I take with any person is if their sole reason for supporting or not supporting someone is the color of their skin and almost 22% of the people polled in West Virginia admitted that they would not vote for a black man. And I’m sorry, but racist are abhorrent to me. That’s it. It has nothing to do with their educational level, their age, the type of house they live in or the job they have.

The people in the Appalachian area don’t have it easy. They are farmers and coal miners. They do work hard and some in very terrible, hazardous conditions. My guess is that very few people in these areas have the luxury of coming home after a hard days work and flipping on cable TV or searching the web. In this day and age I think that puts them at a disadvantage. They don’t have access to the tools and probably don’t have the time to actually research the candidates and their positions. They know the Clinton brand and Obama is an unknown who has been successfully painted as an "elitist" who will take their guns away by them. I don’t think that I am being “elitist” in pointing out any of these facts.

This graph shows the counties that Obama received at least 55% of the votes during the primaries (pre West Virginia). Is it surprising that he does extremely well in black urban areas and in college towns? No. That’s where the demographics favor him. But the thing is that this Clinton/media narrative that he can’t win among “white, hard working Americans” is false. He won big in Iowa and Utah and Nebraska and Wyoming, so I’m tired of hearing the Clintons speak as if the “white, hardworking Americans” that votes for her are the only ones that matter. The 50-state coalition that Obama has built is impressive and all-encompassing. He has NEVER dismissed a state or an electorate as being not important. Clinton has time and time again.

Ok...I feel like I am just rambling now. Hopefully I have gotten the points I wanted to make across.

Seriously. You idiots are doing something so reckless and stupid that you will destroy everything that the women’s movement has worked hard to protect since January 11, 1973 – Roe vs. Wade.

For those of you who do not know what Emily's List is, it is a progressive organization that helps pro-choice Democratic women get elected to public office. It is an important cause and I have a lot of respect for them, but they have lost sight of what is important in their blind devotion to Clinton:

"So here we are in the fourth quarter of the nominating process and the game is too close to call. Once again, the opponents and the media are calling for Hillary to quit. The first woman ever to win a presidential primary is supposed to stop competing, to curtsy and exit stage right."

Give me a break. She is behind in every possible measurement and is deeply in debt. It has NOTHING to do with her being a woman. It has to do with her running a terrible and divisive campaign that is aimed at destroying Obama. You know - the progressive candidate that has actually won more contest, more votes, and more delegates and has done it by running a respectable, well organized grass roots campaign.

"Hillary Clinton certainly has the right to compete till the end. But I believe Hillary also has a responsibility to play the game to its conclusion. For the women of my generation who learned to find and channel their competitiveness, for the working women who never falter in the face of pressure, for the younger women who still believe women can do anything, Hillary is a champion. She's shown us over and over that winners never quit and that quitters never win. We'll cheer her on until the game is over. And we hope that when the final whistle blows, we will have elected the first female president and the best president our country has ever had."

"Why on earth should one candidate quit before the contest is finished? Democrats need not be so fainthearted.” Both of the party's remaining candidates have raised tens of millions of dollars. Both have the respect of Democrats nationwide. So why are some Democrats so afraid? We simply need to count every vote, let the remaining states have their say and see the process through to its conclusion."

Afraid? Are you kidding me? There are not enough votes left in the remaining states that would put Clinton in the lead. She says she is still in this because she wants every last Democrat in every last state -- including Michigan and Florida -- to have his or her say. And then what?!? What happens when that glorious democratic process ends on the sunny isle of Puerto Rico? She will still need to bribe and threaten the super delegates to overturn the will of the people in order to win. So much for every vote counting!

Give it up. She lost. Get behind the true nominee and stop insulting my intelligence. No one held Hillary back because she is a woman. In fact, as a white, wealthy person with the last name Clinton, she's been the privileged one in this race. And on top of that, don’t true feminist believe that men and women are equal and should be treated as such. What are you whining about? You are undercutting the womens' movement with this shit.

The only thing that all of these women that are threatening to take their ball and go home should be thinking about is getting a progressive president elected. That should be the bottom line. What do they think will happen to Roe vs. Wade if McCain gets elected? What about the dreams of women that will be squashed by a President McCain, and his replacements for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens? What about every woman’s right to control her body, and earn an equal wage? Is Hillary really worth losing everything for?

And let me ask you this, too: what about the dreams of Obama's black followers, the dreams that Hillary is destroying for no reason other then her delusions of grandeur? Don't they count too? Or are some dreams more equal than others…like the dreams of post-menopausal, well-connected women.

The party of "family values" actually voted against Motherhood today:

It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt’s request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now
confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.

What a bunch of gasbags! Did all their mothers beat them with wire hangers and make them eat brussle sprouts?

I somehow don't think that all of these Goopers have Crawford-esque mothers (although that might explain some of their derangement), so what's the deal? Petty Politics.

The minority, lock-step Republicans are going to stop votes on EVERYTHING until they get what they want: lame-duck Bush's Emergency Supplemental War Spending Bill. Goopers will be using Motions To Reconsider on every single bill presented until they get this passed.

As House Democrats tried to pass legislation to ease the mortgage crisis on Wednesday, Republicans served up hours of procedural delays, demanding a scoreof roll call votes: 10 motions to adjourn, half a dozen motions to reconsider, various and sundry amendments, a motion to approve the daily journal, a motion to instruct and a “motion to rise.”

The high point came just after 6 p.m., when, after one of the motions to adjourn, 61 members lined up to change their votes, one by one. Forty-six went from aye to no, while 15 changed from no to aye. The maneuver ate up 28 minutes in all — and caused an eruption by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who accused the minority of a “filibuster by vote changing.”

“I know that probably all of you did polls on that and focus groups on whether or not you should vote aye or nay,” Hoyer mocked. “What just happened is not appropriate for the House for either side, to simply use a device of changing votes, of voting late, of lining up in the aisle and coming down every 30 seconds or so with one more vote.”

But the dilatory maneuvers continued, and the Democrats finally announced that they would postpone the vote on the mortgage bill until Thursday,thereby pushing a war spending bill to next week.

This is what our government has become. The minority is stopping the government from functioning until they get what they want - more money that won't be accounted for to be wasted on a war that was supposed to pay for itself.

And this is why it is soooooo important to build up the party down ticket. I know I keep harping on it, but right now the democratic party doesn't have enough of a majority to do anything. We need to gain enough seats in the House and Senate so that we are no longer at the mercy of GOP tactics.

Screw the Clintons! I am so pissed. Let her be stuck paying off her debt for the next twenty years. I WANT HER OUT OF MY PARTY NOW!!! Not at the Convention. Not after the last primary in June. NOW!!!

I can't believe that this is the road she has chosen to go down:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Clinton's blunt remarks about race came a day after primaries in Indiana and North Carolina dealt symbolic and mathematical blows to her White House ambitions.

Hillary Clinton: The Great White Hope. She is a F*(#in@ RACIST! She has not misspoken here. Just look at what is left: West Virginia. Kentucky. Oregon. South Dakota. Montana. Not that many African Americans or "elitist" in the remaining states are there? She took a look at the five remaining states and said, "Now I can toss aside the dog whistle and say what I really think. Blacks are lazy. Liberals are elitist. Real Americans vote for ME."

Clinton and her Jim-Crow-era-racist base can kiss my white-chia-drinking-elite-ass. She is pathetic and desperate and disgusting and bitter.

and counting why Hillary won't drop out until she is forced out kicking and screaming. Her campaign has major debt that she needs to pay off. Political campaigns can't dismiss debt owed to vendors - it must be paid back. So I understand her out there today on the stump. She needs to convince people she can still win so they will open their wallets up. That's all fine and good as long as she realizes her place and behaves. Problem is I don't think she can. The tone of her campaign is still defiant. They are still pushing the meme that Obama is not electable:

Clinton allies still worry Obama hasn't proved he can win the white working-class voters who make up the party's core - and are key to winning battleground states like Ohio and Missouri."We cannot win with eggheads and African-Americans," Democratic strategist Paul Begala said last night on CNN. He said that's the coalition Michael Dukakis had in 1988 - and won only 10 states.

If this continues she will need to be taken out to the woodshed. She can't be allowed to continue to harm our candidate. The focus of the party needs to be healing the division and attacking McCain.

Hope -- Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.

Despite a bruising month of attacks on his pastor... Despite questions of his patriotism. ..Despite being labeled an "elitist"... Despite a significant amount of voters still believing he is a Muslim... Despite his name...Despite being falsely tied to a radical extremist...Despite "Operation Chaos"... Despite being a black man... Despite having to campaign not only against Hillary Clinton, but also Bill Clinton and the whole DLC machine... Despite what was "inevitable", Senator Obama is our nominee. What a beautiful day for my party; what a beautiful day for my country!

It is the eve of the Indiana Primary. I will admit that I am nervous about what tomorrow will bring. Obama will win North Carolina, but I do not believe that he will win here in Indiana. Analyst believe that 60% of likely voters in Indiana will be women. That does not bode well for Obama. So tomorrow night Clinton will declare that North Carolina doesn't really matter and that Indiana is the most important "bell weather" state in the Union. The race will go on.

But if there are really any truly open minded, undecided voters out here in Hoosier land I hope that they took the time to really examine both of the candidates. I know that many say that in a side-by-side comparison they have some similar policy positions, but they are not the same candidate. There are important differences. Here are some important ones:

• He opposed war and occupation of Iraq, she supported it until she saw that it was not politically wise in the democratic primaries.
• He opposed the Kyl-Lieberman bill stating that the Iranian Army is a terrorist group, she voted for.
• He tried to ban cluster bombs, she opposed the effort.
• He was unwilling to let interest rates got to 30%, she was.
• His focus is affordability of health insurance, hers is to mandate, with punitive sanctions if you don't sign up.
• He is willing to protect Israel, she is willing to use the US military protect the whole Middle East and "obliterate" a nation of 70 million civilians.
• He is advocating long-term solutions to ending our independence on foreign oil, she is advocating a "gas tax holiday" that would cost hundreds of thousands of Americans jobs.

Equally important to me is the matter of character. Clinton's campaign tactics have shown me that she is not to be trusted with sustaining a liberal position on anything. She is an opportunist; she would not be above adopting anti-choice or anti-gay positions if it suited her short-term political interest. The Democratic party is merely the vehicle for her ambitions, not an organization whose principals she will fight for. Not only that, but her campaign has been about fear mongering and dog whistles. Did you ever imagine a democratic candidate using images of Pearl Harbor and Osama Bin Laden against another democratic candidate??? CHARACTER MATTERS! Here are some more differences between the two:

• He doesn't think it appropriate to imply his Democratic opponent is unqualified for the office, she does.
• He doesn't want to change the rules for getting the nomination after the race has begun, she is desperate to.
• He has demonstrated that he can run a nation-wide campaign, she has not.
• He has proven he can expand the Democratic side of the electorate, she hasn't - and she might well expand the Republican side.
• He has proven he has the judgment to select appropriate people and run a campaign enterprise that will approach a quarter billion dollars, her campaign is in debt and in shambles.
• He is trying to inspire us and appeal to the best in us, she is trying to scare us.
• He thinks he has to earn our vote and our trust, she thinks she is entitled.

Barack is about the empowerment of the people. His inclusive approach is a keystone of his campaign and of the administration he promises. I believe that when he is President he will bring us all into the process of creating the solutions that will restore our constitution and get us back to being respected in the world.

The choice for me has always been clear: TRANSPARENCY AND PARTICIPATION vs FEAR MONGERING, TRIANGULATION AND SECRECY.

I don't know if anything I have written in these last few weeks has had any kind of effect on anyone. My only hope is that everyone will have taken the time to educate themselves on the issues that matter most to them and vote their conscience tomorrow.

Peace.

Do you hear it? You should. It’s beating steadier and louder everyday. Unfortunately, it’s being drowned out by the static and noise of Rev. Wright and flag pins. We all need to tune in before it’s too late:

MANHATTAN, Kan. — CIA Director Michael Hayden said Wednesday that Iranian policy, at the highest government level, is to help kill Americans in Iraq, the boldest pronouncement of Iranian involvement by a U.S. official to date.

"It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," Hayden said. "Just make sure there's clarity on that."

In recent weeks, U.S. officials have ratcheted up their complaints that Iran is increasing its efforts to supply weapons and training to militants in Iraq.

Military commanders in Baghdad are expected to roll out evidence of that support soon, including date stamps on newly found weapons caches showing that recently made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing rate.

Ah yes, “evidence”. We’re so good at gathering “evidence” – like the phony evidence that Powell pushed before we attacked Iraq, or the phony photo of a Syrian nuclear reactor that was released just last week. But, you know, they really need to get that puppet government that they propped up in Iraq on the same page with the talking points:

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq said on Sunday it has no evidence that Iran was supplying militias engaged in fierce street fighting with security forces in Baghdad.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said there was no "hard evidence" of involvement by the neighboring Shiite government of Iran in backing Shiite militiamen in the embattled country.

The evidence isn’t there. It’s not real. But yet – and I have been saying this for years – the US will attack Iran before the elections. I’m not the only one who sees the writing on the wall. Former UN Inspector John Ritter, the same person that warned us of the lies about Iraq, is speaking out:

We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it’s a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future—or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command. And if this situation spins further out of control, you would see these aerial strikes expanding to include Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and some significant command and control targets.

You remember the Kyl-Leiberman Act that I have talked about, don’t you? You know - the one that Clinton and McCain both supported? The one that states that the Iranian Army is a terrorist organization? Yeah, that one. And remember how we are fighting a global “War on Terror”™, right? Do you really think these chicken hawks are going to leave office before they totally destabilize the world? I don’t. The ball is already set in motion:

Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, "unprecedented in its scope."

Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This
widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring
position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.

Too bad the media doesn’t do its job. Too bad we are more concerned about the comments of a former pastor and not the actions of our government.

Did you happen to catch Clinton this morning on ABC for the full hour free infomercial she did with George Stephanopoulos? She was asked if she could name one "credible economist" who thinks the gas tax holiday is a good idea. She couldn't. Instead she went on the attack by calling all who opposed the idea "elitist" and said "I’m not going to put my lot in with economists." So there you have it: Sen Clinton feels economists are elitists who should be ignored. Remind you of anyone? Do we really need another president who knows better than to listen to anyone else and just "stays the course" no matter how many experts raise red flags?

And let's think about this "gas tax holiday" logically. Do you really think that Clinton can back up her promise of suspending the gas tax this summer? If so you are fooling yourself. She's a SENATOR for Christs sake!! She would need to take time out of her campaign to write a bill...Oh, that's right! McCain has already written it! How convenient! She (McCain) would still need the backing of 51% of the Senators in Congress (not to mention a majority of the House of Reps) to get it passed into law! That's right; she (McCain) can't magically institute it. She (McCain) would need the approval of those same democratic Senators that she was slamming just a couple of days ago. The same senators that know that its a bad idea and a political ploy for votes!! WAKE UP my fellow Hoosiers! If you're planning on voting for Clinton on Tuesday because of this gas tax thing, be prepared to be disappointed. She can't deliver. She is just pandering (again) to get your vote.

She is really hoping that you are not smart enough to think critically. She is treating you, the electorate, as if you don't know any better, as if you are too dumb to see through her tactics.

After seven years of a president who dumbs us down with every speech and every secret signing statement don't we deserve a president who challenges us to be our best and think critically?

We are all aware of Rev. Wright and his incendiary comments. For the last few weeks the Wright controversy has undoubtedly weakened Obama. I’ve already expressed my views of the whole Wright situation. I can’t say that I was happy with his performance at the National Press Club; he knew he was hurting Obama. I’ve read on a few sites that he did it to intentionally throw himself under the bus so that Obama would find it easy to completely disavow him. I don’t think so. I think his ego and his anger got the best of him.

Bill Moyer, who interviewed Wright for a whole hour on PBS last week, has decided to weigh in on it and here is what he makes out of the whole situation:

Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright's transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I'm not a psychologist. Many black preachers I've known - scholarly, smart, and gentle in person -- uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I've known many white preachers like that, too.

~snip

But in this multimedia age the pulpit isn't only available on Sunday mornings. There's round the clock media — the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content. So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help — people who for their own reasons set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn't running for president with the man in the pew who was.

Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of a preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

~snip

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettles some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. Politics often exposes us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this — this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the
price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt,
who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

So when will all the white Preachers repudiate the terrible things that they have said?

Thank you Mr. Moyers for speaking the truth and pointing out the double standard. It is about race. Billy Graham, Jerry Farwell, Parsley, Coe, and Hagee should not be given a pass because they are white, nor should the politicians like McCain or Clinton be given a pass by the press when they used Rev. Wright as a racist tool to divide people. Neither of these two politicians cares about the damage and the division that they are inciting. And that is what is unforgivable to me and in my estimation, is not Presidential.

A President leads by example, and both McCain and Clinton had the opportunity to lead with dignity, intelligence, fairness and grace. Instead we were able to see them for who they really are as individuals who care only about getting elected and whose last thought is about the people and the country that they lead.

to oppose the Clinton/McCain Gas Tax Holiday according to American Road & Transportation Builders. That's right, that $30 you might save will cost that many jobs. Over 6,300 of them right here in Indiana.

Full press release here.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Friends of the Earth Action, a national environmental group based in Washington, D.C., announced today that it is endorsing Senator Barack Obama to be the nation’s next president.

“We endorse Senator Obama because we believe he is the best candidate for the environment,” said Friends of the Earth Action President Brent Blackweler. “The ‘gas tax holiday’ debate is a defining moment in the presidential race. The two other candidates responded with sham solutions that won’t ease pain at the pump, but Senator Obama refused to play that typical Washington game. Instead, Obama called for real solutions that would make transportation more affordable and curb global warming. He showed the courage and candor we expect from a president.”

I wish that Gore would finally speak out. The environment is his life's work, and Clinton, in a finger to the wind move to garner a few votes has shown how much she is willing to screw the environment and the economy. That's not what I call leadership. Obama's shown he'll stand with the less politically expedient option, because it's the right thing to do.

For weeks Clinton has been touring the Hoosier State with Bayh attached to her hip. Most of her stump speeches have addressed the outsourcing of Indiana jobs. Back on April 11th the Post Tribune reported:

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton on Saturday will discuss the future of defense industry jobs with former employees of Magnequench at a town-hall meeting at Washington Township High School, just east of Valparaiso.

The rally begins at 3:45 p.m. in Dold Gym. The meeting is free and open to the public but details on getting tickets were not available Thursday. The visit will be the last leg of a three-stop tour of the state, marking nearly three dozen visits to Indiana by Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton since March.

The high school is not far from the former Magnequench plant in Valparaiso, which manufactured magnets used in the guidance systems for "smart bombs" until it closed five years ago. The parent company moved its manufacturing operations to China.

In a conference call with reporters from Northwest Indiana, U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, a Clinton supporter and possible vice presidential running mate, said Magnequench's move cost the region 225 manufacturing jobs that provided better-than-average wages and benefits.

"It's not very smart to align America's defense on the goodwill of the Chinese, and yet that's exactly what happened," he said.

But Bayh seems to be forgetting something. Back in 1995 he was blasting the Clinton administration for the sale of this same company. ABC reports:

A memo prepared for Bayh by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service earlier this year stated that the Clinton administration could have objected to the sale under CFIUS, but it did not, and that the consortium promised to keep those Anderson, Ind., jobs in the U.S. only until 2005.

An Oct. 6, 2005, press release from Bayh noted that he asked for the Government Accountability Office to study "concerns over foreign takeovers of American companies with national security implications & after an Indiana company called Magnequench closed thanks to a 1995 decision by CFIUS to approve a Chinese consortium's takeover. At the time, Magnequench made 85 percent of the magnets used to guide U.S. smart bombs."

Said Bayh, in the release: "The committee responsible for providing this protection does not have a good track record, as I saw myself when it allowed an Indiana company that made smart bomb magnets to be purchased by a foreign business. When it comes to protecting our national security interests, we should be doing more, not less."

But Bayh now glosses over the outrage he once expressed at the Clinton administration's approval of that 1995 sale, emphasizing instead the fact that there are currently no companies in the U.S. that manufacture Neo magnets.

Hillary also mentions the closing of the Magnequench plan in one of her latest ads running in Indiana:

So here we have Clinton decrying the idea that American defense parts are being made in China and blames it on the Bush Administration. But just like so many other things emanating from the Clinton campaign, this is completely false. The sale of Magnequench to the Chinese was approved by Bill Clinton in 1995.

There you have it, the loss of the Magnequench jobs in Indiana was a direct result of Bill Clinton's failure to act to protect foreign acquisition of defense technology. This is just another instance of Clinton ignoring reality and hoping not to get called out on it.

I hope that when this hits our local papers tomorrow morning that Hoosiers will see it for what it is: more lies and pandering. Clinton is pretending to care about the economic havoc that her husband’s own administration helped sow, while still continues denying her own long-record of advocating for NAFTA, and then manufacture staged photo-ops so that the national press corps can snap pictures of them downing a shot of whiskey - as if that proves her down-home credentials.

For months now Rush Limbaugh has recruited his dittoheads to throw the democratic nomination process by coming out in force for Clinton. He calls it “operation chaos” The reason? They believe she is the weakest candidate to go up against McCain. Plus, republicans have been preparing for years to destroy her and they are chomping at the bit to get their chance.

According to the latest Howey-Gauge poll there is reason to be concerned that the dittoheads may actually put Clinton over the top in Indiana:

The historic Indiana Democratic presidential primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could well be decided by … Republicans. According to the Howey-Gauge Poll conducted April 23-24, entirely after the Clinton Pennsylvania primary victory, Hoosier Democrats are evenly split at 46-46 percent.

The fascinating wrinkle comes when the poll reveals that the race could be determined by the 9 percent of independent voters expected to participate, and 10 percent Republican crossover. There appears to be two kinds of Republicans: the "Obamacans" as the Illinois senator likes to call them - earnest Republicans deeply disappointed in their own party’s performance on the budget, economy, social issues and the Iraq War - and the Rush Limbaugh Republicans who are planning to crossover to vote for Sen. Clinton because they perceive her to be the weakest rival to U.S. Sen. John McCain in the November election.

Howey-Gauge shows that self-identified Republicans favor Clinton 50-44 percent, while independents favor Obama 54-38 percent. "The Democratic primary is going to be decided by non-Democrats," said Gauge Market Research pollster Holly Davis. "To be determined is which group - Republicans or independents - are going to decide this race." An indicator as to the kind of havoc Republican voters could create comes on the Iraq War issue. Those favoring immediate withdrawal favor Obama 49-46 percent. Those favoring the current troop levels favor Clinton 58-39 percent, but, Davis notes, "That number is strongly influenced by Republican crossovers."

This is why the open primary system is the most insane method of a political party to select its candidates that has ever been devised. Any fool lemming can come off the street and choose your party's candidate because some oxycodone drug addict told him to. No wonder politics in this country is so screwed up.

And by the way, according to exit polls, Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" has really helped Clinton to garner more votes: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi. For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Clinton.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? How many times have we heard Bush threaten us with being an enemy of the State for not supporting his “War on Terror”? Well now apparently Obama, this country’s leading economists, and the democrats in Congress are Clinton and McCain’s enemy. Why…because they all realize that she is selling snake oil when it comes to her and McCain’s “gas tax holiday”.

Here she is borrowing Bush’s favorite line to bash Democrats:

"I believe it would be important to get every member of Congress on record," she said, "Do they stand with the hard-pressed Americans who are trying to pay their gas bills at the gas station or do they once again stand with the oil companies? That's a vote I'm going to try to get, because I want to know where people stand, and I want them to tell us - are they with us or against us when it comes to taking on the oil companies?"

Let’s think about this for a moment: Clinton is demanding that legislators of her own party align themselves with her on an issue that her Democratic opponent opposes and her republican opponent favors. In fact, as the New York Times notes there is broad opposition to this among legislators. And this vote she is demanding is going to happen. It’s already on the agenda because Jon Kyl and Mel Martinez - both republicans - have introduced legislation to enact a gas tax holiday.

So let me ask you this: in the known history of the universe, has any republican ever voted against a tax cut. And what happens to the Democratic legislators that oppose this republican bill? Can you just see the attack ads that will come out against the Democratic legislators up for nomination this fall? I bet they will contain phrases like "even liberal Hillary Clinton supported tax relief for car owners.”

I’m telling you, she is this years Lieberman. She is not in it to build up the Democratic Party. She is following in her husbands footsteps by kneecapping the party with triangulations. She has once again, to score a point in a Democratic primary against a Democrat, just handed the other side yet another campaign issue - on top of Wright, Farrakhan, Ayers, bitter, god, and guns.

And I have one last set of question for you to consider: is this not a great way to piss off those undeclared super delegates who happen to be members of Congress and who might not be sympathetic to Hillary's latest campaign trick? Is it wise for Clinton to pressure ~250 super delegates into adopting your REPUBLICAN position when you need their endorsement to win the nomination? Seems a little odd, doesn’t.

Clinton and McCain have tag-teamed against Obama with their “Gas Tax Holiday” gimmick. And let’s be honest, that is all it is. It’s pandering to get some votes. They are both proposing an 18 cent suspension on the federal gas tax. Economic experts are in general agreement that over the three month summer period that this may save the average driver about $30 dollars. They also agree that this will not work and will have a devastating effect on our economy. Here is a snippet of what the experts are saying:


Michael Bloomberg said yesterday:

It’s about the dumbest thing I’ve heard in an awful long time from an economic point of view. I don’t understand why you think there’s any merit to it whatsoever. We’re trying to discourage people from driving and we’re trying to end our energy dependence. You don’t do that- and incidentally, and we’re trying to have more money to build infrastructure. All three of those things go- fly in the face of giving everybody 30 bucks a year. The 30 bucks is not going to change anybody’s lifestyle. The billions of dollars that we would otherwise have in tax revenues can make a big difference as to what kind of a world we leave our children.

Uber-Clinton supporter and leading economist Paul Krugman's analysis:

Anyway, John McCain has a really bad idea on gasoline, Hillary Clinton is emulating him (but with a twist that makes her plan pointless rather than evil), and Barack Obama, to his credit, says no....The Clinton twist is that she proposes paying for the revenue loss with an excess profits tax on oil companies. In one pocket, out the other. So it’s pointless, not evil. But it is pointless, and disappointing.

And here's Tom Friedman on it as well:

Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

Just yesterday Exxon reported only "the second-highest U.S. corporate profit on record, falling just short of the record $11.66 billion Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500) earned in the prior quarter" according to CNN. Exxon's profit was "only" $10.89 billion this quarter. That’s $119.7 million per DAY. And what does the “gas tax holiday” mean to the oil companies bottom line? Economists say that since refineries cannot increase their supply of gasoline in the space of a few summer months, lower prices will just boost demand and the benefits will flow to oil companies, not consumers.

"You are just going to push up the price of gas by almost the size of the tax cut," said Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington.

And what are the real economic effects going to be if this happens? According to state highway officials and this article in the New York Times, this "Gas Tax Holiday" will lower tax revenue by roughly $9 billion and potentially cost 300,000 highway construction jobs. The highway trust fund that the gas tax finances provides money to states and local governments to pay for road and bridge construction, repair and maintenance.

How much will this gimmick save you? Here’s a cool “gas tax holiday” calculator. According to this I’ll save $27 dollars over the summer and I drive A LOT. That’s less than the cost of a tire, which with my luck will blow on my car due to all of the potholes that won’t be fixed because of this “holiday”.

And what is Obama’s plan to help Americans? He wants to encourage biofuels and technologies that will limit the nation's dependence on foreign oil. Additionally, he wants to double fuel economy standards within 18 years. Finally, he wants to establish a national goal of improving new building efficiency by 50 percent and existing building efficiency by 25 percent over the next decade. Is this good for the consumer? It certainly is over the long term. His insistence on alternative fuels and increased efficiency will benefit both consumers and the nation at large. He also backs Cellulosic Ethanol, which could potentially reduce greenhouse gases by 85 percent over reformulated gasoline, depending on the production processes used. Currently, we do not harvest cellulose, since it cannot be digested by humans. So, using cellulose for fuel will not compete with the production of food. According to Wikipedia, "323 million tons of cellulose containing raw materials that could be used to create ethanol are thrown away each year."

So will pandering and political theater win or will policy win? I’m afraid of what the answer is, but Obama said it best: "This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's an idea designed to get them through an election." . I guess we will see Tuesday night.