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All posts by phlop
Barack Obama for the USA
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Where am I at?
In the past day and a half I have received, literally, hundreds and hundreds of e-mails asking why I haven’t weighed in on the Spitzer scandal and Obama’s win last night. To you ninjas, I say: damn’ back the truck off. But it seems that you ninjas need ninja news, so stay tuned.
There We Go!
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I still think he has to back away from his “I’m winning” thing. He’s got to go for voters!
Open Letter to Hillary Clinton
You all should go check this article out over at the green site. It’s an open letter written by one of Hillary’s fellow Wellesly grads. An excerpt:
You have connections to Monsanto through the Rose Law Firm where you worked and through Bill who hired Monsanto people for central food-related roles. Your Orwellian-named “Rural Americans for Hillary†was planned with Troutman Sanders, Monsanto’s lobbyists.
Genetic engineering and industrialized food and animal production all come together at the Rose Law Firm, which represents the world’s largest GE corporation (Monsanto), GE’s most controversial project (DP&L’s – now Monsanto’s – terminator genes) [here], the world’s largest meat producer (Tyson), the world’s largest retailer and a dominant food retailer (Wal-Mart) [here].Â
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What Bill did for Monsanto “genetic engineering†goes beyond inadequate concepts of giving corporate friends influence: He unleashed genetic engineering into the world. And then he helped close off people’s escape from it.
Just Ig’nant
Over the weekend an Iowa Republican, Rep. Steve King, has claimed that “terrorists would be ‘dancing in the streets’ if Democratic candidate Barack Obama were to win the presidency.” Well, yesterday King reiterated these comments on (surprise surprise) Fox News. TPM, as always, hookin’ us up with the clip:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nu0QbLrDAg&eurl=http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/[/youtube]
It is most unfortunate that 1. people think like this and that 2. other people listen and agree. Aren’t we supposed to be a really well educated country?
Also, where the hell is Barack Obama coming out against these kinds of statements? He needs to be all over this kind of thing.
Cuba and the Computer
Thank you to our ninja trIzlam for bringing this to the attention of the politricksters.
The New York Times’ piece on Cuba’s “Cyber-Rebels” suggests a very new type of revolution going on in the socialist nation. The technological advances of the 21st century have, apparently, proved to be quite trying for Cuba’s government. The island nation has major restrictions on internet access (which is not widely available to the public) and has a press that is strongly regulated by the state. As a result, Cubans are going cyber to get and spread information that may be considered sensitive [read: unacceptable] by the government. One such instance of unsanctioned information was the result of a recent confrontation between students and the president of Cuba’s National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, in the form of video footage. The video can be seen below. A situation like this rightly begs the question: what will the information age do to/for Cuba? Â
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‘Nuff Said
“Saying that Hillary has Executive Branch experience is like saying Yoko Ono was a Beatle”
Obama Wins Wyoming
Just FYI, Obama won the Wyoming caucus this weekend 61% to 38%. Getting back on track! There are 18 delegates up for grabs in the state.
Clinton’s Campaign Management
The New York Times is running an article this morning that questions the leadership and managemnet skills possessed my Mrs. William Clinton. The article suggests that Clinton has recently tried to have more of a hand in the actions of her campaign, but for much of this primary season she has taken a back seat and let her advisors handle much of the dirty work. My favorite piece was the attempt to justify all the bickering that seems to surface in the Clinton campaign:
“She thinks the way to manage effectively is to get a lot of smart people around who don’t agree and let them work out their differences creatively,†said Howard Wolfson, her communications director. “Let them hash through things, and as a result, you come up with the best process.â€
Great strategy.
So I dunno if this is gonna work so good. But I’d like to take the time to welcome myself to the world of mobile blogging. Hopefully this will be revolutionary.
Peninsula Problems
Both Michigan and Florida had their caucus’ and primary’s results negated by their violations of DNC rules in scheduling their primaries too early. Now that the Democratic contest is in such a dead heat the Democrats in those States want their votes to count towards the delgate battle. I don’t blame them. So far it seems like Michigan will hold another caucus and pay for it themselves while Florida asked the DNC to foot the $18 million dollar tab. Howard Dean, the chair, said “no dice.”
Now, the Clinton camp doesn’t want a revote in Florida because they won. This will likely not hold up because a lot people didn’t vote on the grounds of it not emaning anything and no one campaigned there. The DNC will tell them they can pay for it themselves or sacrifice their votes. In Michigan, Obama nor Edwards were even on the ballot so if anything’s fair there, it’s a re-do. These States would be significant in deciding the nominee should their delegates count.
Krauthammer Makes Me Puke
Today’s Op-Ed piece from Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post very well may be satire. I can’t tell. But based on his track record, I think he wants us to take him seriously. Considering everything that has come to light regarding McCain’s recent relationship with the FEC over his public financing any reference to McCain-Feingold should be laughed at. Yet, Krauthammer writes with conviction:
On the difficult compromises that required the political courage to challenge one’s own political constituency, Obama flinched: the “Gang of 14″ compromise on judicial appointments, the immigration compromise to which Obama tried to append union-backed killer amendments and, just last month, the compromise on warrantless eavesdropping that garnered 68 votes in the Senate. But not Obama’s.
Who, in fact, supported all of these bipartisan deals, was a central player in two of them and brokered the even more notorious McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform? John McCain, of course.
Yes, John McCain — intemperate and rough-edged, of sharp elbows and even sharper tongue. Turns out that uniting is not a matter of rhetoric or manner, but of character and courage.
Yes, what we really need is a President with enough courage to bring hypocrasy to new levels, and who has a track record of putting himself at arms length of the rules. A President who used to be able to cross party lines but now all of a sudden has pledged himself to the Bush agenda. A President whose campaign rhetoric has turned out to be a message for a dedicated Iraq war “victory.” WE ARE NOT AT WAR WITH IRAQ!!! We are occupying Iraq, and in the process making an attempt to supress al-Qaeda (which is only one piece of the transnational jihadist movement in the Middle East). Isn’t it working splendidly? It’s driven our economy to the gutter, it’s taken as many as 160,000 people away from their families in our own country, forced millions of Iraqis from their homes, and it’s creating incentive for generations of good Muslims to resent America. Bravo, let’s keep it up?Â
Krauthammer has also come to the conclusion that Barack Obama’s uniter image is really only believeable because of his heritage crosses racial lines. His logic goes like this:
Because Obama transcends race, it is therefore assumed that he will transcend everything else — divisions of region, class, party, generation and ideology.
If you ninjas know a single person who thinks of Obama’s candidacy in this light, I’d love to meet them. Obama is a black man and race has been an infinately less significant talking point this primary season than what Clinton has tried to do with the gender-card. Rediculous.
I Am Scared of This Man
Thanks, as always, to TPM for making this frightening clip of McCain and his evangelical endorser. McCain is getting a press pass in accepting John Hagee’s support. Hagee is known to have linked Catholicism with Nazi fascism, and referred to it as “the Great Whore.”
Hagee has also claimed the creation of independent Palestinian and Israeli states would bring terrorists to America because of our immigration policy. I know, it makes loads of sense. Just watch:
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I don’t know if this would have been an issue at all if Barack hadn’t gotten hit hard by the Mrs. William Clinton and the press for not rejecting and denouncing Louis Farrakhan‘s support. But for what it’s worth, this man has no business being recognized for supporting a presidential candidate other than to create a buzz.
Reagan Says II
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