I hear argument after argument that everyone must be "nice" to Hillary Clinton, so that her supporters won't be pissed off and refuse to vote dem in the fall.

Wrong.

If Rahm Emmanuel, and Al Gore, and Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, and many others . . . started telling Clinton's supporters the truth: that she is misrepresenting Barack Obama's statements, that she is twisting the truth about TCC and Reverend Wright, that she is lying about having the most primary votes, etc., etc. . . . they would start to see her as she is, not what they imagine her to be.

The kid gloves allow her supporters to keep their delusions.

The kid gloves allow untruths about Barack Obama to stand uncontested.

The kid gloves allow the media to propagate Hillary's claims in their pundit debates.

The kid gloves allow voters who might have considered Barack Obama in November to dismiss him now.

It's time to stand up for the truth.

Remember: many former Hillary supporters have turned away from her once they realized what she was up to. It's time that the leaders of the party let the rest of her supporters know that truth.

This is a thought piece based on Obama's statement about voters in Pennsylvania and Indiana. I am interested in how these voters might go from:

I am a rural, white, republican, christian voter and I support God, America, and guns, and I hate abortion, gays, and democrats.

to

Barack Obama is right. I am voting for these things because I don't trust politicians to fix my economic problems.

I think Obama opened up a dialog that these voters cannot ignore, that will force them to think about how they have been voting and why. See below for the thought progression that could lead from the former statement to the latter.

We are watching chess on a grand scale. Two very big moves in two different games just happened: the endorsement of Obama by Richardson, and the endorsement of McCain by Hillary and Bill Clinton. Here is what they portend.

The first game: Obama vs. Hillary (democratic nomination)

Richardson should have gone for Hillary, given that Bill Clinton gave him major appointments that brought him prestige. Richardson running against Hillary for president was itself traitorous, much less not endorsing her after he dropped out. Richardson said on Countdown that he nearly endorsed Hillary after the superbowl party with Bill Clinton, but something held him back. His endorsement of Obama is the first move of the superdelegates who were absolutely supposed to go Hillary.

The game: The Queen's knight has crossed over to the other side and immediately puts his own king in check. The other undeclared pieces are leaning Obama or they would have sworn their loyalty to the Queen already. They share her side but they aren't fighting for her.

The outcome: Obama takes the nomination

The game with McCain below...

I was driving through an apartment complex as a shortcut on my way home from work in Tampa Florida, and I saw these two little boys, about 8 years old, walking with their arms around each others necks, laughing, two best friends. One was a little black boy, black as the night, and the other was a little white boy, red hair and freckles.

I know this is not uncommon anymore. I know that. But still, it made me cry. I could see the future.

The feelings I had were on many levels, and I want to try to describe them. I am an older white woman, and I view the world through my own racial experiences, growing up in the Detroit area in the 60s. I see race, I feel racial differences. But what I saw in these boys were two kids that don't see race, even though I could imagine that both sets of their parents might.

I lived in South Carolina for 2 years, and Hawaii for 20 years, and I raised my son in Hawaii. Now I have a boy who also doesn't see race. He is different from me. (more below)

I have vowed on here several times that I would not vote for Hillary in November if she takes the nomination through abhorrent tactics.

But then I read Game Theory's diary on the rec list:
http://www.dailykos.com/...

And I realized something very big. I could vote for Hillary, even if she does win by tactics I don't support, under one condition...

It all depends on Obama.

In the 90s I was hired as an assistant professor in an English department at a state university in the south. I am a white female, and a black female was hired the same year in the same department. We were both introduced to the department at a reception at the beginning of the year, and I remember one of the older male professors whispering to me that the other woman was hired only because she was black.

And you know what, he was right, because if he had his way, she would never have been hired at all. There was a push to recruit minorities, and she benefited from that. But here's the thing. She had graduated from Harvard, and I had graduated from a small state school. She had published two books, and I had published two articles. She was far more qualified for an assistant professor position than I was, and yet she was going to have to work harder than me to prove herself to that old fart in order to get tenure.

I can't believe all this wrangling regarding different health care plans, whether candidate X or Y will give driver's licenses to immigrants or not, etc. etc.

Since when does a president's plans become law?

Since never, that's when.

Presidents don't make law, they sign bills into law, or they veto bills. That's about it. They beg and plead, and they sign or not, but that's the limit of their power.

Look, if the president could do anything, Bill would have gotten Hillary's healthcare plan into law in 1993. He couldn't.

So why on earth would you argue about such nonsense? The president is not the legislator-in-chief, far from it.

If you're going to vote, vote based on approach, way of thinking, factors considered by the candidate, ways of explaining the factors, but NOT on whether you want a specific plan turned into law. Ain't gonna happen.

I'm really sick of these arguments about who is going to get arrested at the hospital or have their wages garnished, depending on who we elect as president. ARE YOU CRAZY?

There's another side to "it's not about rich vs. poor."

Obama was criticized on dailykos for being naive, for not standing up for the poor, for not realizing that the rich find the poor irrelevant and aren't about to help them.

No, it's about rich + poor.

Obama is explicitly calling for everyone in America to unite (E Pluribus Unum). He's calling for the abolishment of VS. as a defining characteristic of this country.

rich vs. poor    OR     rich + poor
black vs. white   OR     black + white
men vs. women     OR     men + women

This doesn't mean that Obama discounts the poor and ignores their needs. It means that he counts the rich. He wants everyone to be included in all calculations.

Obama doesn't accept the premise that it's an adversarial relationship. The rich aren't entitled to win, it's not even going to be a bout. There's no VS. allowed.

(more below)

Lots of arguments are floating around how Obama is triangulating a lot like two previous presidents who won crossover votes: Reagan and Clinton I. Not only that, I would contend that Bush II was a triangulator in his first election too ("compassionate conservatism; I worked with the Democrats in Texas"). He came out of the closet shortly thereafter, however. Clinton II is not being accused of triangulation - she is clearly a strong partisan Democrat.

However, there is a big difference between what these triangulating guys said and what they did, and the issue is which way will Obama go - will he operate like Reagan (talk centrist, yet push a partisan agenda), or will he operate like Clinton I (talk centrist, and give a lot of ground to the opposition)?

Here's the thing ... I voted for both Reagan and Clinton I, and I have something to say about why I did and about what each chose to do with my vote. And it's relevant to Obama.

This is a fight, folks. The democratic candidates are trying to win the nomination, they are NOT trying to get along. These guys want to beat each other and win.

The same goes for us, the supporters. If you support one person, and detest another, now is the time to say so. So cut the crap about how we all need to get along.

(More...)

It just occurred to me that Bush is going to be happier with a Democratic congress. Really.

Bush went into 2000 truly thinking that he was a uniter, based on his ability to work with a Democratic legislature in Texas. The problem for him was that he hired back all his Daddy's ideologues, plus he had a Republican senate and house who wanted to dominate, not compromise. Bush was steamrolled by the far more powerful Republicans who allowed no room for compromise with Democrats. He wished the Democrats would agree with him, but he had no mechanism in place to bring Democrats into the fold, when the fold was a neocon point of view that engulfed him.

I think that Bush is actually relieved .... (more below)

Three really important things FOR US happened yesterday:

1. The democrats won control of the house and senate.

2. The new democrats who won are exceptionally moral people.

3. The democrats who won owe their success to the grassroots and netroots, and they know it.

This intersection of factors means that it's possible that the very nature of politics in America will change drastically for the better in January...

And Howard Dean's role in this goes deeper than you think.

I just heard a report on NPR as I was coming to work that really disturbed me. They were interviewing a guy in Utah who invented a way to get oil from the oil shale in the Rocky Mountains. Now that barrels of oil are so expensive, it is feasible to pursue this technology. This guy started working on it 25 years ago, when, as the interviewer said, "the nation was in the grips of another Iran-related oil crisis." My jaw dropped.

So now the high price of oil is Iran's fault?

Furthermore, it takes 1 ton of oil shale to make 1 barrel of oil. ONE TON. And it costs about $30 to make, which is now economically feasible given the cost of oil. The process works by extracting vaporized oil from pulverized rock.

So now it's ok to pulverize the Rocky Mountains for oil?

This is just wrong on so many levels: blaming Iran for our oil crisis; blasting the rocky mountains to smithereens in the pursuit of oil; and increasing the effects of global warming because of our insistence on burning fossil fuels.

More below...

Think about it.  Let's assume a) that you were part of a conspiracy with the VP to create intelligence in order to sell the Iraq war, b) that you were part of a conspiracy with the VP to discredit Joe Wilson via leaks about his wife, and c) a CIA agent died as a result of your leak (something Libby would know if it happened). If all of these things were true, and I am sure of a and b at least, if I were Libby I would try to get away with lying about it.  Because these three things taken together are clearly treasonous. Far better to take a chance and lie and possibly get away with it, or even accept a perjury indictment.  But no way would you want to admit anything that indicated you were part of a treasonous conspiracy like this. It's more than trying to cover up for the VP, he has to cover up for himself.

I think someone died as a result of this. If so, wouldn't you lie if you were Libby? How could you possibly tell the truth about your role in this? Just think about it.

I've been reading bonddad, jerome a paris and others at dailykos for quite some time now, including all the articles they refer to, and this summer I decided to take action.  I owned a condo in Hawaii that I had bought in 1995, that had declined in value quite a bit through 2002, but recently climbed much higher than I originally paid.  I sold it and became a renter.  

Before learning about the economic crisis we face on dailykos, I did what many people have done, and took out a second mortgage as my condo value started to rise.  I used that money to pay off some credit card debt, but then charged more stuff after that.  Net result: more debt, more payments. I don't think I would have had the guts to sell and get out of this treadmill without knowing what I learned here.

More on living without debt, how I feel about renting, and what I learned on dailykos below ...

I was just watching CNN, and the racial inequity in this country is striking.  They showed people on stretchers and in wheelchairs being evacuated from the airport, and every single one of them is white.  They may be from a local hospital, which just underscores who has money for health care.  It is such a contrast to the pictures of people at the superdome, who are almost entirely black. The two Americas has never been so obvious.

Back in May, I saw a gif in a Cheers n Jeers comment that showed a brain pulsing with couples fucking.  I was traveling and in an internet cafe, so I couldn't save it.  Now I would like to find that gif, but a google search yielded nothing.  I just tried looking up all the Cheers n Jeers stories from that week but they are deleted for some reason.  Anyway, I'm sure one of you saw it, saved it, knows what I'm talking about!  

Plus the rest of you who missed it can now have the pleasure of adding it to your collection ...

Bush is spending OUR social security money on war adventures and tax cuts. There is a SURPLUS in social security money and Bush is spending it. He is spending surplus social security money to cover up how big the deficit is.  We should be shouting this from the rooftops.

Things to say:
Bush is taking OUR social security money and giving it to rich people as a tax cut.

Bush is taking OUR social security money and using it to invade Iraq.

Bush claims that social security is in trouble, but it's only in trouble because he's taking the extra money that we put in and spending it on his war and his tax cuts.

I want Bush to put our social security money back. I want there to be enough for my parents, for me when it's my turn, and for my children when it's theirs.

Any of these will do. This is how we are going to shift perceptions about Bush, by telling the truth about what he's doing in a way that is directly relevant to people's economic interests. In a way they can immediately understand. They would be angry if they knew Bush was spending the surplus and then claiming social security is in trouble.