Saturday, July 19, 2008

Yet another damned New Yorker cover I visited the used bookstore nearest my apartment today. I don't go there as often as I used to. I find that their selection doesn't change much, so that the less often I go, the fresher is the selection. I whittled it down to just one book, a nonfiction book copyrighted this year on whether gay men and lesbians should try to assimilate into society or whether they should maintain their separate uniqueness. The topic reminds me of the conflicting views of Martin Luther King Jr. (assimilate) and Malcolm X (maintain separate uniqueness) and the "good" X-Men (assimilate) and the "bad" X-Men (maintain separate uniqueness). As you might guess, I lean toward the view of Malcolm X and the "bad" X-Men. Gay movement founder Harry Hay's essay "A Separate People Whose Time Has Come," in which the late Hay maintains that gay men aren't just straight men who like their pussy on a stick (I wildly paraphrase), but have a uniqueness, qualities and talents and abilities of their own, is one of my favorite writings of the gay movement, and as I read it and loved that essay in my twenties, it's had a significant influence on my outlook on the issue. Although I wholeheartedly support the legalization of same-sex marriage, which is an equal-rights and a civil-rights issue, when I see gay men and lesbians apparently trying to be just like straight people, I cringe. It's like the wizards and witches of the world of Harry Potter trying to be just like the muggles: Why? But, as I commonly do, I digress... When I took my overpriced book (it was priced at $10 but probably should have been priced at no more than $5) to the counter, the woman who rang me up (she and her husband own the store) showed me a copy of the New Yorker magazine whose cover is shown above. She acted as though she was just sharing something funny or interesting with me, not as though she had an agenda in showing it to me. My guess is that she's been showing the magazine to at least every other customer. "Yes, we're all pretty familiar with the New Yorker these days," I quipped. But apparently that wasn't enough. It wasn't bad enough that the owner of the used bookstore, by showing me the cartoon, was basically telling me, "Don't shop amazon.com. Shopping amazon.com is evil"; when I apparently didn't react to the cartoon in the way she apparently believed I should react -- I guess that I was supposed to have voiced my utter loathing for those who would even think of purchasing a book via amazon.com -- she began to explain the cartoon to me, began to explain that the woman was receiving her package from amazon.com just as the owner of the brick-and-mortar bookstore next door was entering his bookstore. "Yeah, I get it," I said of the magazine cover, realizing that I probably had sounded rude, but I hadn't intended to; it's that it's a fairly simple cartoon that didn't need explanation. "Lots of businesses have been hurt by the Internet," I then remarked. I guess that if she was about to state the obvious, then I could state the obvious, too. And if she was going to lecture me indirectly, I was going to indirectly lecture her right back. What I said to her, in effect, was: "Times change. You're not the only one who has been affected by changing times. Get over it."  The interaction left me thinking that it's rather pathetic when people resist change. The horse and buggy fell wayside to the gasoline-engine automobile. The gasoline-engine automobile is going to fall wayside to the electric automobile, although the many subsidiaries of the oily BushCheneyCorp (which includes not just Dick Cheney's Halliburton but also all of the oil corporations and the gasoline-engine automobile manufacturing corporations) have been fighting the electric automobile tooth and nail because their oily profits are much more important to them than is even the fate of the entire fucking planet. I can tell you why amazon.com is beating used bookstores. I remember when used books used to cost no more than $1. I remember when used bookstores would charge only 25 cents to 50 cents for a paperback book and only 50 cents to a dollar for a hardback book. I remember when paying even $5 for a hardback book at a used bookstore was paying a lot of money for a used book. At the bookstore I went to day, you'd be lucky to find a typical used paperback book for less than $5. And the used bookstore I visited today didn't have a single fucking book by the prominent novelist Hermann Hesse, when I'd gone to the bookstore primarily on the lookout for a Hesse novel or two. He's written so many novels that at least one of his novels should have been on the shelf. I would have no problem finding every fucking novel that Hesse has written on amazon.com, and not only that, but I could get a brand-new copy of a Hesse novel on amazon.com for no more than a few dollars more than what the used bookstore would have charged me for a used copy -- had they even had a single fucking copy of a Hesse novel. And I wouldn't condescendingly have been lectured at or scolded when I checked out at amazon.com. I wouldn't have been shown a cartoon on the evils of overpriced used bookstores that don't have the books you're looking for -- and then been further insulted by having had the cartoon explained to me.   And maybe those who actually purchase books at the woman's used bookstore don't really need to be shown that cartoon. Duh. So now I'm even less likely to return to my neighborhood used bookstore than I was before I visited it today. I mean, let's recap: The used bookstore didn't have a single book by the prominent author whose novels I was looking for The bookstore's prices are exhorbitant The bookstore owner insulted me by first basically telling me where I may and may not shop, and then compounded the insult by beginning to explain a simple cartoon to me Strike one, strike two, strike three. If this used bookstore goes under, yeah, it's all amazon.com's fault. Anyway, times change. We adapt or we go the way of the dinosaurs. I read that the British empire fell because it was reluctant to let go of coal when the gasoline engine started to take off -- and that the American empire, if it does not let go of the gasoline engine and adapt to and adopt cleaner, more efficient energy sources, is in danger of going the way of the British empire. I remember, when I was earning my fairly worthless journalism degree in the late 1980s, being taught that newspapers were secure for decades to come! Less than 20 years later, newspapers are folding left and right; the Internet is killing them, not just in offering free news content, but in advertising revenue. Who's going to buy a classified ad in a newspaper when you can post a classified ad for free on craigslist or elsewhere on the Internet? In my days of selecting Associated Press and United Press International wire stories for newspaper publication in the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, never did we newspaper editors believe that one day in the not-so-distant future, news consumers wouldn't need us "gatekeepers" to select the news for them, but would be able to select and read wire stories on their own via this thing called the "Internet." The Internet isn't killing only used bookstores and newspapers. It's killing adult bookstores, too, by offering porn (even free porn) at our fingertips and by allowing us to discreetly buy things that we might be too embarrassed to buy at a brick-and-mortar store. I hardly ever buy CDs anymore, now that I download music to my MP3 player; my guess is that the Internet is killing record and CD stores, too. And my guess is that e-mail has cost the U.S. Postal Service a lot of revenue. (I'm just waiting for the lecture on the evils of e-mail from my postal carrier...) And my guess is that one day even the book printed on paper will fall to the wayside to e-books, spelling the doom for even amazon.com. The trees will be happy, but amazon.com won't. And I suppose that this change to paperless print media eventually will mean no more New Yorker covers. That's change that I could live with. 1:59:54 PM    Comments []

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Newsweek.com Uh, this is the least of our problems. Duh. Fiddling while the American empire burns Future first lady Michelle Obama took heat from jingoist Amerifascists (a.k.a. Repugnicans) for having stated in February that she finally was proud of her nation. I envy her; I’m still waiting for the day when I can be proud of my nation. Where to begin? First there has been the New Yorker magazine cover flap. The political cartoon of Michelle and Barack Obama that graces the cover of the July 21 issue created a tempest in a teacup. My fellow Americans are obsessed with such things as the presence or absence of U.S. flag lapel pins, but they routinely shit and piss all over the First Amendment. The First Amendment, you see, is way too sacrosanct to ever actually be exercised. We must keep it hermetically sealed behind glass, protected by armed guards. Maybe, just maybe, we can let members of the public glimpse it now and then. Maybe. The New Yorker cartoon was nothing. If there is anything wrong with the cartoon, it’s that it’s not all that funny. Or fresh – the xenophobic, fear-mongering “B. Hussein Obama is a Muslim” myth, propagated by wingnuts and the wingnut propaganda machine, has been circulating among mouth-breathing red-staters (“red-stater,” by the way, to me is more of a state of mind than one’s geographical location) for some time now. Yawn. Leftist editorialist and political cartoonist Ted Rall’s Obama-related ’toons are much fresher and funnier. Here are a couple of them: Anyway, to hear even left-wingers slam The New Yorker as though the First Amendment doesn't cover something that someone somewhere might find offensive (we Americans must not be offended!) is disturbing. Of all people, lefties should value free speech. And rather than ask why The New Yorker ran the gasp!-politically-incorrect ’toon on its cover, we should ask why it’s apparently so damned horrible to be a Muslim in the United States anyway. We are, after all, supposed to be the “melting pot,” the Land o’ Tolerance where there is both freedom of religion and separation of church and state, which means that not only is someone free to be a Muslim (remember FreedomTM?), but that we’re not supposed to care all that much what our political candidates believe in, as long as they don’t intend to govern as theocrats. By slamming The New Yorker for its July 21 cover aren’t we saying, indirectly, that yes, there is something wrong with being a Muslim? (Even Barack Obama, by distancing himself from the myth that he's a Muslim, contributes to the widespread belief among Americans that there's something wrong with being a Muslim. Can't he say, "No, I'm not a Muslim -- not that there's anything wrong with that!"?) And then, even though the North Pole is melting, we're on the verge of another great depression, and the Vietraq War rages on, we make a big to-do over the fact that Jesse Jackson not only said that he'd like to cut Barack Obama's balls off (someone already did, Jesse, someone already did), but that Jackson also uttered the word “nigger.” Horrors! Here’s the deal: Jesse Jackson is black. If he wishes to use the word “nigger” -- especially when it's pretty fucking clear that he doesn't hate black people -- he may do so. (Similarly, as a gay man, if I wish to use "faggot" or "queer," I may do so.) There’s a big fucking difference between a skinhead with a baseball bat using the term “nigger” and someone like Jesse Jackson using the word “nigger.” So let’s please not act as though context doesn’t matter. Let’s please not be that fucking stupid. Thank you. Not only is Jesse Jackson black, but it’s his First Amendment right to use the word “nigger” if he wishes to do so. Just as it is mine. (I refuse to write “the n-word.” And I’m white.) With global warming, with a record federal budget deficit and a national economy in ruins, with baby boomers poised to suck up every last resource and to leave nothing for mine and future generations of Americans, with Middle Easterners having good reason to hate the United States for generations to come, and with an overall very bleak future for the United States of America, I think that we have a lot bigger fish to fry than The New Yorker's "offensive" cartoon or Jesse Jackson’s use of a politically incorrect racial epithet. “I … pray that we, as a nation, can move on to address the real issues that affect the American people," Jackson said in the aftermath of N-word-gate. Keep praying, Jesse, keep praying. I’m praying with you. P.S. This 'toon of Ted Rall's has little to nothing to do with this topic, but I think it's one of his funniest in a long time: 8:16:24 PM    Comments []

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Introducing the Obama campaign's new mascot: The pandering panda! Obama's presidential pandering increasing OK, I think it's official now: I no longer can support Barack Obama without holding my nose. Or at least without holding one nostril shut. I don't expect a "perfect" presidential candidate, one whose every public utterance is in line with my own belief system, but when in the fuck is enough enough? I received an e-mail a while back that the local Obama campaign wanted folks to volunteer at an Obama campaign booth at Sacramento's recent gay pride gathering. The thought of volunteering quickly dissipated when I envisioned myself trying to explain to visitors to the booth why, exactly, they should wholeheartedly support Obama when his public position on same-sex marriage is that the legality of same-sex marriage should be left up to each state. Gee, why don't we just let each state decide whether or not to have slavery? Or to let non-whites vote? Or hell, to let women vote? Or to decide whether or not to allow mixed-raced couples to marry? (You get the idea...) OK, so that I could not, in good conscience, volunteer at a candidate's booth probably isn't such a great thing. But then we recently had Obama pandering to the war-and-terrorists, proclaiming that Osama bin Laden must not be made into a martyr. Well, before we could make him into a martyr, we'd have to, um, find him first, wouldn't we? But that's not the point. The point is that we already have Repugnican presidential wannabe John Fossil Fool McCain singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." More than five years into the Vietraq War, do we really need Barack Obama to join in the chorus? Please put what I am sure is your huge dick (and impressive balls) back into your pants, Barack. The stupid white male act doesn't suit you. And now we have Obama pandering to Billary Cunton, who, like Freddy or Jason, just won't go the fuck away. Now we have Billary asking us to pay off her multi-million-dollar gambling debts for her. Gambling debts? you ask. Yes. Billary gambled in October 2002 that her vote in the U.S. Senate for the unelected Bush regime's Vietraq War would help her politically. It did not. More recently, Billary gambled upon returning to the White House, which she clearly misses dearly. She lost that gamble, too (in no small part because of the gamble she'd lost in October 2002), although it took her months to finally fucking admit it. But now, Billary wants us to bail her out. Reports The Associated Press today: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is sharing one his most valuable assets -- his top fundraisers -- with former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to help her pay off her debt, the latest effort to heal the wounds of a bruising primary campaign. Obama [yesterday] asked his finance team to help Clinton pay back at least $10 million from her failed presidential campaign, setting the stage for joint appearances by the two former rivals later in the week. In a teleconference with his top fundraisers, Obama asked them to do what they could to help Clinton. "What I said was to my large donors who are in a position to write large checks, to help Senator Clinton retire her debt, or at least a portion of it. And I think they're going to be those who are willing to do so," Obama told reporters at a news conference in Chicago. A large chunk of Obama's cash has come from small donors, but he said he was not making the same appeal to them. "I'm not going to be individually contacting $15 donors, because frankly, it probably wouldn't be that effective in terms of making a big dent in Senator Clinton's debt," Obama said. Obama's green light to his money bundlers came before he and Clinton were scheduled to meet in Washington [tomorrow] with some of her top fundraisers in a show of unity after their bruising contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. On Friday, the two planned to campaign together in New Hampshire. Obama clinched the nomination earlier this month; Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed him. The former first lady and New York senator reported a $22.5 million debt at the end of May, more than half of which was a personal loan to her presidential campaign. Clinton, in a call to her top fundraisers last week, said she would concentrate on paying off money owed to vendors, not her personal loans. She made the same pitch in a fundraising e-mail to supporters [today], saying she wouldn't use their money to repay herself. "As you know, I had to loan money to my campaign at critical moments," Clinton wrote. "I'm not asking anyone's help paying that back. That was my investment and my commitment because I believe so deeply in our cause." ... In urging his top fundraisers to help Clinton, Obama was counting on them to seek out their pool of donors to raise the money in large increments. Donors who have not contributed to Clinton's campaign could give up to $2,300 to help her pay off her debts. It remained to be seen whether Obama would make a similar appeal to his Internet donors, a vast network of small-dollar contributors who helped Obama shatter fundraising records during the primary contests. As of the end of May, Obama had raised more than $287 million. Clinton donors had been making a clear case to Obama that he needed to use his fundraising resources to help her get out of the red. Her national finance co-chair, Hassan Nemazee, told The Associated Press last week that Clinton would be freer to campaign for Obama and raise money for him if she did not have to concentrate on retiring her debt. Moreover, Nemazee said, it would be easier for Clinton fundraisers who wanted to help Obama to be able to tell former Clinton donors, "Look what Senator Obama has done for Senator Clinton." ... Jesus Fuck. Can you say "extortion"? Billary Cunton is a typical baby boomer: She gambled for the prize of incredible political power, lost her gamble, and now she expects others to cover the cost of her gamble. Her baby boomerian sense of entitlement is stunning. "As you know, I had to loan money to my campaign at critical moments," Clinton wrote in her e-mail. "I'm not asking anyone's help paying that back. That was my investment and my commitment because I believe so deeply in our cause." Bullshit. Cunton had to loan her campaign money because she is so disliked by so many Democrats and Democratic-leaners that Obama outraised her ridiculously -- people voted with their dollars -- and because she refused to acknowledge the reality that all along the people wanted Obama, not her. That's why she racked up a huge campaign debt -- her incredible lust for power, no matter what the consequences to her own party and to her own nation, and her incredibly egotistical denial that she is so widely unpopular -- not because she "[believes] so deeply in our cause." The only cause that Billary Cunton believes in is Billary Cunton. You know, if paying Billary Cunton off really would make her go the fuck away already, I'd say, Hell yes, let's pay the bitch off. But who in the hell really thinks that she'll ever go away? I had thought that we finally exorcised the Billary demon when earlier this month Obama finally won the number of delegates that he needs to secure the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. I had thought that Obama dropped that house on Billary then. But I hear the rhymes-with-witch Cunton still cackling.  Team Cunton claims that "Clinton would be freer to campaign for Obama and raise money for him if she did not have to concentrate on retiring her debt"? Gee, I'm thinking that Obama would be freer to campaign for himself and to raise money for his campaign for the White House if he didn't have to concentrate on badgering his donors to bail out the extorting sore loser Billary Cunton. I have supported Barack Obama in no small part so that we finally can be done with the Cuntonistas, a.k.a. the DINOs (Democrats in name only). Now here he is helping to keep Billary Cunton's colossal ego in the spotlight even though the curtain already fell on her. Gee, thanks a million, Barack!  ObamaPanderFest 2008 apparently is just beginning, though, because today Obama assured us that he's for the execution of those who rape children. Remarking on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the court found that executing those who rape (but don't kill) a child is unconstitutional, Obama said: "I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes. I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution." The U.S. Supreme Court disagrees with Barack "States' Rights!" Obama, 5-4; the court ruled that executing an individual for rape (and not murder), even for the rape of a child, violates the Constitution's ban against cruel and unusual punishment.  I certainly don't disagree that the rape of a child -- or that the rape of anyone of any age -- is heinous. But to kill someone because killing (or, in this case, harming but not killing) people is wrong -- gee, what's wrong with that "logic"? No one in his or her right mind could support the death penalty. And whom would Jesus execute? Jesus stated that the Old Testament "an eye for an eye" was no longer valid law. Like the U.S. Supreme Court, Jesus overturned "an eye for an eye" for "turn the other cheek." (Look it up.) Jesus -- himself a victim of the death penalty -- inarguably opposed it (duh). Yet Barack Obama claims to be a Christian, and a Christian, as I understand it, is one who actually follows the teachings of Jesus Christ.   Someone rapes a child? Lock him (or her -- let's be equal opportunist) up for life so that he (or she) no longer can hurt anyone else. Duh. We can imprison someone for life, and the legal costs of executing someone exceed the costs of keeping someone alive in prison for life. And the rape of children, while certainly a visceral issue, hardly is the United States of America's most pressing issue. Global warming, anyone? A U.S. poverty rate that has gone up every year since the Bush regime stole office in late 2000, anyone? The neverending Vietraq War, anyone? The record federal budget deficit, anyone? Aging baby boomers who are going to swallow up every last penny of Social Security and Medicare, anyone? Hello!? Hellooooo?!?!? Guess how many child rapists the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling applies to? A whopping two. Notes The Associated Press: "The ruling spares the only people in the U.S. under sentence of death for that crime: two Louisiana men convicted of raping girls 5 and 8." I fully expect the Repugnicans to exploit issues that are visceral but that don't affect most of us Americans on a daily basis, such as abortion and same-sex marriage and the rape of children, to distract American voters from the nation's real problems. And I understand that Barck Obama doesn't want to get Michael Dukakissed. (Notes the AP: "In 1988, a question about rape and capital punishment tripped up Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. Dukakis was asked during a nationally televised debate with Republican George H. W. Bush whether he'd still oppose the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. His unemotional, dispassionate answer was ridiculed, and gave Republicans more material to paint him as an emotionless liberal." The AP also helpfully notes, "Obama has two daughters, ages 7 and 9.") But did Obama really need to comment on the Supreme Court's decision? If so, did he really need to comment on it like he did? Barack Obama promised us, over and over and over again, that with him it would no longer be politics as usual. Obama, with his increasing pandering, has broken that promise. (Here's a promise that I won't break: If I receive a single e-mail from the Obama campaign asking me to help Billary Cunton out with her campaign debt, I won't give the Obama campaign another fucking penny.) 8:35:14 PM    Comments []

Monday, June 09, 2008

Leftist editorialist and editorial cartoonist Ted Rall just won't let us forget that Barack Obama isn't ideologically pure. (Maybe Rall is rooting for Cynthia McKinney for president...) Still, I do like this 'toon of Rall's because it's fucking funny, even though comparing Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Jesus Christ is a bit hyper-hyperbolic even for an editorial 'toonist, and I think that it's way premature to suggest that Obama just might be in league with the Devil... (Besides, the Devil endorsed Billary Cunton, not Barack Obama. By the way, the quote of Jesus' that Rall refers to is found at Matthew 19:24, wherein Jesus states, "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." That's not a quote of Jesus' that you hear the Repugnicans repeat much...) Nw what? So I'm still deciding how much more I want to do for Barack Obama's campaign for the White House. First and foremost, I wanted DINO (Democrat in name only) Billary Cunton knocked out of the race. It was like pulling fucking teeth, but fucking finally we can say: Mission accomplished! Toward accomplishing that mission, I gave Obama some $$$, earned him several supporters (who might otherwise have stupidly -- OK, I'll be diplomatic for fucking once and say misguidedly -- supported Cunton) by word of mouth (I'm a little bit of an opinion leader in my small circle of associates), and I'd like to think that my blog earned Obama at least a few more supporters than he'd otherwise have had. Where Billary is concerned, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm fine with a woman as president of the United States of America. Just not the pro-Vietraq War Repugnican Lite Billary Cunton. Give me a strong woman as president -- not a woman who, thinking that she has to out-testosterone the stupid white men, just acts like a cunt. Give me a strong woman like my Sen. Barbara Boxer, who got to where she is not because of whom she is married to, but who got there on her own, and who had the courage to vote against the Vietraq War and who was the only U.S. senator who had the courage to speak out against the stolen presidential vote in Ohio in 2004 (and who recently led an effort in the Senate to get the United States on board with slowing down global warming). But Barbara Boxer didn't run -- Billary Cunton did. To see Billary and her supporters act as though what's between one's legs is more important than the principles for which she or he stands is nauseating -- and it's reverse sexism. Yes, the United States could use a woman as president; about the last thing the United States needs, however, is President Billary Cunton. Anyway, now that Obama finally dropped the house on Billary and possesses the ruby slippers, I need to decide how much more I'm going to do for the Obama campaign.  There is no question that Obama is going to win my state of California, and it will be winner takes all in November, so there is nothing to fight for here in California. I guess we'll see how the polling match-ups between Obama and Repugnican John McCain look over the next few weeks. Recent national polls have Obama beating McCain by as many as six percentage points. I suppose that although Obama has sewn up California already, if it appears as though fossil fool McCain has a real chance at the White House, I'll do what I can for Obama's national campaign, even if it means just giving $$$. But I can't imagine the general election being even close. McCain is using the BushCheneyCorp themes of war! and terror! that barely fucking worked in BushCheneyCorp's "re"-election campaign of 2004 (although the BushCheneyCorp fuckers called 2004's election results a "mandate," a la 1984, in fact the Bush regime received only 50.7 percent of the popular vote to John Kerry and John Edwards' 48.3 percent -- even with the Repugnicans' election fraud at least in Ohio). The Obama camp's frequent claim that President Fossil Fool McCain would represent a third BushCheneyCorp term is not only accurate, but it's going to stick. McCain is the quintessential stupid white man in a nation that has just been ransacked by stupid white men, and in a youth-worshipping culture, the septuagenerian McCainasaurus is going to do about as well as the crusty and musty Repugnican Bob Dole did against Bill Clinton in 1996. McCain should be toast.    In the meantime, leftists are going to continue to point out how ideologically impure Barack Obama is. It is true that Obama is not a radical leftist's wet dream, although the wingnuts claim otherwise. Obama, among other things, does not support legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, but states that each of the states should decide whether to have legalized same-sex marriage. "States' rights" is an argument usually used by the wingnuts to justify their crimes against humanity, isn't it? And Obama did sell his own former pastor down the river when his former pastor's past words -- most of which I agree with -- rattled overcomfortable whites. But, unlike Billary, Obama wasn't singing along with McCain, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!" And Obama wasn't cozying up to the mouth-breathing gun nuts like the booze-tossing Billary was, claiming that anyone who can read the big words is an "elitist."  The choice between Billary and Obama was clear, and the better of the two candidates emerged as the victor.  If you are going to be ideologically pure in your campaign for the White House, if you are going to say whatever you believe, regardless of how the voters are going to take it, then you're going to be about as successful as was Democrat Dennis Kucinich in his quest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. In other words: Good. Luck. With. That. As Jack Nicholson might tell the American electorate: You can't fucking handle the fucking truth. Let's please not blame Barack Obama for that fact. Let's please blame the American electorate for that sad fucking fact. As far as I can tell, Obama has been doing what he has had to do in order to beat Billary Cunton yet still win the Democratic presidential nomination. If he hadn't "sold out," as smug leftists might so casually accuse him of having done, what would the alternative have been? (A: Democratic presidential nominee Billary Cunton.) So it would be nice if the ideologically pure talking heads would put down their lattes for a fucking moment and actually lift a finger to help their nation by helping the best viable candidate get into the White House, recognizing that politics is a dirty business that is about getting as much as you can, and that in politics it's exceedingly rare that you get all that you want. From what I can tell, Barack Obama is the best that we can do for November 2008, and our choice is to do the best that we can do or to sit on our latte-sipping asses and do nothing, claiming that we are too ideologically pure to get our immaculate hands dirty in the messy reality of politics. 7:43:35 PM    Comments []

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Above: This is Muriel Strand, for whom I voted for mayor of Sacramento yesterday. (The whiskers are not a PhotoShop job.) "Why am I running [for mayor]?" Strand asks on her blog. "Because I want Sacramento's sustainable future at the top of the public agenda. After peak oil and climate change, I want a livable future city. Am I qualified? Yes. I have been reading, studying and thinking about sustainability for three decades. Why should you hire me to be mayor? So I can facilitate our creation of our sustainable future amid an uncertain and unsustainable present." Below: Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo, who is seeking her third term, talks today about the probability of a mayoral runoff election in November, as does her opponent, Kevin Johnson. Neither Fargo nor Johnson received 50 percent of the vote in the primary election yesterday, although Johnson, with his NBA celebrity status and much larger campaign war chest, won 47 percent of the vote to Fargo's 40 percent in the initial vote tallies. Thousands of mail-in ballots remain to be tallied, but neither candidate is expected to reach 50 percent when the vote counting has officially ended, which would force a November runoff.   Associated Press photos Why I voted for the bearded chicken lady The race for mayor of Sacramento, at least superficially, appears a lot like the finally-over race between Billary Cunton and Barack Obama: The top two contenders for Sacramento mayor are incumbent Heather Fargo, a 55-year-old white woman who has been mayor since 2001, and Kevin Johnson, a 42-year-old black man who is former NBA basketball player who was born and raised in Sacramento and who is new to seeking elected office. (Billary is 60 years old and Obama is 46.) Fargo is widely considered to be competent, if not exactly exciting, and has enjoyed fairly solid Democratic support. She won 60 percent of the vote in the last mayoral election in 2004. However, there is, I think, the sense that she’s a bit establishmentarian, a la Billary Cunton, and I surmise that the current anti-establishmentarian mood has harmed Fargo, fairly or unfairly, and that Johnson, intentionally or not, has been riding the Obama wave o’ hope and change (or at least promised change). Fargo seems to be relying on experience, and Johnson, on the other hand, seems to be relying on image. He seems to be more of a brand name than to possess any substance, and when pressed on the issue of his lack of substance, he remarks that well, he has leadership ability, and leaders lead and inspire – they don’t get all mired in substance. That might be true for a governor or for a president, but I’m thinking that’s not so true for a mayor. Yesterday I wasn’t comfortable voting in the primary election for either Fargo or Johnson. I’m anti-establishmentarian, but I’m not convinced that we need to give Fargo the boot. And I couldn’t vote for Johnson, whose mayoral campaign thus far reminds me a lot of Repugnican Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign for the California governorship in 2003’s Repugnican-orchestrated gubernatorial recall election: Schwarzy was quite vague as to what he’d actually try to accomplish as governor and rather than talk about substance, he was out to create an image, was out to make you feel a certain way about him much more than he was out to appeal to your intellect. It’s little different from how the corporations want to create feelings and images about their products rather than give you any actual useful factual information about them. And also like Schwarzy, Johnson seems to have wanted to benefit from a rather short campaign season. One can dodge substantive inquiries for a short period of time, but such evasion becomes much more difficult over a protracted campaign season. (Speaking of protracted campaign seasons, I feel that we all know Barack Obama and Billary Cunton more than we probably ever wanted to.) And last but certainly not least, I am very, very leery of former jocks becoming mayors or governors or presidents. It seems to me that we need geeks, not jocks, in these posts. The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento’s largest newspaper (well, OK, Sacramento’s only newspaper, really), in an editorial refused to endorse either Johnson or Fargo for yesterday's mayoral primary election, but urged its readers to vote for one of the other five mayoral candidates (none of whom ever had a chance of winning, the Bee acknowledged) in order to deny either Fargo or Johnson the 50-percent-plus of the vote required in order to avoid a runoff election in November. The Bee editorialized: ...Voters need this race to run until November. Johnson, making his first run for office, has too many things to answer. Fargo, seeking an unprecedented third term as mayor, has too much to answer for…. A leader is as a leader does. In the months since he entered the race, Johnson has faced questions about his conduct and character, in both his private and public life. He has not responded well to this challenge. In general, he has been defensive and reluctant to give straightforward answers to straightforward questions. That tendency would cripple him in a public office such as mayor. Johnson has inaccurately characterized an ongoing federal investigation of his St. HOPE organization as an "audit." His vision of Sacramento as another Phoenix is unsettling at best. And the revelation that Johnson's personal attorney investigated an allegation that he inappropriately touched a teenage student at Sacramento Charter High School raises serious questions about his judgment. Johnson clearly loves Sacramento. He has demonstrated courage in his efforts to remake Sacramento High and Oak Park. He still has the potential to lead. But what good is potential if it is tarnished by questions of character and judgment? By November, the investigation of St. HOPE will be over, and Johnson will have had more time to learn how to conduct himself in the public arena. Maybe then his potential will shine brightly again, but voters shouldn't take a chance on that now. Fargo, the candidate of experience, also has diminished her claim on voters. The campaign has revealed that she is out of touch with the disturbing rise of Sacramento's crime rate during her time in office. It has shown her to be indifferent to the question of a new arena for the Kings – even as others were moving toward a potential solution. She has mischaracterized a poll on her public approval and made misstatements about Johnson's tax liabilities. Fargo's campaign also raises questions about her judgment and character. She has refused to disavow a sleazy website and mailer put out in independent support of her candidacy. Worse, she has called on the chief of police to reopen a criminal investigation of the allegation against Johnson. That tactic smacks of a gross misuse of the power of her office for political ends. Fargo can point to accomplishments as mayor. Downtown and midtown have improved during her time in office. Her record on flood control is good, if imperfect. She knows city government inside and out. No one can match her experience. But what value does that experience have if she is out of touch, disengaged, misinformed and willing to allow others to campaign for her from the gutter? Neither her record nor her campaign demonstrates convincingly that she has earned a third term as mayor. By November, perhaps she will have disavowed her scurrilous supporters and more clearly articulated why she merits a third term. In that case, voters may have reason to bestow that historic honor on her. But not now. Now, the best thing voters can do is to stall for time. That means voting for someone other than Heather Fargo or Kevin Johnson in hopes that the picture is clearer by November…. When I read that editorial, I agreed; we need more time to decide whether we should stick with Fargo, who seems to have sunk to Billary-Cunton-level win-at-all-costs campaign tactics, or whether we should go for fresh blood, but Johnson is, as you can gather from the Bee’s editorial above, well, um, rather scandalous, and we need to learn more about these scandals. Maybe by November his name will be cleared; maybe it won’t. So, taking the Bee’s advice, because I also think that Fargo and Johnson should have to work harder and longer than they have thus far, I looked at the other mayoral candidates’ statements on the Bee’s website and visited the candidate’s websites. And from my rather quick Internet research I picked the candidate I truly most would want to be mayor, if he or she actually had a chance. It was a no-brainer: I picked the bearded chicken lady. The bearded chicken lady is Muriel Strand, a 53-year-old environmentalist and sustainability advocate. (She’s a pagan and a Quaker, too, I read on the 'Net, and that makes her all the more cool.) In a profile of her, the Bee quoted Strand has having said, "[We] need to focus on the long-term future. The difference between where we are now and where we need to be is so huge and so fundamental, if we don't get a fix on where we're going, I'm afraid we're going to get lost" and "This could be Eden if we have the sense enough to be in right relationship.” The Bee notes that under Strand’s vision, “There would be no cars, no excess, no violence. The [eco-]village would meet its needs simply and independently. Eventually, all the world's inhabitants will live a life of concord and respect.” That sounds good to me; I’m a Green Party member at heart, although for practical political purposes I’m a registered Democrat,* and of all of the mayoral candidates', Strand's philosophy seems to most closely match the Green Party's philosopy. You certainly don’t hear Fargo or Johnson talking like Strand does. To them, “progress” means building more buildings in and attracting more residents to the Sacramento region (“growth” is all-important, you know), despite the long-term consequences of overbuilding and overpopulation to the environment and to quality of life. I (lovingly) call Strand the “bearded chicken lady” because she believes that Sacramentans should be able to keep chickens and other livestock (within reason) and I can't say that I disagree with that, although as an apartment dweller I don't have a yard. And regarding her she-goatee, she wrote an entire essay on this topic in which she wrote: ...So I decided to go natural and let my chin look the way it was genetically designed to look. Now, in America this is a radical decision, as most men have been imprinted with [images of] Playboy bunnies. So I can't say I'm really all that surprised at the number of people online who are more worried about my chin than about global climate change, nuclear winter or the mortgage market depression. It's a good thing [that] evolution is around to separate stupid people from the ones who have the sense to focus on actual survival issues. One guy e-mailed me about his emotional upset that I didn't look like a girl should. I pointed out that when guys shave they are making their faces look like girls' faces. 'Nuff said. Actually, though, there are probably bald guys out there who would pay big bucks to transplant my whiskers to their domes. But I can't be bought. I've never met Muriel Strand, but I like her. And although most people would dismiss her as a kook (most people call overpopulation and overdevelopment "progress"), my intuition tells me that she'd probably actually make the best mayor.   But we're going to get Fargo or Johnson.   Strand, you see, received just less than 3 percent of the vote yesterday; of the seven mayoral candidates on the ballot, she came in at fifth place. But Strand and the other four snowball's-chance-in-hell mayoral candidates received, in all, more than 13 percent of the votes that were cast for mayor, denying both Johnson and Fargo the 50-percent-plus that they'd have needed to avoid a runoff in November. Johnson got 47 percent and Fargo 40 percent yesterday, and although thousands of mail-in ballots are still being counted, it seems unlikely that even Johnson will reach 50 percent, which means that the runoff election that the Bee (and I) wanted to see in November most likely will happen.   I'd like to think that if nothing else, my vote for Muriel Strand, whose she-beard and whose idea that we should be able to keep a chicken or two I'm perfectly OK with, at least helped to prevent Kevin Johnson's premature coronation.**   *I believe that it is easier to continue to (try to) drag the Democratic Party, kicking and screaming, further and further to the left than it is to build up the Green Party to a party that can actually win big elections. (In other words, it's easier to renovate an old house than it is to build a new one from scratch.) The de-Clintonization of the Democratic Party began in 2003, I think, with Howard Dean's campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, and ended yesterday with Billary Cunton's final defeat in the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.   **If I had to pick between only Johnson and Fargo today, I'd pick Fargo. 9:18:02 PM    Comments []

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Associated Press and AFP photos Misguided Billary Cunton supporters (that's redundant...) like these, photographed in Florida earlier this month, plan to disrupt this weekend's meeting of the national Democratic Party's rules committee to determine what should be done with Florida's and Michigan's delegates when there isn't even anything to fucking discuss: Michigan and Florida were fucking warned before they decided to hold their presidential primary elections too early that if they did so they would be stripped of their delegates to this summer's Democratic National Convention, and even discussing the matter any further will only encourage other states also to give the national party the middle finger, weakening the national party's authority. Reason No. 666 why Billary's still a cunt This is fucking priceless: Billary Cunton has been comparing Florida 2008 to Florida 2000, likening the fact that Florida was stripped of its delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention because Florida's stupid Democratic Party officials stupidly held their presidential primary election too early, in defiance of the national party, to the fact that the Repugnicans stole the presidential election in Florida in 2000. Her comparison, like her campaign and her character, is shit. But here is an oranges-to-oranges comparison of Florida 2008 to Florida 2000: It was in late 2000 that Repugnican operatives acted as shock troops at ballot-counting sites in Florida in order to help steal the White House for George W. Bush. Reported Salon.com at that dark time in our nation's too-recent history: ...GOP protesters in Florida have not just limited their actions to the streets, but have stormed the offices where ballots are being counted. As Broward County election officials counted hundreds of new ballots for Al Gore, the GOP unleashed its fury on a weary canvassing board there. One Republican observer threw a fit during the proceedings in the Broward County Courthouse and had to be removed. Meanwhile, a Republican on the board appeared to be deliberately slowing down the recount process by devoting excessive attention to each ballot. The protest and delay tactics all seem part of a GOP strategy to sabotage the Florida recount, even though the hand count was sanctioned by the Florida Supreme Court. And the strategy is working. Intimidated by protests which threatened to turn into a riot, the election commission in Miami-Dade County cravenly halted its recount... This time, it is Billary Cunton's supporters who plan to act as shock troops in order to get their way. Because the facts and fairness aren't on their side, they are hoping, just as the Repugnican thugs did in late 2000, to get their way not because they are right, but because they throw the loudest tantrum. Reports The Associated Press today: Washington -- The Democratic presidential race is heading into a fractious end game as supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton mobilize for a protest Saturday to demand that the party count two outlawed primaries that favored her. Protesters planned to rally outside the Washington hotel where the party's rules committee will tackle the vexing question of how to punish Michigan and Florida without completely disenfranchising Democratic primary voters from those states. At least several busloads of Clinton supporters were anticipated from Florida and perhaps scores of people from Michigan as well as demonstrators from various parts of the country. Barack Obama's campaign discouraged a counterprotest, although his supporters vied with Clinton backers for the limited public seats inside the meeting. Among the scheduled speakers at the rally are Clinton fundraiser Elizabeth Bagley; two members of Congress who back the New York senator, Reps. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Corrine Brown of Florida; and Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. Her group's political action committee has endorsed Clinton. Party officials voted before the two January primaries, without much controversy outside those states, to strip Michigan and Florida of their convention delegates as a penalty for holding their primaries earlier than Democratic rules allowed. All the Democratic candidates agreed to the rules and avoided campaigning in either state. Obama removed his name from the Michigan ballot. Clinton won a majority of votes cast in both the renegade contests. Obama is close to clinching the Democratic nomination no matter what happens Saturday. As his delegate lead has widened, the Illinois senator has become more open to a compromise that would count some delegates from the two states even if that puts Clinton closer behind him. Still, party unity is proving elusive, despite the wrap-up of the primary season Tuesday when Montana and South Dakota hold the final contests, after Puerto Ricans vote Sunday. The pressure is intense on the rules committee to find a solution. Without one, the party's internal fight could drag on through the summer and into a divided convention in Denver, a nightmare for Democrats. The Clinton campaign said it was not organizing the rally. "I am aware that there are lots of people very passionate about this topic who are coming," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said his side was hoping to avoid a "scene." "Obviously, with the click of a mouse it would be pretty easy for us in the mid-Atlantic to get thousands of people there, but we don't think it's a helpful dynamic to create chaos and in the interest of party unity, we're encouraging our supporters not to protest," he said. Obama supporter David Wilhelm, a former party chairman, echoed that sentiment. "We're not going to have Obama folks protesting. We're not going to turn this thing into a circus." Party officials said the roughly 500 public seats for the meeting were spoken for within minutes. The party warned those coming that they won't get to ask questions and that "to maintain the decorum of the meeting, banners, posters, signs, handouts, and noisemakers of any kind are strictly prohibited." ... Clinton exhorted supporters earlier this month to press the Democratic National Committee to seat all Michigan and Florida delegates. A torrent of angry e-mails has been sent to rules committee members since.... "Sore Loserman" was a bogus fucking label that the Repugnicans put on the Gore campaign in 2000. Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election and it was the hypofuckingcritical Repugnicans who were the sore fucking losers. This time, Billary Cunton's supporters inarguably are sore fucking losers. The rules of the game were established before the 2008 presidential primary season began, and Billary Cunton agreed to those rules. Now that she is losing the game, the unprincipled Billary's unprincipled supporters are acting like the sore losers that she has encouraged them to be. Barraging the rules committee with hateful e-mails and protesting the rules committee's meeting is something that the Repugnicans would do. There is no fucking way in hell that would I vote for Billary Cunton should she actually manage to steal the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination like George W. Bush stole the White House in 2000, with the help of shock troops sent to disrupt the fair, orderly process. 8:55:24 PM    Comments []

Associated Press photos Repugnicans MiKKKe HuKKKabee and John McCain, pictured last month at left, and Repugnican Billary Cunton, pictured today at right, all apparently have fantasies about the violent death of Barack Obama.  Racist politicians fantasize about putting Barack Obama in harm's way Election 2008 is putting to rest the myth that the United States of America has resolved its problem of racism. First we have Repugnican veep wannabe MiKKKe HuKKKabee "joking" at a KKK rally/NRA convention about an assassination attempt on Barack Obama. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Then we have Repugnican Billary Cunton telling us that she's not a selfish fucking bitch, dragging the Democratic presidential primary season out as long as is satanically ridiculously possible. No, she points out, her husband didn't get the Democratic nomination until June 1992 (except that he had it sewn up in March 1992), and further, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968! Now, Billary could have just stated that the Democratic presidential primary season was still going in June 1968. That would have been enough to make her point. Instead, she said, "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it" -- "it" being the calls from sane individuals for her to stifle her colossal fucking ego and power-mongering long enough to admit the reality that Barack Obama is the people's choice for the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate and that it's long past time to coalesce around Obama because it's actually not All About Billary.    But of course Billary absolutely was not alluding to the possibility that Barack Obama might be assassinated! Oh, heavens, no! Never! She is a woman of high ethical standards and principles! Beautiful, ain't it? You get to say something awful, you get to bring up the specter of assassination, for fuck's sake, you get to get that idea out there, and when people call you on it, as they are going to when you say something so fucking hideously ogrish, you claim total innocence. (In case you think it really was just a flub that Billary mentioned RFK's assassination, she also mentioned it in an interview with TIME magazine back in March.) You know, "assassination" is a loaded word. I have a hard time believing that Cunton couldn't just give the date of June 1968, that she had to remind us that RFK was assassinated in June 1968. And if she actually is that fucking stupidly careless, then she isn't fit to be president (well, she never was). If it weren't enough that whiteys HuKKKabee and Cunton were talking about Obama's assassination, directly or indirectly, now we have Repugnican John McCain -- who, his critics correctly charge, essentially represents a third BushCheneyCorp term -- blathering about Obama putting himself in harm's way in Iraq. McCain states that Obama should make a trip to Vietraq because Obama hasn't been there since 2006. I say: Fuck. That. Shit. This is George W. Bush's and Dick Fucking Cheney's bogus war. Let those motherfuckers visit Vietraq. Obama shouldn't even think about setting foot in Vietraq at least until Bush and Cheney visit Vietraq -- publicly, not one of those top-secretive in-and-out visits. As the current hostile occupants of the White House, let Dick and Bush demonstrate their wonderful leadership ability and bravery by visiting the mess that they fucking illegally and immorally started. With the exception of the supporters of the Vietraq War, no American belongs in Vietraq, in the war zone that even former Bush regime spokesnake Scott McClellan now admits has been "a grave mistake." We Americans already have had more than enough after more than seven years of tyranny by the election-stealing, bogus-war-launching Bush regime. Let's not put our best hope for our nation's recovery, Barack Obama, in harm's way in Vietfuckingraq because the crusty, doddering old fossil fool John McCain wants to show how tough he is. And the next person who talks about Obama's assassination or otherwise suggests that Obama should be put in harm's way should be shot. 7:46:14 PM    Comments []

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Associated Press photo DINO (Democrat in name only) Billary Cunton -- who plans to keep fighting for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination even after President-elect Barack Obama takes the oath of office in January 2009 -- gives the thumbs up to taking the battle for the nomination to the Democratic National Convention in August, even though Obama already has won the majority of the delegates won in primary elections and caucuses. Billary is counting on cowing the superdelegates (elected officials and other party insiders) to remain faithful to the Cunton brand name and hand her the nomination, democracy be damned.    Billary Cunton hates democracy I tell you: I'm a fucking prophet. It was more than three years ago, in April 2005, that I wrote: "Anybody but Hillary." Of course, I had no idea at the time how appallingly awful Hillary Clinton actually would be; she's so bad now that now I can only think of her as Billary Cunton. Oh, she's earned the "c"-word designation. Before the current, ridiculously protracted Democratic presidential primary season began, all of the Democratic presidential contenders, including both Barack Obama and Billary Cunton, signed a pledge not to campaign in the states of Michigan or Florida. The national Democratic Party had stripped those two states of their delegates to the national convention because those two states defied the national party by deciding to hold their primary elections earlier than the national party would allow them to. You didn't hear Billary bitch and moan about how important Florida and Michigan were when she signed that pledge. That's because she thought that she'd have her coronation sewn up after Iowa and New Hampshire and wouldn't need Michigan and Florida anyway.  Because Billary's coronation was about as much of a cakewalk as the Bush regime's Vietraq War that she voted for was supposed to be, because the audacious upstart Obama is thrashing her entitled ass, now Billary is claiming to care so much about all of the votes being counted in Michigan and Florida -- states where Obama didn't even campaign. And Obama's name didn't even appear on Michigan's ballot, but Billary is perfectly OK with Michigan's primary election results being retroactively counted anyway. Because, you see, she wuvs democracy so fucking much! The Associated Press reports that Billary Cunton ... was in Florida [today], pressing to narrow her gap with Obama by having delegates counted from its contest in January. The former first lady told supporters in Florida that they "learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren't counted and the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner," a reference to the state's disputed presidential vote that gave George W. Bush the White House [in late 2000]. "The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear: If any votes aren't counted, the will of the people isn't realized and our democracy is diminished." [Obama] was just 64 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination, after two superdelegate endorsements [today] and a pair of primaries the night before. Clinton thrashed him in Kentucky; he answered by winning Oregon. Obama also secured a majority of the pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses across the country -- a milestone that could help him persuade more superdelegates to endorse him.... Superdelegates are party insiders who are not tied to the outcome of state contests.... Democratic rule-makers meet at the end of this month to decide whether to count delegates from Florida and Michigan; the states were stripped of their delegates as punishment for holding early primaries. Clinton won both states but Obama had his name kept off the Michigan ballot and neither candidate campaigned in those states.... Obama has an overall total of 1,962 delegates, including endorsements from superdelegates. Clinton has 1,779, including superdelegates, according to the latest tally by the AP. This AP news story notes that "Clinton insists she still sees a path to the prize by winning over superdelegates, whose support will be needed for either candidate to be clinch the nomination." So here is Billary Cunton evoking the blatantly stolen presidential election in Florida in 2000. But she compares apples and oranges. The Repugnicans blatantly stole the presidential vote in Florida in 2000, allowing George W. Bush to "win" the White House even though Democrat Al Gore won not only the pivotal state of Florida, but won the national popular vote by more than a half-million more votes than were cast for Bush. The case with Florida now is that Florida's Democratic Party leaders gave the national party the middle finger when they were warned that Florida's delegates wouldn't be seated at the national convention if Florida held its primary too early. If Florida's voters have been disenfranchised, blame Florida's Democratic Party leaders. There was no election fraud this time in Florida, as there was in 2000. And again, if Billary's heart bled so much for the Floridians, why didn't she speak up for them before the game started, when the rules of the game were being established?  Billary Cunton claims to care so much about democracy when it suits her. She sure could use Michigan's and Florida's delegates now, so suddenly she has a problem with the rules of the game that she had agreed to before the game began. Only she can't be honest about her purely selfish intent, so she has to lie through her fangs that it's all about her wuv of democracy. Yet Cunton makes it clear that she's perfectly OK arm-twisting enough superdelegates in order to get the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. It wouldn't faze her one fucking bit if the majority of superdelegates were stupid enough to give her their votes even though Barack Obama already has won the majority of the pledged delegates, the delegates won through the primary elections and caucuses, the delegates won the hard way: by being earned democratically.  Because, just as George W. Bush wanted to win at all costs in 2000 and thus was unfazed that he actually lost the election (he lost both Florida and the national popular vote), Billary Cunton wants to win the Democratic presidential nomination at all costs and it wouldn't faze her that Barack Obama had actually won the majority of the vote in the primary elections and caucuses yet the nomination still went to her. Because Billary Cunton hates democracy, just like the Repugnicans do, and just like the Repugnicans do, all that she fucking cares about is power. 7:30:51 PM    Comments []