Hillary Clinton writes:"On Tuesday, New Yorkers and Americans have a big decision to make. Do we continue to pursue the policies of the past eight years or do we chart a new course? I believe we can and we must chart a new course led by President Barack Obama...."Photo Credit: (UPI Photo/Matthew Healey)
Continue Reading.
"At one stage in the raised temperature of the DNC Rules & Bylaws committee meeting in Washington DC, superdelegate and committee member, Donna Brazile responded to remarks by the former Governor of Michigan, Jim Blanchard, a Clinton advocate, saying quote:
"My mama taught me to play by the rules and respect the rules …'When you decide to change the rules, especially, in the middle of the game, it’s called cheating....'”
Maureen Dowd (NYT) writes: "...In politics, there are many unpredictable and unsavory twists and turns. That’s why she’s hanging around.Cartoon credit: Warrentoons.com
[...]
Maybe a tired, stressed Hillary was giving an unfiltered version of a blunt conversation that she’s had with her husband and advisers about staying in the race, using R.F.K. as an anything-can-happen example, in the same way she fantasizes about Sean Hannity breaking a story that would demolish Obama.
[...]
Obama now has the perfect excuse not to pick Hillary as his running mate. She has been too unseemly in her desire to be on the scene if he trips, or gets hit with a devastating story. She may want to take a cue from the Miss America contest: make a graceful, magnanimous exit and wait in the wings.
That’s where the runners-up can be found, prettily lurking, in case it turns out the girl with the crown has some naked pictures in her past."
"More than any other factor, it has been Barack Obama's grasp of the central place of Internet-driven social networking that has propelled his campaign for the Democratic nomination into a seemingly unassailable lead over Hillary Clinton. Her campaign has been so 20th-century. His has been of the century we're in...."read more | digg story
Kathy Kelly says that Democratic candidates talk tough on the war but are not ready to take on the defense industry. She says all candidates, including Obama, are developing plans to keep US troops in Iraq for several more years.
Watch the video; then follow her recommendation to lobby Obama on this crucial issue:
"...Whether young Americans can shift the balance of the presidential election is an open question. But there is very little doubt that over the next several years they are capable of loosening the tremendous grip that conservatives have had on the levers of American power."
If this isn't bribery, tell me what to call it. If it isn't illegal, why not? Hillary Clinton proves once again that she will use any means at her disposal to win the Presidency -- ethics are not even an afterthought. Those of you still supporting her, ask yourselves is this is the kind of "leadership" you are looking for? Is this the kind of woman you want representing you as the first woman President? "One of Sen. Hillary Clinton's top financial supporters offered $1 million to the Young Democrats of America during a phone conversation in which he also pressed for the organization's two uncommitted superdelegates to endorse the New York Democrat, a high-ranking official with YDA told The Huffington Post.
Haim Saban, the billionaire entertainment magnate and longtime Clinton supporter, denied the allegation. But four independent sources said that just before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Saban called YDA President David Hardt and offered what was perceived as a lucrative proposal: $1 million would be made available for the group if Hardt and the organization's other uncommitted superdelegate backed Clinton...."
"...[C]lass is not a Clinton forte.
But it’s one thing to lack class and a sense of grace, quite another to deliberately try and wreck the presidential prospects of your party’s likely nominee — and to do it in a way that has the potential to undermine the substantial racial progress that has been made in this country over many years.
The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves. But they long ago proved to the world that they have no shame."
I knew JFK, says Gore Vidal, and believe me Obama’s the better leader | Times Online:Gore Vidal, the writer and long-time Clinton supporter, tells why Hillary is insane to keep on fighting....Photo credit: Gore Vidal. CommonDreams.org
"...We have to agree with Sen. Barack Obama, the only candidate who has refused to play this game. 'It's not an idea to get you through the summer,' he said. 'It's an idea to get them through an election.' His opponents no doubt hope that Mr. Obama's stand will prove to be political suicide. We think it qualifies as political courage."
SUMMARY: Rising gas prices are hitting Americans hard, while oil companies rake in record profits . As the economy falters, calls to deal with the price of gasoline have reached the halls of Washington, D.C. "[L]awmakers are considering ideas they might have nixed months ago, including temporarily lifting the federal gas tax and halting deposits of oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve." Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) have called for a summer moratorium on the federal gas tax. McCain has not specified how to make up the $11 billion; Clinton has proposed a tax on windfall profits from oil companies to recoup losses to the federal highway fund. Economic analysts of all stripes have responded with horror, pointing out that " the benefits will flow to oil companies, not consumers." Even if a suspension of the gas tax led to lower prices, the rich would benefit the most, since "the more a family earns, the more they drive," notes Sam Davis of the Center for American Progress. Len Burman of the non partisan Urban Institute calls the proposal "a huge windfall for refiners." New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argues, " This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks." Newsweek's Jonathan Alter agrees, stating, "Suspending the federal gas tax is a crass ploy for votes." The Atlantic Monthly's James Fallows calls cutting the gas tax "destructive nuttiness" and "embarrassing." Economist Gilbert Metcalf called it "very short-sighted," noting, "If we want people to invest in energy-saving cars, we need some assurance that the higher price paid for these cars is going to pay off through fuel savings."
"The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”
Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering."
"...Clinton may never be the Democratic nominee for president.Cartoon Credit: FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog |� Michael Ramirez on Hillary Clinton and Norman Hsu
But she's got the makings of a Fox New analyst: corrupt, partisan and ready to play ball with Bill O'Reilly."
"A new study by the Pew Research Study shows that viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have the highest knowledge of national and international affairs, while Fox News viewers rank nearly dead last...."
"A new Harris Interactive poll finds that over half of Americans — 54 percent — say they tend not to trust the press, “with only 30 percent tending to trust the press.” More Americans (41 percent) trust “Internet news and information sites” than they do the mainstream media. Radio tends to do best among Americans as 44 percent say they tend to trust it."
"Mike Connery on why progressive leaders should stop lamenting 'youth apathy' and start engaging the most diverse, tolerant, generation in history."
"In the face of raw, media-driven misogyny, Clinton resorts to playing the race card and loses some women's support in the process."
"The McCain Agenda: McCain believes that Americans use too much health care, and he has created a plan that will make care less affordable so millions of Americans will use less."
"A former Defense Department prosecutor tells us what we already know - terrorism cases were juked for political gain."
"John McCain is supporting a watered-down version of the new GI Bill that will primarily benefit career officers."
"Dave Neiwert digs in to the deeper meaning of the Reverend Wright 'scandal.'"
In the wake of the housing crash and rising food and energy prices, Americans are pawning their clothes, furniture and more."
"Looks like Clinton is courting supporters on the wrong side of the culture war."
"Whistleblowers report on the outrageous misuse of resources by contractors in Iraq."
"McCain's age matters; especially if he picks his running mate from the crazy wing of the Republican Party."
"If we refused to cash our checks, the value of the dollars in our pockets would go up by more than the face value of the stimulus refund."
...McCain’s plan is a dangerous fraud.
He wants voters to think he is going after health care cost inflation. In reality, he wants to dismantle the employer-provided system that now covers over 60 percent (or about 158 million) of non-elderly Americans, forcing millions of us who now get fairly decent health insurance on the job to instead buy whatever they can find on the individual market controlled by unregulated and predatory insurance companies. And he would drive health care costs upward, not downward....
"The Pentagon says it's halting its propaganda program, but the news media is still quite about its role in leading us to war."
"...if truth be told, the McCain tax plan doesn't seem to embody any coherent policy agenda. Instead, it looks like a giant exercise in pandering - an attempt to mollify the GOP's right wing, and never mind if it makes any sense. The impression that Mr. McCain's tax talk is all about pandering is reinforced by his proposal for a summer gas tax holiday - a measure that would, in fact, do little to help consumers, although it would boost oil industry profits.
More and more, Mr. McCain sounds like a man who will say anything to become president."
"It is more important now than ever for lawmakers across the country to pass laws protecting the right to vote."
"I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that we're being psyoped by our own government...."
"Reporting on a New Orleans campaign event at which Sen. John McCain's 'carefully scripted imagery was interrupted by a voter's question about Pastor John Hagee,' CNN's Dana Bash aired a clip of Hagee -- who has endorsed McCain -- saying of Hurricane Katrina, 'What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God.' But Bash did not air the portion of Hagee's comments in which he reaffirmed his previous assertion that Hurricane Katrina was at least in part the result of 'sin' that Hagee identified as 'a massive homosexual rally.' CNN's John Roberts and Kyra Phillips similarly noted that Hagee said that 'Katrina was God's punishment for sinful behavior in New Orleans' without mentioning that among the 'sinful behavior' Hagee referenced was the gay pride parade."
"MSNBC's Tamron Hall held a discussion with North Carolina radio host Jeff Katz about the effect Sen. Barack Obama former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is having on North Carolina voters without disclosing that Katz's website prominently encourages visitors to 'Help the N.C. GOP keep their ad on the air,' referring to an ad that attacks Obama for his connections to Wright, and contains the false claim that Obama 'won't pledge to the flag.'"
"IT’S a nightmare. It’s the Bataan Death March. It’s mutually assured Armageddon. 'Both of them are already losing the general to John McCain,' declared a Newsweek columnist last month, predicting that the election 'may already be over' by the time the Democrats anoint a nominee.
Not so fast. If we’ve learned any new rule in the 2008 campaign, it’s this: Once our news culture sets a story in stone, chances are it will crumble. But first it must be recycled louder and louder 24/7, as if sheer repetition will transmute conventional wisdom into reality...."
"A recent piece of news has shed new light on what could be another storm for both the Clintons...."
In 1952, when McCarthyism was at its height, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas labeled the investigative techniques of the junior senator from Wisconsin “guilt by association” (Adler v. Board of Education). Douglas added that McCarthyite tactics were “repugnant to our society” because, despite the absence of any overt wrongdoing, the pasts of those attacked were “combed for signs of disloyalty” and for utterances that might be read as “clues to dangerous thoughts.”
More than a half century later, “McCarthyism” was joined in the lexicon by “Swiftboating,” the art of the smear campaign mounted with the intention not of documenting a wrong, but of covering the victim with slime enough to cast doubt on his or her integrity. Now, in 2008, after a primary season increasingly marked by dirty pool and low blows, “McCarthyism” and “Swiftboating” have come together in a particularly lethal and despicable form. I refer to the startling revelation — proclaimed from the housetops by both the Clinton and McCain campaigns — that Barack Obama ate dinner at William Ayers’s house, served with him on a board and was the honored guest at a reception he organized.
Confession time. I too have eaten dinner at Bill Ayers’s house (more than once), and have served with him on a committee, and he was one of those who recruited my wife and me at a reception when we were considering positions at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Moreover, I have had Bill and his wife Bernardine Dohrn to my apartment, was a guest lecturer in a course he taught and joined in a (successful) effort to persuade him to stay at UIC and say no to an offer from Harvard. Of course, I’m not running for anything, but I do write for The New York Times and, who knows, this association with former fugitive members of the Weathermen might be enough in the eyes of some to get me canned.
Did I conspire with Bill Ayers? Did I help him build bombs? Did I aid and abet his evasion (for a time) of justice? Not likely, given that at the time of the events that brought Ayers and Dohrn to public attention, I was a supporter of the Vietnam War. I haven’t asked him to absolve me of that sin (of which I have since repented), and he hasn’t asked me to forgive him for his (if he has any).
Indeed in all the time I spent with Ayers and Dohrn, politics — present or past — never came up.
What did come up? To answer that question I have to introduce a word and concept that is somewhat out of fashion: the salon. A salon is a gathering in a private home where men and women from various walks of life engage in conversation about any number of things, including literature, business, fashion, films, education and philosophy. Ayers and Dohrn did not call their gatherings salons, but that’s what they were; large dinner parties (maybe 12-15), with guests coming and going, one conversation leading to another, no rules or obligations, except the obligation to be interesting and interested. The only thing I don’t remember was ideology, although since this was all going on in Hyde Park, there was the general and diffused ideology, vaguely liberal, that usually hangs over a university town.
Many of those attending these occasions no doubt knew something about their hosts’ past, but the matter was never discussed and why should it have been? We were there not because of what Ayers and Dohrn had done 40 years ago, but because of what they were doing at the moment.
Ayers is a longtime professor of education at UIC, nationally known for his prominence in the “small school” movement. Dohrn teaches at Northwestern Law School, where she directs a center for child and family justice. Both lend their skills and energies to community causes; both advise various agencies; together they have raised exemplary children and they have been devoted caretakers to aged parents. “Respectable” is too mild a word to describe the couple; rock-solid establishment would be more like it. There was and is absolutely no reason for anyone who knows them to plead the fifth or declare, “I am not now nor have I ever been a friend of Bill’s and Bernardine’s.”
Least of all Barack Obama, who by his own account didn’t know them that well and is now being taken to task for having known them at all. Of course it would have required preternatural caution to avoid associating with anyone whose past deeds might prove embarrassing on the chance you decided to run for president someday. In an earlier column, I spoke of the illogic of holding a candidate accountable for things said or done by a supporter or an acquaintance. Now a candidate is being held accountable for things said and done four decades ago by people who happen to live in his upper middle class neighborhood.
Hillary Clinton and John McCain should know better. In fact, they do know better....
Continue Reading.
"...Before they devour themselves once more, perhaps the Democrats will take a cue from Dr. Seuss’s 'Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!' (The writer once mischievously redid it for his friend Art Buchwald as 'Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!') They could sing:
'The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. ... I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. ... You can go in an old blue shoe.
Just go, go, GO!'”
"Democrats should not have to act like Republicans to pass some test on national security. It's time to end the politics of fear...."
"It's not a pretty picture...."
"Obama has the potential to become as great a president as FDR, while activists have the potential to prompt change comparable to the New Deal...."
"Last Night Clinton Won the Pennsylvania Primary, but Lost the War for the Nomination..."
"Hillary Clinton scored a decisive victory against Barack Obama in Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary. But underlying the numbers, there is a new kind of inevitability on the horizon. Certainly her campaign will use the night's victory to propel the race forward into Indiana and North Carolina, hoping against hope that few noticed what actually transpired. But with her luck running as perilously low as her campaign war chest, it would seem improbable that the media would provide her cover yet again.
After tonight, despite an apparent ten point victory in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton is no longer electable in a general election...."
"Is the campaign trail the best place to ratchet up the rhetoric against Iran? Clinton thinks so.
How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the "vast right-wing conspiracy" in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. The tactics used to kneecap Barack Obama are the same as had been turned on Bill Clinton in earlier times, from radical-baiting associates to challenging his resolve in protecting the nation from foreign enemies. Sen. Clinton's eminently sensible and centrist -- to a fault -- opponent is now viewed as weak and even vaguely unpatriotic because he is thoughtful. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.
On primary election day in Pennsylvania, even with polls showing her well ahead in that state, Hillary went lower in her grab for votes. Seizing upon a question as to how she would respond to a nuclear attack by Iran, which doesn't have nuclear weapons, on Israel, which does, Hillary mocked reasoned discourse by promising to "totally obliterate them," in an apparent reference to the population of Iran. That is not a word gaffe; it is an assertion of the right of our nation to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale...."
"We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball...."
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he plans to turn up the heat on undecided Democratic superdelegates if the party’s presidential nominating contest is not resolved after the last primaries June 3...."
"The results of the Pennsylvania primary show that racism is a problem that still plagues the Democrats...."
"It should mean a great deal to progressives that in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Sen. Ted Kennedy favors Sen. Barack Obama over two other colleagues he has worked with in the Senate. No one in the history of that institution has been a more consistent and effective fighter than Kennedy for an enlightened agenda, be it civil rights and liberty, gender equality, labor and immigrant justice, environmental protection, educational opportunity or opposing military adventures...."
"Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens...."
"...So, now that Obama seems so near to becoming president, there has begun to be considerable discussion in the press, on the internet, and in public debate about what kinds of changes Obama actually intends to undertake. This seems to me the wrong question. The real question is what kind of changes Obama can make, a quite different question....
[...]
Change is indeed possible, and potentially a very positive change. It all depends far less on Obama than on the rest of us. But Obama might, only might, give us the space in which the "we" of "yes, we can" can push him and the United States."
"A self-described 'centrist' is minding Barack Obama's economic policy store. Will this centrist prove a pitchman for plutocrats? Or should the wealthy start to worry? We sift the evidence...."
"Reading articles about Hillary Clinton attacking NAFTA can lead you to believe The Onion has taken over America’s news bureaus.
Clinton spent the last 10 years repeatedly praising the trade deal in speeches, most recently calling the job-killing accord 'good for New York and America.' Yet, journalists barely mention that record as they transcribe her assertions that 'I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning....'"
" John McCain said Monday that to win the White House he must convince a war-weary country that U.S. policy in Iraq is succeeding. If he can't, "then I lose. I lose," the Republican said.
He quickly backed off that remark...."
Michael Luo and Sarah Wheaton report, "Senator John McCain has campaigned on curbing the influence of money in politics. But an examination by The New York Times of a list of 106 elite fund-raisers who have brought in more than $100,000 each for Mr. McCain found that about a sixth of them were lobbyists...."
"In this week's debate, Hillary Clinton said all of her 'baggage' has been 'rummaged through' for years. But important features of her close relationship with known terrorist sympathizers and Hamas supporters are still opaque to the public view...."
"... using 'bittergate,' Wright and Ayres to drag down Barack Obama has nothing to do with fair-minded debate and discussion. Nor is all this a needed vetting of Obama, as Hillary persists in saying. The current noise is nothing less than the predictable rebirth of an American political tradition. Call it redbaiting, witch-hunting or McCarthyism, the old slime is back and the reasons go far beyond the demands of Gotcha journalism and electoral combat."
"Something called the Campaign to Defend America has purchased a reported $1 million worth of air time in Ohio and Pennsylvania to run this ad, which connects John McCain to George W. Bush.
Update: Check out this investigation to learn who is behind the ad...."
"John McCain is not a very nice man. I have made that abundantly clear in my new book The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn't. When I wrote it, I endeavored to write about the actual man, not the myth or the media legend. Perhaps that was where I crossed the line...."
"...I can’t remember a debate in which the only memorable moment was the audience’s heckling of a moderator. Then again, I can’t remember a debate that became such an instant national gag, earning reviews more appropriate to a slasher movie like “Prom Night” than a civic event held in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center:
“Shoddy, despicable!” — The Washington Post
“A tawdry affair!” — The Boston Globe
“A televised train wreck!” — The Philadelphia Daily News
And those were the polite ones. Let’s not even go to the blogosphere....
[...]
The unequivocally good news is that ABC’s debacle had the largest audience of any debate in this campaign. That’s a lot of viewers who are now mad as hell and won’t take it anymore."
"It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned...."
"...Now days, Hillary Clinton sound like she shoot dice. She is always taunting her 35 years experience. So I have been doing some thinking, If she is 60 now, that means she been in public service since age 25, which I find hard to believe. Sure a large amount of that time was as first lady of Arkansas and the First Lady of the United States, but really, outside of that, what experience does she have? ..."
"But as Media Matters points out, you'd never know it from reading AP writer Jim Kuhnhenn."
"Despite her campaign's relentless attacks on Barack Obama's qualifications and electability, Hillary Clinton has lost a lot of ground with Democratic voters nationwide going into Tuesday's critical primary in Pennsylvania, a new NEWSWEEK poll shows.Continue reading.
The survey of 1,209 registered voters found that Obama now leads Clinton by nearly 20 points, or 54 percent to 35 percent, among registered Democrats and those who lean Democratic nationwide. The previous Newsweek poll, conducted in March after Clinton's big primary wins in Ohio and Texas, showed the two Democrats locked in a statistical tie (45 percent for Obama to 44 percent for Clinton). The new poll puts Obama ahead among women as well as men, and voters aged 60 and older as well as younger voters. (For the complete poll data, click here)...."
As she erroneously accuses Barack Obama of whining about the ABC sponsored Character Assassination, otherwise known as a debate, Hillary Clinton -- the Shot-Swigging-Gun-Toting- Blue-Collar-Tear-Jerking-Queen-of-Whine -- is at it again. But this time, she's complaining about Democratic activists who have been a driving force in the party. "At a small closed-door fundraiser after Super Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton blamed what she called the "activist base" of the Democratic Party -- and MoveOn.org in particular -- for many of her electoral defeats, saying activists had "flooded" state caucuses and "intimidated" her supporters, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by The Huffington Post....
[...]
Clinton's remarks depart radically from the traditional position of presidential candidates, who in the past have celebrated high levels of turnout by party activists and partisans as a harbinger for their own party's success -- regardless of who is the eventual nominee -- in the general election showdown.
The comments also contradict Clinton's previous statements praising this year's elevated Democratic turnout in primaries and caucuses, and appear to blame her caucus defeats on newly energized grassroots voter groups that she has lauded in the past as "lively participants" in American democracy.
[...]
In a statement to The Huffington Post, MoveOn's Executive Director Eli Pariser reacted strongly to Clinton's remarks: "Senator Clinton has her facts wrong again. MoveOn never opposed the war in Afghanistan, and we set the record straight years ago when Karl Rove made the same claim. Senator Clinton's attack on our members is divisive at a time when Democrats will soon need to unify to beat Senator McCain. MoveOn is 3.2 million reliable voters and volunteers who are an important part of any winning Democratic coalition in November. They deserve better than to be dismissed using Republican talking points.""
"Her message comes down to this: We can't really change the say-anything, do-anything, special interest-driven game in Washington, so we might as well choose a candidate who really knows how to play it."-- Barack Obama
Poll: Obama has better White House chances than Clinton, Democratic voters say | International Herald Tribune: "WASHINGTON: Barack Obama has won endorsements from a former Clinton administration official and two ex-senators, boosting his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination ahead of Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary that could determine whether rival Hillary Rodham Clinton stays in the race.
The support comes as a new Associated Press-Yahoo News poll shows that Democratic voters now favor Obama over Clinton as their best chance for winning the White House...."
"PHILADELPHIA — Barack Obama was greeted by the largest crowd of his campaign Friday night in Philadelphia. Some 35,000 people jammed into Independence Park to see the Democratic presidential candidate, four days before this state's crucial April 22 primary...."
"The calls are growing again for Hillary Clinton to recognize that her mathematical chances for winning the democratic nomination are low to none...."
 Watch the lowlights from last night’s debate on ABC. Sick of this junk news? |
"I'm outraged about last night's presidential debate on ABC, and you should be too.
ABC dedicated the entire first half of the debate to recycling the same junk news stories about the candidates' personalities and past associations that have been circulating endlessly in recent weeks.
At a time when we are facing life and death decisions about health care, war, climate change and the economy, ABC went for fluff and innuendo. No wonder so many people are misinformed or don’t pay attention to politics.
Last night made a mockery of this election and gave us a stark view of Big Media's impact on our democracy.
We have to do something. Instead of just switching channels, we need to demand better media.
Tell ABC: We Want Quality Journalism, Not Junk News
Media is the lifeblood of our democracy. But as our media falls into fewer and fewer hands, real journalism is being replaced by cheap infotainment and rank sensationalism. Newsrooms are being squeezed, foreign bureaus have been shuttered, and serious issues are simply ignored.
We can do more than just throw open the window and scream, "We're not gonna take it anymore."
Last night's debate is just a symptom of a much more serious sickness afflicting our media system. The root of this problem is bad policies that let Big Media companies like Disney -- which owns ABC -- get so big. It's up to Congress and the FCC to roll back media consolidation.
But it's moments like this that wake people up to the dire state of the media. Help spread the word.
Tell Your Friends: Support Quality Journalism
We deserve better media; we need better media. Let's hold ABC and Disney accountable -- and fight for media that we can count on."
Onward,
Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press
www.freepress.netP.S. Get connected and help spread the word. Join us on Facebook.
P.P.S. Missed the debate? Read Tom Shales’ review, “In Pa. Debate, the Clear Loser is ABC.”
Take action on this important campaign at:
https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?id=255
Note: Free Press is a national nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Free Press does not endorse or oppose any candidate for public office
"What a painful debate to watch! Where is Dennis Kucinich when you need him? At least Kucinich dared to point out how off base the “moderators” were in some of the debates he was in...."
"During the past week, Sen. Hillary Clinton has presented herself as a working class populist, the politician in touch with small town sentiments, compared to the elitism of her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama.
But a telling anecdote from her husband's administration shows Hillary Clinton's attitudes about the "lunch-bucket Democrats" are not exactly pristine...."
From Jewish Voice for Peace:Former President Jimmy Carter, predictably, is being denounced for meeting with the exiled leader of Hamas in Syria on Friday.
Carter's critics are wrong. Talking to Hamas, which won the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, is a necessary part of creating peace. As Carter himself said, "There's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."
Please sign our petition -- co-sponsored by A Just Foreign Policy -- to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain asking them to support former President Carter and support talks with Hamas:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/t/1849/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1175
Jimmy Carter knows that, according to Haaretz, 64% of Israelis have said they want their government to talk with Hamas about a cease-fire.[A] He knows that after Hamas won the January 2006 elections, it was willing to declare a ceasefire and allow President Abbas to negotiate with Israel on behalf of all Palestinians.[B]
Jimmy Carter knows that the blockade of Gaza being carried out by Israel, the U.S., and Egypt has actually strengthened Hamas in Gaza,[C] as 90 percent of Gaza's factories have closed and many former employees are now working for Hamas.
Jimmy Carter knows that Efraim Halevy, former head of Israel's Mossad, has called for Israel to negotiate with Hamas.[D] He knows that before the Annapolis conference, a bipartisan group of U.S. foreign-policy experts, including former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, sent a letter to President Bush and Secretary Rice saying that "genuine dialogue" with Hamas is "far preferable to its isolation."[E]
Indeed, he knows that the U.S. has encouraged Egypt to talk to Hamas about negotiating a cease-fire.[F] How can it be a scandal for Jimmy Carter to talk to Hamas, but not for Egypt to talk to Hamas at U.S. direction?
If the United States truly wants a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians - as opposed to just pretending that it wants one - it must deal with Hamas.
Please sign the petition now.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/t/1849/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1175
Sincerely,
Sydney, Cecilie, Rachel, Rebecca, and Jean
Jewish Voice for Peace
References:
[A]. "Poll: Most Israelis back direct talks with Hamas on Shalit," Yossi Verter, Haaretz, February 27, 2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/958473.html
[B]. "Carter Defends Plan to Meet Hamas Despite Israel Criticism," Agence France Press, April 13, 2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/13/8260/
[C]. "Gaza's Unemployed Have Handouts or Hamas," Griff Witte, Washington Post, April 13, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008 /04/12/AR2008041201969.html
[D]. "Ex-Mossad chief wants Israel to talk to Hamas," Michel Hoebink, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, February 21, 2008
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/080221-israel -mossad
[E]. "Bipartisan Foreign Policy Leaders on Annapolis Conference," Daniel Levy, Prospects for Peace, October 10, 2007
http://www.prospectsforpeace.com/2007/10/bipartisan _foreign_policy_lead.html
[F]. "Brushoff for Carter Over Plans for Hamas Meeting," Griff Witte, Washington Post, April 15, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008 /04/14/AR2008041402654.html
"Forget about her claim to have dodged sniperís bullets in Bosnia, or that she was named after Sir Edmund Hilary, or that she met a woman who was denied health care and died.Continue Reading.
All of these Hillary Clinton fibs and exaggerations are basically harmless. But her current attempts to lie about her record and to pretend that she always opposed free trade agreements and disagreed with Bill on NAFTA is a serious distortion of her record as she searches for blue collar support in Pennsylvania...."
LEVITTOWN, Pa. — Like many women over 50, Paula Houwen was eager to vote for Hillary Clinton for president.Continue Reading.
"I was impressed when she was first lady. She wasn't the country's trophy wife," the 56-year-old suburban Philadelphia pharmacist recalled.
Today, though, Houwen's no longer a Clinton fan.
"I do not like the way Hillary Clinton has run her campaign," she said.
Clinton's strongest core of support — white women — is beginning to erode in Pennsylvania, the site of the critical April 22 Democratic presidential primary, and a loss here could effectively end her White House run....
