John McCain is your jalopy

http://www.johnmccainisyourjalopy.com/

Once you click through, you have to keep refreshing. It took me a while to get it. But then again, I think that's the point. Read the rest of this post...

Hillary today: John McCain has more experience than Obama

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

From DailyKos:

Rachel Maddow:

"This is what you say if you want to be McCain's choice for Vice President. It is not what you say if you are running for the Democratic nomination."

Keith Olbermann:

"Unbelievable."

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McCain stumbling

These are the stories we're not focusing on because the Democratic primary has gotten so drawn out. Read the rest of this post...

Former GOP party chair: John McCain is full of "phony baloney," had lobbyists running his campaign in 2000 as well

This is from former Republican party chair Haley Barbour in 2000 (he endorsed McCain today).

"[G]enuine American heroes got to play by the same rules of telling it like it is as everybody else. And Senator McCain says he's going to break up all these lobbyists, these power brokers, and his campaign is full of lobbyists. Some of my best friends -- There's nothing wrong with it. What's wrong is the phony baloney of being hypocritical about it."

In 2000, the Wall Street Journal reported on John McCain's uncomfortable closeness with lobbyists. And Bush was attacking McCain for doing favors for lobbyists too, flying on their jets, etc.

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The math says Hillary can't win

Far be it for me to let "the math" tell you how to vote. But the math will tell you who is going to win the nomination. And currently, there is no way, even under a rosy scenario, that Hillary can get enough delegates to win.

From the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:

Using delegate projection software created by Matt Vogel, I ran a scenario yesterday showing how tough it will be for Hillary Clinton to catch up to Barack Obama's earned delegate lead....

So -- under these most rosy of scenarios -- since March 4, she'll have earned 520 delegates to Barack Obama's 461, having reduced his earned delegate total by about 80 -- or -- by about 60 percent -- but he'll still have a lead of approximately 100 delegates in total.

Click image to see larger version:
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Oil hits new record high, $103.95

Fortunately it has backed down a few dollars but the reasons for the rise have not gone away. OPEC has no interest in seeing lower prices, there will always be another issue in Nigeria or Gulf of Mexico or Venezuela or wherever, the dollar will still fall due to shoddy economic policy and how serious is anyone about conservation? (That said, well done to these people for going green for Lent.) Read the rest of this post...

AP just can't bring itself to say that the "Obama is Muslim" lie is false

It's subtle, but important. AP, in reporting about the Internet effort to slime Obama by falsely claiming that he's Muslim, didn't bother actually SAYING that the rumors were false, that the campaign was clearly misinformation. Note how AP refers to the false rumors as simply "concerns":

The Illinois senator also sought to ease lingering Internet-fed concerns about his religion, in particular whether he was a closet Muslim.

"I am a devout Christian. I have been a member of the same church for 20 years. I pray to Jesus every night," he declared at an earlier appearance in the rural southern Ohio town of Nelsonville. He said he wanted to halt "confusion that has been deliberately perpetrated."

Now, AP knows this is untrue. They know that the allegations aren't just lingering Internet-fed concerns about his religion - they're a bigoted online campaign intended to slur, to Swift Boat Obama, with something everyone knows is false, and racist to boot. These aren't "concerns." Who has concerns about Obama's religion? It's all smoke and mirrors, and AP knows it. And while AP quotes Obama as saying it isn't true, that's not the same thing as AP acknowledging in its own editorial voice that these rumors aren't true, that there aren't lingering "concerns" about Obama's religion at all. The story should have called them "false rumors," and not "Internet-fed concerns." AP should have said they independently confirmed that Obama has always been a Christian, that he has in fact attended that church for twenty years. But they didn't, even though they know that this "Internet-fed rumor" is part of a huge effort to defame Obama.

It's a slight nuance, but an important one. The media was happy to aid and abet the Swift Boating of John Kerry in 2004 by reporting on the he-said-she-said of the Swift Boat allegations as if they were news, as if they were real (when everyone in the media knew the allegations were trumped up). Rather than writing process stories about how ludicrous the attacks were, and how interesting it was that the Republicans were willing to go this negative, the media kept asking John Kerry if he really did steal his purple heart. We're not going to let if happen again. When you write about Obama being Swift Boated, say it. Don't report it as a he-said-she-said, as something that might just be true, so let's get Obama's side and present both. Call it what it is - a lie. False. Untrue. Don't just quote someone claiming it's not true, say it's untrue. Otherwise, you're simply feeding the lie. Read the rest of this post...

What will the Republicans throw at Hillary Clinton in the fall?

Hillary's campaign had made the topic of the day "what will the Republicans throw at Barack Obama in the fall?" They're talking about Rezko today, they've race-baited Obama repeatedly in the past, and we've had reports that they've recently been sending reporters information branding Obama a Muslim.

(And last night, on 60 Minutes, Hillary didn't give a real ironclad answer, to quote Ben Smith, when asked if she thinks Obama is a Muslim. Hint: The correct answer was "no," without any hedging or "taking him at his word." And for extra credit, you could have thrown in: That's a ridiculous question, and having been through Republican smears myself, I know a smear when I see one.)

Hillary's campaign has already said that they are throwing the kitchen sink at Obama. They will discuss, are discussing, all the bad things that the GOP will throw at Obama in the fall.

So, what will the Republicans throw at Hillary in the fall?

Lots. But I'm not going to detail those things today because I'm, surprisingly, still pulling punches with regards to what I write about Hillary. I don't want to damage Hillary should she become our nominee, as increasingly unlikely as that appears. I don't want to write about very real scandals in Hillary's past, scandals that we will be forced to revisit for the next 8 months, and 8 years. I don't want to write about the rumors about Bill that no one has written about to date, even though the rumors include lots of details which are at least just as true as Obama being a Muslim. While Hillary's campaign is pushing known lies about Obama, such as the "Muslim" connection, most of the stories about Hillary are anything but lies. They're real stories that she will have to discuss publicly, again and again and again, to her and our party's detriment.

But I'm not going to be discussing the details of those stories today because I don't want to make our candidate damaged goods in the fall. You will notice that neither Obama's campaign nor Obama's official, or unofficial, surrogates are talking about the Clintons' past or present scandals, the Clintons' negatives, what a Clinton run for the presidency will to Democratic congressional races and governor races across the country. The Clintons are counting on the fact that none of us will write about their negatives, because we're too nice. So they can get as dirty as they want, with impunity.

Well, come Wednesday, if Hillary doesn't win 65% of the delegates in Ohio and Texas, and still insists on staying in the race and ripping our party in two, it will be time to start treating candidate Clinton with the same golden rule she is using for candidate Obama. Why? Not for revenge, but for the sake of our party and the fall election. Hillary and her campaign are in the process of turning Obama into damaged goods in the fall. They didn't have to go there, but beating Obama became more important to them than beating John McCain. So, the first question for Hillary come Wednesday, should she decide to continue risking our chances of winning in the fall even though the math says it's over, will be the question she's asking Obama today: What negatives will the Republicans throw against you in the fall? And as I've noted repeatedly, there are some negatives out there that most of you don't even know about - but everyone in Washington knows about them, in detail. That's because even Democrats who don't love Hillary, don't go there, for the good of the party. On Wednesday, the good of the party may dictate that we do. Read the rest of this post...

40% of American Jews "not driven by the word of God," says McCain supporter John Hagee

McCain supporter John Hagee:

I think if I could put a dividing line, the Orthodox and Conservatives who have a Torah appreciation give us wholehearted support. The rest [of Jews] who are not driven by the Word of God have a liberal agenda.

And the liberal agenda is they are pro-abortion. They're pro-homosexual. They're pro-gay marriage -- they want men to marry men and women to marry women -- and their difference with me is not really what I'm doing with Israel. Their hostility to me is poisoned by their liberalism. They take a liberal position that poisons their view of what we could be doing for Israel.

Note that a bit more than one-third of American Jews (around 41%, per the latest PEW survey) belong to the Reform (or "liberal," as Hagee would say) denomination of Judaism. More here. Read the rest of this post...

Baffling interview with US general

NYT has reports some puzzling analysis on Iraq from Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the former second-in-command of US forces in there. Odierno has been relatively straightforward on a number of issues in recent years, and he correctly notes that political and economic progress will be required for any lasting improvement of the situation in Iraq. The nominee to be the Army's next vice chief of staff, Odierno also mentioned the importance of provincial elections and encouragingly cited literacy and vocational programs as key to establishing a functional society.

He also, however, says two things that stunned me -- one which would be shocking if true, and another that I find extraordinarily difficult to believe. The article says, "About half of the attacks carried out by militants are by Shiite groups, he said. The rest are primarily orchestrated by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia". For years, the vast majority of attacks in Iraq have been by the domestic (non-AQI) Sunni insurgency, especially in the west (Anbar) and in Baghdad -- so if what he says is true, then the Sunni insurgency is over, and there is nobody left for us to fight, especially given all the talk of "al Qaeda in Iraq" being routed by indigenous Sunnis.

The claim about Shia groups plays into the second confounding claim, which is that Shia groups are responsible for half the attacks and, "The general said that Iran continues to train and finance Shiite extremists in Iraq and that Iran’s goal is to ensure that the Iraqi state remains too weak to challenge Iran’s increasing power." But . . . what Shia extremists?? The two major Shia armed groups, Sadr's Mahdi Militia and ISCI's Badr Corps, are the armed wings of the two most significant Shia political parties, both of which are full participants in the government. They could hardly be accused of working to weaken the government, and I can't think of any other groups Iran would be working with to undermine Iraq, especially considering Iran's longtime association with ISCI.

Unfortunately, the Times doesn't appear to have asked the two natural follow-up questions: "So is the Sunni domestic insurgency over?" and "Which Shia groups are working with Iran to undermine the government?" It's surprising, because reporter Michael Gordon knows these issues very well; I'd love to know what Odierno would say in response. Instead, the reader is left thinking that these two bombshells are nothing particularly special. Very weird. Read the rest of this post...

The ad Hillary should have done

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McCain and Iraq: misleading the country, or himself?

Senator McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee and party standard-bearer, recently suggested that if the US withdraws troops from Iraq, al Qaida would literally take over the country: "[I]f we left, they (al-Qaida) wouldn't be establishing a base, they'd be taking a country, and I'm not going to allow that to happen . . . I will not surrender to al-Qaida." This is, of course, completely ridiculous, and Joe Klein rightly calls out McCain, saying:

They'd be taking a country? Last time I checked, Iraq has a Shi'ite majority. McCain thinks the Shi'ites -- the Mahdi Army, the Badr Corps (and yes, the Iranians) -- would allow a small group of Sunni extremists to take over? In fact, as noted above, the vast majority of indigenous Iraqi Sunnis aren't too thrilled about the AQI presence in their country, either.

That's all absolutely right. Joe then goes on to say, though, "The sadness here is that McCain knows better. He knows the complexities of the world, and the region. But I suspect he's overplaying his Iraq hand in order to win favor with the wingnuts in his party."

That may be true. But it also may very well be true that McCain doesn't know any better. I don't know the Senator, and can't guess at his inner knowledge of Middle East political and religious intricacies, but considering his evident lack of intellectual curiosity on the economy, health care, science, and a whole host of other issues, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he has an understanding of the *military* but not any sophisticated *Middle East foreign policy* knowledge. This isn't a knock on Joe -- he was the only major media figure I saw to make the point that McCain is wrong, but if McCain says this is what he thinks, I'm sort of inclined to take him at his word. And if Mike Huckabee -- or, of course, a Democrat -- were to demonstrate such a lack of basic knowledge, it would be viewed as a huge gaffe. Because, y'know, it is. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Big day tomorrow. Could wrap it up on the Democratic side.

We should expect another round of hate mongering from the McCain allies. Notice the pattern: An outrageous, racist, hateful charge is made by a McCain ally. McCain disavows the claim and says he didn't even know the offender. We find out McCain is lying. The media continue to fawn over McCain and maintain he would never be mean or negative. That's the pattern for now. It's going to change.

Okay, get cranking. Read the rest of this post...

Former FDA official: "We are fortunate more hasn't gone wrong"

The industry self-regulation game has been played and has failed. The trust-but-verify system implemented by the GOP no longer includes trust, nor do they have the budget to verify. Industry and their GOP lapdogs in Congress are completely uninterested in protecting the food source for Americans. Their policy is to churn out product as quickly as possible for as little as possible all with the understanding that the Republicans have stripped resources from the FDA, making it impossible to provide acceptable levels of monitoring.

Industry calls the downer cow video an anomaly though that doesn't explain the all too regular recalls across the factory food industry, does it? Industry knows that it has gamed the system and was not planning on Democrats stepping up pressure or dragging industry in front of Congress to explain their actions. At a very minimum we need what Congresswoman DeGette is asking for in Congress, which is to allow the US government to issue food recalls. Food safety is much too serious to be left to self-regulation. Read the rest of this post...

David Attenborough to retire after 54 years

This is a brief video of Attenborough discussing the need for conservation incentives to help save the environment. The world and the way we view the environment and nature has changed so much over the course of his brilliant career. Fortunately he will still work on an occasional program but this is a person that was crucial for helping the Anglo world think more about the beautiful world around us. There are plenty other Attenborough videos on YouTube and once you start, it's impossible to stop. Read the rest of this post...

Republican policies lead to high cost, food shortages

This has been so painfully predictable and will likely be used as an excuse by the pro-Big Oil extremists who have no interest in moving away from there friends at Exxon. Giving financial incentives to corporate farmers to sell their product for energy instead of actual food has put consumers and the poor in a bidding war against energy. Even "cheap" food has become expensive. Now we are even seeing foreign aid to the poorest of the world being scaled back due to costs. It's unimaginable to most Westerners just how poor and in need people can be, almost always due to dynamics beyond their control. We really need to step back and think through new policies both for food and energy but don't expect the GOP to do this.

USAID officials said that a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months has generated a $120 million budget shortfall that will force the agency to reduce emergency operations. That deficit is projected to rise to $200 million by year's end. Prices have skyrocketed as more grains go to biofuel production or are consumed by such fast-emerging markets as China and India.

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