Still inching forward:
Not bad for a bunch of potty mouths.
*** Update ***
Via memeorandum I see that John McCain has released his health care plan. My guess- daily doses of cod liver oil and full coverage for Viagra.
Open Thread
by John Cole| 66 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
scrutinizer
From tomorrow’s New York Times:
Soylent Green
Sorry, I didn’t understand I should use your actblue link the other day and went straight to Obama’s site as usual. The actual total of fellow potty mouths giving up their green based on BJuice prompting is higher than your tally.
glasnost
John, is your listed email address wrong? I just tried to email you great material for a blog post and got a bounceback.
Incertus
Crazy white preacher? No biggie. Crazy black preacher who works on actual social ills? Big problem.
And since it’s an open thread, I took the article calipygian pointed me to in the comments yesterday and expanded on it a little. Oh, and I learned that Larry Niven is a full-tilt douchebag.
Incertus
They can’t even get that part right–Hagee is a thousand times the bigot that Wright is, and he doesn’t even try to hide it.
Just Some Fuckhead
Surely the Straight Talk Express is on board for giving all Americans the socialized medicine he has enjoyed his whole fucking life. Right?
dr. bloor
From what I heard on NPR, McSame’s “plan” is a bunch of recycled and ineffective ideas about creating “competition” that reflect a fundamental understanding of what’s driving up costs in the first place.
dr. bloor
Um, make that “misunderstanding.” Sheesh.
Zuzu
John, I hope you saw my comment re Soldiers’ Angels over on Michael’s Atlanta NPR open thread.
Given Patti’s latest fundraising letter, I refuse to give them another cent.
KRK
I’ve also given more $$ to Obama since the $50 I put in through your ActBlue site, but I’m a sap and really like the personal connection that Obama’s matching donation set-up allows. I pledge a certain amount and within a few hours (or minutes) I get a message that it has been matched against a contribution from a new donor who has the option to send me a message.
AkaDad
I can’t believe how high gas prices are. I blame Reverend Wright.
Idiotic
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!
JGabriel
Incertus:
Thanks for pointing that out, Incertus. I was thinking the same thing.
.
John Cole
That is such a great idea.
Jon H
“That is such a great idea.”
Unless they write “I just matched your donation. What are you wearing? Do you cyber?”
It could happen.
I just pushed your ActBlue thingy over $9000. That damn thing is addictive.
(One more bit of evidence that the best way to get Americans to save gas would be to require cars to prominently display average and instantaneous gas mileage. Make it a game with a score, and show that jackrabbit starts are for losers. Especially if the meter could show the mileage in terms of money, and had a bluetooth interface allowing your car to get the price of gas from the pump you use to fill up, or from your phone.)
myiq2xu
Please donate! Obama needs a new bus to throw people under.
SpotWeld
McCain health care = coupons (in the form of tax credits)
Based on the idea that the consumer is always in the best position to find the best deal for themselves… because that worked so well for the home lending market.
p.lukasiak
here’s a topic…
lets go back and review yesterday’s comments about Wright, and find an Obama supporter who said (as I did) that Wright’s comments over the weekend would be a problem for Obama.
Did anyone of you say “Wow! Obama has to denounce this guy!” before Obama threw Wright under the bus today?
Seriously — all of you simply treated Wright as if he wasn’t a problem, but the moment that Obama treats Wright like a problem, Obama is doing the smart thing. Do you have any idea how cult-like that is?
jake
Support the Troops!*
I’m sure the brave, intelligent and not at all fat members of the Counter Review & Analysis Patrol are on the case. If the soldier’s father ever picked his nose in public we’ll know about it soon enough.
*Where Support = Crap All Over.
John Cole
I think I have been pretty consistent. I am not voting for Wright, I don’t think he is as bad as Al Sharpton (I lived in NY during the Tawana Brawley bullshit), and I really don’t care about him. If you want points for predicting what the right wing will be able to whip up against Obama, give yourself a few. Let me be the first to predict that regardless who the Democrat’s choose, the Republicans will call them tax and spend liberals who want to regulate everything except abortion, gay marriage, and drugs and who want to lose in Iraq and are in league with the terrorists.
It doesn’t exactly take nostrafuckingdamus to figure this shit out.
SpotWeld
It’s like that schoolyard bully who corners you during lunch and tells you to eat this spider or he’ll beat you up.
There is no “good” decision, but if you get beat up, you won’t be called “SpiderBoy” in the yearbook.
I just can’t “get” why people can’t realize the Obama and Wright are two seperate individuals. I never though Obama had to denounce Rev Write, but maybe underscore what he is about. There’s got to be a way to break this whole Wright = Obama chatter.
p.lukasiak
“I’m not voting for Wright” was dismissive of the fact that Wright was a problem, John.
Not one of your readers recognized what I did — that it was a serious problem — and instead pilloried me for pointing it out.
And this wasn’t something manufactured by the far right-wing… it was mainstream media that was playing Wright’s full NAACP speech over and over. It was the national mainstream media that made sure to play the smear commercials being produced for local audiences tying local candidates to Wright via Obama.
and either you, or your readers, acted like I was crazy when i first said wright would be a problem… the response I got was that Obama was invulnerable to those kinds of attacks.
So don’t act like you always knew this was going to happen. It may not take nostrafuckingdamus to figure it out, but you sure as hell didn’t.
John Cole
Lukasiak-
And I am telling you, if it is not this, it will be something else. What is amazing to me is you think your candidate, Clinton, is somehow immune to the same sort of bullshit.
And back to the real issue at hand- Obama is still ahead in delegates and picking more up every day. At some point you are going to have to just deal with the fact that Clinton will not be the nominee. I am not sure you can.
myiq2xu
At some point you are going to have to just deal with the fact that Obama cannot win in November. I am not sure you can.
Incertus
It wasn’t a problem for me, but then again, I’m not the average voter, nor do I claim to be. Here’s the thing, though–what we think doesn’t make one fucking bit of difference. Obama thought it was a problem, and he’s the candidate. If he thinks it’s a problem for him, then it is. What you or I think is beside the point.
koz
Ok, I got that Rev. Wright or lapel pins or whatever isn’t that important. The thing I don’t get is, given Obama’s anorexic record of actual accomplishment, why nobody has been willing to consider the possibility that his candidacy was a snake-oil sales job from the get-go? Really, what is President Obama supposed to be able to accomplish?
Incertus
Setting aside the sheer stupidity of that statement–of course Obama can win, just as John McCain can win–at some point you are going to have to deal with the fact that Clinton won’t be the nominee, and I’m not sure you can do that either.
KRK
The superdelegates Obama picked up today (before addressing Wright) apparently didn’t think it was such a problem either. But hey, an Iowa farmer and a Kentucky congressman are as out of touch with normal Americans as Obama is, so we can’t go by what they think.
p.lukasiak
actually, I think she is.
Obama is especially susceptible to this kind of BS because he’s an unknown quantity — as crazy as all the Obots went over Tuzla, it didn’t seem to have much impact on Clinton’s numbers.
Unless something major comes along about Clinton (not this “I lied about how big the fish that I caught was” kind of crap that you think is significant) the worst that the media can do is reinforce what people already think about her. People don’t what to think about Obama yet — and the stuff they are hearing is not leaving a good first (and, thus lasting) impression.
Fulcanelli
If Obama winds up losing the nomination because of the MSM’s Jeremiah Wright meth jones or Hillary’s “Blond Ambition Tour” mudslinging I really don’t see why the fuck we who support Obama just don’t pull a “Hey, Fuck You, Hillary and the lame-ass Democratic Leadership, two can play this game – We’re voting for McCain” and torpedo her chances for the White House and then try to organize and fund progressive candidates or even a new party for future elections.
Crazy, maybe even stupid I know… but the time will never be better, and I would never even consider voting Republican after the last eight years especially, unless their was some kind of legitimate, organized, long term strategy in doing it. Like another party to fund and run independent candidates in future House and local state seats to start with to break the dumb and dumber two party stranglehold on this country.
Before I am drawn and quartered, think about it for a second.
After the Democratic leadership screw up since the last election and now the primary, they should be shot and dumped in an open Superfund waste site. I can’t see offering them a fucking dime in the future with Hillary as the leader of that party.
The Repug’s will be toxic waste after another four years, and maybe Hillary might be a bit better, but if I hear of her circumventing the law and issuing a Presidential Signing Statement or ignoring criminal evidence and NOT prosecuting members of the Bush cabal I will take a fucking hostage, and I don’t see her going after them, I just don’t. Too many skeletons and too many favors owed.
Half the party – hundreds of delegates and super delegates and millions of voters are going to just go quietly home after having the door slammed in their faces? By our own party?
There’s a huge fund raising organization in place and chugging along as we speak, the best private, Non-Corporate fund raising apparatus in our history, and we all want someting better than what we’re stuck with. Progressive blogs would be All. Over. This.
Sorry, Hillary but a tiny ‘nudge’ toward the ‘right of center’ with you ain’t gonna save this country after teetering on the verge of fascism with Bush and the repug’s for almost eight years. No. Fucking. Way.
I know this is a flawed idea, half baked, even, but WTF else can we do… Joe Lunchpail who’s too stupid to see how he’s been duped by the MSM/Fox/Republican smear machine has been running the US in the ground, and if we can’t stop it outright maybe we can short circuit it one candidate at a time.
No, I’m not disgusted at all…
p.lukasiak
It wasn’t a problem for me personally either — I already know everything I need to know about wright, so nothing he said was “shocking” (stupid, yeah, but that didn’t come as a surprise).
I pointed out that it was a problem for Obama. Everyone trashed me for saying so. Then, it turns out that Obama realized it was a problem.
But no one every says “hey, pluk, you were right, and we all acted like a bunch of assholes”
Soylent Green
At some point you are going to have to just deal with the fact that fewer people believe that to be true than believe it. I am sure that you can’t. You think you can make it take root in more people’s minds through enough mindless repetition. That has long been a winning strategy for Republicans, until reality rears its ugly head. Hillary is not a Republican? Huh. She sure campaigns like one.
Do you have a time machine? Neither do we. All we have is our best judgment.
myiq2xu
I had resigned myself to that idea, which also meant four years of John McCain, but I am encouraged by Obama’s determination to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Real ponies don’t oink
myiq2xu
I read a really good explanation for the MUPpet’s constant meme that Hillary is a Republican. Basically, they have to say that so that they can ignore the eight years of peace and prosperity under the only Democrat to serve two full terms as President since FDR.
If they acknowledge it, they have no excuse to vote for Obama.
p.lukasiak
that’s gonna happen either way.
You know what Obama’s lead in pledged delegates from primary states is? 8
You know what Obama’s lead in pledged delegates from states that haven’t voted for a Democrat for president in the last three elections? 71
You know what Clinton’s lead in pledged delegates from states that have voted for a Democrat for president in all of the last three elections? 29
You know what Clinton’s lead in pledged delegates from states that have voted for a Democrat for president in either 1 or 2 of the last three elections? 34
Oh, and here’s a fun fact. Including caucuses, 657 more votes were cast for each Clinton delegate than each Obama delegate.
In Alaska, there was on delegate awarded for every 683 voters.
Soylent Green
Actually, I agree with you.
But I never second guessed what Obama should do about the problem. Plainly he’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, because nothing can keep this so-called story from taking up more news cycles.
What’s sad is that the media and the Clinton camp both would rather distract us with this bullshit than discuss the nation’s business.
Andrew
Shorter lukasiak: Let me reach even further into my ass to pull out absurdly meaningless statistics.
Allow me to suggest that you’re over looking the most critical measure in this race: the number of pirates. Hillary clearly wins states that have low numbers of pirates, whereas Obama has secured the secretive ninja vote.
Incertus
Two points: Hillary isn’t Bill, and this isn’t 1992.
Hillary will have a different governing style than Bill was, and will be governing under different conditions than Bill was, if she’s the President–and let me say that I have no objections to her Presidency, should she win. But I will say, time and again, that to argue that just because Bill had a decent run as President–best Republican President of the last hundred years, after all, certainly no progressive–that’s no guarantee that Hillary will enjoy anywhere near that level of success, nor that she will she will follow the same policies he did.
In short, thinking people don’t look at what Bill did when deciding their candidate this time around. They look at how their candidates fit their desires, which is why I voted for Edwards, and why I support (not as firmly as I’d like) Obama now.
Incertus
Bill had. That’s what I get for posting as Incertus plus 3 of Bushmills. It’s finals week–what can I say.
Soylent Green
Classic non sequitur. I was happy with Bill’s work as president, and would have voted for him a third time if not for the 22nd amendment.
But guess what? Hillary is not Bill. In her mind, and yours, his experience is hers.
That’s a fraud just waiting for suckers.
Tom in Texas
plucky;
According to a few other sources, Obama’s lead in pledged delegates is considerably larger than 8.
Additionally, perhaps you missed that the coalition the Democratic Party has built hasn’t exactly mopped up the last few Presidential Elections. Instead of saying “ZOMG OBAMA IS WINNING IN STATES THAT DON’T NORMALLY VOTE DEM” as if it were automatically bad, why not consider that it’s a sign he may be able to compete in those states? And that in order to win the Dems might need more states than they won in 2004?
Fulcanelli
Well, Hillary is not Bill Clinton, and giving her credit for her husband’s successes is a pretty lame resume and is not likely to overcome the very well publicized negatives she brings to the dance with an awful lot of people in this country. The Right is licking it’s chops over her vs. McCain. and they hate McCain?!!
Because her husband had a successful (but troubled) presidency she’s going to be the messiah? C’mon, boys if you’re gonna win me over you’ve gotta have better game than that. And for the record I voted for Bill Clinton. Twice.
After hearing her talk about “Obliterating Iran” recently, if that’s NOT macho, tough talking republican Bush-talk than WTF is it?
As for my excuse for voting for Obama?
I’m 51 this year and I’ve been voting since 1976 and I’ve had a long time to watch the system rot from the inside out, and like a lot of people I’m fucking disgusted. Period.
The two party system is BROKEN, and I’m convinced that if some fresh blood or some real cataclysmic change doesn’t happen soon we are truly fucked as a country, and she represents the worst of the current system, a craven political animal who will say anything, to anybody for power.
Her kind of “experience” is exactly what this country does NOT need after eight years of Bush, a radioactive, lying, phony, egomaniac who’s probably never had to balance her own checkbook who feels she’s “ENTITLED” to the presidency.
Yeah, right, after 8 years of Bush and Cheney we need another privileged, blue blood ‘career politician’ running things, while we pay $4 a gallon for gas, can’t afford health coverage, and she’s waffling for NAFTA, one of her husbands’ two biggest failures, the other being the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
In my last gig, in the Automotive business (I was a parts department manager), over 6 years I hired 3 older guys who had been downsized out of their jobs due to their employers’ pulling up stakes and shipping the companies overseas. Each had over 20 years in their jobs and they got pink slips and were like lost puppies, so when the MUP sez he’s gonna try and stop that kind of shit, well then I loves me some MUP.
Hard to believe as it may seem, it is about change, and Hillary Clinton is NOT change. Period.
I’ll take my chances with the fucking pony, thank you. The pony’s had to pay off student loans for he and his wife’s education like a real, normal American. The pony, after he got his education went back to his neighborhood and helped an awful lot of people, instead of sinking her hooks in a handsome Southern Lawyer who had eyes on the govenor’s mansion while packing his bags for a career in Washington.
Yeah, when I watch my brilliant and hardworking daughter struggling to put her self through college with loans cause I can’t just write a check, I RELATE to the fucking pony. That’s just a couple of excuses and I’ve got a fucking boatload more.
Michael D.
Leeches.
And bleedings!
See, Theodoric of York
Svensker
P.Luk., you sound like the annoying kid in 7th grade who was always ratting out the other kids and trying to be bestest friends with the teacher.
You support Hillary over Obama. That’s fine. Dumb, to my mind, but fine. Coming here and continually screeching hysterically, pointing fingers and insulting people doesn’t seem a great way to win anyone over to your side. But maybe that’s just me.
cleek
please provide a list of Hillary’s actual accomplishments, so we can make an informed decision.
jake
Plucked Up: adj. When a thread is mangled by the gibberings of a raving cretin.
p.lukasiak
Maybe because its not such a sign… somebody has to win in those states, so winning there signifies nothing.
And I would never suggest the obverse — that not winning in the states that Democrats usually win in is a sign that Obama can’t win in those states.
cleek
winning-over is not the goal. getting your attention is the goal. he is a troll. he is trolling.
AkaDad
I can throw numbers out there too.
54. That’s Hillary’s disapproval number. I’m no math genius, but when 54% of voters don’t like you, it’s kind of hard to win.
douglasfactors
pluk spewed:
Sounds like Alaska is a good place to pick up delegates. Maybe Hillary should have campaigned there.
p.lukasiak
That may or may not be true. What is certainly true is that when you are a newcomer on the scene, and your approval number start tanking, you’ve got a huge problem From the Newsweek poll via pollingreport.com
Obama
March 5-6 Approve 61% Disapprove 28%
April 16-17 Approve 57% Disapprove 36%
April 24-25 Approve 53% Disapprove 40%
(and, of course, the Wright mess didn’t blow up until after the last poll was taken…its only going to get worse)
Conservatively Liberal
Yup, and talking to MyIQisPi or ph.uk is a complete waste of time. They are not interested in anything except either wasting your time arguing minutiae or just saying stupid shit that any child could refute. They will not change their mind, we will not change our mind and that is the end of it. Engaging them will not accomplish a single thing, so ridiculing them is all that is left. They make that very easy to do, so it gets boring because it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Hillary has been getting the kid glove treatment from the right. Why? Because they are locked and loaded for her in the fall. They WANT Hillary as she is the only candidate that will provide what the right needs to win this fall. She is a target rich environment, and if she thinks she was ducking sniper fire in Bosnia, she ain’t seen nothing until the right unloads on her this fall.
She will also drive out the vote on the right, and they need all of the help they can get for McPain. Obama will steal votes from the right, Hillary will drive out the votes on the right. Hear that silence on the right Hillary?
They are waiting for you. They need you. You are their last hope. Yawn McPain is not enough to win. They need to drive out their base and suppress the Democratic base. All they need is for Hillary to ‘win’ via the super delegates and they will get their wish.
Even if she wins the primary legitimately, I doubt she would win the general for the very same reasons above. She would stand a better chance, but the right will mercilessly bludgeon the public with her negatives. People will be so sick of 24/7 Hillary that they would vote against her just to get rid of her.
4tehlulz
>>Hillary has been getting the kid glove treatment from the right. Why? Because they are locked and loaded for her in the fall.
You would think that more people would pick up that HRC is getting fluffed by Gingrich and Kristol for this reason, but that is probably too much to ask.
Paul
This story on NPR this morning troubles me. “Citizen, where are you bound?” or (and carefully avoiding Mr. Godwin)
“Citizen, your papers, please.”
Paul
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90060908
This story on NPR this morning troubles me. “Citizen, where are you bound?” or (and carefully avoiding Mr. Godwin)
“Citizen, your papers, please.”
Dork
I find this shit amazing.
Then again, I’m a dork.
The Other Steve
Don’t you think their real problem is that they are unwilling to talk about the problems of a Hillary candidacy?
I asked p.luk to give me a top 5 list of hillary weaknesses, and I haven’t seen a response yet.
grandpajohn
So unless you enjoy mud wrestling with pigs this serves to reinforce one of my favorite adages
Soylent Green
That’s right, the smears and guilt by associations work, so his rating has been coming down from its unsustainable high. He’s also facing the very curious phenomenon of a fellow Democrat going strongly negative on him. The claims she makes are more credible (even though most are easily refutable) because they come from a colleague on the same side of the aisle.
But his rating is still significantly higher than Hillary’s. Like Bush, she earned her low approval rating all by herself. Obama could have driven it lower using the same techniques, but he’s a better man than that.
Davebo
The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour on the job.
The exception claimed by Cheney’s counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president’s chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.
Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney’s conduct is “not within the [congressional] committee’s power of inquiry”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/29/dickcheney.usa
Zuzu
Do you know how many square miles GWB won in 2000?
Hmmmm …. ????
Kathy
A couple of notes:
1) My bad, I just donated $50.00 to Obama but I did it directly through his site.
2) Cleek says “please provide a list of Hillary’s actual accomplishments, so we can make an informed decision.” – I just heard she has the highest earmark of pork total (via Andrew). I guess that counts for something, not something good or worthwhile, but for something.
Genine
I just gave a little more cash and, as always, a lot more positive energy. I’ll see if I can get a few friends to chip in as well.
Jon H
p.luk wrote: “Obama is especially susceptible to this kind of BS because he’s an unknown quantity—as crazy as all the Obots went over Tuzla, it didn’t seem to have much impact on Clinton’s numbers.”
Larry Flynt’s negatives can’t get much lower, either. But that doesn’t mean he or Hillary can get elected President.
koz
“please provide a list of Hillary’s actual accomplishments, so we can make an informed decision.”
Fuck Hillary, let’s go all the way to amend the Constitution and reelect George W Bush for a 3rd term.
Now let’s get serious. What really can be said in favor of Obama’s candidacy at this point except that he profoundly engages the narcissism of his supporters (that’s not supposed to be a rhetorical question btw)?
Let’s take as a given that Rev Wright and lapel pins are all bullshit. What legitimate reasons are there to support him?
Jon H
“What legitimate reasons are there to support him?”
He has good judgement, Hillary does not. She’s just a Rove-bot.