Wednesday Open Thread – Holla at us!!

30 Apr 2008 Author: rikyrah

Middle of the week…we can make it, folks.

So, tell me what’s happening. What’s going on? Where are those links? What trouble do you want to stir up? LOL

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Ms.Martin

IsMichael Moore the first person to state outright that Hillary used the words Hammas and the name of Farrakhan during the ABC debate to scare white working-class voters?

Craig Hickman

ABC Digs Into Clinton Trade Hypocrisy - Clinton Campaign Responds With More Deception

The Nixons make me ill.

Texas Girl in L.A.

Craig,

My mother just called and told me that John Kerry is pissed! Yes, my mother said PISSED!

Craig Hickman

God bless John Kerry. If he campaigned with half the passion he's showing for Obama and pushed backed against his own swiftboating, he'd have been elected.

rikyrah, the WaPo mention is in this article.

Obama Calls Minister's Comments Outrageous

Ms.Martin

rickyrah

I was happy to see Clemens being called out too!

You didn't hear as much about it as you did about bonds though.

Admiral Komack

"This has absolutely nothing to do with politics, but if you're a baseball fan, how much do you want to bet that Barry Bonds is laughing his ass off about all these 'revelations' about Roger Clemens....accused of going with a 15 year old when you were 28? For how they raked Bonds over the coals, yeah, I'm LMAO at Clemens' fall"

-The Bottle Rocket is stuck between a rock and a hard place:

Either he didn't "git 'er done" with the girl because he was using drugs he didn't get from his doctor ('roids)...or he and the girl had a ball, in which case his wife would kick his ass.

rikyrah

Where is JJP mentioned at WaPo?

Craig Hickman

You can preach the politics of hope, a new path, unity...but sometimes you have to leave some dead bodies on the street to get there.

::

Comment of the day.

LucieLu

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008... is interesting...

Kitty

rikyrah @ Wed Apr 30, 09:45:00 AM 2008

I'm loving it myself. And the thing is Clemens doesn't know when to shut up. The more he runs his mouth and denies things the deeper the hole he digs for himself. Andy Pettite, McCready, McCready's dad, the little boy who snapped the picture of Clemens at Jose Canseco's party...you can't tell me all these folks are lying.

Christopher Chambers

Go to today'sWashington Post--your blog gets a shoutout, front page. www.washingtonpost.com.

The reporter had me on the phone for 30 mins but of course time and the press conference dictated an edit. Would have been nice to clarify the allegorical nature of "game over," the disconnect between Wright's speech and the Q & A, and my unwavering comparison/contrast vis. Sen. Obama and JFK. Re: the last point, both men promised a different way, hope, boundless energy. Both men were also "light-weight" and that does NOT mean weak, naive, stupid. The difference is that JFK had hardcore people around him, especially his father, Joe Kennedy, who would have had Jeremiah Wright locked in a box in a submarine for the past six months, with all copies of all but the most joyful sermons locked in that box with him.

David Axelrod is supposedly the expert. He should have anticipated this, planned for it. Yes, planned. Perhaps he didn't think the campaigned would get this far? Perhaps he underestimated the "old-school"/tribal politics of the this nation which even a kid could of picked up by watching "John Adams" or "Gangs of New York," on HBO. I don't know. The fact remains that given (1) the cable news and blogsphere's penchant for "soap opera-ization" of news (and that's a nasty, apt metaphor in and of itself), (2) the average viewer's passive, almost ignorant processing of such news and it's delivery through pundits/entertainers, and (3) that many white citizens will, consciously or subconsciously, glom onto any "excuse" not to vote for an African American (who isn't a cipher or humunculus like Clarence Thomas, or Blackwell or Swan, etc.), Axelrod should have been on top of this and had it nailed down from the start.

You can preach the politics of hope, a new path, unity...but sometimes you have to leave some dead bodies on the street to get there.

Gregory

For those who haven't followed the links about the NC robo-calls targeting black voters, note that Maggie Williams, yes, the Clinton campaign chief staffer is connected to the WVWV organization. (just go to one of the kos links in the comments above).

Oh, the Clintons trying to suppress the black vote. I never thought I'd reach a point where it appears the 'right' was right about a lot things about the Clintons.

cranky

oops i should've scrolled up... looks like you're on it... except you might not have known that multiple Clinton Campaign people are connected to this outfit that's getting busted.

Her campaign mgr, for crying out loud. How can she roller skate through this?

ok... I used up enough of your ink... looks like good news up in this thread.

peace out

cranky

Oh, here's some links... to daily kos and the DU thread where I found out about it.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/30/11055/6499/141/506343

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum;=132&topic;_id=5751417&mesg;_id=5751417

there you go

I need a hot cup and a prayer.

(all of ya)

Crankychatter

cranky

Origin of NC "robocalls" has been determined by Progressive South over at Daily Kos.

The calls target African American Voters, telling them a packet will come in the mail.. and when they return all the forms... they'll be able to vote..." disinforming people... felony voter suppression...

That source is Women's Voices Women Vote, a D.C.-based nonprofit. On the Board of Directors is Bill Clinton's old campaign manager.

On the leadership team, is Hillary Clinton's CURRENT CAMPAIGN MANAGER. This group donated big to the Senator's campaign.

Per Kos there is evidence that this method of suppression, and the precise same call, has been used in 24 Primaries so far, disenfranchising, potentially, hundreds of thousands of voters.

I just couldn't think of a better place to post this.

Texas Girl in L.A.

Over at the Jed Report notices that the...

Obama campaign posts delegate countdown on website. Now we can keep track

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/04/obama-campaig-1.html

TruthSeeker

I'm not American, but I like the idea of Barack Obama in the White House. The thought of Malia and Sasha skipping through the hallways feels good to me...it feels right.

I think the world feels safer at the thought of Obama in the White House. This is the potential reality the world wants to actualize. It feels right in my bones, like when I've made the correct decision. I can see Michelle setting menus and having meetings, it's the way it should be. I think children in the White House will affect the way decisions are made.

I have a sense that the gods are having a good laugh at us. A man named Obama similar to the name of America's nemesis Osama where the "b" and the "s"(bullshit) are transposed.

I get the sense the gods roll at the humour of the black family who will occupy the white house, and at the dismay of those who oppose it.

Texas Girl in L.A.

3 Supers today so far...

Bruce Braley (D-IW)

Baron Hill (D-IN)

Lois Capps (D-CA)

Texas Girl in L.A.

Craig,

That is some intense stuff regarding the robo calls. The info is now on an ABC (blog) and the many bloggers over at DailyKos are trying to blast it everywhere.

Women's Voices Women Vote...wow!

TruthSeeker

Michelle Obama is on Anderson Cooper tonight to react to Wright controversy.

rikyrah

bigdaddy,

I appreciated that. You ask a good question, but a lot of folks on the left don't want to answer that question. They can't point to anything concrete that Obama has done - OTHER THAN WIN - as to WHY they dislike him.

We, on the other hand, have a list a mile long..we have a friggin' WIKI for pete's sake.

They don't have any of that....other than ' doesn't he know that this is HER TURN'.

BigDaddyRich

JandJers --
I just posted a diary over at Daily Kos about the stunning level of anti-Obama feelings circulating among the left blogosphere:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/30/104623/719/128/506332

I used a quote from a JandJ blog post from yesterday. Read, think about it, and lemme know what you think.

Craig Hickman

By spending most of his adult life on the South Side of Chicago, and launching his careers as activist and politician there, Barack Obama has benefited from an unusual political and social base that is perhaps hard for the rest of the country to fully understand or relate to.

The area is both patchwork and blend of hardscrabble inner-city Black neighborhoods, well-to-do enclaves of the city’s Black elite, and the racially-mixed Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood with its strong Jewish presence where Obama and his family make their home. (The Obamas much-discussed house and lot are just across the street from my synagogue.) But it is much less a cauldron of conflict than an exceptional place of political cooperation where certain pacts and understandings were reached long ago that make for bedfellows that might seem strange to other parts of the country or the East Coast commentariat.

The South Side is home to two generations of Jesse Jacksons, the younger a Congressman with his own power base among those born after the Civil Rights Movement. Democrat Barbara Flynn Currie, majority leader of the Illinois General Assembly, is a white woman representing a nearly all-Black district. University of Chicago conservative libertarian legal guru Richard Epstein lives just a few doors from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Education advocate Bill Ayers, an unapologetic member of the '60's violence-prone Weather Underground, sent his children to the university's private schools while some other, less grandiose, white activists support the more embattled public education system. The area's other Congressman, Bobby Rush, a former leader of the Black Panther Party, is seen now as too timid and low profile by many liberals.

Much of the unique entente in the area stems from locally legendary leaders who have moved easily across racial and religious divides and who have been direct or indirect influences on Obama. Leon M. Despres, a Jew, who for twenty years led -- and sometimes was -- the City Council opposition to the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, father of the current mayor, recently turned 100 and remains an active and respected figure.

Chicago's first Black Mayor, Harold Washington, who died in office 20 years ago after being elected decisively to a second term, made it clear to Black audiences that he was a supporter of the State of Israel and to Jewish audiences that he could reject specific statements by Minister Farrakhan without denouncing someone within his own community. South Siders are used to straight talk.

The man who introduced Obama to many South Side figures is Abner J. Mikva, also Jewish, who once represented the area in the State Legislature and then in Congress before shifting to a suburban district after redistricting, serving on and as Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and putting in time as Bill Clinton’s White House counsel.

This is the sort of area where there has been more comment over the years on the number of expensive cars in the parking lots and power couples in the pews of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ, a good four miles south of the University of Chicago Law School where Obama used to teach, than on the inflamed rhetoric seen in selected video snatches of Wright on YouTube.

These are not cases of winking and nudging, of trying to hide divisions or pockets of extreme beliefs. Rather this is an area that has understood "righteous anger" in the Black community as well as the ongoing work of conciliation and community advancement because these are issues and people encountering each other, however imperfectly, every day and not just as hypotheticals.

Obama would not be the first figure from such an area or background to confuse understandings among people who have truly spent time together in cooperation and debate with the harsh realities of suspicion and misunderstanding in the larger worlds of politics and national life. But he also can draw on these experiences as Massachusetts Governor and South Side Chicago native Deval Patrick has done or as New York’s new Governor David A. Paterson is doing. For these are all people of a generation that knows that it is a mistake either to play race as a game or to ignore race if one seeks a candid conversation with the electorate and would confront this country’s complex racial history with seriousness.

For this South Side native and Obama supporter, it is a perhaps pleasant irony that the repeated airing of video soundbites of Rev. Wright forced Obama away from his own slide into empty catchphrases and into delivering one of the most substantive speeches of his still-young career. By returning to the bases of his adopted home town and communities he can return to the unique strengths he has drawn from them -- an ability to unite varied and even disparate peoples in a common cause and a seriousness about articulating the problems this country faces and his vision for confronting them.

With the Philadelphia speech -- by way of Chicago -- he has begun to do this.

The View From Here

Texas Girl in L.A.

Rikyrah,

Interesting article.

Something I have noticed long time ago.

TruthSeeker

An exhausted Clinton clunks in webcast interview

rikyrah

TV Alert: Barack and Michelle will be on The Today Show, Thursday Morning.

Craig Hickman

From DailyKos

BREAKING: Source of deceptive NC robo-calls exposed

rikyrah

From Politico.com

GOP gives Clinton the silent treatment

rikyrah

This has absolutely nothing to do with politics, but if you're a baseball fan, how much do you want to bet that Barry Bonds is laughing his ass off about all these 'revelations' about Roger Clemens....accused of going with a 15 year old when you were 28? For how they raked Bonds over the coals, yeah, I'm LMAO at Clemens' fall.

Jonzee

How 'bout a little laughter via 'Kos?

B-Serious

craig,

I agree. They should come out and announce. But rumor says that the DNC wants to let Hillary's side down as gently as possible. It's all about party unity and not giving her supporters an excuse to claim that she was "forced" out of the race.

Funny, but I don't think they'd afford that same luxury to Obama supporters if the roles were reversed.

Hillary supporters act like every state always gets to vote before the nominee is chosen

That's just not true.

By her own words, Hillary expected to have the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday. She didn't care about "letting all the states vote" back then.

http://reachblack.blogspot.com/2008/03/newsflash-hillary-aint-special.html

KASH

I believe they will be coming around - one or two a day from now on. It has been the trend for the last four days.

b serious has it correct. Bill Richardson hinted about it also on Hardball last night.

This phase may be over soon.

KASH

Craig Hickman

I just think the SuperD's ought to put up or shut up.

B-Serious

Alright. If she's telling the truth, this could be BIG NEWS. . .

Senator Claire McCaskill says that the race for super delegates is OVER and Obama won:

http://reachblack.blogspot.com

http://reachblack.blogspot.com/2008/04/very-promising-news-regarding-super.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9968.html

If true, this thing is OVER. And it's just a matter of time before Obama wraps this thing up.

Craig Hickman

ACTION ALERT: Kentucky SD Attacked for Supporting Obama

rikyrah

Anonymous,

thank you...got my laugh of the day. I won't hold my breath to see if this is run with like 'other' things.

Anonymous

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/30/geoff-...

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Cheryl Contee aka "Jill Tubman", Baratunde Thurston aka "Jack Turner", rikyrah, Leutisha Stills aka "The Christian Progressive Liberal", B-Serious, Casey Gane-McCalla, Jonathan Pitts-Wiley aka "Marcus Toussaint," Fredric Mitchell

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