I will be away for a few hours, so here is your primary open thread.
I am gonna go ahead and call Kentucky for Clinton.
This post is in: Election 2008, Previous Site Maintenance
I will be away for a few hours, so here is your primary open thread.
I am gonna go ahead and call Kentucky for Clinton.
by John Cole| 57 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Media, Outrage
Last night on Hardball, this outrage:
MATTHEWS: We’re back with the round table for more of the politics fix. I want to go to Tucker for, you know, what might be the Kentucky Derby tomorrow night. If tomorrow night, the Barack people announce that on their tote board, and Tim Russert and Chuck Todd and everybody else comes out, objectively, and points out that now we have reached an end of part of this process; the elected delegates, the pledged delegates, have now given a majority of their support to Barack Obama. Henceforth, nothing can happen, really, to stop him from winning the most elected delegates. The only thing that can give this now to Hillary Clinton or someone else is the decision of the unelected delegates, the super delegates.
***MATTHEWS: Spring those elected delegates, even, that they’ll switch even if something horrendous happens. So, she stays in it how long, based on that theory?
CARLSON: Why not till South Dakota, June 3? It doesn’t hurt her.
MATTHEWS: Jim, three months of opportunity for something to go hellaciously wrong for Barack Obama and she’s sitting there as the default.
CARROLL: I think it’s a bad strategy. Other campaigns have been built on pretty thin gruel like that.MATTHEWS: Take the vice presidential nomination and hope that some time between now and November something goes wrong.
CARROLL: I don’t want to go near that.
BERNARD: Hillary Clinton is going to become the Ron Paul of the Democratic party. There’s no way the super delegates can take this away from Barack Obama. There will be race riots in the streets if he wins enough super delegates —
And then they all laugh, except for Tucker, who was as shocked as I was when I saw it. It was kind of disgusting, but what I have grown used to this primary, which has turned into little more than identity politics at its worst.
Look- it is inconceivable to me that the super delegates would overturn the pledged delegates and the popular vote (as always, spare me the Michigan and Florida bullshit, Hillary supporters) at this point, but the implied threat of race riots is nauseating. Not only does it ignore the fact that African-Americans initially supported Hillary, but it suggests that the African-American community is not sophisticated enough to deal with political disappointment other than to riot in the streets. I have stated in the past I would not be surprised if a significant portion of the black electorate would be turned off so much by the supers handing this to Hillary that it would suppress the vote (and hurt Democrats for years in the future), but those are political choices and political consequences. Implying the threat of race riots is taking things to a whole new level of ugly. It was a shameful, unhelpful comment, and just as bad (I would argue worse) as the current threats by some women to not vote or to vote for McCain simply because the woman lost.
Screw the lawyers. First, kill all the pundits.
by John Cole| 47 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Popular Culture, Science & Technology
In the “first nationally representative survey of teachers concerning the teaching of evolution,” the authors show that one in eight high school biology teachers present creationism as a scientifically valid alternative to Darwinian evolution. While this number does not reflect public demand–38% of Americans would prefer that creationism to be taught instead of evolution–it does represent a disconnect between legal rulings, scientific consensus, and classroom education.
Via Pharyngula
by John Cole| 31 Comments
This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
The long-awaited FBI report on Detainee Interrogations has been released, and can be found here (.pdf). The NY Times provides a summary:
The report describes major and repeated clashes between F.B.I. agents and their counterparts over the rough methods being used on detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq — some of which, according to the inspector general, may have violated the Defense Department’s own policies at the time.
It also provides new insight into the intense debates at senior levels of the Justice Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council over what should and should not be allowed — a debate in which the Defense Department prevailed.
The inspector general found that in a few instances, F.B.I. agents participated in interrogations using pressure tactics that would not have been permitted inside the United States. But the “vast majority” of agents followed the bureau’s legal guidelines and “separated themselves” from harsh treatment.
I have not read the report yet, so I can not verify the accuracy of the NY Times summation. More later on as I get a chance to read it, and I am sure Jack Balkin, Greenwald and others (hopefully Lithwick will discuss it) will have some analysis.
by John Cole| 37 Comments
This post is in: I Read These Morons So You Don't Have To
Mark Levin at the Corner:
Missed Story [Mark R. Levin]
How many people showed up for Obama’s rally in Kentucky? Oh, he didn’t campaign there?
Answer: 8,000
Your average drive-by ranting commenter at this crappy little website has better research skills than the National Review. Not that this should surprise anyone.
by John Cole| 29 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign
WSJ with some reporting from inside the Clinton campaign:
Inside her campaign, Sen. Clinton isn’t asking for advice, forcing advisers to hold off discussions on what she wants from the process if she loses — from dealing with campaign debt, to her role in an Obama bid for the White House. “The campaign has broken down to those who drink the Kool-Aid that Hillary can still win, and those who don’t, and are considering their options,” one operative said.
Campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe says he has assured Sen. Clinton that she will have funds to compete through June 3, adding that he will worry about any campaign debt after that. “We’re still getting tens of thousands of contributors online, who love Hillary’s fight,” Mr. McAuliffe said.
Sen. Clinton’s campaign is racking up large debts, though. The campaign disclosed $12.6 million in debt at the end of March, not including a personal loan of $5 million from Sen. Clinton herself. One week ago, officials said the candidate had lent her campaign an additional $6.4 million and put total debt at $20 million.
Were the April fund-raising numbers released and I missed it? Or is the Obama campaign holding on to their numbers in case there is a bad news day they need to massage (something they have done very well, so far- the Edwards endorsement after WV was a perfect example).
Speaking of which, for those of you who are so inclined:
Does anyone know the intricacies of campaign financing? At what point would it be better to hold off from donating so that you can spend your surplus cash on donations that can be used in the general?
by John Cole| 38 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Politics
Obama and the almost 400 other Senators and Congressmen who voted for the bloated, outrageous, wasteful farm bill were wrong, and John McCain got it right. Hell, for that matter, Bush is right to veto it.
*** Update ***
Brooks never claimed Obama voted for the bill, but supported it. I was wrong to imply he voted for it.