From today’s postings 4/23/08
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Survival Guide for Life in a Sexist Society (by Jill Filipovic, AlterNet.)
Amanda Marcotte, author of It’s a Jungle Out There, tells you how to fight modern-day misogyny and have fun at the same time.
New Ralph Reed novel treats women as ‘tarts who use sex to get ahead.’ (Think Progress)
Ralph Reed, formerly Christian Coalition executive director and friend of Jack Abramoff, has his first novel coming out. Publisher’s Weekly publishes a review of “Dark Horse,” a book that promises to demean both women and liberals: “For Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, politics is a man’s world to its very core—especially when it comes to the race for president, which is at the center of this first novel. Women characters are either wives with drinking problems, tarts who use sex to get ahead professionally (but not that far) or VP candidates chosen purely for show, who are belittled behind the scenes for lack of experience and ‘lightweight’ intelligence. Democrats are drunks who play dirty and bloody each other’s noses.”
MSNBC’s Shuster, Carlson discuss purported “cackle,” laugh over “Hillary laughing pen” (Media Matters)
Summary: On MSNBC Live, David Shuster presented to Tucker Carlson “a Hillary laughing pen” — a pen shaped in the likeness of Hillary Clinton’s head with a mouth that moves as the pen makes a laughing noise. In response, Carlson stated: “I can’t tell you, David, how much I appreciate this, how much I appreciate your going through Chris’ mail while he’s gone and how much I’m really going to miss that cackle. I hope it goes on forever. It’s brought light to my life.”
Why so shy? Why didn’t they bring out the Hillary nutcracker? That’s REALLY funny.
Olbermann Calls for Clinton’s Murder (by Anglachel)
Other blog posters have stepped around the obvious intent behind Keith Olbermann’s recent verbal assault on Hillary Clinton. I know why. It’s a hell of a step to take… What Keith Olbermann said yesterday is not symbolic. He flatly said a (male) Democratic super delegate should take Hillary Clinton into a room, and only the man should emerge. Keith Olbermann is openly advocating the murder of Hillary Clinton.
Did Anyone Tell Eli Manning To Just Quit? (HillBuzz)
Telling Hillary Clinton she needs to pack up and go home is like stopping the 2004 World Series at game three and just arbitrarily calling it for the Yankees, because all the media experts know the Red Sox are never going to win, and because “everyone” finds the Yankees so inspirational (it’s their pinstripes: they’re dazzling). Or, while we are being arbitrary, what about ending the 2008 Superbowl at halftime, or even with half an hour left to go, just because people have to get up early in the morning and are tired of watching the game go on, and “everyone” just knows Tom Brady and his Patriots have the game all sewn up, so why not just skip ahead to the conclusion pundits want, and the story they want to tell, with Tom Brady and the Patriots taking home the prize?… No one told Eli Manning to quit. A stadium full of people and millions at home cheered him on to keep fighting. And look how that turned out for the New York Giants.
Election 2008: Electoral College Update (Rasmussen)
On Thursday, new polling data in Minnesota moves that state from “Leans Democratic” to “Likely Democratic” in the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator. With this change, Democrats lead in states with 200 Electoral College Votes while Republicans are favored in states with 189 Votes. States with 111 Votes are “leaners,” and states with 38 Votes are Toss-Ups… When “leaners” are added to the total, the Democrats now lead with 260 Electoral Votes to 240 for the GOP.
R2000: Deadlocked in Indiana (Political Wire)
A new Research 2000 poll in
Sign Hillary’s petition urging Obama to honor his commitment to debate in North Carolina
Yes it’s politically incorrect but race matters (by Anatole Kaletsky, London Times)
That Mrs
I think it has more to do with economic issues than race, but Kaletsky is entitled to his opinion. The superdelegates have been told by the Obama campaign that it’s unfair to use their judgment. If that’s so, why even have them? Why not just have pledged delegates? And while we’re at it, lets’ clean up this whole primary process, shall we?
Self-Inflicted Confusion (by Paul Krugman)
This wasn’t the way things were supposed to play out. Mr. Obama was supposed to be a transformational figure, with an almost magical ability to transcend partisan differences and unify the nation… [But] he keeps losing big states. And general election polls suggest that he might well lose to John McCain. What’s gone wrong? According to many Obama supporters, it’s all Hillary’s fault… The attacks from the
Democrats can justly portray themselves as the party of economic security, the party that created Social Security and Medicare and defended those programs against Republican attacks — and the party that can bring assured health coverage to all Americans. They can also portray themselves as the party of prosperity: the contrast between the
Obama has gone out of his way to diminish the prosperity of the Clinton administration, as a way of diminishing Hillary Clinton. But at the same time he and his supporters claim she had no impact on the
Obamacant (by Anglachel)
Shorter Krugman - act like Democrats, not Obamacans… The fault, dear Precious, lies not in the voters but in yourself. In your arrogance. In your inability to discuss policy. In your proclivity for explaining away your losses as the dastardly acts of backwards voters rather than admitting that they just aren’t that into you. In your renunciation of everything that distinguishes us from the Republicans. In your thuggish campaign tactics. In your utter lack of anything that actually qualifies you to hold the position.
Ding! Ding! Ding! I Believe We Might Have a Winner (by BDBlue at Corrente)
[If you guessed that the Obama excuse for losing
YOU MAY BE AN ELITIST IF: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
With a nod to Brother Foxworthy, you may be an elitist if: You can’t figure out what is wrong with Gail Collin’s “cheesy” gun reference. Before we get there, let’s review the usual blather as Collins sneers, high-hats and eye-rolls her way through our current election. In today’s column: We learn that stealing the other guy’s slogan is “tacky.”We learn that the soda was overpriced. We learn that retired vice admiral Joe Sestak can sometimes make clumsy statements. (If we trust Collins’ quote, that is. We can’t find through Nexis or Google.) We learn that pro wrestling is fixed. (What a shame that Collins hasn’t been!) We learn that a Tom Petty song is better than the theme song from Rocky. As you know, this is the type of tedious drivel which drives every column by Collins. But then, we get to gaze at the soul of a malfunctioning, upper-class press elites. Collins knows all about tacky and cheesy. But she seems to be clueless on this: “Then out came … Bill Clinton, fresh from that peculiar radio interview in which he referred to a mysterious memo that he said proved the Obama campaign played the ‘race card’ in South Carolina. When asked about it later, he accused the reporter of not caring about the issues.”… Whatever they think about his view, people who have followed this race know which memo
The Nightmare Scenario (by PsychoDrew at No Quarter)
Well, he didn’t just throw the kitchen sink at Hillary Clinton. As Taylor Marsh noted yesterday, he threw the bank vault: “Flush with cash, Obama reported spending $11.2 million on television in the state, compared with $4.8 million for
Obama’s patriotism (by Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe)
BARACK OBAMA believes his patriotism can’t be challenged. Maybe he should talk to Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry. “I am absolutely confident that during the general election that when I’m in a debate with John McCain, people are not going to be questioning my patriotism, they are going to be questioning how can you make people’s lives a little better,” declared Obama during last week’s contentious debate with Hillary Clinton. Obama wants the race for the White House to be about hope. It probably won’t be… On the same night the Democrats were debating in
Excerpts from Rev. Wright Interview With Bill Moyers [Tonight]
NEW YORK E&P has been sent by Bill Moyers’ people excerpts from his interview with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which will air [tonight] night on PBS. This is the first major Wright interview since the Obama “controversy” broke last month.
Click through for the text excerpts. No Quarter has some video.
Rev. Wright: Obama A Politician (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
I am no fan of Rev. Wright, and for the sake of the Democratic Party, I wish he would keep quiet until after November, but I agree with this [from the Bill Moyers interview tonight]: “He’s a politician, I’m a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they’re two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in
Ditto!
“She went out and recruited Barack.” (by amberglow at Corrente)
Alice Palmer and Obama’s first campaign, when he knocked out the politician who recruited and introduced him to fundraisers and others who could help him (like Ayers, etc) — “… “‘She went out and recruited Barack.’ So everything seemed set. Palmer would move to Congress and Obama would take her place in the Illinois Senate. But then Palmer lost the special congressional election. Suddenly, this well-liked community leader faced being out of office after four years in the state Legislature… Palmer finally asked Obama to halt his legislative campaign so she could run for re-election. He refused. …’” I wish they would ask him about her at a debate or even at a press conference. And what does his treatment of her say about “changing the system” and “unity”?
Let’s not forget that in that race Obama ruthlessly had Palmer’s name removed from the ballot by challenging her petition signatures. Obama supporters say that she (and the other candidates—he bumped them all off) had fake signatures, but we don’t really know that. It’s cheap to challenge and expensive to prove the challenged voters are legitimate, so we just don’t know.
Barack Obama still takes in oil money (Los Angeles Times)
Sen. Barack Obama continued accepting donations from oil company executives and employees last month even as he aired ads in which he stated he took no oil company money, his campaign finance reports show. Obama has taken at least $263,000 from oil company executives, family members and employees since entering the presidential race last year, including $46,000 last month. At least $140,000 has come in chunks of between $1,000 and $2,300, the maximum permitted under federal law.
Barack in Iraq (by Michael Crowley, The New Republic)
The truth is Obama has no secret plan for
Ruh-roh: Obama Going On Fox (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
Now whatsay the Netroots?… For the record, I support the boycott of Fox News. I think Hillary Clinton was placed in a terrible position because of the extreme bias of NBC and the unwillingness of the Left blogs to criticize the anti-Hillary bias in the Media. I also understand why Obama is dissing the Netroots now. They will never criticize him anyway. Why should he pander to them then?
Yes, at this point they’re so besotted with Kool-Aid that he can diss them at will.
McCain Vows War on Poverty, Says Nation in Recession (Bloomberg )
Republican John McCain, saying the nation is in a recession and “families are hurting,” retraced Lyndon Johnson’s steps in eastern Kentucky and pledged to mount a war on poverty different from that waged by the former Democratic president.
Is this economic compassionism?
McCain Faults Bush Response to Gulf Storm (New York Times)
Senator John McCain declared the handling of Hurricane Katrina “terrible and disgraceful,” one of his harshest assessments yet of the Bush presidency.
Flashback: As Katrina hit, McCain celebrated 69th birthday with Bush. (Think Progress)
Speaking in
McCain Wraps Up Poverty Tour With Speech At ‘Business Awards’ Banquet (Think Progress)
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is currently on his “Forgotten America” tour, talking about the need to address the places “ignored for long years by the sins of indifference and injustice.” The Washington Post writes, “In effect, McCain is launching Version 2.0 of Bush’s ‘compassionate conservative’ campaign.” Today [Thursday], McCain is speaking in Katrina-ravaged
McCain falsely claims he ‘never voted for a single earmark or pork barrel project.’ (Think Progress)
In New Orleans today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) partially blamed the poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina on “the Congress of the United States” for funding “pork barrel projects” that were “not as important as some of the projects that were needed” in New Orleans. McCain then claimed that he had “never voted for a single earmark or pork barrel project.” But, as NBC’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy points out, that isn’t true: “While it is true that McCain has never sponsored an earmark — by the strict definition of the word — he has certainly voted for bills with earmarks, including some of the specific projects he criticizes most vocally on the campaign trail.” As ThinkProgress noted earlier today, McCain has a record of making sweeping claims about earmarks that aren’t backed up by reality.
Reporters press McCain over Hagee endorsement. (Think Progress)
Yesterday, ThinkProgress highlighted a recent interview by Pastor John Hagee, in which he declared that
Well, if Obama can do it, McCain can do it. I know, I’m a right-wing racist McCain lover for saying it.
60 Minutes: Scalia On Bush v. Gore 2000: “Get Over It” (by Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars)
During an interview set to air on this Sunday’s 60 Minutes, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that people need to get over the court’s 5-4 decision to select George Bush over Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election… This is an insult to
coming out. Publisher’s Weekly publishes a review of “Dark Horse,” a book that promises to demean both women and liberals: “For Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, politics is a man’s world to its very core—especially when it comes to the race for president, which is at the center of this first novel. Women characters are either wives with drinking problems, tarts who use sex to get ahead professionally (but not that far) or VP candidates chosen purely for show, who are belittled behind the scenes for lack of experience and ‘lightweight’ intelligence. Democrats are drunks who play dirty and bloody each other’s noses.”
MSNBC’s Shuster, Carlson discuss purported “cackle,” laugh over “Hillary laughing pen” (Media Matters)
Summary: On MSNBC Live, David Shuster presented to Tucker Carlson “a Hillary laughing pen” — a pen shaped in the likeness of Hillary Clinton’s head with a mouth that moves as the pen makes a laughing noise. In response, Carlson stated: “I can’t tell you, David, how much I appreciate this, how much I appreciate your going through Chris’ mail while he’s gone and how much I’m really going to miss that cackle. I hope it goes on forever. It’s brought light to my life.”
Why so shy? Why didn’t they bring out the Hillary nutcracker? That’s REALLY funny.
Olbermann Calls for Clinton’s Murder (by Anglachel)
Other blog posters have stepped around the obvious intent behind Keith Olbermann’s recent verbal assault on Hillary Clinton. I know why. It’s a hell of a step to take… What Keith Olbermann said yesterday is not symbolic. He flatly said a (male) Democratic super delegate should take Hillary Clinton into a room, and only the man should emerge. Keith Olbermann is openly advocating the murder of Hillary Clinton.
Did Anyone Tell Eli Manning To Just Quit? (HillBuzz)
Telling Hillary Clinton she needs to pack up and go home is like stopping the 2004 World Series at game three and just arbitrarily calling it for the Yankees, because all the media experts know the Red Sox are never going to win, and because “everyone” finds the Yankees so inspirational (it’s their pinstripes: they’re dazzling). Or, while we are being arbitrary, what about ending the 2008 Superbowl at halftime, or even with half an hour left to go, just because people have to get up early in the morning and are tired of watching the game go on, and “everyone” just knows Tom Brady and his Patriots have the game all sewn up, so why not just skip ahead to the conclusion pundits want, and the story they want to tell, with Tom Brady and the Patriots taking home the prize?… No one told Eli Manning to quit. A stadium full of people and millions at home cheered him on to keep fighting. And look how that turned out for the New York Giants.
Election 2008: Electoral College Update (Rasmussen)
On Thursday, new polling data in Minnesota moves that state from “Leans Democratic” to “Likely Democratic” in the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator. With this change, Democrats lead in states with 200 Electoral College Votes while Republicans are favored in states with 189 Votes. States with 111 Votes are “leaners,” and states with 38 Votes are Toss-Ups… When “leaners” are added to the total, the Democrats now lead with 260 Electoral Votes to 240 for the GOP.
R2000: Deadlocked in Indiana (Political Wire)
A new Research 2000 poll in
Sign Hillary’s petition urging Obama to honor his commitment to debate in North Carolina
Yes it’s politically incorrect but race matters (by Anatole Kaletsky, London Times)
That Mrs
I think it has more to do with economic issues than race, but Kaletsky is entitled to his opinion. The superdelegates have been told by the Obama campaign that it’s unfair to use their judgment. If that’s so, why even have them? Why not just have pledged delegates? And while we’re at it, lets’ clean up this whole primary process, shall we?
Self-Inflicted Confusion (by Paul Krugman)
This wasn’t the way things were supposed to play out. Mr. Obama was supposed to be a transformational figure, with an almost magical ability to transcend partisan differences and unify the nation… [But] he keeps losing big states. And general election polls suggest that he might well lose to John McCain. What’s gone wrong? According to many Obama supporters, it’s all Hillary’s fault… The attacks from the
Democrats can justly portray themselves as the party of economic security, the party that created Social Security and Medicare and defended those programs against Republican attacks — and the party that can bring assured health coverage to all Americans. They can also portray themselves as the party of prosperity: the contrast between the
Obama has gone out of his way to diminish the prosperity of the Clinton administration, as a way of diminishing Hillary Clinton. But at the same time he and his supporters claim she had no impact on the
Obamacant (by Anglachel)
Shorter Krugman - act like Democrats, not Obamacans… The fault, dear Precious, lies not in the voters but in yourself. In your arrogance. In your inability to discuss policy. In your proclivity for explaining away your losses as the dastardly acts of backwards voters rather than admitting that they just aren’t that into you. In your renunciation of everything that distinguishes us from the Republicans. In your thuggish campaign tactics. In your utter lack of anything that actually qualifies you to hold the position.
Ding! Ding! Ding! I Believe We Might Have a Winner (by BDBlue at Corrente)
[If you guessed that the Obama excuse for losing
YOU MAY BE AN ELITIST IF: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
With a nod to Brother Foxworthy, you may be an elitist if: You can’t figure out what is wrong with Gail Collin’s “cheesy” gun reference. Before we get there, let’s review the usual blather as Collins sneers, high-hats and eye-rolls her way through our current election. In today’s column: We learn that stealing the other guy’s slogan is “tacky.”We learn that the soda was overpriced. We learn that retired vice admiral Joe Sestak can sometimes make clumsy statements. (If we trust Collins’ quote, that is. We can’t find through Nexis or Google.) We learn that pro wrestling is fixed. (What a shame that Collins hasn’t been!) We learn that a Tom Petty song is better than the theme song from Rocky. As you know, this is the type of tedious drivel which drives every column by Collins. But then, we get to gaze at the soul of a malfunctioning, upper-class press elites. Collins knows all about tacky and cheesy. But she seems to be clueless on this: “Then out came … Bill Clinton, fresh from that peculiar radio interview in which he referred to a mysterious memo that he said proved the Obama campaign played the ‘race card’ in South Carolina. When asked about it later, he accused the reporter of not caring about the issues.”… Whatever they think about his view, people who have followed this race know which memo
The Nightmare Scenario (by PsychoDrew at No Quarter)
Well, he didn’t just throw the kitchen sink at Hillary Clinton. As Taylor Marsh noted yesterday, he threw the bank vault: “Flush with cash, Obama reported spending $11.2 million on television in the state, compared with $4.8 million for
Obama’s patriotism (by Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe)
BARACK OBAMA believes his patriotism can’t be challenged. Maybe he should talk to Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry. “I am absolutely confident that during the general election that when I’m in a debate with John McCain, people are not going to be questioning my patriotism, they are going to be questioning how can you make people’s lives a little better,” declared Obama during last week’s contentious debate with Hillary Clinton. Obama wants the race for the White House to be about hope. It probably won’t be… On the same night the Democrats were debating in
Excerpts from Rev. Wright Interview With Bill Moyers [Tonight]
NEW YORK E&P has been sent by Bill Moyers’ people excerpts from his interview with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which will air [tonight] night on PBS. This is the first major Wright interview since the Obama “controversy” broke last month.
Click through for the text excerpts. No Quarter has some video.
Rev. Wright: Obama A Politician (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
I am no fan of Rev. Wright, and for the sake of the Democratic Party, I wish he would keep quiet until after November, but I agree with this [from the Bill Moyers interview tonight]: “He’s a politician, I’m a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they’re two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in
Ditto!
“She went out and recruited Barack.” (by amberglow at Corrente)
Alice Palmer and Obama’s first campaign, when he knocked out the politician who recruited and introduced him to fundraisers and others who could help him (like Ayers, etc) — “… “‘She went out and recruited Barack.’ So everything seemed set. Palmer would move to Congress and Obama would take her place in the Illinois Senate. But then Palmer lost the special congressional election. Suddenly, this well-liked community leader faced being out of office after four years in the state Legislature… Palmer finally asked Obama to halt his legislative campaign so she could run for re-election. He refused. …’” I wish they would ask him about her at a debate or even at a press conference. And what does his treatment of her say about “changing the system” and “unity”?
Let’s not forget that in that race Obama ruthlessly had Palmer’s name removed from the ballot by challenging her petition signatures. Obama supporters say that she (and the other candidates—he bumped them all off) had fake signatures, but we don’t really know that. It’s cheap to challenge and expensive to prove the challenged voters are legitimate, so we just don’t know.
Barack Obama still takes in oil money (Los Angeles Times)
Sen. Barack Obama continued accepting donations from oil company executives and employees last month even as he aired ads in which he stated he took no oil company money, his campaign finance reports show. Obama has taken at least $263,000 from oil company executives, family members and employees since entering the presidential race last year, including $46,000 last month. At least $140,000 has come in chunks of between $1,000 and $2,300, the maximum permitted under federal law.
Barack in Iraq (by Michael Crowley, The New Republic)
The truth is Obama has no secret plan for
Ruh-roh: Obama Going On Fox (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
Now whatsay the Netroots?… For the record, I support the boycott of Fox News. I think Hillary Clinton was placed in a terrible position because of the extreme bias of NBC and the unwillingness of the Left blogs to criticize the anti-Hillary bias in the Media. I also understand why Obama is dissing the Netroots now. They will never criticize him anyway. Why should he pander to them then?
Yes, at this point they’re so besotted with Kool-Aid that he can diss them at will.
McCain Vows War on Poverty, Says Nation in Recession (Bloomberg )
Republican John McCain, saying the nation is in a recession and “families are hurting,” retraced Lyndon Johnson’s steps in eastern Kentucky and pledged to mount a war on poverty different from that waged by the former Democratic president.
Is this economic compassionism?
McCain Faults Bush Response to Gulf Storm (New York Times)
Senator John McCain declared the handling of Hurricane Katrina “terrible and disgraceful,” one of his harshest assessments yet of the Bush presidency.
Flashback: As Katrina hit, McCain celebrated 69th birthday with Bush. (Think Progress)
Speaking in
McCain Wraps Up Poverty Tour With Speech At ‘Business Awards’ Banquet (Think Progress)
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is currently on his “Forgotten America” tour, talking about the need to address the places “ignored for long years by the sins of indifference and injustice.” The Washington Post writes, “In effect, McCain is launching Version 2.0 of Bush’s ‘compassionate conservative’ campaign.” Today [Thursday], McCain is speaking in Katrina-ravaged
McCain falsely claims he ‘never voted for a single earmark or pork barrel project.’ (Think Progress)
In New Orleans today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) partially blamed the poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina on “the Congress of the United States” for funding “pork barrel projects” that were “not as important as some of the projects that were needed” in New Orleans. McCain then claimed that he had “never voted for a single earmark or pork barrel project.” But, as NBC’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy points out, that isn’t true: “While it is true that McCain has never sponsored an earmark — by the strict definition of the word — he has certainly voted for bills with earmarks, including some of the specific projects he criticizes most vocally on the campaign trail.” As ThinkProgress noted earlier today, McCain has a record of making sweeping claims about earmarks that aren’t backed up by reality.
Reporters press McCain over Hagee endorsement. (Think Progress)
Yesterday, ThinkProgress highlighted a recent interview by Pastor John Hagee, in which he declared that
Well, if Obama can do it, McCain can do it. I know, I’m a right-wing racist McCain lover for saying it.
60 Minutes: Scalia On Bush v. Gore 2000: “Get Over It” (by Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars)
During an interview set to air on this Sunday’s 60 Minutes, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that people need to get over the court’s 5-4 decision to select George Bush over Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election… This is an insult to
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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
