Deadbeat Hil

So that her campaign can use on-hand cash to pay for media buys in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton has become delinquent in bills owed to vendors. And the small businesses she screwed over in Ohio are warning their brothers in Pennsylvania not to take her business.

And she wants to take over the crumbling economy?

Only In George Bush's Amerika

Tell me again, who won the Cold War? From New York NewsDay:

An 80-year-old church deacon in a wheelchair was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.

Fascism is alive and well in George Bush's Amerika.

Under the Weather

Sorry for the lack of posts over the weekend. I had been fighting a bug most of last week and on Thursday afternoon it got the best of me. Fever, chills, bodyaches. I think I turned the corner yesterday (well, the fever and chills are gone), but we'll see what this Monday brings.

Light posting for the next day or two.

"Boooo..."

This made my morning...

Food For Thought

The new Public Policy Institute of California poll shows Sen. Barack Obama easily taking California's 55 electoral votes in a general election match up over Sen. John McCain. Sen. Hillary Clinton ties with the Republican candidate.

Bottom line: Obama keeps California blue. Clinton puts in in play. And if you think Clinton can win the White House without those 55 votes, I'd like you to look at the map and tell me where she makes up the difference.

Joining Her Own Conspiracy

The New Republic's Christopher Orr sees a pattern:

Anyone reading this blog is presumably aware that, over the past several weeks, Hillary Clinton has gone out of her way to repeatedly compliment John McCain at Barack Obama's expense.

But consider a few other data points:

1) Matt Drudge hyped a photo of Obama in Somali garb that he claimed (and the Clinton campaign declined to deny) Clinton staffers had been circulating.

2) Bill Clinton went on the Rush Limbaugh show on the day of the Texas primary--after Limbaugh had spent days urging GOP voters in the state to cross over and vote for Clinton in order "rig" the election and ensure that Democrats nominated the weaker of their two candidates.

3) The Clinton campaign has been circulating an article in The American Spectator alleging that an Obama adviser, former Air Force chief Merrill McPeak, is an anti-semite and a drunk.

4) When Clinton attacked Obama on Jeremiah Wright yesterday, she did it at an editorial meeting of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the vanity publication of Richard Mellon Scaife, while sitting next to Scaife himself.

Drudge. Limbaugh. The American Spectator. Richard Mellon Scaife. What exactly is it going to take before Clinton campaign staffers recognize that they are, in essence, now working for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

Perhaps once Obama achieves the Democratic nomination Hillary and her right wing buddies can cross over and join the Republican-Fascists.

McCain/Clinton, anyone?

The Patriotism of Rev. Wright

Quote of the Day:

In the early 1960s, at a time when many young people were being radicalized by the Vietnam War, Wright left college and volunteered to join the United States Marine Corps. After three years as a marine, he chose to serve three more as a naval medical technician, during which time he received several White House commendations. He came to Chicago to study not long after Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder in 1968, the U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia in 1969, and the shooting of students at Kent State University in 1970.

...Friendship develops through many gestures and shared delights (in [my] case, stops for sinfully rich barbecue after evening services), and people across the economic spectrum can attest to the generosity of the Wright family...

Those who were part of his ministry for years — school superintendents, nurses, legislators, teachers, laborers, the unemployed, the previously shunned and shamed, the anxious — are not going to turn their backs on their pastor and prophet.

-Martin E. Marty, of the Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review, stepping up to the plate for Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

(Muchos gracias: Christina)

The Traitor of Her Party

It's official: Hillary Clinton is a traitor to her own political party.

Throughout the 90s there were many of us who defended President and Hillary Clinton against those radicals who made up the very real right wing conspiracy against them. The fascist-conservatives were beside themselves that they no longer held the White House and took up an unprecedented movement to destroy the Democratic President and his wife.

Among the architects of that anti-Clinton movement was Richard Scaife, who bankrolled the Arkansas Project, a series of investigations (that led nowhere) that attempted to make the suicide of Vince Foster look a murder plot by the Clintons, and that put the couple's ill-advised (but not illegal) Whitewater real estate deal on the front pages, among many other "scandals" that never panned out. It can be argued that Scaife's Arkansas Project is what ultimately led, after nothing else would stick, to the Kenneth Starr-led impeachment of a sitting president over a sexual liaison.

As I said, millions of us defended the President against this group of right wing, fascist thugs. So, imagine my surprise, shock, and horror when I see Sen. Hillary Clinton, as a candidate for her party's presidential nomination, sitting down with the architect of the rag tag group that tried derail her husband's presidency, to bash a fellow Democrat...

When asked by Scaife and his editorial board at some Pittsburgh news rag about her comments yesterday that "we don't choose our family, but we can choose the church we attend" (actually, you could have divorced Bill, Hil) and that Rev. Jeremiah Wright would not have been her pastor, she responded:

Well I answered a question in an ed board today that was very specific about what I would have done. And you know I'm just speaking for myself, and I was answering a question that was posed to me.

It's a slap in the face to each and every one of us who passionately defended the Clintons. And it's one more notch in series of them that leads me ever so closer to an absolute denial of my vote in November to Sen. Clinton should she be the nominee.

Shame on her.

Mid-Week Brain Break

This laughing baby clip has received twelve million hits on YouTube. If it doesn't put a smile on your face then you ought to have your head checked...

"Idol" - The Top 10

We're down to the final ten. They sang songs from the year they were born. (GAWD, am I old!) Here is how last night went down...

Ramiele
"Alone"
Damn, this girl sucks. This performance was a screechy mess. Definitely time for her to go home.

Jason
"Fragile"
A very nice job. He's got some talent and I think he very well could make it to the top 4.

Syesha
"If I Were Your Woman"
Like Ramiele, the big-voice songs aren't her strong suit. She was better than Ramiele, but still...not a great performance.

Chikeze
Never mind what the judges said, this was one of best performances of the night...a SUPERB R&B performance. A pleasant surprise.

Brooke
"Every Breath You Take"
I liked her take on this song. Her style is very modern without losing the spirit of the original songs. Very nice.

Michael
"We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions"
Brave choice, but he actually pulled it off. The background singers actually sucked on this! Good job. He's a natural rocker.

Carly
"Total Eclipse of the Heart"
Safe song choice, but a very well done, polished performance.

David Archuletta
"You're the Voice"
Technical foul: This song was released in 1986 in Australia (however, it could have been released in the U.S. in 1990). That said, David was superb as always.

Kristy Lee Cook
"God Bless the USA"
I want her to go home for the simple fact that she sang this schmalzy song.

David Cook
"Billie Jean"
HOLY CRAP! What a knock-em-dead, stupendous take on Michael Jackson's #1 classic. Absolutely, positively the best performance of the last 2 or 3 weeks. David really rocked it tonight!

The best of the week? David Cook - FAR AND AWAY.

Who should go home? Ramiele.

Sally and Hillary

Talking Point Memo's Josh Marshall:

...imagine playing poker around a table with friends. Player A has a Straight Flush; Player B has four of a kind. Then B says, "Well, sure, if you're counting straights, but if we were adding up the numbers rather than going by straights winning, I'd have won."

There's a set of rules everyone agreed on. The wisdom of those rules is irrelevant at this point. The Clinton campaign is entitled to do whatever it wants to get superdelegates to come over to her side to even out the pledged delegate deficit. My take is that whatever the arguments, the superdelegates aren't going to go against a clear pledged delegate leader. And I think they'd be extremely ill-advised to do so. But the superdelegates do have this power under the rules. But these constant efforts to say the rules aren't fair are just silly, and truth be told I think they're more undermining of the Clinton campaign than they realize.

And from Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas:

The Clinton campaign has realized that the rules don't work in their favor, that if we follow the rules as agreed upon before the first caucus vote was cast in Iowa, that they have no chance of winning...

Again, as I noted before, the only way Clinton can win this race is with a coup by superdelegate, which would necessarily create civil war in our party.

And of course, Hillary Clinton doesn't care.

When I was a baby my grandmother was watching me one evening while my mom was in school. As I sat playing on her living room floor, "Gramma Sally" was having a heated discussion on the phone and made reference to someone she didn't care for as "that damn bitch." This little boy walked over, picked up his play phone and, mimicking his beloved grandmother, started saying (sternly) "damn bitch." Bless her heart, it was of my grandmother's favorite memories.

Gramma Sally was the loyalist of loyal Democrats. To vote Republican or third-party on any ballot in any election was just not in her blood. Voting Democratic was ingrained in her DNA.

I've thought about my grandmother a lot during this primary season; and while my heart wishes she could be here to see either the first woman candidate or the first African-American candidate, my head tells me that the current state of the race would break her heart.

Hillary Clinton and her husband are masters at the political game. They know more than anyone that this thing isn't winnable for them. But rather than face the reality of the situation and stand down, they choose to tear the Democratic Party apart by endorsing McCain in hopes of a Republican victory this year so that they can have another crack at the nomination in 2012.

My mother argues that my grandmother would have voted for Hillary Clinton on Super Tuesday. Maybe, maybe not. But I am absolutely sure that, at this point in the game, she would be demanding that Hillary either bow out and back Barack Obama, or leave the Democratic Party and campaign for John McCain. True Democrats don't play the game Hillary is playing.

And after she had her say, Gramma Sally would end her argument with that spot-on description...

"Damn bitch!"

"Ooo-whee, Marie!"

Hollywood's huge lack of original ideas continues: Studios are currently making "War of the Worlds 2," "Ace Ventura 3," "Jurassic Park 4" and "Saw 5."

And that's not all. There are plans to remake "Footloose."

On the Gays

The Clintons ("Melissa Etheridge is re-writing history.") vs. Obama ("We've got a war that is bankrupting us. And we're going to argue about gay marriage? I mean, that...doesn't make any sense.")

I'll take Barack each and every time, thank you very much!

The videos below:

Post-Easter "Peep Show"

Tee hee!

Eye Candy

Joe Alexander, West Virginia's hot ball dribbler...

Ladies and Gentlemen...

...your 2008 Hunky Jesus...

Hillary and Tuzla

The woman has absolutely no credibility left. Not one iota.

Day Off

I flew out to Chicago on Friday to surprise my sister for her 30th birthday and returned late last night. I slept in a little this morning and have a full day at the office. So, no blogging today.

Have a great Monday!

End-of-the-Week Levity

A little hot dog named Jerry, playing with his new fetch toy!

ABC News Sucks

ABC News gets Hillary Clinton's White House schedule from the files and THIS is what they report? Give me a fuckin' break! Say it with me: WHO CARES!?