Jimmy

OK wait, is this supposed to make us forget about or forgive this? Because the former is common sense (don’t we give Israel enough aid as it is?) and the latter is a truly reprehensible act that boggles the mind.

BBC tells us that Israel has already massacred 820 Gazans over the past two weeks, including 235 children (hardly Hamas terrorists, no?), and Hamas has killed…13 Israelis.

Every country has “a right to defend itself” like the US House declared on Friday when they voted 390 to 5 in support of Israel’s current genocide in Gaza, but this has gone way beyond “defending themselves.” If Israel wanted to stop the Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel (a perfectly understandable desire) they could have spent a few minutes to consult with their intelligence services (or even those of their powerful ally and fellow aggressor: the United States) to find out where the Hamas rockets and/or leaders where located (or, failing at that relatively simple task, they could just go house-to-house in Gaza, they certainly have the power to control the territory and not let anybody out) and then send in some strike teams that will take the Hamas fighters out back and shoot them in the back of the head. It’s simpler, easier, less costly, takes less military personnel and most of all: saves the lives of at least 235 innocent children who have lost their lives in response to the deaths of 13 people.

But Israel knew that was a possibility and they didn’t do it. Why not? Could be they think this will send a better message to other terrorist groups contemplating attacks on them, but I think it has more to do with the act that they know they can get away with it without any major push-back from they allies…mainly the United States, and they were damn right. Rather than get any push-back, they got a blanket approval from the United States government both in actions (Iraq) and words (Friday’s congressional vote).

Well I have one thing to say to those 390 congresspeople who voted yes on Israel’s war of unthinkable aggression: at this point, each and every one of you is responsible for the deaths of 2.1 Gazans. That number will surely rise in the coming hours, days and possibly weeks. If the United States government stood up and spoke out against this type of violence in one of our own allies, and especially if we cut off funding for Israel, I would be very surprised if it wouldn’t give Israel at least a moment of pause, if not pushing them to completely quit the offensive actions against a trapped helpless people.

Democrats: remember how we were angry and steamed and began working to end the Iraq War posthaste when we found out it was a war based on lies and that we had no reason to be there because the rational for the war was flawed? Well, guess what: Israel had no rational to offer for their war on Gaza. They wanted the rocket fire to stop, fine, but there are better ways that they could do that as I outlined above (bloody fuck, you idiots: why do you need a 19-year-old college student to tell you these things for crying out loud?). But you know what? It’s another country’s business, and if we learned anything from our little Iraq adventure it’s not to meddle in other country’s business. So stop it: stop fucking enabling people who are doing exactly what we were so aghast at in Iraq once we found out it was an unjust war (some of us knew that from the state, but that’s water under the bridge…). So you know what? We’re anti-Iraq War right? Because it’s a mindless, needless bloodbath? Israel’s Gaza Incursion is a mindless, needless bloodbath. You’re hypocrites for voting in support of Israel on this matter. You need to reverse that vote and cut off all funding to Israel. Now.

Otherwise you’ve proved that you’re no better than the republicans we voted out in 2006 and 2008.

And Obama? Stop being mum on the first major international issue you’re going to face as president and STAND UP AGAINST IT. Otherwise the fact that Hillary voted for the Iraq War will look like a saintly gesture. I’m serious. Show some guts you’ve never shone before, show you can stand up to bullying countries. SHOW US THAT YOU’RE REALLY A WASHINGTON OUTSIDER by going against the unthinkable stance your party has taken on this issue of the murder of hundreds of children.

With little hope of a sudden change of heart in Washington,

-jimmy

Huffington Post is reporting that in their meeting yesterday president-elect Obama offered Sen. Clinton the job of Secretary of State in his administration and that she’s “considering” it.

I just have one thing to say: take it, Hillary! Take it, for f’s sake!

That is all.

Cheers.

-j

If you’re any kind of political junkie you have may have already heard the rumors flying over the last 18 hours or so about the latest news/leak from the Obama Transition Team: that Hillary Clinton could be the next Secretary of State. It’s the top story on CNN.com right now, the most commented-on post on MyDD.com over the last couple of days, getting coverage overseas and is being e-mailed around.

So, when I first read about this on MyDD.com last night (the aforementioned post) I thought “hey, that’d be awesome, but it’s not exactly a done deal, is it?”

Well, it’s still not a done deal of course, but it’s seeming more likely to me. Here’s why:

• It’s not one, but two sources within Obama’s team that are reporting this possibility. Now it’s possible that both of them are getting their information from the same incorrect source, but two sources always lend more weight to a story than one does.
• The CNN.com story has a quote from Hillary today at a transit policy press conference that I read some things into: “I’m very happy there is so much press attention and interest in transit, in the off chance that you’re not here for this important issue and are here for some other reason, let me just say that I’m not going to speculate or address anything about the president-elect’s incoming administration. I’m going to respect his process and any inquiries should be directed to his transition team.” First, notice what’s missing: whereas some of her team last night were saying she was happy as a senator, now she’s not saying she’s going to stay in the senate. She mentions that she’s not going to “speculate“, implying that she doesn’t know anything, which could very well be the case but it could also be the case that she’s not going to “speculate” because she knows exactly what’s going on and doesn’t need to guess about it! Also, the last line caught me: “I’m going to respect his process”. Again, that could be code for “I don’t know what’s going on and I wish you’d all stop bugging me about it…or it could be code for “he’s the president-elect and when he wants to announce me as his new secretary of state he’ll do that and I’m not going to say a word about it.”

Putting aside for a moment the issue of if it would happen and thinking about if it would be a good idea, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, as a strong supporter of her I would love to see her get a spot in the new administration, but somehow the secretary of state role doesn’t totally seem like a good fit for her. I don’t know, maybe I’m not giving her enough credit for being more than a “one-issue” politician, but I would still rather see her working with domestic health care rather than foreign policy since I think her skills would be better suited for that.
On the other hand, I think it would be amazing to replace the second female secretary of state (Condi Rice) with another female secretary and I do think Hillary has what it takes to do the job amazingly well.

Anyway. I should really go do some homework now.

Cheers.

-j

Judging by the responses to a recent post there, MyDD is apparently still toxic for Hillary supporters, but I thought one of the comments on that post was incredibly amazing in how clear, concise and non-combative it was (and how it was one of the only pro-Hillary posts I’ve seen on MyDD recently that didn’t get flamed for existing), anyone who’s a dem politics junky (Democrat supporters, Obama supporters or PUMAs alike) should read it.

Anyway. I agree with a lot of the comments on that post that the primary wars are over (talk about stating the obvious, the general election is over) but I do think that there are still unknowns from the primary that deserve to be looked at, perhaps not on MyDD which I think is more about current politics, but I don’t think that these conversations should be just shut down by people who find them uncomfortable or annoying.

(I might point out that when I started getting stressed and trigger happy with the flames I pulled out of the political blogs for a few months this summer and fall, which I think at this point (now that the general election is over) could be helpful for a lot of other people, as well. Just saying.)

Anyway. There’s my “never got over the primary and still feel bitter about it” thoughts for the evening (that was a joke, btw).

Cheers.

-j

…at the DNC Convention.

twitter.com/forecaster15

Monday’s Doonesbury comic is pretty funny. I’m 90% sure that Garry Trudeau supports Hillary and I always find it amusing when he goes after Obama and the DNC. I was kinda worried in June, actually, since I’ve come to really love Doonesbury’s commentary but if he was going to just fall in line behind The Chosen One I was gonna be sad. Luckily for my emotions, Trudeau started going after Obama in small ways.

The coming convention upset that riverdaughter laid out in simple detail several days ago is right on track as the DNC Credentials Committee voted this morning to give the Florida and Michigan delegations full voting rights on the floor of the convention, a move that narrows Sen. Obama’s pledged delegate lead by 19 votes. My estimation using data from Wikipedia is that now Sen. Obama only has a 107 vote lead in pledged delegates (3% of the total pledged delegates), a lead that could easily be erased by enough votes from the roughly 870 superdelegates (rough calculations say that only about 56% of superdelegates need to vote for Sen. Clinton in order for her to win the nomination).

The AP news story linked to above helpfully (not) tells us this:

Obama ended the primaries with a 365-delegate lead over Clinton. Reinstating the Florida and Michigan delegates will not affect that lead because Obama has more endorsements from the states’ superdelegates.

No mention of the fact that superdelegates can change their votes at will, whereas pledged delegates are, well, pledged. Thank you AP news for continually distorting the facts, what would we do without you?

I love it when the MyDD front-pagers do my job for me. This evening Todd Beeton brings us this interesting (and telling) anecdote:

On my shuttle to the hotel, I encountered a storm of another kind: an Obama delegate from Illinois and a Clinton delegate from Massachusetts. When she said she was a Hillary delegate, the Obama delegate said facetiously: “Oh they’re letting you in here, are they?” She retorted (in a friendly but stern way): “That’s what’s wrong with Obama folks. You’re not reaching out to the Hillary people.” It was the second time in as many days that I’d heard the same complaint from a Hillary supporter.

I am fully aware that this is simply one data point in a whole sea of information, but I find it very telling nonetheless (and I’ve never heard a story of an Obama delegate being nice and/or supportive to a Hillary delegate, have you?). The fact that even one Obama delegate feels they have the right to bully Hillary delegates and demean the Democratic process in this way points to a much larger problem for Obama: if he doesn’t call off his delegates/supporters now, they’re going to piss off the Hillary delegates and (more importantly) the Super Delegates and they’re going to vote for Hillary out of spite for the way his supporters have treated them. The entire Obamanation has this idea that the Convention is just a stupid formality and that he’s a shoe-in for not only the nomination but also the White House, two things that couldn’t be farther from the truth. He absolutely needs the support of the Super Delegates in order to officially be nominated next week, and if he and his supporters piss off enough of them by being arrogant asses the supers are going to hand the nomination to Hillary. Obama, his supporters, the Blogosphere and lots of other people don’t seem to realize that he and his supporters actually have to earn this nomination.

Of course, I don’t see any reason that Obama would have a talk with his delegates/supporters about this behavior and that’s why I expect Hillary to actually win the nomination during Thursday’s roll-call vote: the Super Delegates aren’t stupid and looking at the two candidates side-by-side and the way they’ve conducted themselves the last 6-12 months, I fully expect enough Supers to view Sen. Clinton as the stronger candidate that they’ll vote for her and she’ll win.

Huge upset? Perhaps.

Exactly what needs to happen? Totally.

What the system was designed for? Right again.

Completely and totally 100% inside the rules, both in spirit and in the “letter of the law”? Yup!

That’s all I’ve got for tonight.

Cheers.

-j

What, you thought even an extremely interesting Tropical Storm could make me forget that the Democratic Party is fixing to nominate Obama (a man who very possibility has lied to the Illinois Supreme Court) over Clinton (a women who actually won the primary popular vote) all while McCain fixes to be a worse president than Bush? Not likely. On the contrary, the time away has given me time to marshal my thoughts and collect some very nice blogging material. Yays.

First off, just how bad is John McCain? Let’s just say VERY. Two videos to prove my point:

The first one is by Brave New Films and I found it on MyDD.

Secondly, we’ve got a really great film by Aaron Hodgins Davis, found on the Sensico blog.

Now then. I see things going very well on the PUMA front, contrary to popular wisdom which would have you think they there are only about “2 dozen” of us…and that we’re all middle aged women who hate America. Or at least the Democratic Party. Or are racists. (ETA: I should point out that we’re not motivated by anti-Americanism, anti-Democraticism or racism. We’re just pro-Hillary.) But I’ll use that very same MyDD diary that I just linked to as proof of the strengthening of the PUMA movement: places such as MyDD are becoming increasingly toxic as even democrats who respectfully decline to support Sen. Obama are troll-rated for daring to speak such an opinion. This is happening on most of the MyDD comment threads that concern Hillary/Obama. The liberal blogosphere was never friendly to Clinton supporters, but since I came back to it after taking a 2 month break (early June-early August) I’ve noticed that any deviation from full support of the presumptive nominee gets you the same treatment that the big liberal blogs (DailyKos, MyDD, etc.) afford to GOP commenters who’ve wandered over to create trouble: a quick troll rating and an invitation to leave now. The only trouble with this unofficial policy that is enforced by the hardcore Obama supporters on sites like MyDD and DailyKos is just that: it’s not an official guideline and, in fact, abusing the troll rating on fellow liberals could get a user banned from the site. So why do I see this as a good thing? Simply because it seems like it’s happening more with more intensity over the last few days. Seems like every time I go on MyDD there’s more fierce attacks and sarcasm directed at the PUMA crowd for daring to…well, exist. But also for pointing out that according to the DNC rules the primary isn’t even over until after the convention. And the more intense the attacks, the more desperate the attacker, right? Because if we really were only “2 dozen” people who were just sad that our candidate didn’t win nobody would have even heard of us. The simple fact that users on sites like MyDD and DailyKos find it necessary to mount daily attacks on all things PUMA with increasing sarcasm and venom means that we’re winning.

The other thing that gives me hope is the fact that the most hard-core PUMAs are getting more excited. Because if they’re excited, I sure as hell am going to be as well. Riverdaughter laid it out in full, exciting detail a couple of days ago:

All we need is for the Credentials Committee to restore Florida and Michigan to full strength and strip Obama of unearned delegates. Then we need a nomination and roll call for Hillary with a majority of pledged and superdelegates voting for her and voile! It’s done. We’re back on track for winning the White House. … It’s so perfectly logical, straigtforward and sane that I have every expectation that it will happen.

This is the first time that I’ve seen a big-time PUMA lay out exactly how it’s going to happen and calmly say that she expects it to. There’s no rallying call of “if we really push, we can do it!” or “it’s an uphill battle, but we can win it!” What is there is the incredible rallying call of calm, cool confidence. Nothing gets people excited like saying you expect them to be able to pull off one of the most amazing political coups and realignments in decades without breaking a sweat!

I think it’s this calm, cool confidence that’s driving Obama supporters everywhere mad, simply because it’s obvious that it’s impossible to stop us, the PUMA movement. We will not be fooled and we will not be swayed. We are a quite gathering force that’s out of any one person’s control. Sarcasm at our expense will not stop us. Troll ratings will not stop us. The DNC will not stop us. This is grassroots power at its most pure and it is scary to behold.