All this chatter is unrelenting - she better endorse Obama or else! Earth to Obama fans - he needs her more than she needs him. If she loses her Senate seat so what? So what if she doesn't get anything at the convention? She already lost the primary.
What are you all freaking out about?
I really am a Democrat and I really am not sure who I'm voting for in November. I need to be convinced by Obama (not his supporters, not Hillary) that he can handle the job. And to date, I have not been convinced. I will watch both candidates between now and November. But as of today, it looks like there's only one candidate and he's a Republican.
She just urged her supporters to keep the dream alive, and talked privately about what she would settle for. She has told some Democrats recently that she wanted Obama to agree to allow a roll call vote, like days of yore, so that the delegates of states she won would cast the first ballot for her at the convention. She said she wanted that for her daughter.
Obama supporters are worried that it's a trick and she'll somehow snatch away the nomination. Just as Hillary supporters have hardened toward him, many of Obama's donors and fans have hardened against the Clintons, saying it would be disillusioning to see them on a ticket that's supposed to be about fresh politics.
"It would be," said one influential Democrat, "like finding out there's no tooth fairy."
Well my friends said we should listen to the Republicans when deciding how to vote in the primary. And that, my friends said, was why I HAD to vote for Obama.
I said we can't trust the Republicans - some will say they're voting for Obama now, but will their loyalty hold until November? Still others will say they're voting Obama now, because they think he's easier to beat. I think it's the latter. My friends say I'm in denial.
All I know is: why are the Republicans determining who wins our primary?
Republican Michael Steele is speaking now at Black State of the Union. He's disarming, engaging, and is speaking frankly about race. (Update: see below for why Steele would be a poor choice.)
Will McCain pick this guy as veep? He's also speaking about Obama - he's very proud of Obama. "But all of that doesn't mean anything if we don't hold leadership accountable. I want to be held accountable."
Black State of the Union is streamed all day today on C-Span (click to get video.)
Congressman John Lewis, who had the temerity not to succumb to Jesse Jackson's arm-twisting, is now facing a primary challenge for his seat in Congress from a 30-year-old Markel Hutchins, who says "the civil rights icon who has represented the city in Congress for two decades is un-hip," the Atlanta Journal Constitution has reported.
As evidence of a gap between Lewis and young, civic-minded activists, Hutchins points to Lewis’ decision to back Sen. Hillary Clinton instead of Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential race even though Obama is the first truly viable African American to run for president and the overwhelming favorite in Georgia’s Democratic primary this month.
NAACP Chair Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, has written a letter to Howard Dean to express "great concern at the prospect that million of voters in Michigan and Florida could ultimately have their votes completely discounted."
The letter, more clearly than the letter from Berry and Wilkins, demands that the votes already cast be counted, rejecting the notion of a new vote or caucus.
It seems unlikely that, given Obama's symbolic power, the black civil rights establishment is going to unite around this view. But it certainly gives Hillary some powerful institutional backup in making a case widely derided as opportunistic.
For what it's worth: SFGate is reporting a multiple-sourced story that Obama refused to have his picture taken with San Francisco Mayor Newsom back in 2004 after Newsom aggressively advocated for gay marriage.
In all fairness, the piece also says then-presidential candidate John Kerry also avoided San Francisco.
Though same-sex marriage is still a hot-button issue in 2008, it is no longer the shocker that had the country in an uproar four and five years ago. Until you go back and look at the news stories from those days, it is easy to forget how radical and unpopular Newsom's stand was.
And, no, it wasn't just the right-wingers who were upset. It was Democrats, too, particularly those running in the presidential primary. John Kerry, for example, was careful to stage his Bay Area appearances in Oakland, not San Francisco, after the controversy hit.
This is a vote I will never, ever regret. I'll be proud of it until the day I die. I'll be proud of it regardless of who wins California on Tuesday.
My journey has been a strange one: I began with a visceral dislike of this woman, searching for the great hope of a star candidate that could beat her in the primaries.
I went to an Obama rally in Oakland, California last spring and boy was that the best-looking, sexiest, most wholesome looking crowd I'd seen in ages. Young families, kids in strollers, people of color, white people.
And then Obama arrived and spoke. He was...fine. No real complaints. Didn't leave me with a feeling of certainty. Didn't leave me jazzed. I think I had more hope looking at the crowd beforehand than I did after listening to the candidate. He stuttered and stammered a bit. And he said the word "I" a lot - coming from the Howard Dean people-powered politics movement I don't subscribe to "the great man theory" and I didn't like Obama's speech that day. But there was time for him to improve. It wasn't his best day.
You read that right - I'm still for Hill. I prefer her over Bill.
Long ago I started out as an Obama fan and really hoped he could beat Hillary. But I watched him over time and grew doubtful. Then Hillary grew on me.
Earlier today I speculated I might be the only "out" Hillary fan/supporter at this site, only to be corrected by hopscotch1997:
Oh no. There are about 25 of us regular exposed and out Hillary fans, but there are many more who are afraid to come here without a gun to defend themselves, and who poke their heads in once in a while.
We at the catfish household again subscribe to cable after a 24-month-plus hiatus (since the last season of The Wire wrapped, probably.)
Now, we're not against all MSM news. Print news organizations still do some remarkable legwork given the brutal morale they're operating under, with ever-shrinking budgets and staffs. Alternative newsweeklies are the under-appreciated investigative shops of today.
Off the printed page NPR and yes, the PBS Newshour provide informative, substantive reports (do I sound like an old fogey? I like Jim Lehrer's show, so be it.)
But after watching CNN and MSNBC yesterday and today we see the same blowhards sitting around making projections, as if they haven't moved an inch since we cancelled Comcast in 2005. Has nothing changed?
It sure is a joy questioning a crackdown on child porn. In December. Heading into primary season.
But this bill called the SAFE Act could make it very cumbersome and expensive just to provide free wi-fi, because cafe customers or library patrons might view child porn. Or images of fully clothed children in "lascivious" poses. Or drawings, cartoons, or paintings of obscene images. Many may decide the cost of free wi-fi isn't worth the payoff.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including "obscene" cartoons and drawings--or face fines of up to $300,000.
That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi.
What the bill requires cafe owners to report to the government is listed on the flip.
Following Wednesday's 58,000-gallon oil spill caused by a ship which crashed into the Bay Bridge (apparently the first time such a ship has ever done so since the bridge was built,) the Bay Area oil spill cleanup effort seems to be crawling along while hundreds of volunteers are being told to stay home and do nothing.
It was much the same in Marin County, where Sigward Moser led a 30-person volunteer group - including 20 monks-in-training from the Mill Valley Zen Center - onto Muir Beach on Friday. For his efforts, he was detained and handcuffed.
Rush diary here - looking at the fires in a whole new way. Reading an excerpt of Naomi Klein's latest book Disaster Capitalism in this month's Harpers can prime anybody for viewing the fires through the eyes of a disaster capitalist.
Today SFGate runs this AP story over conflicting statements of idling, grounded firefighting aircraft in Southern California. Gov Schwarzeneggar says the planes couldn't fly because of the strong winds. A trade industry contractor's liaison says beauacratic red tape kept them grounded. And the forestry department says the fire spotters are trained to work with National Guard pilots, where only Marines were available. Besides FUD, what is this AP story saying?
Is anybody in the Bay Area watching MadTV right now? The video is the Britney and K-Fed skit but the voiceover is somebody reading antiwar blogs and comments.
The person reading antiwar blog postings and Bay Guardian articles also mentioned the crosses posted on a hill in Lafayette, CA along Highway 24.
While Dems debated last night on CNN, Giuliani visted San Francisco to deliver some red meat to the GOP base. I forwarded this to TPM, and thought you'd enjoy some of these choice quotes from the article on Giuliani's visit.
"At no time during these debates have (Democrats) ever uttered the words, 'Islamic terrorist,' " Guliani said. But "if they do, I'll take credit for it."
MadTV is often better than Saturday Night Live. Their Steve Jobs parody from last night's show was very good.
A shareholder meeting with Steve Jobs allows him to introduce the next product in the iLine, after the iPod, iMac, iBook, iPictureFrame, iLamp, iMicrowave, and iVaccuumCleaner. It's the iRack, and the audience questions whether their company should involve themselves with such an unstable product.
Where should we, the great country that is Bush's Merika, draw the line in the War on Terra? Should we BECOME terrorists? Seriously, I want to know.
If we are determined to do everything it takes to win this "war", and terrorism is the only way, is that fair game? I ask because Ralph Peters, in defending the administration's actions, said this on Monday night's Newshour:
RALPH PETERS: Now, whether or not you describe to Huntington's theory of the clash of civilizations, we are without doubt witnessing something without precedent, the crash of a once great, still proud civilization, that of Middle Eastern Islam. And the problem is that the Middle East is not competitive in any sphere, not even terrorism. We're terrorizing the terrorists.
Just in case you missed it, here it is again, Peters' proof that we are winning this "war":
RALPH PETERS: And the problem is that the Middle East is not competitive in any sphere, not even terrorism. We're terrorizing the terrorists.
Why is terrorism such a great threat when really, American is #1 in this sphere?
