Warning: Prepare to want to punch something (or someone)

http://therealnews.com/web/videoframeworksjsauto.php?currentid=1507&thisautoplay=true

 

All the women I know will be shocked to learn that they hate women.

 More geniuses from Ohio, courtesy of Ben Smith at politico.com:

Clinton backer backlash

 

My colleague Beth Frerking reports on something we’re likely to hear a lot more about in coming days: Grumblings from the almost-half of the party, disproportionately women, whose candidate is losing.

An Ohio-based group of Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters say they’ll work actively against Sen. Barack Obama if he becomes the nominee, arguing that Clinton has been the subject of “intense sexism” by party leaders and the media.

Led by Boomer-aged women, the group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, is holding a press conference in Columbus at noon to release this statement.

Organizers Cynthia Ruccia, 55, and Jamie Dixey, 57, both from the Columbus area, say they’re coordinating women, men, minorities, union members and others in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan – all important swing states next November – to impress upon Democratic party leaders what they think has been outright discrimination – and not of the racial kind.

“We have been vigilant against expressions of racism, and we are thrilled that the society has advanced that way” in accepting Obama as a serious candidate,” Ruccia said. “But it’s been open season on women, and we feel we need to stand up and make a statement about that, because it’s wrong.”

With growing calls for Clinton to leave the race, she said, women feel like “we’re being told to sit down, shut up, and get with the program.”

Hard to know what to make of any given group, but the sentiment is clealry out there, and putting the party back together will be Obama’s, and Clinton’s, challenge.

Oh, and they’re doing O’Reilly tonight, of course.

Kyle says: Here’s an idea, ladies.  If you want a woman to be president then should probably find a female candidate WITH PRINCIPLES.  Don’t just take whatever is handed to you and then get angry when she loses because of her faults.  GO FIND SOMEONE BETTER.

The fact that the women in this country aren’t up in arms that the first viable female candidate they get is such a two-faced hack blows my mind.

Honestly, it’s like the Democrats complaining that the ‘04 results in Ohio were rigged.  You know what a great way to avoid that issue is?  WIN BY MORE THAN 100,000 VOTES.

Quit whining and DO BETTER.

And the fact that they’re going on O’Reilly tonight makes their views all the more laughable.

Yes, it’s true: West Virginia doesn’t matter.

I’m not saying that because of any ill feelings I harbor towards West Virginia.  It’s a beautiful state — frighteningly so, in fact, because while driving through there are various points that you realize “I could get lost in this beautiful wilderness and no one would ever find me.”

But West Virginia is not indicative of anywhere else in America OTHER than West Virginia.  WV has no real urban center, unlike every other state in the union.  It’s also a demographic flat line, with few variations.  It would be like letting South East Ohio have its own primary.

But, of course, it has allowed Hillary Clinton to keep making ridiculous statements.  You know, like that she wins swing states, which is what the Democrats need to win in the fall.  The only problem, of course, is that winning a swing state in a primary is has absolutely nothing to do with winning it in the general election.  It’s apples and oranges.  The fact that she even makes such a statement is yet another example that she’s speak down to people in order to convince them of something.

Then there’s the “white vote,” if you will.  This morning on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell made a fantastic comment which gave me a new perspective on the whole thing.  She pointed out that the percentage of the white vote that Hillary Clinton gets actually goes down when she’s placed in a general election against McCain (according to polls).  Why?  Because white people will vote for McCain.  So Hillary’s percentages don’t hold when expanded to the general.  Obama’s, however, do — in fact, they actually increase, which would suggest that there’s room for growth.

In other words, the two arguments that Clinton made last night are, well, out and out lies.

But why should anyone be surprised by that?

Thank god that’s over.

FINALLY.

While people are spinning left and right this morning, the cold, hard facts are this: Hillary Clinton, even if Florida and Michigan were inlcuded as is (and that’s not particularly fair by any stretch of the imagination), cannot catch Obama in any way, shape, or form, not popular vote, not pledged delegates, not number of states, not anything.

Obama wiped away all of Hillary’s gains in Pennsylvania last night by destroying her in North Carolina, a swing state that will play a big part in the general election.  The close finish in Indiana will only garner Obama more superdelegates.

What does this mean, while Hillary is saying she’ll stay in the race until there’s a nominee?  Two things:

1) Hillary Clinton is now Mike Huckabee

2) Obama will no longer engage Hillary Clinton in any kind of debate, either formally or informally.  In the coming days he will spend all of his time talking about HIS plans and creating distinctions between himself and John McCain.

It should be really entertaining, as Hillary will clearly keep trying to make it seem like a race, while Obama will not all but ignore her completely.

The real issue is how long Hillary will wait to start repairing the party she has single handedly divided.

Lest I be accused of not offering proof…

http://uk.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUKN3038243520080430

A story on the “gas tax” move.

The Price of Gas

Allow me to offer another example of why I think Obama is the best candidate for the job:

I mentioned before that Hillary Clinton thinks we should put a hold on the gas tax for the summer in the interests of making things a bit easier on the average American citizen.  John McCain has also proposed a “gas tax holiday” along the same lines.  Here’s why they are both whores for votes:

1) Removing the gas tax would barely help people.  The percentage of the cost of gas that comes from taxes isn’t so great as to give people extra money.

2) The gas tax goes to the government, which then uses that money to, you know, function.  REMOVING THE GAS TAX DOES NOTHING TO THE OIL COMPANIES.  I know, shocker.  So the solution to high gas prices is to remove the only part of that cost that actually goes to helping Americans while allowing the rest to go to Oil companies???  REALLY???

3) The US government is sending out rebates in the next two weeks.  In other words, they’re giving away money they don’t have and, if McCain and Clinton have their way, will then STOP BRINGING IN MONEY.

4) You can’t just decide to stop a source of income without having a way of replacing it.  Obama makes the same argument with the Estate Tax.  Republicans want to eliminate it?  Fine, but first tell us how you’ll replace that revenue source.

So why would Clinton and McCain suggest options that clearly won’t work?  Because they think it will get them votes.

I’m not going to say that Obama has never played the crowd before, but I’ve yet to hear him suggest any kind of legislation simply to get votes.  But that’s exactly what Clinton and McCain are doing and it’s so ridiculous, even more so because it just might work.

Even better, most economists have backed Obama on this, pointing out that any suspension of the gas tax would have little affect on the American public.  On top of that, environmentalists also back Obama, as lowering the price of gas even a bit would surely result in people buying more of it, instead of making the hard choices to move away from gas because prices are high.

While two candidates work to find a solution that will get them elected, one works to find a solution that will actually fix the problem.  And that’s the one I think should be in charge.

Lying For Dummies

Yes, it’s gotten so ridiculous that now even AP is pointing out when Hillary is lying.

From today’s story on oil and Hillary’s attack on Obama:

“When it came time to stand up against the oil companies, to stand against Dick Cheney’s energy bill, my opponent voted for it and I voted against it,” the New York senator said at a rally at Indiana University in Bloomington. “And that bill had billions of dollars in giveaways to the oil companies. It was the best bill that the energy companies could buy.”

The 2005 energy bill actually raised taxes on the oil and gas industry by about $300 million over 11 years, according to the Congressional Research Service.

End AP article quote.

Not to mention the fact that those additional taxes were earmarked for research into new fuel sources.

But, you know, why should she let things like the facts stop her.

Also, according to Hillary’s ad in Indiana, she’s suggesting we suspend the gas tax this summer.

Soooo…we’re going to give rebates to everyone AND suspend the gas tax…

So the government is going to GIVE money to everyone and then SUSPEND a rather large source of income?

You know, if I did something like that I’d end up in debt and probably homeless.

PA Thoughts

So in the end it appears that Hillary will walk away with a victory of just over 9 points, which is convenient, as that’s the number of delegates she’s gained on Obama, who will more than make up those nine delegates in NC, most likely.

Clinton’s victory was so small, in fact, that she is no longer able to catch Obama in pledge delegates, which leaves her with only the popular vote angle to rest on, and even that chance for success has gotten smaller.

Here are a few things I’ve taken away from the Keystone State:

1) I would love for just ONE of the two of them to point out that gun control and the 2nd amendment are not opposites.   In fact, the phrase “gun control” is meaningless unless there are, you know, GUNS TO CONTROL.  Personally, I’m anti-guns of all kind, but there IS a middle ground, people.

2) 15% of registered Democrats still believe that Obama is Muslim.  I point this out because I heard the “well, Obama outspent Clinton 3 to 1 in Pennsylvania and still lost” line.  The fact remains that Clinton has been in the national spotlight for 15 years.  Everyone knows her and most know what she’s about.  The fact that 15% of registered Democrats don’t know that Obama is a Christian is proof that he’s at a significant disadvantage just on familiarity alone.  So he has no choice but to spend more than Clinton; they’re not starting from even ground.

3) Only 37% of those who vote Democrat are white males, which means I’m a minority.  In fact, Bill Clinton didn’t win the white male vote in either general election.  Neither did Jimmy Carter.  So this big concern about whether or not white men will vote for Obama in the general election is silly.  He doesn’t need them to vote for him any more than they voted for Bill Clinton, and probably less, considering Obama’s ability to get people who don’t normally vote to actually turn up at the polls.

4) Obama pretty much had the worst few weeks of his political career leading up to Pennsylvania and he still cut Clinton’s lead in half.  That’s pretty amazing.

Two weeks until the North Carolina and Indiana primaries…

Genius

Click on “Genius” for a fantastic take on Bittergate from Jon Stewart.

Cling

I have no doubts that Obama is becoming more a politician every day.  But everyone once in a while, he goes back to simply be an observant, intelligent, curious human being, and when he speaks the thoughts that come with being such a person aloud, he finds himself in trouble.

Here’s the quote that got him into troube, as well as the paragraph before it:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Specifically, there are two words that have caused a stir: “bitter” and “cling.”

“Bitter” has actually struck a cord with people because Obama is exactly right.

“Cling” has been a problem, and Obama himself has said it was a poor choice, although recently he’s been pointing to this, which supports his point:

Romans 12:9: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”

And while I consider the folks at crooksandliars.com to be a bit too black and white about things, one of their bloggers (who prefaced her comments by giving her background, which involved growing up in a lower class town) made a very good point: Obama’s comments were only considered “elitist” by, well, the elite.  The people he’s actually talking about had no problems with it.

Because he’s right.

In that same speech, Obama also makes a point that people become so disenfranchised by what their government can accomplish with regards to their economic health, that they only vote on social issues.  And, in many ways, they’re simply letting their views be heard, they’re not really voting for any real actions.  It’s more like a survey than an election.

Think about it: how did Bush win a second term?  He made gay marriage an issue.  And yet how big of an issue is gay marriage in the daily lives of most Americans, particularly those in the heartland?

But most Americans don’t think their government can really help them.  And it’s been like that for years.  And they’re bitter.

Shocking, isn’t it, that there’s a politician out there who not only recognizes the situation, but actually speaks out about it?