Bastards care nothing for Global Warming!

So, some Somali pirates captured an American captain who allowed his crew to get away after offering himself as a hostage. In a daring rescue authorized by President Obama and executed by Navy Seals they rushed in, kicked ass, killing three pirates.

Now, I know that pirates attacking people is bad and pirates pointing guns at people are very very naughty. But, there are other issues to consider. Examine this trend for a bit and note the clear correlation:




Perhaps Obama isn't serious about global warming. That or there arrr some problems with this logic.

C-C-C-Combo Breaker

Just a fantastic image.

In the Warren snaffu, Obama seems clean.

Watching from the sidelines I have to say that Obama's actually looking pretty distant and unscathed. He invited him to say a silly prayer and suddenly everybody dug up a crap load of dirt on the guy. I've never really liked him, he's always seemed pretty smarmy but managed to stay above the fray. Walking out before Dan Dennett came around to compliment his book and pretending he was a reasonable member of society. Obama clearly can't rescind the offer, so you couldn't blame him considering all the new stuff we're learning.




Warren changed the language on his webpage to make it less gay-unfriendly (failure to delay gay satisfactions until after death means you no get into church), and Obama more of a commitment to the gay community on his transition site (which is certainly a more honest step).

But largely, I think this is all pretty positive. Obama comes off a little naive but stuck and Warren gets to writhe in the flames of public opinion.

California Gives Obama The Win... then goes gay bashing.

Damn it. I know it's not counted yet and still in processing but it looks like 8 is going to pass.

Yes

4,488,600
52%

No

4,173,033
48%

With 82% in.

Fricking California.

McCain Campaign strategy: a series of gimmicks.

Seriously, Palin worked kind of well because people finally started to pay attention to McCain in a what the hell is doing kind of way. However the whole hiding her away and refusing to talk with anybody kind of think is irksome. Now, his plan is to shutdown his campaign during the economic crisis. Because nobody has the power to have advertisements run in their name and have other people hammer out the specifics of a plan and then have a debate. McCain can only do one thing at a time.



Hiding does not make for a successful campaign and neither does shutting down your campaign.

Lipstick on a pig...

All the nuanced explanations of context for the statement seems remarkably like throwing your pearls before swine...

You know they are digging when they pad the resume.

Sarah Palin lived really close to Russia.
Sarah Palin stopped in Ireland for half an hour last year.
Sarah Palin has executive experience in the PTA.



Even with that gone I think Obama should just stick to the message he outlined in the convention because this plays into his hand so well. John McCain doesn't have the judgment or temerity to be president. He agrees with George W. Bush 90% of the time. On Iraq he was wrong. On timetables he was wrong. On energy he was wrong. On healthcare he was wrong. On veterans issues he was wrong. Contrast with correct choices made by Obama on those issues. Then bring up the first presidential decisions each of them made. Obama picked Joe Biden as VP who has more foreign policy experience than anybody in Washington and who nobody would doubt for a second could be president at a moments notice (even though Obama is perfectly healthy) whereas McCain picks the most inexperienced person possible while his health and age isn't that great. Really?

The republicans still aren't done with the convention stuff. They could still say "Psyche! It's Romney!"

Obama's acceptance smackdown.

Wow, of the top ten speeches I've run into Obama has about three of them.

Obama Picks Biden

Now I've got to whitewash everything bad I said about him. Which isn't much other than gimme some great liberal. Biden is an okay choice and certainly better than Bayh and Kaine pretty easily. He's also got crazy foreign policy experience and was the only reasonable person on Iraq early on (crack that bitch in three and run away).

Obama for Faith Based Initiatives?

I'm in favor of completely tearing down the faith based initiatives... and so is Obama. We're going to expand this program and enforce a couple rules. For example, "Can only use taxpayer dollars on secular programs and initiatives", and "cannot discriminate".

- Cannot use federal funds to proselytize or provide religious sectarian instruction.
- Cannot discriminate against nonmembers in providing services. They must remain open to all and cannot practice religious discrimination against the populations they serve.
- Must comply with federal anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- Religious organizations that receive federal dollars cannot discriminate with respect to hiring for government-funded social service programs.
- Can only use taxpayer dollars on secular programs and initiatives.
- Must prove their efficacy and be judged based on program effectiveness.

Changing a blank check to religions groups into a check for secular services rendered, that's what we had before. I'm sure it sounds better to evangelicals to say we're expanding it when really he's putting it back to what it was before.

Still makes me feel dirty. Spares him from shooting himself in foot. You can't come out and say you're supporting secular government community help and are ripping faith-based initiatives to shreds. *eh* Still makes me feel dirty.

In case you're stupid and think McCain is the lesser of two evils

MoveOn.org giving away Obama buttons

https://political.moveon.org/obamabuttons/?id=-3005408-nnS.o_x

Honestly, I think this is a pretty smart move. Buttons are cheap, advertise for the candidate, they get information and solicit donations at the same time. My only question is why isn't the Obama campaign themselves doing this?

Wow, that makes me really like Obama.

Obama's sister Maya Soetoro-Ng says a few things about the guy which raises my already high approval of him:

Barack Obama is a dedicated feminist who "lives surrounded by women," his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, told a mostly female crowd at a Women For Obama event in downtown Tampa on Thursday.

...

She said he taught her to ride a bicycle, made her practice harder math problems and start an exercise program, took her on college visits and even gave her her first women's health book - "Our Bodies, Ourselves," a 1973 guide that came out of the women's movement and focused on female sexuality, health and hygiene.

(Via pandagon.net)

A comment on pandagon about redstate comments on the article in question is fantastic:

Did you see the comment on Redstate that argues this can’t possibly be true, because the book came out when Maya was 4. Unless Obama was such a sick pervert to give his sister the book as a toddler, they speculate.

I once received a copy of “Henry V”, which only goes to prove that I’m actually an immortal 900 year old time lord.

Unneeded Followup

The response to the below McCain Ad. All of which seems a little pointless.

Is Hillary the stronger candidate?

The three swing states she does better in are Ohio, Penn, and Florida. It's harder to find states with bigger totals in play. electoral-vote.com has Clinton swimming in electoral votes and Obama simply winning a pretty hearty amount. The general election map shows her winning more than a few states not generally known for being swing states. Honestly the map looks like (Bill) Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign win margin (states for states). It's as if the (Bill) Clinton supporters in those states are (Hillary) Clinton supporters.

She's lost the nomination and Obama is pretty set to win the general election. However, I'm not sure there isn't some merit to the argument that she would win by a larger margin. As much as I am a fan of the Clinton's from my youth, I really do want some outside blood with some real hope and hopefully down-ticket coat tails.

Though the state polling seems to indicate she'd win in the 340s whereas Obama wins at about 290. Not only does she crush Obama in the Appalachia regions but she appears to have enough crossover appeal in the polling to win a number of those states in the general election just as her husband did in 1996.

I'm not supporting her by any extent, but looking at the current snapshot of the polls she is doing better. I don't really think that polls prior to the full-fledged start of the general election are indicative of what will happen in the general election but unlike most of the crap she pulls out of her ass there is a bit of truth to the argument. It's a moot point as she's already lost the nomination. Further, I think the link between saying that a current snapshot of the polls shows her doing better vs. "the stronger candidate" is not a very well established one. If it were really true, she wouldn't have epic failed during the primaries (insert Mark Penn diatribe). Obama seriously ran a better campaign and generally that's a pretty good metric for determining the stronger candidate.

Both Clinton and Obama would defeat McCain, so by proxy this stands as more of a general election battle much like some of the districts where the Democrat will win and the primary is effectively the election. I think this is how she sees it and asking her to quit as such just seems a bit silly regardless how slim her chances.

That said, I hope she drops out really soon. She can't win and I'd prefer to move on to the next part and get those Clinton supporters behind Obama as soon as possible.

Godwin's Law and President Obama

Congrats to President Obama the Republican Party has just invoked Godwin's in their opening salvo.

They lose.

The election is cancel the swearing in will be in January.

Why won't she quit? Because she's not stupid.

As much as she's lost, she's also tantalizingly close.

Anybody who wonders why Hillary Clinton hasn't quit needs to take a couple seconds in her shoes. She's 160 delegates down with 400 delegates left. But, she knows as well as anybody else that the Democratic Nominee is going to be president. Either of them would probably win with ease. That said, would you ask that McCain stop his campaign in October? All your really mean ads are going to hurt the unity of the country and you don't stand a chance as you're polling down 15 points! Do you think McCain could or would stop? Now look at the primary again. Either one of them would probably easily trounce McCain, who eeked out a win against a pathetically weak bevy of opponents ranging from Sleepy McEatTerrorists to Rev. LetsRewriteTheConstitutionIntoTheBible and nobody should forget PayeeMcCash MagicUnderpants.

I doubt even the worst she could toss at Obama would damage him enough to lose. As much as people love to say they wouldn't vote for the other person in the primary, the alternative is to vote for a third term for Bush in a much more decrepit packaging.

If she drops out she'll have to wait until 2016 to run again and even then Barack's VP would be presumptive and she'd be downright old.

One shot, and you need 300 of 400 delegates... to become president or you very well might never have another chance. Would you quit? What if you were probably going to lose?

-- That said, she should totally drop out. She's become the creepy ex-girlfriend of the Democratic party. Sorry Hillary, stop calling... we're with Barack now.

Another Victory For Clinton! Now she REALLY needs to give up.

Honestly, ain't no math says she can do it. Up maybe 10 delegates isn't digging her out of the hole. No more big prizes left and she's up shit creek without a paddle.

Update: Clinton about 9% netting about 10 delegates. That makes her win shift the count such that Obama has 1490 pledged to Clinton's 1337 with 231 to 255 supers. So, Obama 1721 and Clinton 1592... 129 delegate hole. With 716 left 129 is 18%, of the remaining delegates she needs 60%. 43% are super delegates. If that breaks roughly even makes her need about 80%+ of the vote in the remaining elections of which most she is certain to lose. With realistic counts on the voting she'd need about 90% of the supers who probably wouldn't upset the pledged count.

Barack Obama... he's bigger than Jesus.

We know from bare statistics and clear proclamations that John Lennon (and the Beatles) were bigger than Jesus. Now, we're starting to get evidence that Barack Obama is bigger than Lennon. We can tell this because Julia Sweeney replaced her "Imagine No Religion" bumper sticker with a Barack Obama sticker, as she noted on her blog on April 15th.

Clearly by the transitive property if John Lennon > Jesus and Barack Obama > John Lennon therefore Barack Obama > Jesus.

In other news, Julia Sweeney has a blog... and it's remarkably good.

Clinton Coattails?

Open Left has a fairly interesting post about predicting a 50+ shift in the house due to the +R win of Bill Foster (who is a scientist by the way) in Hastert's old seat in Illinois' 14th district. The post makes what is the dumbest non sequitur I've ever seen:

Cillizza looked for Republican-held districts with a PVI of between R+1 and R+5, which is basically a measure of districts that are slightly Republican to fairly Republican, and listed them as possible on the table. 21 of them alone were in Ohio, Michigan, and Florida, which suggests that Clinton might have some serious House coattails.

The only logical connection between the two ideas wins across the board in PVI districts of up to R+5 and Clinton is that she won in Ohio and was on the ballot in the other two states when they had their elections with the well known consequences of making their delegates not be seated. However, Ohio according to SUSA would be won by ten points by either Clinton or Obama

It's pretty well a moot point anyhow. Even if you majored in math or miracles, Clinton simply doesn't have the numbers.

Looking at early voter turnout was one of the things which made me an Obama supporter. I think driving some Republicans to the polls just to vote against Clinton isn't going to help the down ticket races. The turnout and excitement for the race certainly does equal coattails but you need to take a good look at who the massive turnout helps. I'm not exactly sure there would be that much vigor and excitement among the old women (my sister and mother included) of Clinton's core voters.

I honestly don't see any coattails specifically for Clinton. There's certainly a wellspring of votes to oppose McCain (as well as a depressing support for McCain) but I don't exactly see anywhere near the excitement in the Clinton camp.

The argument seems to be:

Bill Foster wins in a PVI +R district.
Therefore, Clinton must have coattails.
Therefore, Clinton can help win 50+ districts.

Bill Foster won in Illinois with the help of Barack Obama (he might have done it alone as he had major help from the DNCC, but I don't know how you'd measure that). This bodes well for the coming election season (clearly) however it has nothing to do with Clinton. Good omens for the coming election do not make for some kind of specific claim about one candidate over another.

Moreover, according to SUSA and various general polls, Obama is set to win a much larger victory against McCain than Clinton would, this does actually equal coattails. There's nothing like lackluster candidate suffering an overwhelming defeat to a charismatic individual to send shockwaves through the downticket races. I think the general conclusion of Clinton's lackluster general election prospects (she'd win mind you) doesn't scream coattails.

In fact, I find Clinton's argument that she's the perfect person to go toe-to-toe with McCain another reason not to support her, not because she's tacitly advocating a McCain presidency, but because there's no reason to go toe-to-toe to a guy you can ignore and defeat while extolling the reasons why you are the man for the job. Going toe-to-toe with somebody means that you're at their level. The implicit assumption is that to bring Obama to McCain's level means that he needs to step it up a bit. Rather, to do so, Obama would have to lower himself to that level just as Clinton has lowered herself. Clinton's current strategy to advocate that she's the person to oppose McCain even though every matchup suggests that she does significantly worse is strange enough. However, when you're faced with another four years of McBush who advocates keeping troops in Iraq until they are as old as he is, nobody needs to go toe-to-toe with McCain! He is is the embodiment of failure. He's going to lose. He had a hard time beating a field of humorously weak candidates before GOP bigwigs decided he was the best of the bunch.

Also, not only was Bill Foster helped in his special election, but even in 2004 when Obama was busy sailing to victory for his Senate seat, he started campaigning for a number of house races and having his volunteers help them out. In Clinton's 2006 race, she helped nobody but herself and spent massive amounts of money in an election she was never remotely close to losing.

Further, Obama's ground game is astounding, you win big with good ground game.

Coattails? Clinton? I don't think so.