Last week I noted that Chris Powell accused his fellow Lieberman loathers of being anti-Semites, without offering a particle of evidence. Today, Digby shows how you do it, by providing concrete evidence that Huckabee, if not an anti-Semite, offers aid and comfort to those who are, with links and all.
In this strange country that we have become, a group of people that control a significant number of votes “supports” Israel because they believe that when all the Jews return to Israel the end of the world will be at hand, and they want the world to end. Needless to say, the Jews, along with us other godless, will be toast at that point, but what does that matter. These are the people with whom the neocon supporters of Israel are making common cause. Each side thinks they’re using the other; in the end both Israel and the sane people in this country will probably end up as losers.
Of the big three, Hillary is my least favorite candidate, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get irate about the way she’s treated in the press. Everything she does is put in the worst light. If she shows no emotion, she is criticized for that. If she shows emotion, she is criticized for that, or, she is accused of playacting. Here’s the video of Clinton shedding a few tears in New Hampshire. I can’t see how anyone can think this is anything but genuine, nor can I see how anyone can say it is not perfectly understandable. The rigors of a presidential campaign would reduce most people to tears, particularly if they were regularly savaged in the press. If anything, this makes me feel even better about the prospect of a Hillary presidency:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qgWH89qWks[/youtube]
When I first moved to this area I was paid my legal services salary through a CETA grant. CETA was a job creation program that was abolished several years later. Besides funding me and a host of others, CETA provided funds to hire an artist to do an art installation at City Hall in Norwich, which also housed the Superior Court. The painting consisted of one panel depicting militant poor people of various ethnicities. On a separate panel was this quote from Frederick Douglass:
Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will.
It actually hung there in the entrance hall to the temple of Power for at least several months, until Power removed it.
Lately there’s a lot of talk about the difference between the Edwards and Obama approach to achieving “change”, and the debate brought this quote to mind. If anyone could speak with authority on the issue, it was Frederick Douglass. Douglass would no doubt be pleased about Obama’s candidacy (though amazed that he was running as a Democrat), but he’d most likely agree with Edwards approach to achieving change.
These must be bittersweet days for the folks at RealRudy.org.
On the one hand, Rudy’s days as a presidential candidate are numbered, and their work will soon be completed. On the other hand, Rudy’s days as a presidential candidate are numbered, and their reason for being will disappear.
But they seem ready to keep at it ’til the bitter end: until the last nail is in the coffin; until the last stake is driven through the heart. This new video arrived in my email this morning and I must pass it on.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P-VUTjM0Ko[/youtube]
Saturday, January 5, 2008
My wife and I went to East Haddam today to join a a crowd of folks welcoming Chris Dodd back from the campaign trail. Chris never caught on, but he earned the gratitude of Constitution lovers everywhere by holding off the latest assault on the Constitution, taking time off from his campaign to do so. It would have been nice to see Hillary and Obama standing shoulder to shoulder with him. Had they done so, we might not be facing the prospect of yet another attempt by Harry Reid to get telecom immunity passed into law.
Chris did Connecticut proud. He more than makes up for the Senator from Connecticut who shall remain unnamed in this post.
Below is my fledgling youtube video of the beginning of Chris’s speech. I was in the back of the room, and had to hold my little camera high above my head to get a decent shot. It’s a bit out of focus at first, but it gets sharper after a few seconds. The video is the length it is because my shoulder started to give out. Anyway, this gives a bit of a feel for the enthusiasm people felt for Chris. I should add that he and his wife got the most applause when they talked about defending the Constitution, particularly with regard to the FISA bill.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5i0iuKKn2k[/youtube]
Now that he’s no longer in the presidential picture it’s time to start talking about the fact that Chris would make an excellent vice presidential candidate, assuming Obama is the eventual nominee. He’d do a great job as a vice presidential candidate, since he’d be able to handle the attack dog role with humor and finesse. He’d also be a great vice president in that he could provide Obama with advice about how to push his legislative agenda through Congress. He certainly knows the players. Finally, if something happened to Obama, he’d be a great president.
Of course, for that to happen, our state legislature needs to amend state law to prevent Jodi Rell from appointing Chris’s successor. I’ve raised this issue before in the Lieberman context. Now there’s another reason to do it.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The word is that Hillary will “start” going negative against Obama. Bill Clinton says that they are being forced into it by the media, and there’s a kernel of truth to what he’s saying. The press has treated the Clintons unfairly ever since the brief honeymoon period in 1992.
But if this is any indication, Obama will only profit by the negativity:
Hillary’s aides point to Obama’s extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with “left-wing” intellectuals in Chicago’s Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants’ rights as subjects for examination.
The last time I looked she and Obama are competing to win the Democratic nomination for president. It may be true that she is in a position where she has to go negative, but this is a strange way to do it. Republicans go negative by claiming that their opponents are too much like Democrats. Hillary appears to be going negative by saying the same thing about Obama. Why is it that Democrats seem to feel that they can score political points, even in the context of a primary, by attacking their most loyal supporters?
In any event, this particular line of attack, if they follow through with it, looks like a softball pitch right over the plate to Obama. Were I him, I’d reply that indeed I am a progressive, and that I do try to surround myself with smart people. Does Hillary prefer to talk to dumb people? Something along those lines, it seems, ought to work. I think right now that Obama is in a unique position vis a vis Hillary, if not the Republicans. He can only profit from these sort of attacks, and he will profit the most if she insists on attacking the party base instead of him. He can deflect the attacks with humor, as he’s done effectively so far, and she will come across as querulous and desperate.
Speaking of Obama, he appears to be making the right moves. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started picking up more of Edward’s best lines, if Edwards fades. He just stole Richardson’s one and only draw: a promise that he’d withdraw from Iraq as soon as he is inaugurated. He is beginning to look like a very smart politician that is just hitting his stride, while Hillary is looking a little desperate. Of course, if this primary season has proven anything, it has proven that things can change in a heartbeat. Just ask Rudy.
All of a sudden all kinds of people are coming out as Obama fans (I won’t mention names, but one sleeps with me). Talk about fickle. Not to take anything away from the guy, but if you wanted to design a system least likely to do the best job at picking a president, you might well come up with the Iowa caucuses. Nonetheless, and for the moment, he’s the guy who’s looking inevitable. Great victory speech:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCWT4LQTeE[/youtube]
I’m still undecided, now that Dodd has dropped out. I’ll take whoever wins, to be honest. It’s nice to have a field you can say that about.
Right now I’m enjoying the fact that Republicans are going absolutely crazy at the thought of Huckabee. Today two of them (Republicans, that is) told me that they were scared of the guy. Hard to see why, really. They’ve been handing the country over to these people one judge at a time, but somehow making one of them president gives them the willies. Meanwhile, the media types are pushing McCain as hard as they can. It will be interesting to see if they can pull that off.
On Obama again: There have been two other presidents from Illinois. Let us set aside U.S. Grant. The first was a guy who served a couple of terms in the state legislature and one term in Congress. When people talk about Obama’s lack of experience he might remind them of one A. Lincoln, the first Republican president, but a guy who would certainly be a Democrat today.
Good news and old news in the business section of the Times.
Apparently the new Fox Business Channel, it of the all good economic news, all the time (while there’s a Republican in the White House) mindset, has so few daily viewers that Nielsen cannot reliably report it. Leaked figures indicate that a little more than 6,000 people watch the channel on any given weekday. To put that number in perspective, it is only about 15 times more than the number of distinct hits I get on this backwater blog. My own personal theory for this cheerful news: people interested in business news are interested in hard facts: they’re not interested in being bullshitted or propagandized. They probably appreciate Fox News for doing that number on the masses, but count them out.
The old news is that the Detroit carmakers are once again hitting hard times because, gasp!!, people aren’t buying gas guzzling trucks anymore. Since the great gas shortage of the early 70s, Detroit has gotten hit on a periodic basis whenever gas prices take a sustained hit. After each beating, it goes back to the old game plan with a vengeance. If I had to bet, I’d say each time they have put even more chips down on the gas guzzlers, when of course they had to know that the days of (relatively) cheap gas were certainly numbered. How does it go: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”. What do you call someone that’s fooled five or six times?
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Just returned from our Drinking Liberally get together, and, much to my surprise and relief, it was a success. We had about as big a crowd as we could handle and still stay as a coherent group, everyone seemed to have fun, and we did indeed drink liberally.
One of the hits of the evening was Syma Ebbin’s sinfully delicious Almond Bark, the recipe for which I have been directed to post. I do intend to do so, but can’t tonight, because I must confess that either Sima or I might have drunk a little too liberally, because I can’t follow it. My wife, to whom she gave it and who can probably decipher it, is in bed as I write this.
I can say this, other than nuts, there is not a single healthy ingredient in the mix, so you know it must be good. Some pics below
The true test will be when we find out how many people come next time.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Among the many frustrations in my life at present is my position as Treasurer of the Groton Democrats. If you’ve ever served as a treasurer of a political campaign or committee in Connecticut you will understand what I’m talking about. The reporting requirements are such that it is virtually impossible for a non-expert to set up a database to generate usable reports. You can no longer file reports on-line. They provide a spreadsheet you can use to report, but it’s incomprehensible. They do, however, also provide PDF fillable forms, but of course you can’t save the data unless you buy Adobe Acrobat Superplus, which I am not going to do. That means you have to fill out the forms all at once. To make it just a little worse, they only provide one page to list individual contributors, so if you have more than 6 people who contributed more than $50.00 total in the year, you have to open another copy of the report file and merge them together. To add insult to injury, even if you get the form completely filled out, Adobe and/or the State won’t let you save the document as a PDF (standard in the Mac print dialog) with the data in the fields. That means scanning a printed copy if you want to save it do disk. All in all, a pain.
That’s how I spent most of my night tonight, since there’s a report due on the 10th. When I finished I attempted to print a draft, and presto: Adobe Reader crashed and all my work was lost. Luckily the draft did print, and I was able to use most of it to reconstitute the report. Anyway, it’s done, but I’m in no mood to do any heavy thinking tonight.
So, just a reminder that anyone who can make it is invited to join us for the inaugural meeting of Drinking Liberally, tomorrow at the Harp & Hound, Pearl Street, Mystic at 6:00 PM. So far feedback has been good.