Huckabee jokes to fellow gun fanatics

I continue to be amazed.

To make a joke about assassination is fairly amazing but it reveals their mindset and plans - to paint Obama as a coward who won't stand up for the US.

One thing to be sure of - Republicans are Republicans even if they are a preacher. Ethics, honesty, & decency aren't something they value much.

Lets wait and see what the great uniter, John McCain, has to say about this -

This is way to funny!

Just when we all needed some comic relief this makes its way around the web.

Over at the Stranger in an article titled "Way To Not Look Like Crazy Cult Members, Guys" there are some great comments about this graphic. Here are a few of the best leaving out the more obscene suggestions:

• The artist who drew this should be beaten with a length of lead pipe.
• Why do I suddenly feel like listening to BeeGees music?
• Are you suggesting most Americans don't understand irony? Elitist!
• Can I get that on black velvet?
• look again, this clearly can't be obama: he's not walking on water.
• This is SO going on my van!...as soon as Solid Gold is over.

A list - A timeline of HillBill attacks on Obama

Over at Head of State an interesting list of attacks by the HillBill show on Obama. While its not exhaustive, that will be produced by some enterprising historians with massive amounts of time on their hands, it does show the pattern of events leading us to today's state of affairs.

Clyburn finally spills the truth

It seems that Pam's House Blend is the first to discuss the story that we should all be talking about - Rep. James Clyburn's statement that the Clinton's know they can't win and that their goal now is to destroy any hope that Obama can ever be elected so she can run again in 4 years.

With this one statement Rep. Clyburn has done more to expose the reality of the Clintons than scores of political opponents. He has my thanks!

Frankly its not a new idea for me - I've been thinking this for months and Chris Matthews of Hard Ball fame has said it several time on the tube. So Clyburn ain't alone. The importance here is not that the statement has been made, its been said publicly before, but rather who made the statement - the Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Thoreau once noted that "A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom". I like to think that the same holds true for a grain of truth. Clyburn has used a grain of truth to reveal the fetid reality of Clinton land for all to see. Much as they will try - it won't be boxed up and hidden away anytime soon.

Because it needs to be said again and again and again here's Pam posting:

Black Leader in House warns Clinton of the damage of win-at-all-costs
by: pam
Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 18:00:00 PM EDT

I saw this article in the NYT this AM and it should alarm Democratic Party leadership. If the endgame of Clinton supporters in primary slugfest is for Hillary to win the nomination at any cost, the price will be higher than the party may want to pay in the long run.

Representative James E. Clyburn (SC) is the third highest ranking Dem in the house -- and an undeclared superdelegate. He was the elected official who told Bill Clinton to "chill a little bit" when the now-infamous color-arousal tactics were ratcheting up in the Palmetto state. Clyburn, who still has no plans to endorse a candidate, is concerned that the Hillary Clinton campaign has done critical damage to the party's relationship with black voters in its quest to win.

In an interview with The New York Times late Thursday, Mr. Clyburn said Mr. Clinton's conduct in this campaign had caused what might be an irreparable breach between Mr. Clinton and an African-American constituency that once revered him. "When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar," Mr. Clyburn said. "I think black folks feel strongly that that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation."

Mr. Clyburn added that there appeared to be an almost "unanimous" view among African-Americans that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton were "committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could never win."

This is really a statement of feeling thrown under the bus, a term often associated with past maneuvers by the Clintons when it's beneficial to distance or disregard a group or individual standing between them and a political victory. That's common in politics, or course, but it comes up a lot for this duo, and it seems to be an open sore (or several dozen) that never fully heals.

Why gays, lesbians, blacks or any other minority trust the Clintons as far as they can throw them is beyond me.

This election is about power - what happens to the Democratic Party or the country is of no interest to the HillBill show - this is about putting them back on the thrown and they will destroy everything and anybody to get back into the White House.

I really can't wait to see how they respond - I sure they will send out one of their pet sycophants to drool all over the place. Perhaps it will be the slimey Howard Wolfson or the very slimey Harold Ickes or even the ultra slimey Terry McAuliffe. All we can do now is wait and see how they respond. I'm betting that they will be crushed, just crushed that folks would think such things of them - perhaps Hillary will cry again for good measure. Of course its all an act but its worked before and they think it will work again. Hopefully this time folks are wise to their games and will just tell 'em once and for all to just fuck right off.

Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary.

While perusing MyDD I ran across part of an article by Molly Ivins way back in 2006 that explains why so many of us dislike the Clintons. After a little Googling the source appears to be here. For sake of clarity and respect for Ms. Molly below is her entire article.

- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls?

Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008."

This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad new from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.

Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.

Note added in proof: It seems that Hillary's view of MoveOn before and after their endorsement of Obama changed a wee bit. Knowing the Clinton's track record on ethics, truth-telling and requirement of absolute loyalty from all no one should be surprised.

openSUSE 11.0 is comming!

As of the 17th of April the next release of the best Linux distro is just 62 days away!

Dem's PrePrimary Convention - CD1 winners & losers

The results are:

Robert Pidcock	25 votes	4.16%
Martin Heinrich	339 votes	56.41%
Rebecca Vigil-Giron	67 votes	11.15%
Michelle Lujan Grisham	170 votes	28.29%

While Martin's vote didn't come as much of a surprise, he's been running for over a year, Michelle did much better than expected - securing the second spot on the June Primary ballot.

Questions remain if Robert Pidcock or Rebecca Vigil-Giron will try to gather the additional signatures necessary to get on the ballot. It appears that they only have a few days do so.

One piece of trivia deserves mention - since Martin won his City Council seat with a plurality, if memory serves me correctly - 30% of the vote, this is the first election where he actually won a majority of the votes cast.

Another view of Hillary's 3 AM ad

While I feel totally justified bashing the Clintons when and where I can - this you need to decide for yourself.

Direct and unedited from The Carpetbagger Report..........

---

We’ve all seen Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m.” ad. We’ve also seen Barack Obama’s response ad. And the parodies of both. It seemed as if, over the course of just two weeks, there wasn’t much else to say about the whole exchange.

But Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson considers the ad from a perspective I hadn’t considered.

I have spent my life studying the pictures and symbols of racism and slavery, and when I saw the Clinton ad’s central image — innocent sleeping children and a mother in the middle of the night at risk of mortal danger — it brought to my mind scenes from the past. I couldn’t help but think of D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society. The danger implicit in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat.

The ad could easily have removed its racist sub-message by including images of a black child, mother or father — or by stating that the danger was external terrorism. Instead, the child on whom the camera first focuses is blond. Two other sleeping children, presumably in another bed, are not blond, but they are dimly lighted, leaving them ambiguous. Still it is obvious that they are not black — both, in fact, seem vaguely Latino.

Finally, Hillary Clinton appears, wearing a business suit at 3 a.m., answering the phone. The message: our loved ones are in grave danger and only Mrs. Clinton can save them. An Obama presidency would be dangerous — and not just because of his lack of experience. In my reading, the ad, in the insidious language of symbolism, says that Mr. Obama is himself the danger, the outsider within.

I’ve been tough on some of the Clinton campaign’s tactics of late, some of which have struck me as overly aggressive, needlessly divisive, and sometimes just plain ugly. But I’ve seen the “3 a.m.” ad a hundred times and I just haven’t picked up on racial undertones.

Patterson is an accomplished scholar who’s forgotten more about racial symbolism than most of us will ever learn, but this criticism strikes me as wildly off-base. The ad is premised on exploiting fear, but not racial fears. “Birth of a Nation”? Seriously?

I can think of a few too many examples, most notably Geraldine Ferraro a few days ago, of Clinton campaign officials and surrogates playing the race card in troubling ways. But to say the “3 a.m.” is one of them is a stretch.

---

But you know its always wise to remember "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".

Hillary's missing experience

From the The Daily Telegraph:

Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a "wee bit silly" for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province.

"I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around," he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely "the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets" during elections. "She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player."

No one should be surprised after all we are dealing with the Clintons.

But, as they say, it gets better. Further along in this article you find that:

Steven King, a negotiator with Lord Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party, argued that Mrs Clinton might even have helped delay the chances of peace. "She was invited along to some pre-arranged meetings but I don’t think she exactly brought anybody together that hadn’t been brought together already," he said. Mrs Clinton was "a cheerleader for the Irish republican side of the argument", he added.

"She really lost all credibility when on Bill Clinton’s last visit to Northern Ireland [in December 2000] when she hugged and kissed [Sinn Fein leaders] Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness."

For more on this see the article - David Trimble: Hillary Clinton mere 'cheerleader' in Ireland

Clintons distort images to attack Obama

As shown at the Daily Kos in a posting titled Obama "blacker" ad no accident another line of attack against Obama is to simply distort his image to make him "blacker".

Make him blacker and his nose wider to fit the stereotype they are pushing. No doubt it helps to scare the older white folks.

In a blind rush for power what's a little Photoshop between friends?

The Clintons are racist - pure and simple.

Hillary - bringing the DLC back to life

For Progressive Democrats this is important and should be scary - since the DLC, Democratic Leadership Council, is ashamed of our Democratic heritage moving them back into power can only be bad news.

---

From Kos' posting Team DLC embedded in Clinton campaign:

Clinton is getting her debate prep from Bruce Reed, the president of the DLC.

Clinton has been silent on her leadership role at the DLC, since it's not the sort of thing that people like to trumpet anymore. Reed has been an enthusiastic surrogate for Clinton, but the candidates don't always get to choose their supporters. (Al Wynn, anyone?)

But debate prep? Team Clinton has Team DLC firmly embedded in the campaign.

Update: Remember who top Clintonista James Carville wanted as DNC chair after 2006 in his attempted party coup? DLC executive director Harold Ford, who would clearly be a finalist for the gig in a Clinton administration.

This is yet another reason to fear a Clinton Presidency.

An email to Pam

Re: your posting The self-destructive Democrat, 2008 model

---

Pam:

While I appreciate your view that in the end we must fall in line and choose the lesser of two evils I've been playing that electoral game from the last 35 years and as a Progressive and as a Gay Man that attitude hasn't gotten me very far.

What I see is this - we as Progressives or we as members of the LGBT Community are seen as a doormat for powerful parts of the Democratic Party and I'm sick of it. I'm tired of the politics of division and beliefs driven by polls and I just ain't gonna play anymore. If Hillary eeks out the nomination I will not vote for President its just that simple. While I appreciate that Hillary is better than McCain on many issues there are larger issues here that demand our attention. What the Democratic Party stands for and why it exists is all I care about now - not getting Hillary into office so she will do a marginally better job than John McCain. I want the whole prize not just a glance at it.

The issues Progressives and the LGBT Community have had with the Clintons can't just be washed away. How can any of use forget or forgive Bill Clinton for signing the Defense of Marriage Act? He threw us under the bus because it was convenient to do so at that moment in time and space and she will happily throw us under the bus again when a pollster says it will give her a 0.0001% net gain at the polls. That's just how the Clintons play ball.

My attraction to Obama is his desire to unify and include not to split people into groups so that they can be used against each other. That is a Republican technique and also the Clinton technique of choice and it should be rejected by both Progressives and the LGBT Community. Obama's concern for inclusion is all I need. Re: experience well - I don't want him to have Hillary's or John's experience because that's what got us into the mess we have today.

The lazy, lazy press and the Clintons up to old tricks

From the Globe and Mail -

---

ALEXANDER PANETTA
The Canadian Press
March 5, 2008 at 8:53 PM EST

OTTAWA — If the Prime Minister is seeking the first link in the chain of events that has rocked the U.S. presidential race, he need look no further than his chief of staff, Ian Brodie, The Canadian Press has learned.

A candid comment to journalists from CTV News by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's most senior political staffer during the hurly-burly of a budget lock-up provided the initial spark in what the American media are now calling NAFTAgate.

Mr. Harper announced Wednesday that he has asked an internal security team to begin finding the source of a document leak that he characterized as being "blatantly unfair" to Senator Barack Obama.

What is now a swirling Canada-U.S. controversy began on Feb. 26, when the usually circumspect Mr. Brodie was milling among droves of Canadian media on budget day in the stately old building that once housed Ottawa's train station.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff Ian Brodie watches from the back of the room during a photo op before the government caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa Wednesday.

Mr. Brodie wandered over to speak to Finance Department officials and chatted amiably with journalists — who appreciated this rare moment of direct access to the top official in Mr. Harper's notoriously tight-lipped government.

The former university professor found himself in a room with CTV employees where he was quickly surrounded by a gaggle of reporters while other journalists were within earshot of other colleagues.

At the end of an extended conversation, Mr. Brodie was asked about remarks aimed by the Democratic candidates at Ohio's anti-NAFTA voters that carried serious economic implications for Canada.

Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.

Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.

"Quite a few people heard it," said one source in the room.

"He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

They said that Mr. Brodie sought to allay concerns about the impact of Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's assertion that they would re-negotiate NAFTA if elected. But they did say that Mr. Brodie had no recollection of discussing any specific candidate — either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Obama.

So, it wasn't the Obama Campaign that was speaking to the Canadians it was the Clinton Campaign. One wonders if the lazy press will ever get around to informing us of that fact?

As always with the Clintons this just serves to remind us all - things are never quite what they seem to be -

Barack's not Hillary's "Stepin Fetchit"!

So, this AM Hillary is saying that there could be a Clinton - Obama ticket.

I just want to heave - guess she thinks they might need a good butler!

Looks like the Clintons are calculating again - they figure a "step and fetch it" might be handy to deal with those they throw under the bus. He could do a bit of "shuck n jive" and tell them that the nice white lady doesn't really doesn't mean it after all!

Please give me a break.

Anybody stupid enough to become a second to the HillBill show is walking into a trap. Vice Presidents and the Democratic Party have never fared well under the Clintons' reign.

Above all things Obama understands images and he knows he doesn't want to play the role of Stepin Fetchit in a Clinton Campaign. Just Imagine what the Republicans could/would do with that image!

Why I despise Hillary

Why I despise Hillary and the BillHill/HillBill show -

As a Democrat I'm part of a small but very real wing of the Party that simply despises the Clintons. The reasons why are long and weighty but it all boils down to two simple facts:

1) the Clintons believe what a pollster tells them to believe and their strength of belief is based on totally on how strong the poll is -

2) they like to win by dividing people not by uniting them and I sick of this technique. It seems to be a strategy much loved by the Bush - Clinton camps. It ultimately always ends the same way - nothing changes except the level of public discourse gets worse -

If Hillary ends up pulling out a win, and rest assured she only cares that she wins - not how many lies she tells or who she hurts to do so - I WILL NOT BE VOTING FOR HER IN THE FALL. I had hoped that Clinton fatigue would set in and save us from that fate but that doesn't appear to be true. I need hope and when the Clintons come back you can abandon all hope.

Let loose the lawyers!

New Mexico Caucus update - 020608

The full scope of this mess came into view today.

My guess is that by tomorrow night we will have a full tilt National disaster on our hands.
Besides all the voters that walked away without voting and other assorted problems consider one number - there are over 16,000 provisional ballots to be counted. Lets break this down - a volunteer organization has to open up and decide if 16,000 ballots are valid then count them.

If this process takes on average 10 minutes per ballots the numbers are as follows:

16,000 ballots/6 ballots per hour = 2,6667 "man hours"/8 hours per day = 333.3 days of effort = 66.7 weeks = 1.28 years

If we have robots running at obscene rates and on average do a ballot a minute:

16,000 ballots/60 ballots per hour = 266.7 "man hours"/8 hours per day = 33.3 days of effort = 6.7 weeks

So good luck getting them counted!

This is the danger of provisional ballots run-a-muck. They each take at least 100x as much time to deal with as a regular ballot and handing 'em out like candy is insane.

I think New Mexico just learned a lesson the rest of the US needs to pay close attention to -

Colon is toast!

Just found this AP story at KVIA's web site:

Associated Press - February 6, 2008 9:05 PM ET

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Governor Richardson says he's frustrated with state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colon after reports of long lines and other problems at polling sites in the state party's presidential caucus.

It was Richardson who in 2003 originally conceived of holding an early caucus in New Mexico, and the state's first one was in 2004.

Today, the governor raised the possibility that state Democrats should rethink whether to keep the early nominating contest four years from now.

Richardson said he was deeply disturbed by reports of long lines at polling places and other problems. Some polling sites ran out of ballots and had to rush to make copies.

He says he expressed his frustration to Colon.

Colon says he hasn't met with nor talked to Richardson.

Earlier today, Colon took full responsibility for problems and apologized for miscalculating.

Well good questions can be asked where was Big Bill when $'s were being raised for the Caucus. No doubt he was off running for President.

Well the World ain't fair and if Brian Colon didn't know it before he's learning it now -

Obama's visit to Albuquerque

Just got back from the mob scene at the Convention Center and the line literally went around the building. Once they filled up the Kiva and an overflow room in the Convention Center they got folks to congregate at the Civic Plaza across the street where he spoke to the crowd and visited for a few minutes.

Here's a few photo's I took -

      Barack has problems with a bad microphone

      Barack working the crowd

MoveOn endoses Obama

MoveOn, for the first time in history, is endorsing a Presidential Candidate - Barack Obama.

The votes:
    Obama: 197,444 70.4%
    Clinton: 83,084 29.6%

That pretty much says it all from the progressive camp - MoveOn members prefer Barack over Hillary by a factor of better than 2 to 1.

kos finally notices -

Wow, it took long enough -

This AM at the Daily Kos they finally notice what the Clinton's have been up to -

One of the biggest crocks of shit from the Clinton campaign, and a dirty one at that, has been the claim that Latinos won't vote for blacks. It's quickly become CW. Too bad it's not true.

Better late than never -