Obama And White Men
22 Apr 2008 08:25 pm
Clinton won white men 53% to 46% in Pennsylvania, according to the exit polls. That’s down a bit from Ohio, where she won 58% of that vote to Obama’s 42%. So the margin has narrowed…
Tension… 29 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.142 comments
hmmm as long as no one plugs us in and hits “PULSE”.. but, my, things feel tentative.
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It’s not over… 28 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.112 comments
but it is up to Barack. Nobody can do it now for him.
I think one of the best ways would be a tour de force debate, just the two of them. Go at it. Few rules, no holds barred. Accept the terms offered, no moderation… why not? I think rather than 21 debates, the two of them have only had 3 or 4.
Go for it. Beat her at her own game, and right now it IS her game, and win.
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Hanging by a thread… 27 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in 2004 Election, 2008 Election, DC Politics, Democrats, France, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.98 comments
La Croisette – Cannes – Eugene Hernandez
The day is hot, and worse, stifling. The City is entering its months long dry season, the dust will accumulate. I have shut every door that leads from a room facing South or East. West, too as the day turns to late afternoon. Shafts of harsh sun are cut off.
The mid-day offering from PBS, here at least, was a full throated, dying swan version of Manon Lescaut... The lush, respiring swamp of Puccini floats thru the house… I have it blasting from the TV in the bedroom…
Earlier today as I got more coffee from the kitchen, that TV was telling me that “Ford has caught up to Toyota in quality”. They should have added, as if it mattered by now, finally. If it has.
I dropped in last night on Danny Schechter’s News Dissector. He has been to one of the ‘Stans, for a media panel of some sort. He says the greater world, out there, pities us. I have to say I find this a flawed take, on the part of the greater world.. Disdain, disregard, dismissal (and more)… yes fine. But I still pity the world, with a thousand bases, nuclear war heads, delivery systems, a strange group in power with only a few months to go, whoever is incoming will be tested, within and without. We’re not done yet. I just read in the past days, we now have a Fourth Fleet, for the Caribbean and So America. To “take care of things”… I let the link slip away… oh, here it is, at left i on the news.
Schechter did not link to the original, but a few lines from a Sam Smith take on Obama at Undernews resonates, for me:
[F]act is, Obama is mostly pictured in the media up on a platform, mostly above his audience, visually and metaphorically. This is not all his fault but it does reflect a certain disinterest by his manipulators in risking encounters of a more personal sort. Obama has on a number of occasions even shown his discomfort just hanging with the press, let alone ordinary voters. The other day, he complained because they were asking too many questions while he was eating a photo op waffle. After all, to do something like that natural like, a guy’s got to concentrate.
A black politician who has done well with white voters recently explained that his secret was talking with them. Nothing changes views on anything quicker than personal experience.
What might have happened in Pennsylvania if there had been fewer crowd scenes and more film clips from conversations with a small group of white voters in ordinary homes?
But that isn’t in the Obama play book. You can’t be a prophet and humble at the same time.
I am not expecting much. Months ago, I wondered if, quietly without fanfare as both seem uncomfortable, Obama could have sent Jesse Jackson back to some of the same all white farm towns where, thru Willie Nelson’s Farm Aid, he went in as an organiser. Towns so tense farmers went silently to meetings wearing paper bags, lest a snitch for the government be there. In the mid 80s I read a three part profile in The New Yorker on Jesse and those years figured prominently in the snapshot they took of him. I have posted how in the 2004 run, Jesse, still with Willie, had a jobs fair in the NC Appalachia region. They invited Kerry, who was just a few miles down the road. It hardly mattered, he would not go, as the local Kerry campaign offices would not even permit them to leave a poster for the window, nor drop off flyers. Jesse has some massive flaws, but as he said, Kerry was down the road with 3,000. They had over 30,000 local people at their Fair.
It was a stray thought on my part, I don’t think it much matters. Politicians, even ones under fire, do precisely as they please.
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The blue line: race-ing justice 25 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in Culture of Death, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, WAR!.111 comments
A State Supreme Court justice in Queens found three police detectives not guilty on all charges in connection with the shooting death of Sean Bell in 2006. The crowd outside the courthouse received the verdict with anger and shock, but dispersed an hour and a half later without any major confrontation.
Photo: Uli Seit for The New York Times
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From the Village Voice:
[I]n the run up to Cooperman giving his verdict, the courtroom was ringed with 17 court officers, who remained standing in front of the pews, while another 11 jammed the aisle separating supporters of Bell, filling the pews on the right side, and the backers of the cops, seated to the left. Before the judge entered the audience was asked to refrain from making any outbursts and remain sitting after the verdict until Cooperman had exited the court.
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Shortly after, the judge finished up his reasoning and announced he was acquitting the officers on all charges. Ignoring the pre-verdict instructions, Nicole Paultre Bell, Bell’s fiancee and widow, stood up immediately and walked out of the courtroom. Rows of Bell supporters followed her. “Unadulterated bullshit,” one man said on his way out. In a second row pew, Bell’s father, dressed all in white, buried his face while shaking his head as Bell’s mother broke into tears while being consoled by a family member next to him.
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After the potentially explosive verdict was given, Mayor Michael Bloomberg conveniently attended an unscheduled ribbon-cutting ceremony about a mile away from where Bell was shot to announce the opening of a job center in Jamaica. “There are no winners in a trial like this,” the mayor said. “An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son.
No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer.
Judge Cooperman’s responsibility, however, was to decide the case based on the evidence presented in the courtroom. America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority. Today’s decision is no different. There will be opportunities for peaceful dissent and potentially for further legal recourse—those are the rights we enjoy in a democratic nation. We don’t expect violence or law-breaking, nor is there any place for it. We have come too far as society—and as a City—to be dragged back to those days.
After the morning court instruction to attend the verdict and wait politely afterward for the judge to leave, Bloomberg then cautioned the community of Sean Bell against violence. I am sure the accurate parsing of the judge’s stated reasoning is that this community did not deserve justice:
Noting the unreliability of prosecution witnesses, through their renunciations and inconsistent statements, past criminal convictions, demeanor while testifying and motivation to lie on the stand, Cooperman acquitted the cops following a bench trial, saying “These factors played a significant part in the people’s ability to prosecute their case and had the effect of eviscerating the credibility of the people’s witnesses….at times the testimony just didn’t make sense. “
Not much left to say, really. Power spoke with its heavy hand.
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This languished in Moderation from near the end of the previoius thread… and it fits in with this post:
Manhattan Basement Sells for $801K
NEW YORK (AP) — Looking for another sign that Manhattan real estate prices aren’t headed for the cellar? A basement storage room in the famed Dakota apartment building fetched $801,000 in a recent sale.
High prices are nothing new for the Dakota, a gorgeous, gabled palace overlooking Central Park, best known as the home of John Lennon and the scene of his 1980 assassination. Yoko Ono still lives there and its apartments routinely sell for many millions of dollars.
The room’s buyer, hedge fund manager John Angelo, said the price was reasonable, considering what he’s getting.
The space is 800 square feet and has 20-foot-high ceilings and two windows, he said, making it bigger than many apartments in Manhattan, where a studio can be as small as 300 square feet and the median price for an apartment is over $850,000.
His storage space also has a bathroom and electricity. “I could make it a squash court if I wanted,” Angelo said, only half joking.
He said he plans to turn the room into a small gymnasium and open it up for use by other residents of the building, which, for all its luxury, doesn’t have a common exercise room.
Angelo and his wife already live in the Dakota. They acquired the basement space from a departing resident, Juliana Curran Terian, who sold her apartment for $20.5 million in January. That unit was once owned by the composer Leonard Bernstein. She sold the storage room separately.
While $801,000 may sound like a lot for a basement den that cannot legally be used as a dwelling, it isn’t unusual to see well-off Manhattanites paying top dollar for auxiliary space, said real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller.
In the wake of Ohio and Texas… [UPDATE, prepare to be disappointed] 24 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.113 comments
This appeared from Mr Fish, in Harper’s. LOL I thought it offended everyone… works for me…
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UPDATE, 2:15 am
If you disliked the 110th Congress, you may want to begin screaming NOW. Get a head start:
It is still seven months before Election Day, but already senior Democrats are maneuvering to lower public expectations on the key policy issue.
For some senators, the promises made by Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) outside of Washington may not match the political reality on Capitol Hill.
“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Finance Committee member and an Obama supporter, referring to the presidential candidates’ healthcare plans. “What they are doing is laying out their ambitions.”
No. They are wilfully conning the conned, again.
[B]ut veterans on Capitol Hill say that getting a sprawling piece of legislation requires broad compromise from both parties and outside groups.
Should the majority party rush the issue through, the minority may hunker down — as was the case with Bush’s Social Security proposal and President Bill Clinton’s attempt at addressing healthcare policy.
If supporters wait too long, however, it could fall victim to the political considerations of the next election cycle.
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), a member of Senate Democratic leadership and a key Hillary Clinton ally who also sits on the Finance Committee, said he is “not sure we have the big plan on healthcare.”
“Healthcare I feel strongly about, but I am not sure that we’re ready for a major national healthcare plan,” Schumer said.
Schumer said he would focus “on prevention above all and cost cutting until we can get a national healthcare plan.”
I doubt anyone is surprised. I wonder if, once again, the American people will retire to whatever part of their house they go to to scream silently.
And don’t miss the miserable excuse from Mr Meek of Florida:
Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), a Clinton supporter who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, said “the money is not necessarily there right now” to enact the plans and
said calls to end the war in Iraq might consume Washington’s attention.
The healthcare proposals are a “really good start,” he said, but any promises that the next Congress would enact the healthcare plans “at even the beginning of next year to mid-next year would really be political talk at this point.
“I hear on the campaign trail, ‘This is what I’m going to do,’ as if there is not a Congress here with feelings and experience on this issue,” Meek said.
“I think it’s important that everyone takes that into consideration and that this is not a kingdom, this is a democracy.”
Oh just peachy. Look at the bullshit they lob. All of them, criminals.
I suggest a debate in which the questions are ONLY about their personal finances, affiliations, the affiliations of their spouses. A question for her, then one for him. A thorough airing from Rezko to Bekel. From Bill’s history of being funded by mainland China money (Johnnie Chung) to a timeline of the Obamas’ cash income and outgo. He loves to bleat that in 00 his credit card was refused for a car rental, attempting ot get to the DNC convention. When they took in 240K that year… Air out how the Clintons bought the house in Chappaqua… to say nothing of the Georgian squat in Chicago. And the double wide in Arkansas, the library with a 5,000 sq ft living area…
A tape of Michelle moaning in a very middle class district of Ohio (median income under 48K annually) that it is a struggle to manage $10,000 a year on summer camp. Let’s see that tape again of HIllary saying Gandhi, if he were an immigrant to the US today, would be pumping gas somewhere in the mid west…
Because nothing else [that old game called policy positions] matters. Ever mattered.
What a con.
BTW, somewhere in The Hill article, it says both camps declined comment.
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UPDATE, 3:57 am
End what war where?
Gen. David Petraeus is said to be a “big supporter” of a “massive American-style amusement park” planned for Baghdad, which coincides with a report that ‘Hollywood hopes theme parks, superheroes fly in Middle East.’
(via Cursor)
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Slip and slide………….. 23 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.118 comments
Ocean Beach – San Francisco – Oil Spill Days
I will hunt up a link or two in a bit, but recently much was resolved in the oil spill from the Cosco Busan and the pilot, Cota. It came to light that he took, and had hidden details when re-licensed, an array of prescription meds, for sleep, anxiety and whatever else. He had numerous dings on his piloting record (a few years ago he piloted a vessel to full stop on a sand bar among other things…) and had hidden a DUI. Other ships that morning chose not to try to navigate the Bay…. and there is tape of him saying to the Chinese captain that he misread a map.
He never should have been out on the Bay with that responsibility.
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hmmm might be shaping up to be a ……… 22 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.126 comments
Former President Bill Clinton talks to media while next to his wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, as they visit the damage of the Radisson SAS hotel, one of the three hotels bombed last Wednesday [November 2005], in Amman Jordan. (AP Photo)
really bad day for these two escape artists……………..
I caught an odd snip earlier (too early I would think for exits), just a drift off KGO radio with Ron Owens that she had opened with a big lead that shrank and shrank. Last night apparently some media felt they would be able to call it by 9 pm… hmmm
Look at this way, no matter what, Bill will keep his Lecturing Political Finger.
Can you imagine how they will whine with a small small win?
And then Barack, kleig lights on you fella… LOL all the way…
(Brian Williams indicates it is news she ”has taken the lead”. Do they hear themselves?)
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Flagrant thief UPDATE, 5:47 pm
Taken straight from Marc Ambinder at Atlantic blogs:
<!– –>
Exits Suggest Obama Did Better In PA Than Ohio
22 Apr 2008 08:18 pm
From an Obama adviser:
Significant improvements over Ohio, especially among white men and seniors overall. In OH, for example, Clinton got 58% of white men, Obama got 39%. Exits now showing that Obama earned 45% in PA, and Clinton 55%. A 16 point gap narrowed to 10. With voters over 60 in OH, Clinton won 69%, Obama got 28%. In PA, Obama earned 41% of the vote among voters over 60, and Clinton won 59%. The gap among seniors was cut by more than half, from 41 to 19.
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It’s… Whack-a-Mole! in Pennsylvania… 22 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.128 comments
… and the mole that does not get whacked… just goes on “Deal! No Deal!”. Is that perfect – or what?
We are so advanced.
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If it matters (and it does not):
Seven (!) Pennsylvania polls were released today: Clinton is leading in six (Rasmussen 49-44, SurveyUSA 50-44, Quinnipiac 51-44, Suffolk University 52-42, Zogby/Newsmax 51-44. Strategic Vision 48-41), and Obama is leading in one (Public Policy Polling 49-46). An average of nine percent are undecided.
I read all the political reports and it was hard to untangle the congealing fuckball at the end. They BOTH hit each other with Robo Calls on gun control. Wham! Bam! The accusatory ads flew like the “rockets’ red glare” from the old nationalistic hymn… Slam! Wam!
Well, “the rockets’ red glare gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there”. So… that means God is in His Heaven. Right? We DO know he is on TV.
Obama upped the war ante on Pakistan, she seemed to say she’d drop nukes on Iran. Or her toes. “Obliterate” is a big word. She’d be minus all 10 toes.
Frankly it reminded me of a debate I caught between the god damned fucking pro-life lousy ass Catholic Democrats in their race for the senate a couple of years ago, Santorum and Casey. They FOUGHT over which of them was more FOR cluster bombs. I am not kidding.
We are so fucking blessed that I can hardly stand it.
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UPDATE, 1:26 am
From the thread:
Something I wrote tonight… fwiw:
Because your toes bleed,
To balance the gait of one thousand proud knights,
And your hands, bloody,
Sew the carriage of an army of tailors,You won’t emancipate.
You can’t see
the tailor that cross-stitches history,That braids a rope to hang it.
The bloody toes
And bloody fingers,
And bloody conscience
Of a millennium old order
Born of privilege,
And blood…
That masks its innocence
In blood.It could be mine or yours,
Cherokee Arab
African Indonesian
Aborigine Vietnamese
Enemy.There is no intrinsic reason
for history
To hang itself.Save history.
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Thread 20 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.84 comments
Francis Bacon’s Red Pope, I think from 1962… anyway here is a link with lots of his Popes…
Seems to be a good time to make use of Bacon and his lens… his platform and cage without bars…
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Salute! looks like it to me…. 20 April 2008
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Abortion Rights, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Europe, Germany, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Italy, Sex / Reproductive Health.100 comments
Priests giving the Hitler salute
Priests giving the Hitler salute at a Catholic youth rally in the Berlin-Neukolln stadium in August 1933. (Source: A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen)
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The photos are from an interesting site, colleen sent me the link months ago, saying I might find the photos useful. Seems appropriate now…
The Concordat between the Vatican and the Nazis
Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII) signs the Concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican at a formal ceremony in Rome on 20 July 1933. Nazi Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen sits at the left, Pacelli in the middle, and the Rudolf Buttmann sits at the right.
The Concordat effectively legitimized Hitler and the Nazi government to the eyes of Catholicism, Christianity, and the world. The full text of the concordat appears on the Concordat Watch website. (click here to see the text).
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Here is a nice little tidbit from the Concordat Watch link above:
“Concordats”, Catholic Encyclopaedia, 1913:
“…It were to be desired that the Church should never need concordats, and should always find in civil rulers devoted children….”
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UPDATE, 1:47 pm
The comment from JJB that languished in Spam for about 3 hours (very sorry!):
Well, this is certainly interesting. Alexander Cockburn is publishing an article by Doug Valentine in the Counterpunch newsletter that claims John McCain was a collaborator during his incarceration in North Vietnam. There is a short excerpt available online:
McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, “I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital …
His Vietnamese captors soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line in the American military elite. . .The Vietnamese realized, this poor stooge has propaganda value. The admiral’s boy was used to special treatment, and his captors knew that. They were working him.
. . .two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not ‘name rank and serial number, or kill me’. as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of U.S. pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships.
Somehow, I don’t think he’ll be asked about this by Russert Potato Head on Press the Meet, or by Tweety Blueballs.
From Feel the love…,
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Marisacat 