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Election 2008

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Just Released: The War Journals Of Hillary Clinton, Vol. 1

cross-posted to jack & jill politics I owe Hillary Clinton an apology. We all do. Thank God for the Internet and bloggers like tbone, without which stories like these would never be told. Hillary is truly an American hero. An excerpt from The War Journals Of Hillary Clinton:
As bullets clawed the air around us and screams echoed down the rubble-strewn tarmac, I felt almost peaceful. It was a simple mission, they had told me – get in, shake a few hands and mouth a few platitudes, get out. Simple. Yeah. Things had started going wrong while we were still in the air and only gotten worse from there. So here we were, pinned down, choking on the acrid tang of cordite and the heady scent of human blood. The mission was even simpler now: survive. Whatever the cost, survive. There was a grunt and a clatter of equipment as Sinbad threw himself down at my side. Sweat glistened on his bare arms, and I could see tendons contracting and relaxing as he squeezed off bursts from his M14. The motion was hypnotic, like a snake about to strike. Perhaps, when all this was over- No. Concentrate. Focus on the mission. Survive. A shout from my left drew my head around. Sheryl Crow, guitar still strapped to her back, had taken cover behind a haphazard pile of decaying corpses. Her hair, once lustrous, now lank and greasy, was held back from her eyes by a dirty red headband. Her slim nostrils flared in the dirt-smeared oval of her face, seeking air free of the funeral taint shrouding the airfield. Still, I saw a fierce exultation in her expression that I knew mirrored my own. Her lithe, nimble fingers stroked the top of an M67 frag grenade, strumming a chord of impending doom. With one quick, economical movement, she plucked the pin free and sent the deadly payload sailing toward the ridge concealing our enemies. My eyes traced the arc, willing it to fly true, to rain death on- “There!” Sinbad shouted. “The convoy!” I wrenched my gaze in the direction he was pointing. The boom of the grenade registered only faintly, suddenly unimportant. Thirty yards dead ahead was the real target: the armored convoy, offering safety, shelter, survival. If we could reach it. “Follow me!” Sinbad roared, levering himself to his feet. As I prepared to follow, a high-pitched whine arrowed across my eardrums and warm, sticky rain splashed my face. I forced myself to look, already knowing what I would see. The big man lay there, crumpled, the left side of his head a nightmare maze of blood, brains and tight curls of yellowish-orange hair. Time to mourn later. Survive. ...
Continue reading the rest of this harrowing tale of Hillary, war hero, ready to lead on Day One.

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Let's Focus On Superdelegates OR Time For Some Time For Some Action!

cross-posted to jack and jill politics Angela, a frequent commenter here, suggested that we take more action. In other words, be the change we want to see. I, for one, am tired of just getting upset and writing. Throughout this campaign, I've sought to put my energy where my mouth is by phonebanking, fundraising, canvassing and communicating actively with friends and family. Here's a canvassing toolkit I put together, available for free download and reuse by Obama supporters to help them make the case. But in some ways, we are beyond that. This race must end, and it will be resolved by superdelegates. Signing that petition earlier today was a good start, but let's focus on the best targets. Let's focus on the superdelegates. They have the power to prevent this party from self-destructing. They are super for a reason. Use your super powers to save your party! I present the Super Delegate Transparency Project, a joint effort of Congresspedia and several blogs/media outlets including Open Left and Huffington Post. There are at least four things you can focus on to make a difference.
  1. Simply read the site. check it out and learn what the project is about. it's full of good information you will never get from those so-called journalists on TV
  2. Help the project. They have an entire section on how citizens can improve it. If you have just a few minutes, chip in.
  3. Write to the uncommitted superdelegates. I recommend clicking on your state or a state you have a connection to (from the main page, scroll down to Delegate Information By State). You can also get a full list of uncommitted ones here
  4. Finally I suggest writing to super delegates committed to Hillary despite the fact that Obama won their district.
An example: Yvette Clarke is a superdelegate for New York's 11th congressional district. This is Brooklyn. Obama won 56 percent of the vote in this district, yet Yvette has pledged for Hillary. I suggest a respectful letter to her asking her to reconsider her support. Be careful using this logic, however. There are plenty of superdelegates pledged to Obama despite the fact that their districts voted for Hillary. The case to be made is not simply that they should vote in lockstep with their constituents. That's too simple. It has to be a broader case about which candidate is best for the party and how the party is being damaged by the continued ugliness of the campaign. And how all this helps the GOP. Sample Letters: My advice in these letters: Try to stay positive and definitely stay respectful. Threats do not help. Some possible arguments:
  • Don't just say Obama leads in pledged delegates. The superdelegate system was created as a check on majority rule, much like the electoral college. If you're going with "Obama leads in X" make sure to include popular vote, contests won, pledged delegates, money raised and number of donors.
  • Appeal to their sense of Democratic party well-being. Obama is more capable of unifying and expanding the party
  • November competitiveness. Obama is preferred by Dems in many red states because they know Hillary will mobilize the GOP to vote against her and down-ticket Dems in states where Dems have a chance to pick up state legislative seats
  • Hillary's scorched earth campaign in which her campaign challenges not just Obama as a presidential choice, but challenges his patriotism and fitness to be commander in chief. Her dismissal of his supporters and of nearly every contest she has lost as inconsequential
  • Your own story
Now, let's go forth and change the world.

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This Is What A Real Crazy, Inflammatory Black Pastor Sounds Like

cross-posted to Jack & Jill Politics I almost have to apologize for posting this. There is little constructive here, but in light of people losing their minds over Jeremiah Wright, folks need to see the realness. James David Manning, PhD (!$@!$%) is sick and wrong and stupid. I could only watch the first two minutes. It's that "Atlah" ministries wacko, and he's what a real crazy ass black pastor sounds like.

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Baratunde Joins Day Of Blogging For Voter Justice, Asks Hillary To Step Aside

cross-posted to Daily Kos and JJP Today, I announce Jack & Jill Politics's participation in the Day of Blogging for Voter Justice and join other members of the Afrosphere in asking Senator Hillary Clinton to concede the Democratic presidential nominating contest. I ask you to join me by signing this petition. Many will find such a request presumptuous, insulting and even arrogant, but the only result I can see from her continued campaign is long term damage to the likely nominee, Barack Obama, and to the coalition that is the Democratic Party, endangering not only our chances in the presidential election this November, but also in Congressional, state and local elections across the country. There may have been a time when Senator Clinton's attacks on Senator Obama were valuable and even necessary -- to prove he had the skill to withstand them -- but that time has since passed. As the GOP becomes increasingly unified around Senator McCain, I fear that with each passing week of harsh campaigning, an election that should handily go the Democrat's way in November, looks less and less likely. Senator Obama has won more of the popular vote, more pledged delegates and more contests than Senator Clinton. He has generated more money from more contributors than any other presidential campaign. He has tapped into a pool of new voters and helped drive participation in the political process from unlikely quarters. Not only that, he has the support of Democrats in red states who may not go blue on the presidential race, but whose state legislatures just might. In so doing, he has bested one of the best political teams and families in recent American history, despite the advantages of time, money and connections afforded his opponent. Senator Obama has already won, and while it is Senator Clinton's right to continue campaigning until the convention, she (and the party she seeks to represent) would do so at great peril. Senator Clinton's lauded tenacity, a virtue to be sure, has morphed into a vice of self destruction. A partial listing
  • Her campaign injected issues of race early on and has tried desperately to undo Senator Obama's multi-ethnic appeal by, for example, diminishing his candidacy as some form of affirmative action or amplifying tensions between blacks and latinos.
  • She has played on the sympathies and fears of women voters in methods not available to Senator Obama or any other candidate for that matter.
  • She has questioned Senator Obama's fitness to be commander in chief, and her husband, a former president, has questioned his patriotism
  • She has painted as inconsequential or delusional the millions of voters who have chosen, in numbers greater than her own, to support Senator Obama
  • She has pushed the arrogant and preposterous notion that somehow she would find Senator Obama an acceptable vice president in her administration, despite his lead and despite the simultaneously contradictory belief in his unfitness to be commander in chief.
If Senator Clinton becomes the nominee, and the odds of this are quite low, she will have done so by unacceptably manipulative means. The tactics necessary to accomplish this will turn off many constituencies within the Democratic coalition, to say nothing of the independent or Republican voters who will vote in the general election for McCain or not vote at all. Because of the reasons just laid out above, many of us have said we could not support Senator Clinton in the general election (or would have to think carefully at least). This is a distasteful prospect that makes few people in this situation proud, but the position is based on an unwillingness to support a candidate who has repeatedly sewn seeds of division and mistrust among her own party's base. It is also based on the reality that for her to prevail, Senator Clinton would have to resort to machinations of an extreme nature to overpower the expressed will of voters. On the other hand, I'm beginning to see increasing numbers of Senator Clinton's supporters who say they will not support Senator Obama. This position has few, if any, legitimate arguments and is generally borne out of the very distrust and divisiveness planted and exploited by Senator Clinton's campaign. These Clinton supporters generally refuse to support Obama, not because he has engaged in gendered attacks against her, not because he has sought to diminish their votes, not because he has insulted the legitimacy of her campaign, not because he has questioned her readiness or patriotism. They refuse to support him, if any reason is given, because he is "not qualified" and "lacks experience," both ridiculous arguments constantly put forward by the Clinton campaign. A less vocal set among this group are those who see Senator Obama's success exclusively as a result of his blackness. We will destroy this party and do lasting damage to this nation if the Democratic campaign continues along its present course. Feelings are hardening on both sides; relationships are being strained, and if this goes to Denver there will not be enough time to heal the widening rift. So it is, with neither pride nor excitement, I ask Senator Clinton to step down, help unify the party and unify the country. Update @12:18pm Eastern. It's worth checking out this David Brooks column from the NY Times on what Hillary is willing to do for her five percent shot at the nomination

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The Amazing Racism of Pat Buchanan. Be Not Surprised

cross-posted to jack & jill politics Many of you have written in or posted comments about Pat Buchanan's crazy ass comments that black Americans should be grateful to white folks for bringing us (via slavery, of course) to America and Jesus and welfare. Rather than tackle this stupidness, I pass the mic to Ta-Nehisi Coates. Excerpt
There is a lot wrong here, but one central thread of errant logic undergirds it all. Buchanan, like most racists, doesn't actually believe that African-Americans are Americans. This isn't an interpretation, Buchanan's argument that white Americans, in the form of social programs, have done more for black people than any group (including presumably the entire Civil Rights Movement!) assumes that black people have never paid any taxes for those programs. He quite literally doesn't categorize black people as Americans, but useless layabouts who've never contributed anything to the country. All those charities that Buchanan lays out, presumably none of them were run by black folks. It goes without saying that Buchanan ignores Jim Crow, the epoch of lynching and housing discrimination. That's what bigots do. And Buchanan's rhetoric shouldn't make us angry. He's always been a racist. That said, it's always frustrating to see rank neanderthals, half-wits, and fools making the argument that black people should be thankful to them. Intellectually, Pat Buchanan can't carry Barack Obama's unwashed boxers--from last week. I just got done jogging down Lenox Ave and passed no less than five brothers that would smash Buchanan in any debate.
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Iraq 5 Years Later: Obama's Perspective

cross-posted to Jack & Jill Politics I just watched both of these and thought you should as well. More after the clips. On Iraq & National Security (33min)
On the cost of the war. (20min)
After watching, it's clear that these are just another set of lofty, non-specific, pretty speeches that lack substance, delivered by a Muslim terrorist who hates America and will move the White House to Africa. Thank God we have people like Hillary Clinton and John McCain who have passed the threshold of national security. Thank (muslim terrorist) God.

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