Thoughts on the Edwards Endorsement and the Need for Clinton Love:

What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? - William Shakespeare

First off, Edwards gave a hell of a speech that highlighted his strengths: intelligence, integrity, compassion (for both Sen. Clinton and the poor) and clarity of message. He is good people, straight up. I think Edwards was smart to stay out of this until now. To me, this endorsement is not about who he likes better as either a person or a candidate. This has to do with a spirited citizen and his noble desire to unite the Democratic party and defeat that crusty goblin McCain.

Edwards did not really make an endorsement today, he called a fight, and the fight needed to be called. He did not play the role king maker, he played the role of referee. So I am, in a way, glad that this came today, after the people that think Obama is a Muslim gave Clinton a decisive victory in West Virginia. Edwards can speak to these folk, and they need to be spoken to, for if we have learned anything from Rev. Wright, its that Obama is not a Muslim. And if we have learned anything from the last few presidental elections, we know that Democrats need to win over at least some poor white men.

But I digress....I love John Edwards. I love him like a brother, a father, and a friend. He is my Tom Brady. As a matter of fact, he was my first choice in all of this. I also think it is important to note that Obama could not have made it this far had Edwards stayed in the race any longer than he did. They were splitting far too many voters that eventually went to the 2008 Democratic nominee.

One thing that did disturb me tonight is the amount of people in that room that booed the mere mention of Hillary Clinton. Granted, for the last 4 months she has behaved like someone that deserves to be booed. As a matter of fact, I have said negative things about her in many ways and for many reasons, all of which were valid, tempered and completely justified. She has been behaving like a Machiavellian wench, and in many ways I hate her for it. But I think we need to stop all of that and embrace her and her supporters, for we will need them in the summer and fall. When people that feel passionately about Clinton hear their hero being disrespected, it disrespects them too, and in the end, it makes them want to disrespect us and Obama. It is a vicious and unproductive cycle that paves the way for a McCain presidency, and possibly the end of all cellular and molecular life on the planet Earth. The bastard isn't going to be on this planet for long either way, so what does he care if he destroys it? But again, I digress...

Be advised, American politics is eerily similar to the world of sports, which is probably why K.O. does such a good job at covering both. But we must be reminded that the loyalty and passion we feel for our candidates (like our favorite teams) often borders on the irrational, even if the reasons that created our passions were indeed rational and sound (like the New York Jets being a bunch of fiendish turds). We need to respect that about the Hillary Clinton supporter, because in the end, we all need to be focused on the same result.

Clinton is having a hard time with losing, which is understandable, because she has probably not lost at much in this life. So we need to be there for her and her supporters...unless they try to take this to Denver, and then its Abbie Hoffman time!!!
Ariba!

Great SNL/ Clinton Video

WAR IN LEBANON - CLINTON TALKS MICHIGAN!

While Clinton is going around West Virginia pretending she is still relevant, and telling voters that she is right because she is white, war has broken out in the streets of Beriut. I must be brief, as the man is making me work right now, but suffice is to say, I would rather have heard Sen. Clinton talk about this than why Michigan should be seated.

Why? - The Cost of Continuing

I cannot understand how Sen. Clinton can justify staying in at this point, but that is not relevant to me right now. She is now running to be the next Mike Huckabee, who ironically, used to have the same job her husband had prior to being President of the United States. What is important is how much coverage she is sucking up in the tube hole. How much are any of you hearing about Burma right now? Yes, I understand that it is now our responsibility to go out and find information in the Internet(s) age, but so few people even seem to be interested in this.

Some of the other things nobody seems to be talking about due to interest in this completed contest:
- The War in Iraq
- The VA Scandal
- The F.B.I. raiding a Bush Administration offical's office.
- President Bush rigging the F.E.C.

In other words, her staying in the race is terrible for the Democratic Party (and the country) because it makes the election the story, and not all the reasons that make this election so important.

Wake up Sen. Clinton, you have been voted off America's Next President...

Election Day 12.0

Today, like so many Tuesdays before it, is the pivotal day in the Democratic primary. For starters, I want to thank our turd of the day, former NYC Mayor Ed Koch, for bringing up Rev. Wright in his last gasp defense of Hillary Clinton. When I think turd, I think Koch.

Speaking of which, did anyone see Penn Jilette on MSNBC's Morning Joe earlier? If not, here is a summary and video from the Huffington Post:

This morning on MSNBC, magician Penn Jillette repeated an admittedly
"cheesy" joke that performed really well on a recent tour — that Barack Obama
did well in February because it was Black History Month and Hillary Clinton did
well in March because it was "White Bitch Month."
Jillette used the joke to
underscore his point that there is a huge reserve of hatred out there for
Hillary, but anchors Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough were not amused and did
not appreciate his comment. Watch as he repeats the joke and then is condemned
by Mika and Joe, with Mika saying, "I didn't think it was funny, and I gotta
tell you, with all the work Hillary Clinton is doing, I'm insulted,
actually."

I watched this and must say, I am insulted by her being insulted. Mika and Joe and their outrage is outrageous. Penn was making a point that he told this joke, which he called very cheesy at the onset, to show that most people in his audience tend to not care when Clinton is called a bitch, and implying that most people see her as being bitchy, which I think is (perhaps unfairly) true. I don't think of her as being a bitch, in the context of being one that "bitchs and moans." I think she is more in line with the likes of Mao, meaning, she is perhaps tyrannical and unethical, but not bitchy.

But I digress. The problem here is political correctness is necessary in a diverse society, to a point. I don't know when, but it is my strongly held belief that we overshot that point by a few time zones. I think the one place where P.C. should ever have to appear is in comedy, and Penn, like him or hate him, is a comedic entertainer. So Mika and Joe are our runner up turds of the day....

Which reminds me, I am way off point. I sat down to with the intention of offering my predictions for today's contests, which are as follows:

North Carolina-

Obama: 58.7

Clinton: 42.2

Other: .1

Indiana:

Obama: 50.2

Clinton: 49.8

I think afterwards she is going to drop out of the race, quit the senate, and get a gig working in a factory to be with her people who she cares so much about. After all, one can't think of the common man without thinking of Hillary Clinton.

Who knows, maybe she stays in the race and runs as a third party candidate in the for the Dems for McCain party.

Of course, I could be wrong. Check in with us for election coverage all night long.

As Tito Santana used to say: Ariba!

McCain, Clinton, Sponges, and More!!!

I sat down to write about a disturbing press event John McCain was holding in Arizona, whereby he uttered, in regards to illegal immigration, that all laws should be enforced to the fullest extent possible. I immediately remembered having once read about a federal ban on the importation of tiny sponges. Then I thought, gosh, if Hillary gets her way and he becomes president, I really hope this is where he puts his energy because a war on sponges would be cheaper and less catastrophic than a war with Iran.

But I digress, for I got taken off course when I read an update to a story that previously broke yesterday on the HuffPo that Sen. Machiavelli is going to do everything in her "power" to break the Democratic Party rules and have the votes counted from the renegade territories of Michigan and Florida:

There are a lot of "ifs'' in the "nuclear option'' that Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign could consider for claiming her party's nomination, the way Tom Edsall tells it:

If Clinton does well or outright wins in Indiana and/or North Carolina this week, if her argument for electability takes hold and if enough party activists are willing to withstand the revolt that would ensue, Clinton could force a vote of the party's bylaws committee to seat the disputed, Clinton-rich delegations of Florida and Michigan and overtake Barack Obama's delegate lead.

The Clinton campaign, however, maintains that it has no "secret plan,'' and has posted on its Web-site...

Then today, they replied:

The Clinton campaign has been vocal in stating that the votes of 2.5 million people must be respected. Hardly a day goes by when a Clinton official doesn't publicly declare that the votes of Michigan and Florida count and that the delegations from those states should be seated.

DNC members from Michigan and Florida have filed challenges with the DNC to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations. The process being followed to adjudicate these challenges is completely consistent with the DNC rules. The Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) is the DNC body charged with dealing with these challenges until the 56th day before the convention, and its process is public and transparent.

How can such old news be so disturbing? Its funny, as I typed that, I wondered if that can be read as being in reference to this story, or to the Clintons themselves... Either way, her destructive strategy, dubbed by some as the Nuclear Option, is another example, like her vote for War in Iraq (it was a vote for war) of her confirmed destructive tendencies. Let us not forget her own words:


I am reminded of something her teacher once said:

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise. Niccolo Machiavelli

The same could also be true of an aspiring Queen...

Obama Campaign Files Complaint with Federal Election Commission

This is a story about a 527 group, that ran this ad:

These groups are supposed to be independent of any campaign. I (think I) just heard on POTUS 08 that the head of this group is the son of Hillary Machiavelli's Indiana campaign chair.


I really hope this blows back on her and that next week at this time I am listening to her concession speech.

Great Obama/Clinton Comic Strip

This is a bit old, but it is damn funny and still relevant.

Hillary Machiavelli Gives Me Another Headache

Sen. Clinton, like Sen. McCain, her presidential choice for 2008, has decided that cutting the federal gas tax is going to ease our pain. Her plan differs from her man McCain's in that he wants to put the lost revenue on our national credit card, while she wants to steal it from oil corporations:

The New York senator highlighted new oil company profit figures
as evidence her proposed windfall profits tax was the answer. “The oil companies
have figured out a way to keep profiting no matter what else happens,” she said.
“Over the last three months, while you were being pummeled by high gas prices,
Shell’s profits rose by 25 percent, and BP’s by 63
percent. So the oil companies are doing very well, and it’s high time that they
helped to relieve the burden of high gas prices on our families and our
businesses.

This is one of the biggest blunders of her entire life. I am no champion of the oil corporations, as a matter of fact, part of me thinks they should all be nationalized, but I have no idea how you punish a company for record profits. I can already see the Republicans calling this a success tax.

What about the "regular folk" that have oil corps in their 401k plans that will see their retirement funds drop because of this absurd policy?

Sen. Obama correctly shot back:

Clinton and Republican Sen. John McCain are calling for a holiday on collecting
the federal gas tax "to get them through an election," Obama said at a North
Carolina rally. "The easiest thing in the world for a politician to do is tell
you exactly what you want to hear."

Clinton and McCain are short sighted electoral appeasers. This is a tiny Band-Aid at best and will do great damage in the long term. This is the sort of thinking that got us into the gutter in the first place.

Oil: What is the Magic Number?

I was having a discussion with a student this morning and we were trying to figure out what would have to happen for Americans to get organized to deal with these gas prices. I paid 3.95 for the cheap stuff in San Diego this morning. Actually, I paid 3.96 when rounding up the nine-tenths of a percent that we pay. That in of itself is amazing. Many of us have already been conditioned to round down this number, but I digress...




Shell and B & P are reporting first quarter earnings of 17 billion USD combined. Chakib Khelil, Algeria’s energy minister (left) and the president of OPEC is warning that crude oil could end up costing over 200 USD a barrel. That would likely mean we are paying over 8 dollars a gallon.
This posses a variety of scenarios, problems and concerns. The first question we must ask is what will it take for us to act? 5 dollars a gallon? 7 dollars a gallon? 8??? What is our price? What is gas going to have to cost before we get organized and do something about it? I am starting to think we are trapped in a game of the Sims whereby the player got up to go to the potty room and forgot about the game. But again, I digress...

McCain and Clinton want to cut a 5 cent gas tax (saving the average American 50 cents to a dollar per week). This is Obama's response:

Bush is blaming the problem on taxes and not his idiotic policies that have expanded our debt thus devaluing the currency we are using to buy crude oil. Not to mention the illegal and boneheaded war in Iraq which lead to a decrease in oil output and regional stability thus pushing prices higher. Not to mention whoring out our manufacturing base to China which is now getting rich and buying gas as it advances toward development and a culture of waste and leisure.

So what are we going to do? Bitch? Send out emails? A quick Google search of "solutions to the gas problem" produces over 5 million returns. I liked the idea that argued we should all boycott Exxon-Mobil until they lower prices. Then when they do, move on to Shell, then Citgo, ect. That might work, and the Internet is a great tool and resource for us to organize. There are sites like http://www.carpoolconnect.com/ that are great for starters. But what is that going to do for food prices? Truckers are paying through the arse to get your local grocer the food they sell you. A carpool is not going to help us there.

Which leads me to another problem in the form of biofuels. Turning food into fuel is a great idea in a society that has a problem with obesity. We have such an abundance of food that it makes sense that we should drive using it. Plus, its renewable! But what about the other parts of the world that rely on these foods to subsist? This is a real crisis. And what happens to the economies of the oil producing countries once we (humans, not just Americans) stop using oil? More instability I suppose. What about the orangutans?!? We abandon them are our own peril.

But hey, enough of the chit chat, did you hear what Reverend Wright said???

Hillary Machiavelli did not win Pennsylvania by 10 points:

Hillary Machiavelli got 54.6% to Obama's 45.4%, with 99.44% of districts reporting. These remaining discricts, from what I heard on the radio, are in the Philadelphia area, which is where he is pulling the most support. So she ends up with a 9% win, in the single digits, and thus lied on every major network this morning by saying she had a double digit victory, which she did not. This point may seem like petty semantics, which of course it is, but it illustrates the central theme of Clinton's campaign, which is to lie and destroy the Democratic party because of petty semantics.

Late Night Thoughts on Hillary Machiavelli's Win

I am ok with the outcome tonight. As per some of my earlier posts, it looks like they could split the remaining delegates, both pledged and super, and come out this "process" with a solid, yet slim and definitive Obama victory. I really cannot see any emotions Democrats now hold being relevant this November. Anyone that overestimates the American attention span does so at their own peril. Obama will be fine, and Obama will be the next President. I love the bastard, but I still fear him more than I trust him. I am terrified that I could be as wrong about him as equally intelligent and confident supports of Bush were about their "guy" in the past. It reminds me of a tune off of Faith No More's first record, We Care A Lot:

We care a lot about disasters, fires, floods and killer bees
We care a lot about nasa shuttle falling in the sea
We care a lot about starvation and the food that live aid bought
We care a lot about disease, baby, rock hudson, rock yeah!

That is all. You either get it or you don't. Hell, I'm not even certain as to which camp I land, but I know that I don't know. And as a great military man once said, knowing is half the battle.

The Old and Uneducated Strike Back!

There is about 91% in and the evil doer is up by 10%. Here are a few observations: - Lest we not forget, Pennsylvania is the state that brought us Groundhogs day. They also have the the Great Dane as their state dog and milk as their state beverage. Big dogs and calcium don't lead to good thinking, and the proof is that Obama lost by 10%.

- Tonight means nothing in the long term. Tonight will be forgotten in 2 weeks, when he creams her in the Tar Heel state and ties her in the Hoosier state. It is over for her. Her and her establishment cronies are going to have to hold their noses and eat it for once, like I had to do the last cycle for that turd Kerry.

- I want to personally thank the hiring committee at the University of Millersville for not hiring me! You and your state can eat it...
I leave you with a tribute to Hillary Machiavelli and her people:

Pennsylvania Election Day:

What is a win today? Obviously 50%+1= VICTORY! However, this is a ridiculous and incorrect line of thought. The delegate math is all that matters, period. One does not win a state in a proportional delegate system. Think of each state like a play in a football game. It would be silly to say that one team won a quarter. Have you ever heard a coach say after a lose "well, we did win 2 quarters, so it was really a tie!" Let us not forget that this works both ways for both Democratic candidates. Pennsylvania is just one of 50 states that is worth 187 delegates, which will probably be split about 99 for Hillary Machiavelli and 88 for Obama. An 11 point gain....It is nothing in the overall scheme of the election. Bragging about winning one state at this point is insulting. Clinton should not say she won Pennsylvania tonight, she should say she won X amount of delegates, which of course would be honest and without spin, and well, we know what Randy Rhodes said about her....

So much for not answering hypotheticals...

...now that Hillary has found a loving home at ABC, she is just making them up on her own. Take the statement she made this morning on Good Morning America (and transcribed by Raw Story) for instance:

"I want the Iranians to know, if I am president, we will attack Iran," if they launch nukes against Israel, Clinton said. "I want them to understand that. … We would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that."

I suppose she's trying to placate her AIPAC supporters and look like the "national security candidate," but it's simply a statement that has nothing to do with reality. According to our own most recent National Intelligence Estimate (PDF), Iran halted their nuclear bomb program in 2003. As it was estimated they were several years from developing a bomb already, that would still be the case now. So, in this hypothetical scenario, just how is Iran supposed to launch an attack on Israel when they don't have the capability? After eight years of bluster and saber-rattling, do we really need such bellicose statements coming from a Democratic candidate?

Hillary Machiavelli CAN still win.....

She may pull this off:

The Irony of the Clinton/Moveon.org thing...

As many of you are by now aware, Hillary Machiavelli has been very critical of the group moveon.org in recent days, which is interesting because the group was formed to halt the impeachment of her husband for lying about cheating on her.

Well, wouldn't ye of guessed that something like this would have had to surface:


I am almost as baffled by her supporters as I am by those that are still standing by Bush. There is a fine line between loyalty and stupidity, and it seems clear to me which side of the line supporters of both are currently standing.

- Here is a good piece of journalism on the race in Pennsylvania from our friends on the other side of the pond:

Weekend Google Data:

Just some quick Google facts for you:
- When doing a Google search for Hillary Clinton is a liar, 343,000 responses came up.
- When doing a Google search for Barack Obama hates America, 406,000 responses came up.

I find it strange that there are over 73,000 more responses for the Obama phrase, which I think most people assume is false, and Clinton's, which has been confirmed on numerous occasions.

- Random thought: Why do people get shit for making up words...doesn't someone have to do it?

Late Morning Memo- Post Debate Hangover Edition:

Aloha...

It has been a while, but the time for a memo is now:

- This story has gotten very little ink. It turns out that Hillary Machiavelli held an event the other day called "100 Mayors for Hillary". Sadly, this event produced only 19 Mayors. This encapsulates the entire Clinton campaign. I have it on good authority that she is trying to say that she only expected 10 mayors to show up and almost doubled expectations. When asked why then she used the number 100 and not 10 in the title, she responded that 100 sounded better and that we needed to move past the number.

- Here is a great debate Cartoon that deals with one of the many pressing issues that were examined last night:

- If you are a Sen. Clinton supporter you may want to skip this part of the post. It deals with your candidate's worst and most foreign enemy-- the truth. This is an AP story that deals with Obama's "relationship" from a former radical. Sadly for Clinton it did not mention other scandals, like the fact he bought a box of mint chip Girl Scout cookies 14 years ago from a woman who later converted to Islam after a brief stint as a South Side whore...or the fact that he once slept in the same Holiday Inn Express bed that a drug dealer slept in 4 years later...or the fact that he once pissed at the Minneapolis Airport, ect.

- The Boss has decided to endorse Obama! Springsteen states:

"He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next
president," the letter said. "He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my
music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to
tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its
collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where
'...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.' "

Bruce has spoken. This cannot hurt Sen. Obama in Pennsylvania.

- I think Sen. Clinton did what she has been trying to do all along, which is hurt Obama and get McCain elected.

ABC Debate:

I am speechless. I recognize that that is a terrible way to introduce a post, but this over-used cliché has never been more applicable. For those who have not seen it, don't read any further. Pretend it never happened. It was worse than walking in on your parents having a foursome with your least favorite teacher from grade school and your ex-spouse.

In sum, the Democratic debate made the case for Obama. He should just run this debate and say, if this is what you want out of politics, please vote the Clinton-McCain ticket. If you want something close to substance, thoughtfulness, or any sort of vision for a way froward, then you are forever nauseas after tonight. This debate was the media's Katrina.

The big winner of the night was Katie Couric, who has been getting killed in the nightly news ratings, and is rumored to be on the brink of being pushed out at CBS. I don't know how anyone could ever look at Gibson, one of the debates moderators, the same way again. I am not sure many will turn to Couric, but any decline in a competitor's ratings will only serve to minimize the disaster that has been her PM tenure.