http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/2150

"I have always felt that the Florida and Michigan fiascos were just too much of a blend of coincidence, misrepresentation, shocked outrage that things happened when rules were broken. It has never felt right, it has always had the feel of more to it than meets the eye.

There are too many players with too much in common, too many of the same talking points used by all those involved. Too many prominent Democrats from both states going on TV shows and selling out their credibility to justify the way these two states broke the rules.

I can not prove there was more to it. Never could. But think about this. I hear that 13 of the 30 on the rules committee are Hillary people who voted to strip the states of all of their delegates last August. Why? Now a couple of them, Tina Flourney and Harold Ickes only recently said they would only settle for 100% seated. So hey, why did they vote to strip them all. It does not make sense unless you assume bigger things are in play. "

Much more at the link.

For those who think that Barack Obama is too inexperience (big chris matthews HA right here)

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/19-year-old-gamer-becomes-mayor-of-oklahoma-town/1215787

♥'s to all

Kindness is free!

Well, here i am at the bottom of a thread (granted, it's short) with a tool bar and a live comment box in OPERA.  I'm shocked!

Now I don't have anything much to say.  Except maybe that our political system isn't

corrupt because of money, but because people still aren't used to what's a proper

relationship to the money.  Money is supposed to facilitate transactions over time and

space; it's not supposed to motivate the transactions.  Somehow the medium of

exchange has become conflated with the exchange itself.  And, in the financial

markets, the medium is the beginning and the end--virtual transactions that are essentially meaningless.  I happened to watch a C-SPAN forum of the housing crisis yesterday and was struck by Ed Rendell's suggested

solution that people become better educated about the economic system.  Education

is not going to help with crooks whose goal is to maximize the transaction medium,

nothing else.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba

Kevin Garnett scored 33 points as Boston beat Detroit in a thriller
106-102 to take a 3-2 lead in the East finals.   

• Watch
• Recap

no toolbar here. lol

I had to change browser because in trying to access the Roy Carter blog, opera crashed.

Found an email from one of his supporters for an event in North Carolina, which I wanted to comment on. Seems like our candidates need a little training in internet protocol and how to use blind copy. I now have addresses for thirty people who probably don't want to hear from me. LOL

They don't matter.

Milk is a better buy today relative to the costs of getting it to the store than historic average relationships.

Dow announced a 20% across the board price rise for products that are the base of many others costs in other industries as well.

The economy is now experiencing double digit inflation as could be predicted from the dollar collapse, and Republicans will do all to mask it that they can til after the election so they can blame Obama next year when the bill comes due.

will require higher interest rates

We haven't found the bottom of the housing market yet, but are due for a "dead cat" bounce. (sorry for that expression, but it is the one traders use after a market that has gone straight down temporarily turns around)

But when the interest rate correction kicks in we will be able to find bottom. 

bbl

So, I went to the Carter Campaign page and left a blog post, which may or may not register there.  It doesn't say one has to be a supporter of the campaign to write a post.

http://democracyforamerica.com/blog_posts/25409-t-bone-burnett-event#1200129

Do you know that DFA has 256 candidates listed?  And they all have supporters? !

incredible!

That Clinton would go gracefully:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aXAqg6VR427Q&refer=home

May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton stepped up her lobbying of Democratic Party superdelegates today as rival Barack Obama said he is ready to start the general election campaign after the last two primaries are held next week.

Clinton, in a letter and 11-page analysis sent to the party officials and office holders who have a vote at the Democratic convention, argues that neither she nor Obama will have the nomination locked up after the last primaries on June 3 and that the superdelegates should back her because she's the better candidate against Republican John McCain.

``When the primaries are finished, I expect to lead in the popular vote and in delegates earned through primaries,'' the New York senator wrote. ``Ultimately, the point of our primary process is to pick our strongest nominee.''

Obama, speaking to reporters tonight on his campaign plane, said he is focused on snagging the remaining delegates he needs to secure the nomination. ``Once we have that number we will focus on the general election,'' he said.

``I'm sure we will have discussions with Senator Clinton and her team,'' Obama said when asked what he will do if Clinton stays in the race after June 3.

Clinton's appeal to superdelegates and Obama's positioning himself for the general election are the latest fronts in a Democratic nominating battle that shows no signs of letting up even as the primary process winds down.

Decision on Rules

The Clinton campaign distributed the letter as the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee prepares for a May 31 meeting to determine whether Florida and Michigan delegates should be allowed to participate at the convention in August.

The two states, both battlegrounds in the November election, were stripped of their delegates as a penalty for holding early primaries. Clinton and the other Democratic presidential candidates agreed last year to the sanctions imposed by the Democratic National Committee.

http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2008/05/28/wasserman-schultz-judiciary-committee-willing-to-arrest-rove-if-he-doesnt-testify/

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said that the House Judiciary Committee would be willing to arrest Karl Rove if the former White House official doesn't testify about his role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

W-S has zero credibility. Congressional Democrats can be reliably expected to fold, like they have consistently.

If we wanted the strongest candidate, we would advertise for weight-lifters.  One of the things that's irked me about the Clinton campaign from the beginning is the mangling of the English language in her speeches.  I suspect that's the result of poor staff work.  After all, her sentence about her vote for the AUMF was clear.

"If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from." 

The quality of the staff a candidate selects is important, especially since the office holder

does almost nothing him/herself.

http://mt.barackobama.com/page/s/greatfalls

Join Barack Obama at a rally in Great Falls on Friday, May 30th.

Rally with Barack Obama

Four Seasons Arena
Montana ExpoPark
400 3rd Street, NW
Great Falls, MT

Friday, May 30th
Doors Open: 4:00 p.m.
Program Begins: 5:45 p.m.

...

must have hit some nerves. they just brought rudy j out of mothballs to schill for karl and w.

meredith did a great job interviewing scott mc. and dan bartlett had plenty to smile about - 4000 dead , 100000 dead for a lie.

yea, bunch of whores for bush.

lanny davis on msnbc talking the same talk about mi and fl.

just go home. oh, and don't count on that paycheck.

Al Giordano has posted a video on his blog

The 2008 Democratic Nomination Story in One Minute & 40 Seconds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJJW7EF5aVk&eurl=http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/

http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_vi_ranse_080528_ignus_fatuus__28the_co.htm

ignus fatuus
(The Corpse Candle)

Hope
is the phosphorescent light
seen moving over the grave
of America at night

caused by
the combustion of gasses
arising from the corpse,
the rotting organic matter

that once upon a time
was called the American Dream,

in fact,
a stench-covering smokescreen
to occlude the imperious motives
of a self-anointed Manifest Destiny

paraded
as freedom and democracy
(as long as you do it our way)
to enrich a predatory "aristocracy"

which plunders and rapes the planet
since true democracy is actually anathema
to the craven, crony capitalists
using the foul light of the macabre corpse candle
to enable them in their damnable, gluttonous feed.

Arctic declaration denounced as territorial 'carve up'

· Denmark, Canada, Russia, Norway and US in talks

· Environmentalists seek anti-drilling treaty

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor

The Guardian, Thursday May 29 2008

Arctic nations were yesterday accused of paving the way for a polar "carve up" when they signed a deal aimed at resolving territorial disputes.

The agreement was signed in Greenland by ministers from Russia, the US, Norway, Denmark and Canada, and sought to cool down an increasingly heated scramble for the Arctic, driven by the prospect of oil and gas reserves made newly accessible by the melting of the polar icecap.

"The five nations have now declared that they will follow the rules. We have hopefully quelled all myths about a race for the North Pole once and for all," said the Danish foreign minister, Per Stig Møller, who co-hosted the meeting.

[...]

But environmentalists said the closed-door meeting cleared the path for a land grab by states with claims to the continental shelf at the pole; Iceland, Finland and Sweden, part of the Arctic Council group of nations, but without similar territorial claims, were excluded, as were environmental groups and the native Inuit.

"It's clear what's going on. They are going to use the law of the sea to carve up the raw materials, but they are ignoring the law of common sense - these are the same fossil fuels driving climate change in the first place," said a Greenpeace International spokesman, Mike Townsley.

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/29/fossilfuels.poles

://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/dashboard/main/demfarmer

http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/29/the-straight-talker-er/

There are gaffes, and then there is straight out BS. The man who has been singing the praises of whatever re-imaginings of actual reality he can manage to shove down the throats of the press corp slathered in gallon jugs of Kirkland-brand barbecue sauce is on a new theme.

Demanding Barack Obama hang out with his Mentholatum-dipped posse on their jaunts to the land of never-ending-ever-impending-undefinable victory, Iraq.

As I posted yesterday, McCain has engaged a constant drum-beat the last nearly six-years praising Bush, but mostly himself, for the "always" successful policy that is the Iraq War. At least as it exists frozen in a Rich Lowry NRO special of May 2005, "We're Winning". McCain styles himself the new Admiral Farrugut, "Damn the facts, full speed-o-wank".

Because Obama refuses to sit for three days as the meat in a "McCain-Lieberman sandwich" McCain gets to call him a coward, rather than what he clearly is, a person of at least modestly refined taste.

So now the self-styled "Mr. Straight Talk" is adding another layer of fertilzer to the pile, because Obama will do things on his own schedule, rather than toady to McCain's agenda, the "Maverick" takes away his offer of a Werther's Original and makes proclamations like this yesterday in Reno (the press corps went, just to watch him lie):

But then again, they do say short-term memory is the first thing to go.

Actually, it's the second thing

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/elections-0/1212022153301120.xml&storylist=orlocal

Obama adds another Oregon superdelegate

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Gail Rasmussen has become Oregon's third Democratic superdelegate in two days to come out in support of Barack Obama.

...

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/carpenter/087

Well, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan got the media firestorm he was hoping for, which will make the unemployed propagandist millions of dollars, which, I'm sure, he was hoping for even more.

He's now being offered up by many on the left for political sainthood, because he's perceived as having turned on his old boss (which, according to those who've actually read all of What Happened, isn't quite the case). And that's the sort of Greek political drama we love. It's more than Oedipal, it's tasty.

But lest we forget: If Scottie had not been pushed out of Propaganda Central, he would still be standing there at the White House podium, spewing the vilest of deceptions and lies on behalf of his criminal keepers.

Setting the record straight and reclaiming his credibility, my butt. Truth is, this vengeful turncoat got his feelings hurt, as opposed to losing an arm or a leg or his manhood or his head in a cockeyed war without justification, except from a political marketing point of view.

Watching others suffer those far more monstrous fates was somehow emotionally bearable for Scottie, as long as, that is, he was one of the boys. When his innate incompetence caught up to him, however, and Bush's chief of staff decided to put him out to the pasture in which he had always belonged, what once was bearable became oppressive.

So Scottie got scruples. Along with a nice book contract.

Mission Accomplished Haiku