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As you know, we've been fundraising for Scott Kleeb's Senate race in Neraska. (And you guys gave over $10,000 in just 48 hours!) Well, he just got a big newspaper endorsement. More from DKos. And feel free to keep contributing to Scott's campaign by clicking on the blue box at left.
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The Democratic Party is sleeping peacefully when it hears its phone buzz on the night stand. It rolls over and sees "Hillary" on the caller ID. It pauses briefly, considering pushing "END" and not dealing with this shit tonight. The thought is appealing but the Democratic Party knows that if it doesn't take this call, another one is only minutes away.Read the rest of this post...
DEMS: ...Hello?
Hillary: Hey baby.
DEMS: C'mon Hillary. Enough with this.
Hillary: Don't you get it? You NEED me.
DEMS: No, I don't. It was fun while it lasted but I'm with Barack now. I made my choice, it's done.
Hillary: You can't really mean that. How can you say that after all the good times we had?
DEMS: To be honest, I started hanging out with you because Bill's pretty awesome.
Hillary: But I'm just like Bill!
DEMS: No, you're not. Bill is charismatic, inspiring, and gets me really good weed.
Hillary: Fuck you. You're elitist!
DEMS: I'm going back to sleep.
Hillary: No, no, wait. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Listen... there's still got to be a chance. Remember when people told George W it was all over. When the numbers were against him?
DEMS: Yeah but...
Hillary: Remember?! And remember how everyone said America didn't really want to be with George W? But they stuck it out anyway?
DEMS: Yeah and they're really fucked up now, Hillary.
Hillary: But WE'LL make it work. Forget Barack, baby. Just take me back and we can forget this ever happened.
DEMS: Look, I think you're a really good Senator... let's just keep it that way, OK?
Hillary: ...I'll see you at the convention.
DEMS: No! Hillary I told you...
CLICK
Even with countless media outlets available these days, a Sunday New York Times cover story could always be counted on to send a jolt through the television news cycle.Read the rest of this post...
But apparently that’s no longer the case. Indeed, reporter David Barstow’s 7,600-word investigation of the Pentagon’s military analyst program — whereby ex-military talking heads, often with direct ties to contractors, parroted Defense Department talking points on the air — has been noticeably absent from television airwaves since the story broke on April 20.
While bloggers have kept the story simmering, Democratic congressional leaders also are speaking out, calling for investigations that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story — and, in effect, themselves.
The measure passed the house 88 to 69 after about an hour of highly partisan debate. No Democrats voted yes; only Rep. Jim Guest, R-King City, crossed party lines.The State Senate votes next week. If you live in Missouri, call your state senator. Find out just whose side they are on. The nuns have your back. Read the rest of this post...
One of the most vocal critics of the idea, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat, held a press conference at the same time in St. Louis to stress her opposition. Carnahan said it was her job “to protect every voter’s right to vote, not 95 percent of voters.”
“These laws are detrimental and harmful to these people who want to exercise their right to vote,” Carnahan said.
Other local residents also spoke out against the measure. Two nuns said elderly sisters of their orders typically don’t have drivers licenses. A woman originally from Mississippi said her birth certificate, once held there in Jackson, was destroyed in a fire.
Opponents say the requirement could be discriminatory – that elderly, poor and minority residents will feel the burden more, as they’re less likely to have an up-to-date drivers license, state ID or passport. Critics also see the cost and process to obtain a birth certificate to get a such an ID as simply too high a hurdle.
Still, during the press conference, the resolution’s passing was announced as expected. Carnahan then suggested that voters call their state senators, who have only days to pass the measure.
Since Tuesday's primaries, Obama has gained six superdelegates while Clinton has picked up one. But Clinton also lost a superdelegate Wednesday — DNC member Jennifer McClellan switched her support to Obama — for a net gain of zero.So, just me, or does anyone else keep having these lyrics go through their head?
Her name is Lola, she was a showgirl.Read the rest of this post...
But that was 30 years ago, when they used to have a show.
Now it's a disco, but not for Lola.
Still in the dress she used to wear, faded feathers in her hair.
She sits there so refined, and drinks herself half-blind.
She lost her youth and she lost her Tony.
Now she's lost her mind!
Now, faced with a mathematical mountain climb that even Stephen Hawking could not ascend, the Clintons -- and it is indeed both of them -- are just about to paste a bumper sticker on the rear of the collapsing vehicle that carries her campaign. It reads: VOTE WHITE.Read the rest of this post...
OuchDo you regret referring to Bill Clinton as the first black President? —Justin Dews, Cambridge, Mass.Read the rest of this post...
MORRISON: People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-Ã -vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.
Indeed, a pattern has emerged some time ago. Boy, did we dodge a bullet.Read the rest of this post...
“[W]orking, hard-working Americans, white Americans.” She really said that. Wow.
Congratulations, Hillary Clinton, you win the prize for the first Democratic Bigot Eruption since I’ve been keeping track of this. Even professional haters like Pat Buchanan and his ilk aren’t so balls-out about racism. You’ve been getting your ass handed to you and especially among black voters. This shows me once again that we - who are apparently lazy and shiftless non-Americans based on your definition - have yet again been a leading indicator.
There was maybe a slight chance Barack Obama might have been pushed to pick you as his running mate, but we can’t have someone spouting Klan-style talking points on the ticket. Heck, there’s a good shot with language like that you won’t win back your senate seat in 2012. I mean, a lot of those apparently lazy and shiftless non-American blacks helped you to win and they’d just as soon vote for someone else in the primary or the Republican in the election rather than someone echoing Bull Connor’s language.
“Working, hard working Americans, white Americans,” indeed.
Nonetheless, Tuesday's results drastically reshaped the dynamic of the campaign, positioning Obama as the all-but-certain nominee and casting Clinton as a dogged but deluded also-ran.It's true, but as a "deluded also-ran," she's not stopping. She's not. All the superdelegates and DC insiders may think she's going to stop undermining our nominee, but she's not. According to The Page, "West Virginia is a Test." Hillary only takes the tests she can win -- and uses them to make Obama look bad.
Our next test is just five days away in West Virginia. Hillary needs your help right now to keep winning.Okay, she's not winning. She's lost. The Clintons are really starting to look pathetic -- and they're starting to appear bitter, like sore losers do.
John,Read the rest of this post...
I got home tonight from my job as finance director for a top-tier Democratic Congressional challenger and read your post regarding the negative impact of Hillary's staying in the race upon our Congressional candidates' fundraising. I can say definitively that what you wrote is absolutely true. My candidate speaks every day to donors who tell him directly that they're more focused on the Presidential right now, or that they're tapped out because they've given so much to the Presidential. Or simply, as you say, because they're just pissed off about the Presidential.
And that's not even counting those who simply don't return our calls, or blow the candidate off when we do get them on the phone. We'll never know how many of those people would have been max-out donors to us, but are simply too involved in (or turned off by) the Presidential race to give a damn about someone who's running for a House seat.
We had a good 1st Quarter anyway, but I don't think we can continue to reach our fundraising targets unless this thing gets settled, and quickly. For her to wait until June is a nightmare that may well guarantee that not only my guy, but dozens and dozens of other challengers will come up badly short of their goals for the 2nd Quarter. And my candidate is in the very top level of targeted races. I can only imagine what the lower tiers of challengers are facing (well, no, actually I've heard from some of them, including the finance chair for a candidate in the Midwest to whom I spoke today).
We need her to drop out now, not only for the sake of our real Presidential nominee winning in November, but so that the rest of us can finally have a fighting chance with donors.
Thanks for all you do.
Regards,
AMERICAblog Reader
Apparently not satisfied with her plummeting approval ratings among black voters, Hillary Clinton decided to remind us again that our votes don't actually count:Read the rest of this post..."I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."Hard-working Americans = white Americans. Right. The rest of us sit on our porches eating watermelon and plucking banjos....
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
This kind of comment is less a description than an agitator, it's meant to give white voters the impression that they would be "disenfranchised" by an Obama win. It's a not so subtle effort to evoke racial resentment over Obama's success....
Clinton is deliberately hurting his chances... by saying, essentially, "Obama doesn't care about white people."
That's what the "elitist" charge has always been about, appealing to the sentiment that "this black guy thinks he's better than you." It will be the same against the Republicans. The difference is that they now have Democrat saying the same things to further legitimize this line of "argument"....
Clinton has hopelessly alienated the most loyal base of the Democratic Party: black folks....
How bad, blatant and obvious is the continued race-baiting of the Clinton Campaign?
As a hard-working black man, let me not mince words, fuck her!Amen. And may I ask, where are the black leaders in Congress and outside? [Crickets] Read the rest of this post...
Enough is enough, even if she did somehow manage to steal the nomination from Obama, she's will get beaten, badly, in November. Given how racially tinged this race has been and the fact that the country is 65% or so white, she should have been blowing the doors off of Obama, but she hasn't and that says volumes. So she can take her Jim Crow, "fear of a black man" tactics and go find the nearest KKK meeting to solicit votes from, she's through with this campaign.
She's had every advantage a candidate could want and she's still getting her butt handed to her by the "inexperienced" and apparently "lazy" Senator Obama. I think her lack of winning is as much an indication of her inability to win as it is Obama's ability to defy the expectations set by many a year ago.
The pundits have been politely asking her to step down or at least play nice for the last couple of months, maybe it's time to no longer be so polite.
Well that didn't take long. It was less than 24 hours ago that Hillary spoke with congressional leaders about her insistence on continuing her fairy tale campaign for the presidency. As we reported last night, our congressional leaders (that would be Reid and Pelosi) said it was fine for Hillary to continue wasting our time, our money, and our focus for yet another month. But, they said that she wouldn't be going negative."I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."You can listen to Hillary boast of her "white" support here.
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
Mason's letter raises two issues as the basis for his position. One is that the six-member commission lacks a quorum, with four vacancies because of a Senate deadlock over President Bush's nominees for the seats. Mason said the FEC would need to vote on McCain's request to leave the system, which is not possible without a quorum. Until that can happen, the candidate will have to remain within the system, he said.It doesn't help that the FEC is hamstrung by Mitch McConnell's refusal to allow votes on new commissioners. But, one commissioner who now won't get re-nominated by President Bush is the guy who called McCain's scam: David Mason.
The second issue is more complicated. It involves a $1 million loan McCain obtained from a Bethesda bank in January. The bank was worried about his ability to repay the loan if he exited the federal financing program and started to lose in the primary race. McCain promised the bank that, if that happened, he would reapply for matching money and offer those as collateral for the loan. While McCain's aides have argued that the campaign was careful to make sure that they technically complied with the rules, Mason indicated that the question needs further FEC review.
If the FEC refuses McCain's request to leave the system, his campaign could be bound by a potentially debilitating spending limit until he formally accepts his party's nomination. His campaign has already spent $49 million, federal reports show. Knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.
Mr. Bush is purging the current F.E.C. chairman, David Mason, presumably because he was responsible enough to challenge the funding machinations of Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign. Mr. Mason shocked his fellow Republicans by notifying Mr. McCain that he might run afoul of the law by switching from public funding to private donations once he secured the party’s nomination.John McCain is a campaign finance criminal. He's scamming the public finance system -- and his new best friend, George Bush, is aiding and abetting the crime.
Desperate survivors cried out for aid on Thursday nearly a week after Cyclone Nargis killed up to 100,000 people, as pressure piled up on Myanmar to throw its doors open to an international relief operation.And this is why that matters:
The United States was still awaiting approval from Myanmar's junta to start military aid flights, but the U.N. food agency and Red Cross/Red Crescent said they have started flying in emergency relief after some delays.
Aid has barely trickled into one of the world's most isolated and impoverished countries, although experts feared it would be too little to cope with the aftermath of Nargis, which left up to 100,000 feared dead and one million homeless.Read the rest of this post...
Helping to retire an opponent's campaign is not unprecedented and can sometimes be justified in the interests of party unity. (Remember, this isn't just money in the abstract. A lot of it is payment to people who provided services or goods of various sorts to the campaign and need to be paid or paid back.) But using more than $10 million raised in large part by small individual donations to pay back the Clintons who appear to be worth many tens of millions of dollars simply seems wrong.Yep. This debt discussion needs to be shut down. The Clintons decided to use a lot of their own money to keep this campaign going. Not only would it be very hard to convince Democratic donors to give money to pay them -- and Mark Penn, it's just wrong. Let Terry McAuliffe worry about the Clinton's debt. They're all millionaires. It's hard to feel sorry for them. Read the rest of this post...
This isn't meant to sound ungracious. I don't begrudge the Clintons their very substantial wealth. And even for really, really rich people, $11 million isn't nothing. But that is simply too much money raised from small givers to give to people who loaned it with full knowledge of the odds and have more than enough money to really know what to do with.
Frankly, I'm surprised that it's even being suggested. It would be a mistake for the Clintons to ask (and just because people are chattering about it -- don't assume they have or will), a mistake for Obama to offer and one that would risk a severe backlash.
That's not what people gave their money for.
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