A significant fraction of the people voting for Clinton in the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary have no plans to vote for her in the fall.
According to the CNN exit poll, in an Obama:McCain match up 15% of those voting in the Democratic primary would vote for McCain in November. Of these voters, 90% reported voting for Hillary Clinton. In a Clinton:McCain match up, 10% of the Pennsylvania Democratic voters indicate that they would vote for McCain. Of these, 69% voted for Obama in the primary and 31% voted for Clinton.
Clearly, Obama voters were reflecting greater Democratic Party loyalty than the Clinton voters. Were these disaffected Regan Democrats? Were racism and misogyny or did these voters never intend to vote for either candidate and were simply creating mischief.
If these votes are discounted from the total, the margin of Clinton's victory was 6.2 rather than 9.2%.
Since Clinton reportedly won by 9.2%, the actual margin - without interference from CHAOS voters - would have given Obama a narrow victory
What can we expect in Indiana? Probably MUCH more of the same. Indiana is a highly republican state - and with no meaningful race on the Republican presidential side, they have little to lose by manipulating the Democratic vote. Moreover, unlike Pennsylvania, which was a closed primary, Indiana is open.
Since Clinton reportedly won by 9.2%, the actual margin - without interference from CHAOS voters - would have given Obama a narrow victory
What can we expect in Indiana? Probably MUCH more of the same. Indiana is a highly republican state - and with no meaningful race on the Republican presidential side, they have little to lose by manipulating the Democratic vote. Moreover, unlike Pennsylvania, which was a closed primary, Indiana is open.
The following story was sourced from Rob Thomas of the Capital Times and can be discussed at www.madison.com/tct/forums
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As if bankruptcy was not enough for Air America, Clear Channel Radio's Madison Wisconsin division has announced that the progressive talk radio station programming on WXXM/FM 92.1 will be shut down on effective January 1, 2007 and the station will become part of the Fox Sports Radio Network. See announcement at www.themic921.com.
Day by day, the situation only gets worse in the Middle East. This administration will keep trotting out its apologists and warmongers. They will not take the steps necessary to bring peace.
We must try to bring pressure on Israel from other directions. One place to start is with our representatives. We have elected Senators and Congressmen who should be speaking out.
Below is a copy of my letter to Senators Feingold and Kohl. I invite you to write to them as well - and write to your own Senators. We must try to stop this senselessness.
OK, so this is just speculation - but what about it? Do you think bill Clinton would make a good Secretary General for the UN? Would he take the job if offered? Does he have a snowball's chance in Hell?
After all, he is apparently a good friend of Bush - George Sr. that is. He enjoys strong support from overseas allies, and he has a record of building alliances.
Traditionally strong countries such as the US are not supported
Warren Buffett has decided to give 85% of his fortune - more than $37 billion dollars - to the Gates Foundation, which will make this the largest charitable foundation in the world. Perhaps it should not come as a real surprise since the Gates foundation already spends more than any governmental agency in the world trying to find cures for tuberculosis and malaria - two of the world's biggest killers.
When I heard Bush make this statement in response to today's reported 0.4% increase in consumer prices, I almost fell out of my chair with laughter. One must laugh, afterall, to keep from crying.
How does he come up with this nonsense? Does he honestly believe that running up the biggest deficits in history in the face of rising inflation is "wise fiscal policy"?
I know that Bush does not think - he only believes things. If low revenues (and the resulting deficit) is really good fiscal policy, why does the World Bank impose fiscal restrictions on countries that are not able to control their spending and are overwhelmed with debt. Does he honestly believe that a national debt of $8.3 trillion is a GOOD thing? Does he really want to see it higher?
OK, roll out the tinfoil -- make a hat -- here comes a new ungrounded fear...
As I see it, the real problem with Hayden's confirmation is that he has an unbridled confidence in technology. Think of it. We are being told that we should not worry about the government tracing all our telephone calls because only THE COMPUTER KNOWS who is calling whom. ONLY WHEN THE COMPUTER spits out a number do actual people spring into action.
The computer? The computer? Which computer? Only the NSA computer - the largest computational facility in the world. A computer that has the largest core, the largest storage capacity and that is outfitted with machine learning capabilities unprecedented in history.
Ted Stevens has been around the Senate a long time - and has been a motivator behind Alaska legislation even longer. He is an institution in himself. Unfortunately, this sort of long affiliation and power tends to breed corruption. He has fought long and hard to open drilling in the Acctic National Wildlife Animal Refuge... the question is what does he stand to gain personally if this happens? His past history with logging on Federal lands in the Tongass suggests that in addition to creating environmental damage, Stevens could be benefitting personally from financial deals.
Jim Lehrer finally began to express some well-deserved skepticism to the long line of BS that the Secretary of Defense has been feeding the public for so many months. Rumsfeld deserved to be asked, "Why don't you resign?" After all, everything he told us going into this war has proven to be incorrect. He promulgated in a fraud on the American public. He helped to can the Secretary of the Treasury when he dared to speak the truth about how much the war would cost. He put in far too few troops to maintain order. He disbanded the only military force that was capable of reestablishing peace. He propagated the orders and directives that led to the abuse of prisoners, and he has allowed the military to create far more enemies than it has destroyed. It is time for this clown to go.
The discussion about the fitness of Judge Alito for the Supreme Court is bound to go on for many more weeks. Even though hearings have not begun, his writings show that he is substantially more conservative than his predecessor.
He also differs in another important way. He is male.
President Bush He certainly had lots of experienced candidates to choose from. Fully 24% of the federal bench consists of women. Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor make up 22% of the Supreme Court. Even this is a severe under-representation of women in our society, but it is a lot better than the 11% representation that will result from the confirmation of Alito.
As a native of New Orleans, I watched with horror as Hurricane Katrina approached, and then reflected with astonishment when the administration tried to deflect onto Mayor Nagin and Gov. Blanco criticism aimed at the Feds for not moving fast enough.
Friends in Louisiana have been sending notes back and forth - some of which reflected the Washington spinmeisters.
After the jump, I am posting an email from one friend who was affected by the storm. It was sent to a group of classmates in response to some of the right-wing criticism, and it has been edited only to improve clarity of some abbreviations protect personal information, or to emphasize a few points.
OK, so maybe I am not fully ready to applaud everything he says, but tonight on the News Hour, David Brooks really laid into the administration. He essentially said that the federal response to hurricane Katrina was the last straw in a line of failures by the Bush administration. Cover-up of lies about why why we went into Iraq; inadequate planning for public safety after the invasion, Abu Ghraib, the tax giveaways to corporations and the wealthy and now, a completely inadequate failure to respond to the catastrophe in the gulf coast.
Passage of the energy bill ended last week after a long fight over principles and priorities and in the end was about political power.
Depending on your perspective, the bill either did not do enough to lower gasoline costs or it failed to establish meaningful fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. It made no provision for reducing greenhouse emissions, and it seems unlikely to increase domestic petroleum production.
Its most egregious fault - and no doubt the element that assured its passage through the Republican-controlled House, is the blatant use of political power to introduce targeted pork-barrel spending.
Perhaps because it is irrelevant to the legislation? Perhaps because we have already achieved energy efficiency in transportation?
Noooo.... It is because fuel efficiency is no better today than it was in the late 1980's, and it would be too embarrassing to release a news story that shows our current policies are not working.
One of the lines of defense we are hearing from the Bush spin cycle is that Rove could not have broken the law because it was an "open secret" that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.
Well, this is a lie because the CIA considered her to be a covert agent, and if anyone with clearance who knew about her status were to have leaked it, that would have been a crime as well.
At the same time one needs to ask whether or not Joe and Valerie Wilson kept this information secret from those around them. We know from Joe Wilson's public statements that the answer is "no one knew"
I just finished listening to Ed Rogers on the News hour, and I think I want to puke. This guy is a total political hack. Why in the world did Karl Rove put him up for this job? Obviously because he had very few others to turn to. Rove is becoming isolated and he needs to call in whatever troops he has left. It will only be a few more days until we begin seeing the rats leave the ship. After all, they got up and lied for Rove multiple times now, and the crap is starting to come home to roost.
Who will be the next to fall? Scottie? ...another big fat liar.
This administration can't tell the truth from a lie - and then they can't accept responsibility for their own asinine actions.
