I have been a supporter of letting the Hillary supporters feel free to let their support for Hillary known at the convention via roll call. However, Anne Price Mills, a Hillary delegate was interviewed on CNN Suzanne Malveaux(sp?) at around 11:15pm. She did say that she wouldnt vote for McCain. But she did not feel like she could vote for Obama unless Obama did a lot more in the future to erase her doubts.

My question is this: Was she lying when she signed her delegate pledge to vote for the Democratic nominee? She is not as bad as the twit Debra(who I believe was a Hillary delegate before being stripped of that status) whatever who is in those recent McCain ads about former Hillary supporters going to McCain.

But it is dishonest of her to run for delegate and once she gets to the convention threatening to renege on the pledge she was required to sign. I ran for delegate and I would have voted for Hillary if I was chosen.

I wonder if there are other Hillary delegates out there intending to do the same? Update [2008-8-27 0:43:13 by Pravin]: OK, Zerosumgame pointed out something I am not 100%sure of. I thought the pledge included voting for the Dem nominee in the General Election. He/She thinks it doesn't. If someone can clarify, please weigh in on this issue. I will look for my documents in the meantime.

I have not researched this enough to come out with a well informed diary. But I dont see this addressed by other diaries.

Here is a starting point.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/14 /how-the-government-would_n_112478.html

My initial instinct is not to bail out anyone. Capitalism cannot have it both ways. I would be curious how much the execs in charge made.

I think our priorities should be adjusted as a nation. It is not the end of the world if you do not own a house. The rental market in the US is very competitive. Education and healthcare are the two bigger priorities.
Some thoughts:

1. Our top priorities for families should be buying what they can afford. Do not overextend yourself on a mortgage and whine about it later.

2.  And maybe we should have rules placing portions of multimillion dollar salaries in an escrow account to be taken away from execs when their companies fail in the subsequent five year period. Encourage more long term bonuses instead of get quick rich schemes the boards enable the execs to be part of. Companies that go bankrupt should not be paying their execs so much money for mismanagement.
   
3. Public school system should be reformed big time. If people are unwilling to do this, then give poor people unable to buy houses a chance to go to the school of their own choice where the voucher(not your typical republican proposed voucher) size is partially based on the economic need and local school performance and student's efforts at attendance or maintaining some kind of discipline.  
   
4. Financial education is more important than even sex education for our kids. Obviously a lot of Americans are growing up as ignorant adults when it comes to financial matters. What part of adjustable rate mortgages did not some of these homeowners not understand? I have one. I know the risk.

5. Capitalism should not be used as an excuse by companies to justify ridiculous salaries but then forgotten when they need help from the government. I think governement should rarely bail out any company. And if they do, they must extract so many concessions, it won't be funny.

Here is a link.
http://deadspin.com/5020670/apparently-s omeone-named-tyson-homosexual-is-very-fa st

You can also google the words - Tyson Homosexual 100 - and you will come up with a few links.

You can also go directly to the joke of a  website http://www.onenewsnow.com/
and if you look for the sports entries, the error will not be visible as they seem to have fixed the headlines. But if you hover over the heading, you will still see the "hint text" include the words Tyson Homosexual.

According to http://outsports.com/jocktalkblog/?p=117 4

OneNewsNow, where these links point to, is an online new site run by the rabidly anti-gay American Family Association based in Tupelo, Miss. It describes its mission as "Your latest news from a Christian perspective."

We keep worrying about gaffes on our side. This is the kind of gaffe that if we spread around can make them seem overly paranoid  as even common folk will find this amusing.

The explanation behind the gaffe is obvious. They probably used some auto-replace tool to change any mention of the word GAY to HOMOSEXUAL.  

Other notes:
1) China hotels are suffering a bit from low occupancy rates. Unless you are personally invested in a friend or relative's performance, I would urge everyone not to check out the Olympics in person as that would only help the Chinese government proclaim the Olympics to be a mega success. The more empty hotel rooms, the better. Not a total boycott. But boycott as much as you can.
NBC already paid for the rights, so China won't benefit from the viewership on TV.

2. Imagine if Ben Gay became the MVP of the Superbowl. Would they say Pats Cornerback, Ben Homosexual?
   
3. It could be worse. Those fundies could have used Tyson Fag**t to sub for Tyson Gay.

Seriously, I consider this a non issue as far as all issues are concerned. I think Obama is doing the sensible thing not going with public financing. In the big scheme of things, I would rather see a politician go back on something like this, rather than an important issue such as the Iraq war or education. WHat I am pissed about is how dumb was Obama to make public financing an issue early on? Why would he paint himself in a corner? Why not leave himself a way out by not sounding that holier than thou early on?  

Let's be frank. This whole spiel that small donors negates the need for him to go with public financing is an insult to our intelligence. WHy didn't he mention this early on as a qualifier? This is what Obama thought. Obama thought he could use public financing when he thought he wouldn't get much money, but now that he is getting a lot of donations, he doesn't see the need for it. Now, I support him. I think it would be stupid of him to go with public financing, especially when he has the upper hand. What I do not like was he set himself up for a needless controversy.

I do not like public financing. No matter what people say, I believe the candidates who end up qualifying will mostly be people with resources. They are still going to be influenced by lobbies. No matter how many 527 reform bills passed, there will always be privately funded issue oriented ads which can circumvent the public financing limitations. Maybe we could have a "financing cap" instead of public financing though that will still have the loophole for fake independent groups putting up ads

Mark Penn has the gall to blame lack of monay for Hillary's defeat. THis is the same guy whose fees were one of the big moneysuckers of the campaign and he complains that there wasn't enough money?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/opinio n/08penn.html?_r=1

He starts off on a reasonable note.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of losing a close race is thinking about what else you could have done to win. You replay the campaign over and over again in your head. As an adviser to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, I sure do.

Then he mentions a few standard platitudes about the Hillary campaign. Standard stuff, really.

But then he ends the essay on this unremarkable note:

Are there a lot of other things the campaign could have done differently? Of course. We should have taken on Mr. Obama more directly and much earlier, and we needed a different kind of operation to win caucuses and to retain the support of superdelegates. From more aggressively courting young people earlier to mobilizing the full power of women, there are things that could have been done differently.

OK genius, like what??

While everyone loves to talk about the message, campaigns are equally about money and organization. Having raised more than $100 million in 2007, the Clinton campaign found itself without adequate money at the beginning of 2008, and without organizations in a lot of states as a result. Given her successes in high-turnout primary elections and defeats in low-turnout caucuses, that simple fact may just have had a lot more to do with who won than anyone imagines.

huh? what was the freaking point of the article? He doesn't mention that the money donated to Hillary, while running low in the latter part of the campaign, was still high enough overall to have lasted. He doesnt explain why the money was spent. How much he made off of the campaign. Why he deserved that money? What exactly did he learn from his mistakes? Or does he think he was the only one not to make mistakes?

I am watching Recount on HBO. Not a very good movie mainly because I am not a fan of the overly pretentious Sorkin style direction in the first half. But that's another issue.

But it should remind people that the lesson of 2000 wasn't to endlessly whine about Nader. It was how the Gore campaign failed to fight until the end their right to get a proper recount. It is how fighters prosper in our political system. Do not fear what someone might think of you. Another familiar idiot pops up in the movie - Lieberman with his self righteous TV appearance saying the military ballots should be counted even if late while failing to emphasize how the other ballots were being ignored. And people in this party failed to take this idiot to task for his limp performance all through the campaign until he decided to thumb his nose at others in the post Lamont primary win period.

Which brings me to the DEmocratic Party's main sin during the last 15 years - their lack of character in fighting all the way to the finish on issues they care about. Even now, we can't seem to make this election year a slam dunk one despite the many Republican blunders.

I see Hillary fight all the way to the end and wish that the Gore-lieberman campaign showed the same fighting spirit. People like to whine about Nader. But remember he, not Lieberman who was in the good graces of the party until recently(and still in Reid's good graces now) supported Gore's right to fight. If Hillary was in Gore's position, she would have not given up. And I think she should not give up now. Now, it doesn't mean the superdelegates should not end it for her by stepping in on June 3 and declaring their final choices.

I don't want Hillary to be the nominee, but other Democrats can take lessons from her no-quit spirit exhibited this campaign. I just think she needs to remember not to mess up other Democrats in the process as this is still an internal election.

I am glad Obama is not stupid enough to publicly ask Hillary to back down. But I think my fellow Obama supporters crossed the line a month ago when they kept asking for her to step down.

If only she and other DEmocrats fought this hard in 2000(Gore ) and 2002(iraq war buildup).

On a final note: I wish CNN would have covered the same points this movie did in REAL TIME. CNN always has a bad habit of doing some fair minded pieces months after an issue is dead. If they only did their jobs and there were more Michael Wares at CNN.

HA HA HA HA HAA,  AAAAAAAH , YESSS.

On a political scale, this means nothing. But for my personal satisfaction, this means a lot to see Lieberman put in an uncomfortable position. I will take whatever cheap shots one can throw at Loserman.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/23 /liebermans-step-son-im-vo_n_103293.html

less Democrat listening to Sen. Joe Lieberman. Rabbi Ethan Tucker, the senator's step son, offered up his opinion on the difficulties facing Obama in reaching out to the Jewish community:

Tucker, 32, the biological son of Lieberman's wife, Hadassah, opines that an age split is apparent within the Jewish community in attitudes about Obama (as has also been shown in the overall Democratic constituency). Tucker, as paraphrased by reporter Jodi Kantor, asserts that younger Jews "have grown up in diverse settings and are therefore less likely to be troubled by Mr. Obama's associations than their elders."

HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

I think I will forgive Hadassah for profiting off of Lieberman's political career since she did produce a son who has made this stance.

I was reading this article where it says McCain refuses to let the NYT have access to his medical records. Now this incident seems more like a case of pique than an attempt to protect his privacy as he allowed other outlets to view them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/22 /mccain-restricts-medical_n_103185.html

However, what if McCain didn't want to release his records to any outlet? Do we really have a moral right to demand that he produce his medical records just because he is going to be President? This trend of wanting to know every single freaking thing about our candidates is getting a little too out of control.

Sure, I understand that it is important we know whether our President will croak mid-office. But it is not that crucial.  You know what, if that happens, it can happen even to the healthier guy. Seriously, what are the chances of that happening for a President to die in the next four years? Small. And even if it did, it is not the end of the world.

We need to stop making a soap opera out of every incident. Life is not supposed to be complication free. When it happens, we deal with it and move on. The country will not fall apart. The Vice President will take over and everything will be just fine.

Seriously, I was watching CNN regarding the Ted Kennedy brain tumor. Sad, but let's face it. The guy is fairly old and is living past his expiration date for a guy leading the kind of  lifestyle he did. Still, I understand that it is jolting to hear about it. But is there any need to for networks to show live feeds of Ted Kennedy's vehicle driving down the highway ala the OJ coverage? Get a life, people.  

We know McCain is old. We know Obama is young. We know Hillary is healthy enough to go through a vigorous campaign. Use some common sense. Most voters do not really interpret real medical data that well, anyway. They are just as likely to overreact to some harmless problem just as a person with no knowledge will overreact to McCain's age or even Hillary's age. That is all we need to know. We can guess McCain is more likely to die in office compared to Obama. Their medical records are NONE OF OUR BUSINESS.