And the Floodgates are Open

After Hillary Clinton's unbelievable comments at the end of last week, the gates are apparently now open wide for people to call for the assassination of Barack Obama. If unsure of what I am talking about, see Keith Olbermann's special comment and thorough haranguing of Clinton in the 10 minute youtube.com clip from Countdown. Not more than a few days later on Fox news we have people endorsing the idea that it would be "great" if Obama were to be assassinated. Holy Shit. Just think about that for a minute. It's OK for people to kill politicians they do not agree with. That is the idea endorsed on and by Fox News. I am completely floored. And the person responsible for this is a Democrat. One I have lost complete respect for, for the rest of my life: Hillary Clinton.

MN Senate - DFL Endorsement: Jack!

This has been cross-posted at The Daily Kos.

Fred Thompson: Booo Teachers!

Yay Fundamentalist Christians! On the way to work this morning I was listening to the radio (NPR) say that Fred Thompson is down in South Carolina trying to pry the evangelical votes away from Huckabee. The way he is doing this is to say that he had won the National Right to Life endorsenment and Huckabee only had the endorsement of the NEA.

Republican politics in this campaign are laughable. Thompson, the guy who got 1% in NH, the guy who was billed as the Neo-Reagan poster boy, came into this election thinking he would be the saviour of the Republican party. Best part is that he is no worse than the top tier candidates, but doesn't stand a chance. As I recently read on the Daily Kos frontpage, the front runners are a guy who doesn't believe in science, a guy who is OK with staying in Iraq for 100 years and a plutocrat attempting to purchase the presidency.

Colbert Run is for Real!

This could quite possibly be the greatest piss taking of the MSM-picks-the-candidate presidential campaign ever. While the Daily Show's Indecision '04 and Clusterfuck to the Whitehouse are funny and satirical on a high level, Colbert is coming close to genius every night on his show and in his run on the South Carolina ticket (to/on which he has officially applied). The top tier dems were asked about Colbert in a recent debate and Obama responded that he didn't even know he was from South Carolina and challenged Colbert to a grit off. When the camera came back to Colbert he was shovelling grits into his smirked mouth. There was also a nice snubbing of the republican party when he said he"just can't bring myself to write a $35,000 check to the republican party." It costs $2,500 to apply to the demcratic ballot.

I am well looking forward to seeing where he takes this campaign. I hope he cranks it up a notch or two (if that is possible) because there is a lot of work to do to combat the influence on the major news networks.

Guilty by Association

George Bush and the last 6 years of his presidency are what got me into politics, or at least knowing about what is going on in Washington and around the world. All of it made me politically opinionated on the things I care to be opinionated about. During Bush v. Gore in 2000 I sat on the fence -not caring, not understanding- and while I sat on the Gore side of the room during our Gov't/Econ class debate it was hard for me to see a difference between the two. Not being able to vote was also a reason, but what had a bigger influence in my attentiveness to the candidates was the booming economy and where I sat in life. In short, I had a pretty cozy middle class life. I knew there were problems and issues that needed to be dealt with but that was for when I entered the real world. Social security what? I reckon most 17 year old kids don't care. We were just mad it took money from our paycheck.

Enter Bush, 9-11, the short war and long occupation and everything else that has come to pass. Bush had his campaign, somehow got into office and completely flip flopped on just about everything. Now whenever I hear a politician speak, particularly a republican, I honestly cannot take him or her seriously. From when I started paying attention, what would cause me to believe in a single word they say? Lies have destroyed any meaning words might have. Nothing is taken seriously, and this is only reinforced by right wing talking points, presidential "debates" and bullshit pundits who are seemingly paid to be wrong.

Now it's all starting to spill over in the general field of all politicians. There is the meme that all politicians are corrupt, immoral, unethical, cheaters and liars. Ya can't trust 'em! Almost every night I watch the daily show and laugh at the bits where they take a soundbite of what someone said today and compare it with what they said whatever period of time ago, jesting all the way (tonight's was an EPA director claiming it was OK for ground zero workers to be at the site, and now she is saying she never said that - serious implications here!). I can't help but be cynical as hell when I hear any politician (read: candidate running for President) asking for my vote, err, money, or making claims about what they will do on any number of issues.

Two things have maybe brought this line of thinking about: capitulation to Iraq occupation funding. There was such high hope for real and immediate change after November 2006 and its still: "wait until January," "wait until June," "wait until SEPTEMBER," and I can see the machine gearing up for the new talking point "wait until -insert future date here-." The other reason is that, just about, only one guy in congress seems to care about my #1 issue, while the rest yak about our god given right to cheap petrol and unlimited driving. In the end, if they aren't going to concern themselves and the country with what I and a small but growing group of people believe to be the most pressing issue over the next 20+ years, why give them the time of day?

Bi-lingual Countries Do Not Work!

As I said in my previous post, the republican debates ought to be awfully funny. Or perhaps just awful depending on how you look at politics. Rather than watch the entire charade I went for a run and lost a few fat cells rather than brain cells. I did watch the last 30-ish minutes and here is what I thought.

Everyone: Sucks!

Not quite, but listening to Giuliani made me sick to my stomach. Same with Tancredo and Hunter. McCain is kinda turning into the bumbling idiot that Bush always has been. Ron Paul! I want to see more of him. I don't know why. But for real, Tancredo scares the shit out of me.

Democratic Debate

Because I am both lazy and have nothing better to do I watched the Democratic Presidential Debate. It was on CNN, and they are yet again transmitting to us under the assumption we are morons by reminding us that the Senators running for the Democratic nomination are indeed democrats (they put the little (D) next to their name). From the blogs that I read I only get views and positions on Obama and Edwards mostly, with a few snarks at Clinton and the rest of second tier candidates. So i wanted to see a bit more of the rest of the field and HRC too. From the moment I saw them standing straight and composed behind their podiums I couldn't help but laugh at the pony show I thought would follow. Here are a few thoughts:

Gravel: Who is this guy!? In his 4 or so chances to say something all he did was turn to the rest of the candidates and bitch, whinge and moan. He really is a generator of democratic infighting. I read a comment about Gravel on Dailykos - " Meanwhile, Gravel is eating a pizza at stage right... " So very true! He just sat there the whole debate... with 5 minutes of talk time! Just does not seem serious in his candidacy/campaign. Though every now and then he smacks someone down and keeps people in their place a bit.

Kucinich: Everybody writes this guy off as a legitimate candidate for POTUS, and he he pretty much is. But he probably got the most applause for when he did speak. Never mind he couldn't directly answer the question asked to him - and neither did most every other candidate up there. He does have a hot wife though. And his positions are superb: against Iraq war from the beginning, end NAFTA, end PATRIOT act, Universal Healthcare, is a vegan, etc. Kudos for slipping in GWB is a war criminal!

Clinton: This is pretty much the first time I heard her speak in public. I don't pay much attention to her as I've concluded that she is too much of a hawker. Really inconsistent on Iraq - she trusted Bush! Not admitting she was wrong on her vote to use force. It's hard for me to support her. I'm sure she has good ideas and positions on other things, but I've yet to hear them. I do applaud her for taking it to Wolf tonight with his ridiculous "raise your hand" bullshit along with the inane hypotheticals. THAT was refreshing!

Edwards: On the attack! Right on Iran, right on different types of democracies. Also liked him on his views of gay marriage, as they come pretty close to my own (from what I could gather). Ending public subsidies to oil companies! If I had to decide tomorrow, he is probably the person I'd vote for. But he did vote to use force in Iraq. Hrmmm... Really though, I'm in the -not a clue- category.

Richardson: Snoozefest...zzzzz. He has this stellar resume and pretty much flopped tonight, failing to live up to it. He must have used half of his talk time to explain he is a) a governor and b) from New Mexico. He makes really weird comments too, or maybe he just has a lot of brain farts? "I'm a pro growth democrat!" Or his comments about Roe v Wade and Supreme Court Justices. For now I've lost any interest in him.

Biden and Dodd: Have trouble discerning these two; they look the same and are both east coast senators. Glad to see Biden getting loud on genocide! But he is military action this, military action that. Seems hawkish like Clinton. Dodd had a good response on the English as official language question - that being "no." Also, Dodd seemed to get longest response to the "gas prices" question. He went on and on about long term goals, yada yada and never really answered the question; so I'll assume he would do nothing to ease gas prices - right answer! He also linked energy supply/dependence to national security - a plus. He definitely piqued my interest from these debates.

Obama: I've seen him speak before and his style just won't work with the minute long answers for these so called debates. Saying that he got pretty good treatment. He had the most talk time of everyone but a lot of it was umms and ahs. And he got first response to a lot of questions - the GOOD questions. Kudos to him for attacking the framing of one of his questions (question is meant to divide us). I want to see more of him...he should come to Minnesota! Because even with all that talk time he still didn't really impress me all that much.

The Republican debate is coming up... think of all the comedy and great drinking games! Chug a beer each time evolution is denied! Take a shot each time the use of torture is advocated for! I wonder how much hand raising will be done with them? Man Wolf Blitzer is an ass.... and were those questions from the people really their own? Ha! In the end it was OK, it was far better than the Kerry - Bush debates that were nothing more than prepared speeches. There was too much bias: lower tier candidates got terrible questions, ie: Gravel - What would you do with Bill Clinton? C'mon! And the Kucinich/Osama Bin Laden hypothetical.... pathetic. I was and still remain a bit worried about the Dems candidates but this has made me a bit less dissonant; any of these people running are a welcome change to Bush and are miles ahead of the Republican army of old white guys. Are there any Independents running yet?

The two or three people who I actually want to run have all declined, or most likely won't. Damn!