While I wait forever for my previous comment to (maybe) appear; I'll point out that the Democrats nationally are fools for not taking seriously the FACT that Republicans cheat and do not "play by the rules" for free and fair elections. Daddy Bush, the CIA guy, has all these buddies who have been rigging elections all over the world for decades. Now they have the black-box voting machines and what makes anyone think they'll play nice this time? As I told Howard Dean, THEY STOLE THE LAST TWO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS! Dean replied, "We'll have lots of lawyers at the polls." Oh that will help a lot, won't it? Even if there were EVIDENCE of cheating (and with the electronics, you can rig an election without leaving a trace!), why would the Bush-packed courts act otherwise than they did back in 2000?

No, the Democrats really are too damn stupid if they imagine that civics-textbook democracy exists in the USA in 2008. This is the country with a regime which tortures, lies, cheats, and steals and thumbs its nose at the Constitution and the impotent "leaders" of Congress.

Remember Rove said in 2006 that he "had the numbers." The fix was in---and only an unexpected turnout overwhelmed the frauds. In some places they did it anyway, as in Florida where 18,000 votes vanished from the screens and a Republican "won" a seat in Congress because of it. That's another case where if the Dems had ANY political presence of mind they would never have capitulated! It's just too damn bad the right wingers also have all the guns in this country, too.

Posted at April 9, 2008 2:43 AM in response to Dems Exceptionally Well Positioned To Expand Majority In Senate

Franken does not even have the nomination yet; he is opposed by a popular anti-war activist who is showing some Wellstone-like insurgent moves; furthermore Franken has alreadt spent $4 million while Norm the Chameleon has $7 million ON HAND.

Franken most likely will be nominated. But he is behind NOW in the polls; he will be out-spent 2-to-1 from here on, and I would bet on Norm winning easily in the fall. The only person who has beaten Norm was Jesse Ventura.

With the GOP convention here in St. Paul, and probably the popular Republican Minnesota Governor running for V-P with McCain, chances are good that this state will cast electoral votes for the Thugs, too.

The right-wing set out to capture this state fifteen or twenty years ago. They set up a "think tank," and organized the take-over of the airwaves, even subverting the mighty WCCO-AM. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, since the Wellstone tragedy, hasn't been able to get its act back together.

Posted at April 9, 2008 2:30 AM in response to Dems Exceptionally Well Positioned To Expand Majority In Senate

True the Clinton campaign has "failed," at least by the terms set by Bill Clinton in 1992 when he denounced candidates who resort to fear tactics in order to win. But as far as getting the nomination this year, Sen. Clinton not only has not failed, but it looks like she will prevail, following this disastrous business with Sen. Obama's pastor.

Of course, she CANNOT and WILL NOT win the election in the fall---but you can believe that the Clintons will alibi that it wasn't their fault. They are as bad as Bush at always blaming someone else when things go wrong.

As far as Hillary being a "fighter"---what a crock!

If Sen. Clinton had FOUGHT one-tenth as hard against the Bush-Cheney regime as she has against Sen. Obama, why she would have clinched the nomination easily long before now. She fights ONLY to advance her own personal ambitions---and then she fights without restraint or scruples.

Posted at March 15, 2008 1:57 AM in response to "...but you can never count out the Clintons"

You betcha it's over. And it isn't a happy ending for Senator Obama. I would like to point out that the corporate media took its cues from the viral e-mail---this year's "swiftboat" attack, which the Obama campaign did NOT know how to counter.

What should have been done was to identify this as a n electronic whispering campaign---the most scurrilous kind of political smear tactic---and to insist that the media get to work and do some detection and investigation to discover the original source of the smear. My money says it is Karl Rove . . . what do you think he went to work on when he supposedly "retired?"

Furthermore, they should have insisted that the media label the smear as a FALSEHOOD---the damaging parts being the Muslim allegations and the claim that Obama disrespects the flag and won't say the Pledge of Allegiance.

THOSE FALSEHOODS should have been branded as such, early on. Yet the Washington Post, first print source to play the story, DID NOT focus on the anonymity of the source (a key element!!) and the FALSEHOOD of the accusations.

Of course, this smear did not originate from nothing. SOMEBODY concocted it, but WOULDN'T PUT THEIR NAME ON IT.

What did the corporate media whores do? First Russert tried to work the Farrakhan angle; then the "Do you think Obama's a Muslim?" question was tossed to Hillary, who snidely (and outrageously) said "well, I'll have to take his word on it" instead of denouncing this scurrilous lie as a scurrilous lie. [Not that being a Muslim is bad, but that the purpose of spreading the lie was to play to prevalent anti-Muslim prejudice, and to accuse him of fronting for terrorism. that's what's scurrilous.]

After a month of mining this whispering campaign, the corporate whores finally hit pay dirt with the stuff about preacher Wright. This will do the trick, all right. And no one will ever be held to account for this character assassination of the last slender hope we could have had for a restoration of democracy and civil liberty in the USA.

Because believe me, Hillary cannot beat McCain. she'll be lucky to do as well as Mondale or McGovern.

Posted at March 15, 2008 1:46 AM in response to Lanny on Tucker...This Primary May Be Over

This comment system is not worth the effort.

And by the way, this incident is the end of Obama's chances. Might was well inaugurate McCain now . . . and hope Canada relaxes its new exclusionary border laws.

Posted at March 14, 2008 2:35 PM in response to The Irrelevance of Obama's Minister

This is the end of the road for Obama's campaign---and for the future of the USA as a free and democratic republic. What we lost in 2000 will NEVER be restored. Hillary will be nominated and McCain will be inaugurated. More monarchists on the Supreme Court will wreck every vestige of civil liberties we have remaining---which ain't all that much anyway.

IF the economy totally collapses before November, Hillary MIGHT have a chance--except for the Republican ace-up-the-sleeve: rigging the elections via vote suppression and black-box cheating. But the Thugs will keep the appearance of economic viability with cheap credit and dollars backed only by debt . . . long enough to win.

Shall we revive the DRAFT AL GORE option?

Posted at March 14, 2008 2:28 PM in response to The Irrelevance of Obama's Minister

Number one, there aren't any "tough" leaders in the Democratic Party. If there had been, they never would have rolled over in 2000! Much less in 2004!

Secondly, the Clintons don't give a rap for the party leadership or for other candidates for Senate, Congress, etc. It's all about winning, but just for them! It was under their watch that the GOP took over Congress.

Third, Hillary is behind. In order to get the nomination, now, she thinks there is only one path left--not to defeat Barack, but to DESTROY him. Or rather, ONLY by destroying him, can she overtake him.

Read Robert Caro's description of how Lyndon Johnson ran his campaign against Coke Stevenson in 1948, in the book "Means of Ascent." There you will find a story which explains what Hillary is doing and WHY.

This is not "civics book" politics. This is about POWER. Senator Obama needs to show that he is no neophyte about the nature of power. I hope that having been schooled in Chicago politics, he will be up to the challenge. I don't mean he has to resort to smear and fear in retaliation, but his response needs to be something that re-frames the narrative and shifts the ground in this campaign.

One thing is certain. No kibitzer from the sidelines will make any impression on the Clintons. They are the Democrats' version of Nixon.

Posted at March 12, 2008 5:18 AM in response to Will Democratic Party Leadership Confront Hillary Over Her Campaign Tactics?

If Hillary Clinton had spent the last seven years fighting against the Bush-Cheney regime even ONE-TENTH as hard as she has fought against Barach Obama, why she would have clinched the nomination a long time ago.

She has NOT shown leadership for the people of this country, who would have appreciated her if she had stood with Russ Feingold and defended the Constitution; if she had listened to Robert Byrd and Paul Wellstone and voted against the Iraq war; if she had taken the lead in denouncing the use of torture and the profiteering and theft in Iraq; if she had like Russ Feingold voted against the so-called "Patriot Act." With her national profile, she could have been a national leader of the people and of her Party.

She chose not to. She didn't protest the theft of the 2000 election nor the theft of the 2004 election. But she finally decides to take off the gloves and boast of her fighting prowess---against a fellow Democrat.

Posted at March 12, 2008 2:51 AM in response to It's official Barack wins Texas...wait, what?

Furthermore, just because Hillary Clinton knows how to campaign dirty, doesn't mean she can beat the criminal republicans at their own game. Maybe, MAYBE, she can beat Senator Obama by doing it, but so what.

You say, Hillary Clinton won't be or can't be "swift-boated." Hell, she ALREADY has been, years ago, so much so that she is just as unpopular with the electorate as Junior Bush is. "Independents" and uninformed voters just plain don't like her, thanks to the fascist radio diatribes they have all absorbed over the last 20 years, when Thugs captured the airwaves while Democrats fiddled.

Posted at March 12, 2008 2:42 AM in response to Root cause: FL 2000?

I did not hear or see the Clintons, either of them, lift a finger to protest against the 2000 election theft and Supreme Court coup.

If it had been the other way around, if the Democrats had lost the popular vote by over half-a-million votes but somehow wiggled through with electoral votes, do you think the Reprobates would have been meekly and "patriotically" acquiescent?

Hell, no. NOT ONE DAY would have gone by after the inauguration of the impostor administration that the Thugs would have been taking to the floor of Congress, and demonstrating in the streets, and filling the airwaves with vitriolic denunciation, and making life hell for the impostor regime.

This would have been only fair, because they could show that the PEOPLE had been cheated out of their clear choice.

That is what the Democrats should have done---but they didn't. They played along with the betrayal of the voters, thinking that their duty was to adhere to rules which enabled the Thug-Reprobates to win, even though they had clearly cheated in Florida by throwing black voters off the registration lists.

Yet the Democratic Party leaders wouldn't even object loudly to THAT signal injustice, for fear of white backlash or some such lame alibi.

The problems we face today DO have their roots in 2000. That is when the Democratic leadership chose to cave-in, to kow-tow, to sell out instead of standing up defiantly against the gangsters who stole the election and have spent their time in power trashing the Constitution, looting the treasury, ignoring terrorist threats, and then waging unprovoked war for oil instead of going after and knocking off bin Laden.

And there is plenty of evidence that the 2004 election was ALSO stolen, chiefly by black-box voting mischief.

Posted at March 12, 2008 2:36 AM in response to Root cause: FL 2000?