On The Cusp of History

Well here we are.

Soon to be awaiting the results that will surely mean history tonight. It would take a theft unlike the previous ones before in 2000 and 2004 to overtake this turnout. For the first time we will be watching results with the knowledge that an African American CAN be president in this country and that it's not some myth or fairy tale that African American parents have to tell their children out of blind inspiration.

I know I have not been as enthused as many. Obama has been true to the word he set out to not go after the hard right wingers who have taken this country into the nosedive we're in currently. As a liberal that is tired of being told I am unamerican, communist/socialist/marxist, wrong on everything, lazy because I am not rich, a baby murderer because I believe in choice, anti-troops because I am anti-war and quite frankly a traitor to my country if I dare say the President is bound to the laws of the Constitution... well I want revenge.

The media has helped this gang of thieves steal two elections with voter suppression and rigged machines and not reporting any of it. They spread right wing memes and no matter how crazy they are made them seem truthful. For Obama to not fight against all of that and still play the nice guy who wants to reach across the aisle to these assholes when they will not and have not done the same for us seemed unfathomable.

Rachel Maddow interviewed Obama and pretty much shared my frustration with him on this. After all the GOP has been lying through their teeth and calling Obama the "most liberal senator" even though Bernie Sanders is a Socialist and he's the Senator from Vermont.

But I concede that Obama's approach, should it be just to win this election is going to work and we're going to win tonight.

Yes I wasn't as enthused as I could be but I was still fully behind Obama and I am still very proud that he will be our President.

As a liberal I think that once the election is over and Democrats have overwhelming majorities in the House and the magic 60 in the Senate we need to act quickly to pull our government's policy back to the center. In the 6 years Bush had Republican rubber stamp rule, they jettisoned thousands of laws put in place by far more reasonable Administrations before them and we need to work fast to put these back in play. Banning Torture, banning illegal wiretapping, eliminating Signing Statements, establishing exactly which laws the Bush Administration was breaking and prosecuting them for all of it...

If we want to be a nation of law and order we need to defend the "goddamned piece of paper" (as Bush put it) that our country was built upon. Our Constitution needs restoration like nobody's business.

Then while we're here we need to use our majority to push through Healthcare before Republicans can fight it. Push through election reforms that prevent them from stealing it when it's close and demands a paper trail so we know who voted for whom. Push through changes to the tax code that shift the lions share of the burden back to the rich and provides relief to the poor and middle class. Bring troops home from Iraq and end our occupation there.

We need to move on this stuff so it is done in the first two years. It will prevent the GOP from stopping the most important stuff before they get another chance to slander and lie about Democrats again and prevent these changes from occurring.

If Obama goes in as President looking to give in to Republicans in the name of compromise, he'll find out that the only compromise is giving them their way. It's something the 2006 class of Democrats disgracefully executed and why they have such a low approval rating from voters.

We've given them their way enough and they messed everything up in the name of greed. Now with Democrats so close to all of the levers of control we must push through liberal/progressive legislation. The entire political spectrum and the policies behind it were tilted hard right. If we don't push back left we'll never get to the real center again.

Tonight when President-Elect Obama is named by all of the networks, history will be made. History for African-Americans. History for Voter Turnout. But we need to keep making history by staying on Obama to fight for the left. We're a bigger majority than the right and have had nobody fighting for us for decades.

Corporate America had their Presidents. It's our turn.

Congratulations to America. Here's hoping we finally have that President this time around.

"Where's the Red Meat?"

Right. Fucking. Here.



John Kerry's speech was the best of the convention thusfar (Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo Agrees).

He nailed McCain. He took him to task on his exploitation of his military experience, on his constant reversals on issues, he even slammed him for saying "Next up, Baghdad!" right after 9/11.

That was MY President up there talking. The guy I worked my ass for and believed in. The guy who sat in front of Congress during the Vietnam War and asked, "How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?" and practically ended the war with his performance there single handedly.

That was the John Kerry I knew. Not the one who was swarmed by Clinton advisors who were unbeknownst to Kerry playing for Hillary in 2008 and not for the Democratic Candidate to win.

According to TPM, Kerry scripted this whole speech himself. There wasn't a group of handlers stepping all over who he was. It was John Kerry, on the attack, showing why he was better than the media ever dared give him credit for.

They stepped on him when he OWNED Bush in the debates. They walked all over him during the primaries when they thought he had no chance. They repeated the Swift Boat smears verbatim and constantly re-ran the ads for free on talking head shows to "discuss them", or rather perpetuate the lies. And when Kerry went to give a solid speech at the 2004 Convention, he was warned that the networks would cut him off if he didn't keep it short, so he was forced to rush.

So it didn't surprise me that Kerry was considered inconsequential to the networks. Filler to go between Bill Clinton and Joe Biden.

And as Kerry spoke, a lot of Democrats who believe the negative spin the media gave him or think foolishly that he gave up in Ohio too easy, (forgetting that the lawsuit presented by David Cobb against Ohio for vote tampering was thrown out and that Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell certified the election results before any recount would have been allowed anyway) sat there quiet at first.

It didn't take long for Democrats that were present to realize what this was... a great speech that tore McCain to shreds. Suddenly they started to cheer his lines and maybe many realized why they voted for the man just four years ago...

The Networks however had stayed away from the speech. Weren't going to air any of it... until they realized his speech was hammering McCain and cut in towards the very end.

Still they only caught part of the speech and unless you were watching C-SPAN or PBS you got to see only a snippet of it.

The entire three days of the convention so far the idiot talking heads kept screaming, "Where's the Red Meat?". Downplaying comments from the Democratic speakers for not being angry or divisive enough. They want conflict... it draws ratings.

But they missed the one speech that REALLY DID provide such so-called "red meat". They were too busy making the same ridiculous cliched complaints over and over to hear themselves talk and they forgot to listen to a man who should have been President in 2004 and a man who has been thusfar Obama's best surrogate by far.

I sat there in shock too after Kerry's speech to hear Pat Buchanan go on and on about how he hasn't heard a single thing about Guantanamo Bay and have that remain unchallenged from the MSNBC panel when Kerry not only mentioned it but talked of closing it down and ending torture forever!

If you're wondering why America seems so stupid these days, turn on your cable news.

The Mainstream Media is a joke.

Rp

Time for Obama to Stop Pandering

I have a friend named Sam who is about 24 years old (ahh to be young and politically motivated) and is excited about Obama. He has been for months and to be truthful he's been backing Obama since the beginning of the primaries.

I have not.

He asks me to help volunteer for Obama and I just can't bring myself to do it. I gave up months and months of my time for John Kerry but I can't do it for Obama. Truth is Obama's not half the man nor the hero Kerry was.

I think I have mentioned here that I had to very slowly come around to Obama after first picking Edwards... and my decision to support Edwards was laced with hesitancy as well.

For all of the propaganda the DNC put out about this being the best field ever assembled in a Democratic primary a whole hell of a lot of us knew better. Aside from the incredibly unelectable thanks to the media Dennis Kucinich, there wasn't a single liberal in the field. Just a bunch of Washington worn centrists who are used to playing ball with big business.

So when John Edwards railed against big business, of course I was for his rhetoric even though I knew that Russ Feingold slamming Edwards for stealing his platform (but never enacting it when he was in the Senate) was spot on.

For all the talk that Social Security is the third rail in politics, I say big business is the third rail. It is the corporatization of America that has destroyed so much of what our country was in the past 30 years. Look at any system that is failing in America and you'll see funds that were diverted from a public system to private corporations/companies and see that the privatization has actually worsened us in the areas that it was supposed to help.

This is more evident in the public school system than anywhere else. We have schools falling apart, underpaid teachers, mandates on curriculum that force the teaching of two subjects, math and reading and water down or eliminate vital studies such as science, social studies, music, art, etc.

Kids are dropping out at ridiculous rates, especially in inner cities where Republicans decided to mandate test scores while underfunding schools and teacher's pay and using this under performance as a way to prop up private school vouchers.

It would be far cheaper to overhaul the public school system, fix schools, employ better teachers, get non-right wing propaganda textbooks than to keep funding vouchers for a few lucky kids.

But hey, business will work better for you than your government.

Republicans always say government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.

A disturbing trend came out of Bill Clinton's Presidential win in 1992, the Democrats moved to the Right.

They also supported big business over the little guy which in effect left the little guy to fend for himself in an ever growing class war they couldn't possibly win. After all they didn't own the newspapers or the television stations or the radio stations or even the textbook publishers so there's nobody propagandizing their point of view.

And with politicians in Washington, both Republicans AND Democrats willing to bend over backwards to allow deregulation and media consolidation, the chance of the little guy ever having a voice just turned into nil. Can't have a voice when Washington rips out your vocal chords.

If you think the impact of all of the media leaning towards the right hasn't had a profound effect culturally on America I ask you to look closer.

From the way Unions have been demonized and nearly eliminated to the way public schooling is considered bad and the teachers given the heat for it (regardless of who defunded them). From the way abortion has been able to be portrayed more effectively as cold heartless murder to the way the war was for all the right reasons despite the fact that Bush blatantly broke the law and lied to make those reasons up. From the way oil companies and their huge profits are portrayed not to be to blame for high gas prices to the way people are basically told to just accept illegal wiretapping as if it's good for you.

No matter what the situation, your media is working against you and for the big business that get extra benefits for spinning things that way. Most of the media companies cheer led for the war because other parts of those companies received billion dollar military contracts or at the very least huge ratings boosts during the invasion. There was profit motive involved in helping Iraq look justifiable so nobody questioned Bush hard on anything when clearly the liberals who were anti-war knew that the so-called "intelligence linking Iraq and al-Qaeda" was bogus from the start.

Only the right wing media could convince you that despite mega rich corporations illegally not paying their taxes and shifting most of their money into overseas tax shelters to avoid paying their fair share, that's okay and it's for the good of America. Then they pass tax cuts for the ultra wealthy top 1% that don't affect you and trick you into thinking they made everyone's taxes lower. Then when we have HUGE deficits and debt that will cost all of our children and grandchildren down the road they have taught you that raising taxes for the ultra rich is raising taxes for everyone and it's unfair.

So you continue to pay more than your fair share of the tax burden while the ultra rich pay nada.

They tell you it's okay to bail out Bear Stearns and other subprime mortgage lenders even though they don't want to help the people that were tricked into these scam mortgages and are going to lose their home. Their spin is that it was uneducated, low credit bums that took these loans and it's their fault the economy is dying.

They tell you global warming, despite every study to the contrary is fake because they want to protect the businesses most guilty for creating it, and instead they convince you that science which has been the foundation of our country since Ben Franklin, is a scam.

You'll notice a theme here: It's never the rich's fault. It's always the poor people that fuck it up for everyone else.

And by Democrats increasingly feeding at the corporate trough, it's impossible to see a difference in parties. That to me is a bigger death knell to this party than Obama losing and McCain continuing the Bush term.

In 2000 and 2004 I honestly could say that there was no way in hell that anyone could use the "There's no difference between them line". Gore's stance on the environment was in stark contrast to any Republican I had ever heard and John Kerry had liberal bonafides before his Clinton-esque advisers pushed him to run to the center.

There were differences. And to be fair there are some with Obama. But the more Obama and his advisers believe playing to the center (which thanks to political spectrum re-alignment by the media means center-right) the more they alienate the left wing of the base who is absolutely sick and tired of this crap.

When JFK ran in the 1960 election the question was whether or not his Catholicism could be too influential on him as President. Now the right wing media has convinced everyone that if you're not a full on Christian that you are not acceptable for public office.

That's a stunning reversal from what our Founding Fathers believed. Many of them were indeed Christians but most including Jefferson believed many priests and preachers to be charlatans who used the pulpit for personal gain rather than for the cause of good.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of the leading Presidential Historians made an absolutely spot on comment on Hardball the other night when she declared it troubling because a man like Abraham Lincoln whose moral character was as great as any President in history would not have been elected today because he did have strong ties to a church.

That to me pretty much sums it up. An atheist or agnostic running for President? Forget it! The heathens do not have God or Jesus in their heart and must be working for Satan!

What makes Christians believe they have moral righteousness on their side above all other religions?

Another fun media misnomer is "The War on Christianity". They extend this out to a war on Easter or war on Christmas. It couldn't be further from the truth, in fact it goes the other way. When communities don't want "Christmas" stuff on public property all they are doing is following the edict of separation of church and state as laid down by our forefathers. It is important to remember that when Bill O'Reilly or John Gibson or some other FAUX News tool goes out of their way to attack communities that try to even the playing field for all religions by not allowing any one of them to display on government property that they're ultimately doing this arguing to increase Christian viewership since they are a majority in our country.

But those people are quick to forget that Christians are the ones pushing their displays onto public grounds to force these fights. They put nativity scenes up in parks or push ten commandments statues into courthouses where they have no place and are not the ruling laws that our judges need to adhere to.

The Bible is written in a vague and ridiculous subjective way to draw multiple conclusions from all those who attempt to interpret it. To even suggest that this is how our law should be structured is stupidity at it's finest.

All this goes back to my initial point about Obama. He has fallen into the corrupt media's "Christian or Bust" trap repeatedly.

After they spent considerable time portraying him as a Muslim to low information voters, he had to come out forcibly for some reason to practically scream that he was a Christian. The media found that useful when Jeremiah Wright was out there making dumb statements so they could play "gotcha" with Obama on them but ignored that Christian background for the most part while he was painted as a "terrorist fist jab" artist on air.

So once again he falls into their trap and agrees to go on the worst possible forum for Democrats at Rick "A Purpose Driven Life" Warren's evangelical church. A FAITH forum. What a stupid idea this is.

So now we're trying to Out-Christian, nutcase right wing evangelicals who don't mind destroying the Earth because they think the rapture is coming?

At least 75% of that crowd had no intention of ever voting for Obama anyway, so a stacked audience along with an anti-gay, anti-abortion preacher asking loaded questions that McCain could hear backstage and likely had in advance screams total set up. And anybody with a brain would have told Obama that there was no way to look good in this situation.

You can't talk truth with a host of people who have black and white absolutes in their lives as guiding principles. They don't care what truths there are and any answer that is not absolute is John Kerry style waffling, which is what the media slammed Obama on.

Forget that Pro-Choice really ISN'T pro-abortion, the media has painted it as such and any explanation to the contrary is ignored immediately. Forget that gays are people too and that discriminating against them is no different than discriminating against Blacks because the media has made being gay a choice and evangelicals call that choice a sin (although if a single damn one had ever read their bible they would understand we are all sinners, Jesus died for our ability to sin and as long as you repent before death you are welcome into heaven... so gays are no more sinners than everyone else).

The audience loved McCain and made him look like a rock star because he gave absolutes for answers. "What can we do about evil?" McCain: "Defeat it."

No matter that this question is completely stupid at every turn and it fails to look at how we could also be evil for what we have done across the world.

Obama just setting foot in a forum that is this divisive towards other religions or views proves that he like the centrist Democrats that run Washington just don't get it. This doesn't even mention the fact that McCain cheated when he heard the questions in advance or address the totally different tones that Warren used to ask each candidate the same question. Obviously the whole thing was a set up from the get go but the problem ultimately lies in Obama's lack of judgment to participate in this charade to begin with.

Democrats will always be treated as the media's red headed stepchild as long as they accept the media's framing of these arguments and continue to play by Republican rules.

It casts them as weak and pushovers and the hard right wing pundits who have no such morality as to prevent them from lying every time their lips move know that the bigger the lie the more it will stick. It's been a Rovism since day one that you accuse your opponent of anything no matter how crazy or unrealistic because the time they have to use denying it costs them money and ultimately allows the image to stick in the public's mind.

To all of those who will come out and say, "oh there's another anti-christian who hates religions" I say this... Imagine if schools were allowed to have religion in them. You'd probably be very happy if Bibles were handed out as textbooks. But what if Korans were also handed out? How would you feel about "Muhammad as a Prophet", being a class title? What about Buddhism, Hindu or Jewish studies?

That's where the prejudice really lies. It's Christian or nothing. They don't want equality for religion in the public square, they want forced teaching of Christianity.

Big Business, as usual is totally on board with this. After all Christians are a majority of our country and they want to make their customers happy. So the media plays them up as some sort of persecuted victims like this is the Roman time period or the Spanish Inquisition. It's not true, and if anything Christians have persecuted and attacked more people of other religions since those time periods than vice versa.

Obama disappoints me because without the advisers that steered Kerry wrong he has purposely believed that the only way to win the election is to pander to the Right Wingers and hardcore evangelicals who don't believe him anyway.

And in doing so he has left the left-wing of the party in the dust. An afterthought and a political casualty. If they don't want Bush III they have no choice but to vote for Obama.

Oh don't start with that, "See! Hillary was a better choice!" shit either. Bill and Hillary started this whole move to the right movement and have helped groups like the DLC, DCCC and DSCC push only moderate-right candidates in elections everywhere.

She would have been an even greater unmitigated disaster than Obama is.

Look, we need to reclaim who we are. When polled, the majority of Americans side with Democrats and Liberals on Roe vs. Wade, on the Environment, on the economy, on foreign policy and especially on ending the Iraq War.

But instead of running on all of these issues as they are, to the left of the current media-created spectrum, Obama has run to the right. As if EVERY independent voter he is courting will come from the right (that just isn't so).

Instead of standing for strong progressive values, we are now the party of enablers. Nancy Pelosi enables Bush to break constitutional and Geneva convention laws at will when she refuses to endorse impeachment and outwardly claims no laws have been broken. Harry Reid enables Bush to continue to break the law by even allowing the FISA bill to hit the floor. The so-called Blue Dog Dems, courted by Rahm Emanuel and basically Republicans who ran as Democrats because the Republican brand is tainted, enable Bush by voting for his every bill.

Now Obama is enabling them too... by continuing to pander to them and giving everyone a reason to choose between the right wing bullshitter or the guy who is trying to be like the right wing bullshitter.

In a choice between those two, most voters go for the guy who's at least lying to your face rather than lying about wanting to lie to your face.

I'll vote for Obama because of the two evils he's less evil, but I think we need to be careful when hearing the spin about a new kind of politics. A new kind of politics would allow liberals to be liberals, right wingers to be right wingers and to honestly lay out where both sides stands on everything. That my friends, is a war we win every time. Nobody would side for a pro-perpetual war, anti-health care, anti-social security, anti-environment, anti-choice, pro-huge pentagon and government spending, anti-public schools or public assistance, anti-gays and minority candidate over the alternative.

There are Democrats I still support. I am fond of Dennis Kucinich, Tammy Baldwin, Robert Wexler, Russ Feingold and a few others. But for the most part the party has been corrupted by corporate campaign cash and influence.

There needs to be two parties once again. One for the rich, one for the people. As it stands there are two parties in name only and one party in philosophy running everything.

-Rp

"Fiscal Conservative"

John McCain = Illiterate Flunky

Oil Prices: How Drilling Offshore will do nothing to lower prices and how we got where we are today

Wow it didn't take long for Republicans to find a cheap ploy to use politically in their favor did it? And a lot of Americans seem to be buying it hook, line and sinker.

McCain and Bush went out of their way to push for offshore drilling making the argument that if there was more oil out there that prices would drop. There's two major flaws in that argument. But before we move forward, let's review how we got here and why prices are actually inflated:



Okay so now we see that the Enron Loophole create deregulation that basically allowed Energy Companies and Banks to own the market. They could use their influence in a corrupt way to fuel a speculation bubble and essentially they could buy the market into a higher profit zone. Great for them, horrible for us.

Luckily help is on the way. The Farm Bill that Keith references, McCain voted against and Bush vetoed, was passed thanks to a veto override in Congress. That means on September 30, 2009 the loophole closes and economists predict that gas/oil prices could be lowered as much as 25-50% overnight.

Finally a light at the end of the tunnel.

What about offshore drilling? Could that also help?

From The Seminal's Jason Rosenbaum:

Reason #1: Offshore Drilling Won't Increase Oil Supplies For 7-10 Years

That's right, even if we repeal all bans on drilling anywhere in the U.S., we won't see the benefits for almost a decade:

That's the estimate from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group. Major environmental groups think the increased supply would be at least that distant before arrival, and say it mostly would benefit Big Oil.

"It would take a decade to bring new leases into production, and then they would only line the coffers of the oil industry," said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director.

Reason #2: Offshore Drilling Only Makes Financial Sense When Oil Prices Are High

Offshore drilling is expensive:

However, analysts on all sides agree that drilling faces political, regulatory and economic hurdles. Individual states could forbid it. If exploration were allowed, permits would have to be granted, and before that environmental concerns must be addressed. Drilling also would have to make economic sense: Offshore drilling is expensive, and the more remote the site, the more costly it is.

Therefore, offshore drilling would only make economic sense if the oil tapped could be sold at a high price. Once the price of oil drops (which it is unlikely to do, but let's think hypothetically), offshore drills lose money, they get shut down, and prices go up again. Offshore drilling will not solve our gas price problem.

Reason #3: There's Probably Not A Lot Of Oil Out There

Bush and McCain tout drilling as a way towards energy independence. It's not; it's only a very short-term fix. Once we get the drilling going (remember, 7-10 years), there isn't much oil to drill:

The Interior Department offered a wide range of estimates of how much oil might be within reach of U.S. offshore drilling in a 2006 report. It estimated that the Outer Continental Shelf could hold 115.4 billion barrels. However, it also estimated that recoverable reserves off U.S. coasts in areas now banned from production probably hold only about 19 billion barrels.

…

The world consumes about 86 million barrels a day. The U.S. share of that is about 20.6 million barrels, 60 percent of them from foreign sources.

One thousand million barrels equals 1 billion, so if there are 19 billion barrels in the areas McCain would open to drilling, that's enough to provide about 920 days, or about 2.5 years, of current U.S. consumption.

That's right. Drill in all the places you can't drill now and you get (gong!) a whopping 2.5 years worth of oil. And that's assuming consumption levels stay static, which they have never done.

Reason #4: Oh, And There Are No Ships To Carry That Oil

Even if you did build the wells (7-10 years), make it economically feasable to keep them open (that means high oil prices), and tap all that oil (only 2.5 years worth), you wouldn't be able to find a ship to drill the oil and ship it back to shore for use:

In recent years, this global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck, frustrating energy company executives and constraining their ability to exploit known reserves or find new ones. Slow growth in oil supplies, at a time of soaring demand, has been a major factor in the spike of oil and gasoline prices.

Mr. Bush called on Congress Wednesday to end a longstanding federal ban on offshore drilling and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration, arguing that the steps were needed to lower gasoline prices and bolster national security. But even as oil trades at more than $135 a barrel — up from $68 a year ago — the world’s existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said.

You can even explore for new oil fields for 5 years due to lack of ships!

Jason's first four points are incredibly valid ones (his fifth point, that speculation is not making oil prices rise is a bit off although in fairness it's deregulation coupled with the speculation that these energy companies and banks are orchestrating in concert that has created this problem so to blame it solely on market speculators would be leaving a lot of this story out). As he mentioned drilling oil might be impossible because of the shortage of drilling ships.

There is no immediate gain to be had from drilling now.

In fact McCain's own advisor admitted as much:

But McCain’s message was contradicted yesterday by his top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who told reporters that new offshore drilling wouldn’t help lower current gas prices:

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to McCain’s campaign, acknowledged in a conference call to reporters that new offshore drilling would have no immediate effect on supplies or prices.

The Energy Information Administration says that new offshore drilling wouldn’t have “a significant impact” on gas prices until 2030.

By 2030 shouldn't we be well on our way to alternative energy? There's pretty much no excuse if by that time we're not using solar and wind energy pretty close to exclusively.

Rp

And now onto the General Election....

A couple things about last night...

I honestly have always tried to be an alarmist about this election. I think it was my normal reaction to being an optimist the last two times and to have the excruciating experience of having both of those campaigns, campaigns for which I worked hard for, stolen away.

I don't think it's necessarily a horrible thing to play Chicken Little when the Republicans are so willing to lie, cheat and steal as necessary to retain power. It is fact that most of the electronic voting machines have strong Republican ties. It is also fact that the Corporate Media also has such ties and have been defensive of even the most horrendous Bush policies since 2001.

That being said, this time around our eyes should be open and the tinfoil hats should be ready to wear because there are going to be instances in which it will not be "conspiracy theory" to suggest off the wall insanely illegal strategies or plans that the Republicans might use.

As the movie Recount showed, Republicans just play to win, plain and simple. They have no level of ethics to stand up to. Whatever it takes.

As Democrats we have always held ourselves to a higher standard and in the past eight years, aside from the 2006 midterms that kind of thinking hurt us.

This time around I expect no less than the smearing Kerry received. They'll use every Hillary talking point against Obama (they already are by posting this video on Youtube)... dragging race, inexperience, his church into the fray and not caring one bit about it.

With that being said I happened to attend the Obama Primary Watching Party last night in Cudahy. It was without a doubt a historic night.

Historic for two reasons. One for the first time in my lifetime we have an African American General Election Nominee from one of the major parties.

WTMJ Channel 4 in Milwaukee asked me about that and I gave them this quote:

“It was something I wasn’t sure we were going to achieve in my lifetime and it’s kind of sad that we had that feeling," said Robert Poole. "But today kind of alleviates a lot of those fears.”

If you click the video button on that link above and skip past the parts of Obama and Clinton's speeches you'll see me saying that on there as well.

The other reason this is historic is that it marks the end of the DLC.

Al From's Democratic Leadership Committee as lamented and commented on here before, is the Corporate Wing of the Democratic Party. They have leaned far away from social programs in favor of Corporate Welfare. They push candidates that are considered "centrist" but mostly they just want candidates that are easy to control. They've been running candidates out there that are practically indistinguishable from our Republican opponents and in turn it helped in shifting the political spectrum to the Right. With Democrats leaning so heavily on Pro-Corporate, Pro-Republican values, the Republican party had to lean to the Right to differentiate themselves. Lucky for them Dick Cheney was around to make that transition easy.

The problem is that aside from giving away the Democratic identity of being a party for the people while Republicans were the party of the rich and corporate elite, this ran candidates unwilling to show any spine and stop corruption in Congress. It made Democrats enablers to Bush's multiple Constitutional Crimes and most certain War Crimes.

And it lost elections... lost them big.

The Clintons were at the forefront of the groups creation, the standard bearers for what the DLC wanted the party to look like. It was many of the Clinton's campaign staff and White House advisors that formed leadership in the group and provided direction for it's candidates.

They were the epitome of DLC. And now they've lost their last chance at the White House. Hillary might not be willing to concede or accept it at this point but that is reality.

So the cancer of the Democratic Party has now had it's standard bearer be defeated and a new breed of Democrat who once again wants the party to stand up for the poor and middle class and who wants to change the culture in Washington has stood up and pushed the DLC over the proverbial cliff. I wonder how they will take it.

Onto the General Election and onto John McCain. Believe me, it's about time because that guy has had a free pass for way too long.

-Rp

The First 100 Days

Today must have been a day to look at what you would do if you won the Presidency since everybody rolled out their ideas. As per the usual in this campaign Obama came out with the one really good idea while his opponents pandered in ridiculous fashion (especially McCain).

I can see Obama and McCain coming out with these ideas, after all they're going to be their party's nominees barring serious cheating and backroom dealing by Hillary. Of course we now know that Hillary's a bit of a drinker so maybe she was on the sauce when she decided she could still win and released her 100 days idea. Okay I kid, I kid... that was low.

Obama's camp came out with the words I think everybody minus the surely mentally handicapped 28 percenters have been waiting for: "Obama would ask his AG to "immediately review" potential of crimes in Bush White House".

That's right they are all criminals and they all need to be prosecuted. For War Crimes. For breaking domestic laws and for what they have done to our Constitution. They have admitted they committed federal crimes by breaking the FISA laws and by committing torture... what more do we need?

I think it's hilarious that Republicans who afraid like hell that they could be prosecuted for what they have done have used and gotten the media to use the talking point that "that is all in the past" and that they are "looking to the future" or better yet that they are "forward thinkers".

Under the guise of that logic I can take a gun, shoot you dead and in 5 minutes say, "that was in the past, we will look to the future now and do things right from here".

They have been all over the place spouting that shit about Iraq. And for years that strategy has worked. By not acknowledging how their policies or crimes affected the past we have been doomed to repeat them in the future.

A good chunk of those involved with the Iran Contra Affair were pardoned or let off the hook by Republican Appointed Judges and now they work for this Bush Administration, committing new war crimes and continuing to inflame an entire region against us for decades to come just as they did throughout the 1980s.

If anything this is proof that the past DOES affect the future and for the sake of preserving any shred of value of the most important document in the history of our nation, the Constitution and in the face of saving our world standing and credibility to other countries we need to prove that we are what we claim to stand for and go after these violations of democracy, peace, freedom and justice.

How dare we challenge anyone else on such questions if we cannot take responsibility for our own actions and jail those who broke our own laws?

But since everyone is in the "If I Were President..." mood, I figure I have as much of a chance as Hillary does to win so I will issue a list of my first actions as our nation's leader.

1. Fire the entire Justice Dept. and replace them with defenders of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.

2. Repeal all Presidential Pardons imposed on any member of the current Administration and prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, et al for their war crimes, breaking of the laws of the Geneva Convention and breaking of FISA laws.

3. Cut Pentagon Spending to a third of what it is currently. Eliminate funded projects like a missile defense system or a "gay bomb". Eliminate funding for cold war projects. Keep all Military spending for troop bases and increasing troop levels. Increase military pay and benefits (especially health care). Make sure our troops have proper body and humvee armor.

4. End the Iraq War immediately. Withdraw all troops within 6 months in 20,000 troop intervals. Give all returning troops a 6 month rest at home. Withdraw all contractors immediately and remove any legal immunity they might have had under the provisional authority if Iraq's government hasn't already. Re-allocate all National Guard Members to their local posts on their normal on-call basis. Take about 50,000-80,000 active duty personnel after their 6 month rest has ended and send them to Afghanistan to stabilize the country temporarily and hunt for Bin Laden.

5. End all Financial Aid to countries that aid terrorists (Pakistan & Saudi Arabia I am looking at you).

6. Nominate Jonathan Turley as the new A.G. to prosecute Bushco and defend our constitution.

7. Repeal NAFTA and all Free Trade Agreements. Sit down and renegotiate country by country making certain to include minimum environmental, health & safety and wage requirements from workers of those countries.

8. Repeal tax benefits for corporations which have shifted over 10% of their workforce overseas.

9. Eliminate Bush Tax Cuts for top 1%, maintain cuts aimed at middle class. Eliminate offshore tax shelter loopholes.

10. Push for a law that limits a CEO's pay to a proportionate amount of a shareholder's earnings and average employee salaries at that company. (Do it under the guise of protecting the market and the shareholders which would be true and have more traction than defending the average worker in this country for some reason)

11. Institute a strong pro-regulation FCC that forces media monopolies like News Corp and Clear Channel to break apart. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.

12. Offer a Universal Healthcare plan that eliminates HMOs entirely. Through the government, similar to a social security tax, offer healthcare that covers everybody similar in ways that England and Canada does it.

13. Remove the Social Security cap. This will eliminate all funding shortfalls and stabilize it for all generations in the future.

14. Institute a carbon tax and reinstate requirements for smokestack filters, superfund cleanups and increase automobile emissions requirements similar to what California has tried to pass.

15. Require all automakers to reach 50 MPG by 2015 or face suspension of operations.

16. Ban Ethanol as a source of fuel. Work on an energy policy that offers large benefits to utilities to buy large plots of unused land in the Southwest and put up huge solar farms that could power the entire country at a fraction of current cost. Switching to solar electric power with Wind farms as backup sources could then provide the opportunity for automakers to work on a full switch to electric cars where owners can just plug in and recharge overnight or while they are parked.

17. Eliminate any attempts to drill in ANWR and push through Polar Bear protection acts.

18. Buy up loose Nukes in the Ukraine and sign a treaty with Russia, China, Pakistan, India and all nuclear weapon bearing countries to eliminate nuclear weapons stockpile to 10% of current amount by 2012.

19. Enter into new Kyoto Treaty that includes all developing nations across the world and creates a clear mandate for our own country as well as heavy polluters such as China to do our part to save our planet.

20. Release all "classified" information still remaining pertaining to the Assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy, MLK and everything pertaining to 9/11. This may release all sorts of new information and may even incriminate some that are still alive but it's time to stop lying to or deceiving the American people on what the truth of these matters is.

21. Push for passage of a law that makes all campaign financing public. Each candidate that declares will be given a certain amount of money similar to a salary cap that they can spend during their primaries and then during the Presidential race. The FEC will keep strict tabs on usage of the money and any left over will be returned to the FEC fund. No candidate can inject their own money into a campaign. 527s would be barred from media advertising (although they can organize grass roots campaigns).

For a candidate to receive funding for House or Senate campaigns they need to reach a certain number of signatures to be allowed on the ballot and receive the funding. For National Presidential Candidates they must receive the pre-requisite number in all 50 states. The media must offer heavy discounts on ad time to allow for fair exposure for all candidates and cannot reject a candidate's ad (yes even Fox News has to air Democratic Candidate Ads). News shows cannot re-air the full version of any candidate's ad as to not give free runs of that candidates' media and thus circumvent the financing rules. Any newscast or station that does this will be heavily fined.

22. Offer College Scholarships to every American Student that finishes school and then volunteers to work two years in the private sector in urban areas that need them the most.

23. Reduce or eliminate wasteful Government Grants that do not benefit small business owners or poor/middle class Americans.

24. Increase the focus on Science in our country. Load the EPA and NASA with Administrators that believe in science over pandering to their bosses. Push the EPA to regulate very heavily on companies that abuse the public's trust and damage our environment. Make a renewed commitment to space exploration including renewing the Hubble Telescope project.

25. Illegalize ARM loans and force all mortgage companies to work off of FIXED loans in the future. Open up bankruptcy laws to protect homeowners who are nearing the end of the foreclosure process a way to not be crushed by the credit hit forever. For those just entering the foreclosure phase force mortgage lenders to change all loans to a reasonable fixed rate within a certain percentage of the Fed's Interest Rate and do a Government Assumption on the debt that would be owed to other countries because of such a move.

26. Legalize Marijuana and sell licenses to companies to produce and sell the product. Treat it the same way as alcohol with age limits, public inebriation laws and driving laws (if suspected a blood test should be required to eliminate fines). Also make the use of THC as a chemical illegal and make it illegal to use home grown or "loose" marijuana. By regulating it you can tax it in a way that helps pay for programs that help people (ie health care) and you stop the flow of dangerous laced chemicals from outside the country.

Tobacco companies can enter in the bidding and possibly begin to halt the production of some nicotine bearing products with marijuana products replacing them as profitable cash cows.

I would also mandate that all states and federal prisons should release anybody charged with marijuana possession crimes and anybody who has had these charges on them should be given a process to have these charges retroactively expunged from their records. Marijuana distribution charges will be debated since future distribution by regular citizens will still be disallowed.

27. I would mandate an end to "public voucher" programs and heavily increase government financing to repair schools in disrepair, fund programs such as music and art, and eliminate NCLB rules that teach kids to pass a test, not to learn effectively.

28. I would increase Government contributions to NPR and mainly PBS so that they can continue to provide educational programming without the corporate spin of their corporate-owned counterparts.

29. I would illegalize private companies from producing voting machine equipment and have a nonpartisan government oversight group to make sure that we're incorporating a machine that allows for paper receipts to validate vote totals and to make sure every voter has a record of how their vote was recorded personally.

30. I would eliminate the Government's No Fly List since it seems to be full of random names and political enemies and does no good at all.

31. I would set a law that forced all lawmakers to DIVEST from any stock or dividend holdings before taking office. I would also bar all lobbyist gifts PERIOD. Congressmen and Women should be paying for their own flights, meals and trips without a corporate sponsor. Between this and public campaign financing this takes a lot of the unfair corporate influence out of Washington.

32. I would ban any government outsourcing of government jobs. This is OUR government isn't it? Why are people from other countries doing our jobs?

33. I would create a Public Works program that would employee engineers through the college scholarship program and a mix of workers with lots of construction experience as well as little to no experience to rebuild roads, bridges and public utility infrastructure. Putting people to work for America and building resumes, experience and bank accounts in the process.

34. I would eliminate the DHS and other security agencies and merge the CIA and NSA into one operation run by non-partisan civilian leadership. I would order a cease and desist on spying on American phone calls outside the accordance of FISA law.

35. Illegal Immigration - I would give those already here a path to citizenship by putting them on Work Visas and requiring them to take citizenship courses. I would require part of those citizenship courses to require ESL classes to teach them English so they can better acclimate to society. I would increase fines and put in serious enforcement mechanisms to prevent large corporations from hiring these workers. One of the largest reasons that they come is the lure of corporations unwilling to pay American workers the minimum wage.

I do think that social services should only be offered for legal immigrants or those on a work visa. By increasing the amount of those with a work visa, more people are covered but by coming here illegally you are skipping your turn and your right to certain benefits that American taxpayers pay for. Under the Visas the immigrants are paying taxes so they deserve benefits. We should only cover emergency situations and if there are illegal immigrants that report to hospitals they need to be treated and then handed over to the INS where they would be deported. If they have family legally here in America they can be given a special spot in line for citizenship. I know this is a hard subject but we have to be fair. For those people that waited in line and became legal citizens they had to go through a tough process to become Americans and it's not fair to them nor regular citizens to see all of their tax dollars going to supplementing social programs aimed more towards helping illegal immigrants than regular Americans these days (especially when you consider how stretched thin state budgets are right now). You also want to be fair and civil with people that want so badly to be a part of our country that they would risk imprisonment to do so.

36. I would legalize Gay Marriage. Or at least attempt to by putting forth a bill that proves its legality due to the Equal Protection Clause. There's no reason nor room for discrimination towards Gay people. Homosexual xenophobia is no different than any other civil rights struggle of our time and we must meet the challenge the same way as with others, by relenting and giving equal rights to those who have been oppressed.

I'm sure there is more (and I'll add to this later I am sure), but of course I would never be allowed to be President. I would be killed (See: Bobby Kennedy) or marginalized (see: Dennis Kucinich).

The corporate media and the military industrial complex would never allow for such a budget or such Theodore Roosevelt-like Corporation reigning in to transpire.

But we can all dream of a future where this were all in play and the country would be on a more equal footing for all of its' citizens once again, can't we? Or have 30 years of Reagan-Clinton-Bushes ruined America forever?

-Rp

Hillary won't just go away....

Unfortunately for Democrats, Hillary is here to stay. Yes she has no shame about all the negative attacks her filthy dirty campaign has pulled. No shame over illegal contributions to her campaign, no shame over not releasing tax returns that would incriminate her even more. She certainly feels no shame for acting like she was some badass Rambo character who had to dodge sniper fire in Bosnia. Look, she's in Bosnia in this picture! See her RUNNING from the plane to dodge bullets? What a hero!

She'll stay in until she's destroyed the party and Barack Obama's chances of winning.

It's a sad state of affairs when you, who through political connections and your husband's past job title were assumed to be the presumptive nominee even before the primaries happened and then lied and trashed your way to being a pariah who should be lucky to even get a seat at the Convention let alone be considered a possible nominee.

The longer Hillary stays in the more Bush-like she becomes. And hey the Clintons admired Karl Rove anyway. With John Kerry and Al Gore in attendance at the dedication of the Clinton Presidential Library, Bill Clinton pulled this stunt:

The Clintons recognize the skill Rove has brought to politics and admire his craft, if not his ideology. Just days after the November 2004 election, Bill Clinton pulled Rove aside at the dedication of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas. "Hey, you did a marvelous job, it was just marvelous what you did," Clinton told Rove, according to the book "The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008," by John F. Harris and Mark Halperin. "I want to get you down to the library. I want to talk politics with you. You just did an incredible job, and I'd like to really get together with you and I think we could have a great conversation."

Obviously they decided to get playbook tips from Rove and have employed all of his dirtiest tricks in this campaign.

What's worse is, also like Bush, it is apparent the Clintons have encapsulated themselves in a bubble of yes men and yes women who only tell them what they want to hear.

From Reuters:

But Clinton, a New York senator who has flirted with disaster before in the back-and-forth nominating battle with Obama, shrugs off growing predictions of doom and still sees at least a narrow path to victory.

"I hear it in the atmosphere," Clinton said of the increasingly loud chatter about whether she should drop out and let Democrats focus on the general election campaign. "But the most common thing that people say to me ... is 'Don't give up, keep going. We're with you.' And I feel really good about that because that's what I intend to do," she told reporters on Tuesday.

The sad part is if Hillary doesn't get it about the party, then her supporters are even worse.

According to a new Gallup poll, 28% of Hillary supporters have said they will not support Obama if he is the Democratic nominee and will support John McCain in the general election.

To me that means either Hillary supporters are not Democrats (not unlike their candidate) to begin with or worse, racists. And she carries a lot of old Democratic support. Old Democrats, when it comes to race, are not much different than their Republican counterparts.

That pretty much says it all. You take that 28% and add them to the Republicans who are voting for Hillary in open primaries to try to mess with our nomination and you have exactly why Hillary is not supported by Democrats and needs to be stopped.

Is Hillary Clinton thinking about a 3rd Party Candidacy?

"Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat." - Bobby "The Brain" Heenan

In looking over the strategy of the Clinton Campaign and their unwillingness to accept defeat I started thinking about how their tactics were reminiscent of Holy Joe Lieberman's when he was soundly defeated by Ned Lamont.

Lieberman knew he was going to lose and turned to Karl Rove for advice and help to defeat Lamont in a general election bid where after spending several terms as the elected Democratic Incumbent Senator from Connecticut he was now on the outside looking in. Ousted by his own party because of his pro-war and pro-Republican views, his only chance was to declare himself an Independent and torch the party that had so graciously elected him and appointed him to important committee chairs in the Senate.

Hillary too has now been a key member of the party establishment for a very long time. Just like with Joe, going into their races they both seemed inevitable locks to win. Anointed even before the primary opponents had been named.

Also like Joe she faced someone with a comparably new face in Washington politics and it turns out her message of basically more of the same has been turned away rather clearly by enough voters to warrant her exit from the race.

I admit the night after the March 4th primary I thought there was reason for Hillary to stick around but after the delegate counts ended up becoming official her win was so negligible that there's no way for her to make up ground now. Getting out is the only honorable thing to do for the party.

Of course this isn't about the party. If it were Hillary would have stepped down on March 5th when she saw that it was clear that she would lose.

No, this is about Hillary and the sense of entitlement which surrounds the Clintons. After having two terms as President they, much like the Bush regime, seem to believe they have some linear right to the White House.

When you listen to the Clinton camp, they make it clear that they will pull out all the stops to win. Dignity is secondary to their desire to win.

For example, when you hear about the Clinton camp arguing about the unfairness in seating Michigan or Florida's delegates you don't hear them talking about redoing the primaries altogether. Other media pundits have taken that idea up but the Clintons generally steer towards one direction, seating the delegates based on the already completed primary results. Why does that matter? Because in Michigan hers was the only name on the ballot.

Fairness means nothing to her campaign.

For quite a time they decided to forego worrying too much about winning the primaries to earn pledged delegates based on the will of the voters and were openly trying to court Superdelegates to circumvent the will of the people. Once that turned out to be viewed negatively and viewing the positive momentum of the Obama campaign Superdelegates started switching allegiance to Obama, her plan to blow the competition away with party insiders was shattered.

So onto plan C, so to speak. Trying to corrupt the process by going after pledged delegates.

Now there's nothing illegal about this process technically. Pledged delegates are not locked into the campaign that won them in the primary. However they generally do not switch and it would be a rarity for them to do so in such a way as to change election results.

Still it illustrates a point that needs to be made. It's very clear that Hillary is willing to stoop to any tactic that wins this race. They've already said they will go to the convention no matter the lead Obama has at that point and in doing so seem willing to pull apart the Democratic Party at the seams to get their way.

There seems to be more to this than meets the eye.

For as inept as their campaign has been this primary season they are not stupid. They have to know they cannot win even if they swept the rest of the primaries and made it to the convention with a closer count. Obama will still have the popular vote, delegate lead and superdelegate lead. The party will clearly give the nomination to him.

So what's in it for Hillary to keep this going?

How about playing the "they were unfair to me" ploy? Once they've exhausted all possible options in the Democratic primary they could conceivably state that due to how Michigan and Florida were handled, how the superdelegates are set up (ironic since they were the team that most actively courted the superdelegate scenario) and how the convention played out showed that there was no mandate for Obama in the Democratic Party and that she will run as a third party independent.

As a third party independent she will clearly cost Obama a lot of Democratic votes and probably the Presidency. Her hope is that she can win those older Democratic Women she has currently and then maybe run to the right of McCain which might be plausible with the way Right Wing hate radio cannot stand McCain and seem eager to cozy up to Hillary. Her winning even in that scenario seems implausible but if they muddy the waters a bit they at least have a shot which is more than they have now.

Would Hillary destroy her career in the Democratic Party to become an Independent? There's no guarantee she wouldn't. She has to have seen how Joe Lieberman winning as an Independent has held the Democrats in the Senate hostage to his one vote and this is a woman who loves wielding power.

Plus there's little doubt in my mind that the DLCers who have long been part of the Clinton regime wouldn't appreciate a pull away from a Democratic Party that has generally been shifting more and more to the left while completely isolating and eliminating any influence the DLC once had.

This could happen and ultimately could be the larger doomsday scenario towards the Democratic Party's chances at the White House in November than the elongated primary is.

And if you think Mark Penn's clients (Hillary and McCain) are doing tandem attacks now, wait until it's the general election.

-Rp

The Evil Forces Behind Hillary McClinton

There's always someone behind the scenes of every campaign, either steering the ship into calm waters with plenty of fish to eat on a long journey or recklessly heading straight for an iceberg because of ignorance of the facts.

For John Kerry in 2004 he was stuck with longtime party moderate Bob Shrum who is noted for always guiding the campaigns he works on into icebergs. Karl Rove, using shrewd and slimy tactics always managed to find those calm, fish filled waters... until after 2004's reelection campaign when the Bush ship practically became a bumper boat that bounced continuously from one scandal to the next.

For Hillary Clinton it is certain that this captain not only is heading straight into the iceberg but he wants to tow the entire Democratic Party with it.

Generally even the most ardent supporters of a party's candidate that loses doesn't want their party to lose the general election in the fall but we're pretty certain at this point that for Hillary and for her top advisor, Mark Penn, this does not matter at all.

For Hillary it's win at all costs. She has no real admiration for Obama and if anything seems willing to get as dirty as possible to help John McCain win. As I mentioned below, scorched earth.

For Mark Penn the motivation is a bit different. He's got a pretty dubious distinction of being for everything anti-Democratic Party.

For example, we mentioned below that his PR firm represents Blackwater. They also represent United Technologies who this week tried to buy Diebold, the voting machine company that has helped Bushco steal that last two elections. Diebold's owner Warren O'Dell said infamously in August 2003 that, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president (Bush) next year."

His firm is also involved in union busting and has been very anti-labor. Of course being a part of the Democratic Leadership Council which is the supposed "moderates" of the Democratic Party who lean right and take business interests over those of workers and regular people usually means you're for busting out unions. And hey that works well with Hillary who was pro-NAFTA and worked for Wal-Mart (the biggest union busting corporation in the world).

Of course the ultimate slap in the face to Democrats is that while his firm is working for Hillary and choosing her path to go nuclear and destroy Barack Obama at all costs, they are also representing John McCain at the same time.

As Ari Berman put it for The Nation last May, there is a deep Republican connection to Penn.

A host of prominent Republicans fall under Penn's purview. B-M's Washington lobbying arm, BKSH & Associates, is run by Charlie Black, a leading GOP operative who maintains close ties to the White House, including Karl Rove, and was a partner with Lee Atwater, the consultant who crafted the Willie Horton smear campaign for George H.W. Bush in 1988. In recent years Black's clients have included the likes of Iraq's Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of the neocon right in the run-up to the war; Lockheed Martin; and Occidental Petroleum. In 2005 he landed a contract with the Lincoln Group, the disgraced PR firm that covertly placed US military propaganda in Iraqi news outlets.

Black is only one cannon in B-M's Republican arsenal.

AmericaBlog sums it up nicely:

Penn works for Clinton.

Black works for McCain.

And Black works for Penn.

Keep this in mind as you read some of the guiding principles for Penn's and Black's firm, courtesy of the Burson-Marsteller website:

# We, the directors and employees of all companies in WPP recognize our obligations to all who have a stake in our success including shareowners, clients, employees, and suppliers;...

# We will not for personal or family gain directly or indirectly engage in any activity which competes with companies within WPP or with our obligations to any such company;

# We will not have any personal or family conflicts of interest within our businesses or with our suppliers or other third parties with whom we do business;

So, again, we have to ask: Why is Mark Penn on a mission to destroy Obama? It's clear that Penn benefits if Hillary wins -- she's his client, his firm's client. His company benefits if McCain wins -- he's the client of one of Penn's top employees. Penn has an obligation to his shareholders and clients. And his firm seems to have clients on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of this fight. If Obama wins the presidency, Penn gets nothing. He was helping the other guy, or gal. But if McCain wins, Penn's firm has one hell of a contact with the new president - heck, one of his top employees had the new president as a client and didn't even charge him! Is it a conflict of interest? Not with his clients. But how about with the Democratic party and our interests?

Blackwater, McCain, Bush/Rove, Union Busting and possibly Diebold. Are there any more anti-Democratic establishments that this guy could be connected to?

As you take that into account you have to then realize Hillary is not running as a Democrat. When you hire PR firms that represent Republicans, worked with Bush/Rove and McCain at the same time as they have worked with you and have completely opposite principles as the party you claim to be strongly in support of then you are clearly not running as a Democrat.

It then makes sense why you have Rupert Murdoch fundraisers and won't release your taxes or make public what you did while in the White House. All of these things openly would tie you to the enemy because that's the team you play for.

It's probably also why Hillary would be proud of all the Republican cross over votes she got in Texas and Ohio (as we were quick to point out in the aftermath of last Tuesday's primaries). Especially knowing most were following the lead of Rush Limbaugh and keeping you in the race just to destroy your opponents so the Republicans can win and knowing you'll never have these people in the general election.

Don't believe it? Tell that to the investigators who want to know why 16,000 Republicans voted for Hillary in Cuyahoga County or the many who seemed to tell Howard Wilkinson of the Cincinnati Enquirer that they voted for Hillary to keep the race going:

In the fall, voters like Mary Kuhl of Westwood and Ryan Poirier of Norwood will be deluged with phone calls asking them to support the Democratic presidential nominee. Their mailboxes will fill up with the same kind of pleas.

The irony is that they are Republicans.

They - and untold thousands all over Ohio - walked into their polling places Tuesday and asked for a Democratic ballot to vote for the Democratic winner, Hillary Clinton. They did it, they say, to keep the Democratic family feud between the Clintonites and supporters of Barack Obama going for a while.

"I voted for Hillary before I vote against her," Kuhl said.

It all goes hand in hand. Hire a right wing, Republican operative that represents the very worst policies and corporations that have reaped the benefit of the Bush Administration. Then under their guidance destroy the Democratic nominee at all costs while propping up his other client, McCain, and convince Republicans to fuck with the Democratic primary to keep you in it.

After all, when you lay your cards down and the best you can muster up is a pair of twos when your opponent has a straight flush, it's better to bluff like hell and pray things work out. In this case the bluffing has worked to some degree but like everything else in Hillary's life there is no substance to her hand...

And bluffing only gets you so far.

It's time to fold them. For the good of the party.

-Rp

Hillary = Bush/Cheney/McCain

Well Hillary did it again today. Touting how McCain is Presidential material and Obama is not. It's rather sickening that Democrats who hate George W. Bush and his military policy can even contemplate Hillary Clinton as a serious Democratic choice.

She echoes Bush on everything. It's just ridiculous.

See for yourself what she said today and has said on other military issues in which she practically plagiarizes Bush and Cheney.

h/t to The Jed Report for creating this great video.



-Rp

More Reasons Not to Vote For Hillary: Scorched Earth Edition

In case you were still thinking about voting for Hillary Clinton today in the Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island or Vermont primaries, please allow me to toss a few extra reasons why Hillary is the worst possible choice for Democrat in there.

Namely the Scorched Earth theory.

Basically that works in the following way. If Democrats don't want me to be their nominee then I will get so dirty with my tactics that the Republicans can use it to destroy Obama. If it's not me it's nobody from this party essentially.

She has nothing positive to run on. She's got, "I'm a woman" and "My husband was a popular President". Wow. Those are such substantiative reasons to vote for someone.

But as she's learning quickly, women that pay attention to issues over gender are not voting for her and her husband's pandering to Republicans (see: NAFTA) is killing her across states where manufacturing jobs have rapidly disappeared over the past 15 years.

So this week, sensing a desperation not before seen by the Clinton Machine, they went as negative as they possibly could.

First releasing the Republican-esque "Red Phone" Ad. It looks like an ad straight out of the 1980s Reagan playbook.




Then she went out and slyly tried to cloud whether or not Obama was a Muslim. He's not and has clearly stated such but in doing so she basically made a discriminatory slur. Being Muslim should not disqualify you from being President no more than being a Christian, being Black or Hispanic or yes in your case Hillary, being a WOMAN should. Still in this post-9/11 paranoia world, Muslims are the bad guys to many of the non-thinking in America.



Finally she closed the week off with concrete proof of her willingness to destroy her own party's nominee at all costs... by endorsing JOHN MCCAIN over Obama!

"I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know that Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."

Sometimes it smarter to bow out gracefully rather than put yourself ahead of your party and your life long friends and allies. For Hillary, she could give a fuck about those friends.

It's all about her.

-Rp