Because we need one. Take your time to figure out what the Clinton camp attack will be tomorrow. I hear he has black babies.
First Class Attitude
Fuck You Very Much Joel Ferguson. The Co-Chair of Hillary’s Michigan Campaign (in a state they pledged not to campaign in) and superdelegate if Michigan is seated had this to say:
“”Superdelegates are not second-class delegates,” Ferguson said. “The real second-class delegates are the delegates that are picked in red-state caucuses that are never going to vote Democratic.””
Good God Almighty how overtly dismissive can they possibly get?
Another Clinton Camp Meme Down in Flames
So much for the Rezko angle:
The couple who sold Barack Obama his Chicago home said the Illinois senator’s $1.65 million bid “was the best offer” and they didn’t cut their asking price because a campaign donor bought their adjacent land, according to e- mails between Obama’s presidential campaign and the seller.
The Illinois senator has said he made a “boneheaded” move in involving contributor Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a Chicago businessman, in the purchase of the property on June 15, 2005.
Rezko’s wife, Rita, also an Obama donor, bought the adjoining plot in Hyde Park from the couple, Fredric Wondisford and Sally Radovick, for the $625,000 asking price, the same day that Obama bought the house for $300,000 less than the asking price. Antoin Rezko was under federal investigation at the time.
Rezko was indicted on unrelated fraud charges 16 months later, in October 2006. Obama has since returned about $85,000 in campaign contributions made or raised by Rezko.
The sellers hadn’t previously made their side of the story public out of concern for their privacy, according to Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign. They approached Obama’s Senate office 15 months ago and agreed to break their silence now through the campaign out of concern that the story was being distorted in the media, Burton said.
As I was writing this post, I took a break and checked the comments to a previous post, and found this:
John Cole, the troll. Is there any other way to explain the hate you bring to the discussion?
I have a question that is only being touched on. Serious questions are being raised about Obama’s relations with Rezbo (sp?), and implications of criminality. Deny these as you will, but they exist. What happens, assuming Obama’s winning the Democratic nomination for president, when bush’s department of justice indicts him two weeks before the presidential election?
And there you have it, in all the glory it deserves- the Clinton way. Throw shit out there, and even if it doesn’t stick and you can’t even SPELL the name, you have weakened your opponent. Glorious, no? I fully expect the next few weeks will be full of this sort of crap, including more false charges of sexism and whatever other garbage they can drag up (the first time I heard of the similarities between Obama’s speeched and those of Patrick’s was in the comments here from a… Clinton supporter– would it surprise anyone if team Hillary is behind the latest attack on Obama in the press?).
This election can not end soon enough.
*** Update ***
That didn’t take long- they aren’t even hiding behind anonymous sources for the plagiarism BS:
Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, today accused Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of committing “plagiarism” in a speech in Milwaukee on Saturday night.
Wolfson made the explosive charge in an interview with Politico after suggesting as much in a conference call with reporters.
On the call, Wolfson said: “Sen. Obama is running on the strength of his rhetoric and the strength of his promises and, as we have seen in the last couple of days, he’s breaking his promises and his rhetoric isn’t his own.”
If you are wondering how desparate this seems coming from the Clinton camp, and how lame the plagiarism charges are, let me point you to this- Captain Ed is not falling for them.
Some of the commenters are donating 5 bucks every time the Clinton camp does something sleazy. Here is where to donate.
Another Clinton Camp Meme Down in FlamesPost + Comments (148)
An Excellent Point
On top of the hacktacular garbage that Tom pointed out coming from some Hillary supporters, Hilzoy makes a great point:
When I read this, I dissolved in giggles after the first sentence. It was that part about the Texas delegate selection rules “creating a new obstacle for her” that got me. In what sense are the Texas rules a “new obstacle?” Were they only recently passed? Not as far as I can tell — here, for instance, is a pdf about them from August 2007, which should have given the Clinton campaign ample time to get up to speed. While I was having fun thinking of possible analogies — would I describe the existence of the Pacific Ocean as “creating a new obstacle” for my plan to walk from Baltimore to Beijing?
If you are running your campaign on the double-edged sword of inevitability and competence, you should plan on focusing on at least one of the two. Just something to keep in mind the next time Hillary tells you she is ready to lead on day one and Obama is not.
*** Update ***
Ouch:
So let me get this straight: The Clinton campaign basically decided to bank almost everything on Texas (along with Ohio), without botheing to do due diligence on the delegate apportoinment procedures there? If she does wind up winning the White House, who’s the lucky aide who gets to troop into the Oval Office and deliver the shocking news to her that we’ve got troops in Iraq.
Shorter Cap’n Ed
As always, speaking for the Republican hierarchy.
Dear fundies – thanks for voting; now step to the back of the f*cking bus.
It’s hard to blame Ed for getting frustrated. His party can’t win without religious right votes, and they can’t win if they run on the medieval agenda of the GOP’s more extreme fundies. Too bad for the old coalition the Jesus voters don’t seem ready to settle any longer for lip service and an occasional schiavogasm. Having ridden the back of the bus for going on thirty years religious voters have clearly realized that they might do better if they get out and walk.
Meet Your Meat
I made a decision this weekend after:
a. Reading Matthew Scully’s excellent, mind-opening, heartbreaking book, Dominion, and
b. Seeing this video
that I will never again eat meat. Not fish. Not pork. Not chicken. Not beef. Nothing that ever breathed will ever go into my body again. I’m just sick of seeing abuses like this, and I should have made the decision a long time ago. Today, we live in the era of factory farms – places where pigs, chickens, cows, and other animals are penned up in conditions so deplorable that they have zero – ZERO – quality of life, places where the lucky animals die shortly after birth or are stillborn. The ones that make it never see the light of day. And because we never get to see them, it’s easy to buy a package of chicken or beef and not know what had to suffer horribly for it – and every, single one of them suffers.
I’m done. If humanity can be judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, then we’ve failed miserably. It’s sickening.
And what pisses me off equally is this statement from Dick Durbin:
“The treatment of animals in this video is appalling, but more than that, it raises significant concerns about the safety of the food being served to our nation’s children,” Durbin said. “The apparent slaughter of sick and weak animals not only appears to violate USDA regulations, but could be a danger to our nation’s food supply.”
I’m sorry, but I think the needless, hideous suffering of a cow walking on broken legs and being rammed with a forklift is what’s most important. I think dipping live chickens and turkeys in scalding water to de-feather them is what’s most important. I think sending a sow to a rendering plant because she doesn’t produce enough offspring while penned in a cage she can’t even move in is what’s most important.
I can’t recommend Scully’s book highly enough. You can read the reviews here. He’s not a person that many Republicans and conservatives would deride as a “bleeding heart liberal”, either – he was a speech writer and senior advisor to Bush and an editor at National Review. He makes an excellent case for showing compassion and mercy that’s so self-evident that you wonder why you had to read the damned book in the first place.
(I updated the last paragraph to clarify the whole “bleeding heart” comment. See 1st and 2nd comment.)
Fun With Balloon Animals
Further evidence if you twist numbers like a mobius strip you can come up with anything.
Apparently, if you only count votes up to Super Tuesday, discount every state that had a caucus, only go by the exit polling, and eliminate any voters who weren’t registered Democrats, then Hillary Clinton*actually has the popular vote lead. In other news, based on exit polling and early voting from 2004 President Kerry will be running for reelection.
I’m fine with the superdelegates reflecting the will of the voters in the Democratic Primary — whoever they may choose in the coming weeks. I am, however, more than a little sick of the meme that Democrats in certain states don’t matter. Clinton’s disastrous decision to ignore her party’s representation in half the country is not the fault of committed Democrats in Georgia or South Carolina, nor can one say a person moved to vote for either candidate should have their vote discounted because they didn’t register for the right party beforehand.
CORRECTION: In the original draft, I only referred to Hillary Clinton by her first name. To preempt the inevitable sexism accusations, I’ve added the Clinton surname above.
COMPLETELY UNRELATED UPDATE: After posting, I stumbled across Kristol’s latest opus in the NYT. It closes with the funniest line I’ve read in days:
To govern is to choose, a Democrat of an earlier generation, John F. Kennedy, famously remarked. Is this generation of Democrats capable of governing?
This is no longer a question when it comes to Republicans. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt what they are capable of.