Bill Clinton

There are so many reasons why Hillary Clinton will never be Vice-President that the GOP has made us all a favor and put them all together on the first official 2008 Presidential Election attack ad against Barack Obama.

Thanks Hillary and Bill Clinton and idiotic Democrats, y'all super!

Can you believe that after Hillary Clinton's assassination remark, her campaign spinned the comment as an attempt by Barack to make her look bad? Yes, Hillary Clinton and all her boot lickers blamed Barack for the words she herself uttered on her own accord not once, not twice but now four times during the course of the campaign.

They blamed him for blowing the thing out of proportion and yet, as I've told many, many people since this happened HOW DARE YOU TELL US THIS IS NOT A BID DEAL! How dare you tell us that putting the words ASSASSINATION and BARACK on the same page is not cause for concern?

Well, the Huffington Post has an amazing chronicle of one of Michelle Obama's campaign stops. This is what happened :

She called on another supporter, whose voice quivered and broke with barely contained emotion as she explained how important it is to her, personally, that our country change course. She explained that she had just returned from Oregon where she campaigned for Obama and attended the 75,000-person rally by the river. She had noticed, she said, that the Secret Service had increased security dramatically for Barack Obama's rallies since the Phoenix rally in January.

The room collectively gasped and murmured, some aghast that these fears were being spoken aloud directly to Barack Obama's wife. Some nodded, concern and fear on their faces. Others shifted on their feet, displaying a range of emotions -- concern, discomfort with the topic, indignation.

This is not a pundit spewing or a campaign boot licker spinning. This was a common woman, who has volunteered to get the man she believes will bring change to this country. This is not a political expert lost in a moment of bobble-head theatrics but a real woman shaken by Hillary Clinton's words.

And yet, with the poise and class that Hillary nor Bill Clinton have, Michelle Obama told this shaken woman and the rest of the audience this :

Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Maria Shriver,Oprah Winfrey by LATimes

In a jaw-dropping last-minute endorsement, Maria Schriver endorses Barack Obama : Breaking News: Maria Shriver endorses Barack Obama.

Will.I.Am's endorsement of Barack Obama goes viral : Will.I.Am's remix of Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" speech.

La Opinion, the largest Spanish language newspaper in California (if not continental US) endorses Barack Obama. The tipping point? Immigration : The Democratic choice is Barack Obama y en español, La opción demócrata es Barack Obama.

In what looks like a direct response to Marcia Pappas' "Ultimate Betrayal" memo, 150+ Feminist women from New York State decide to endorse Barack Obama : New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama.

Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower and coiner of the phrase "military-industrial complex", comes out in support for Barack Obama : Why I'm Backing Obama

Hi Ms. Clinton,

This is an awkward note to write to you. Although I voted for you twice to represent me as Senator of New York, from the first rumors I heard in political circles here in New York City, I was vehemently opposed to your running for president.

As I said to many party insiders in New York, this had nothing to do with your abilities and all to do with where the country stands now.

We are at a point in which our democracy is in shreds. Nothing has been so damaging to our democracy than the attitude that has fueled Washington all these years : That "The People" are just an inconvenient obstacle to the Washington elite's road to power.

This country needs a movement willing to tearing down the walls of dynastic entitlement that George Bush has built around the White House during his eight years of quasi-imperialistic rule. This country needs a leader and a party and the people to bring it back from the place where Iraq, FISA, New Orleans, Read ID, racist immigration laws, the sub-prime lending fiasco are all seen as just the consequences of doing business in Washington DC.

This country needs a healing period and a new start.

A Hillary Clinton candidacy would have made sense in 2012. 'Hillary 2012' would have given us 8 years of healing the country, of bringing it back to its democratic roots and it would given you enough time to distance yourself from the Washington corruption that made eight terrible years of Bush possible in the first place.

But no.

It's all about Billary.

Not Hillary and Bill, but Bill and Hillary.

Billary is the reason why it will never be enough for your husband to modulate his tone throughout the campaign. Your candidacy is looked on by many as the loophole that'll bring your husband not just back to the White House but also to the Oval Office.

If you see me in a suit it generally means one of two things: I am going to a wedding or I am invited to an event with Bill Clinton.

The work I have done for Kiva, both as a lender and a blogger, has gotten some attention. My Kiva diaries are among the more popular ones I write. A little while back I was interviewed by BBC World News as a lender. And most recently, I was invited to a private panel discussion for the release of Bill Clinton’s latest Book, GIVING: How Each of Us Can Change the World. I do not have a copy of this book as of yet so this is not a book review, though that might come. Instead I want to discuss the event and some of the individuals and organizations that were highlighted.

Three people I have had previous contact with were on the panel: Bill Clinton himself, who I got to meet at a fundraiser for Christine Jennings, Majora Carter, an awesome NYC rising star, and Premal Shah, President of Kiva, the organization I have been working with that got me invited to the event. Rounding out the panel were Geoffrey Canada of Harlem Children’s Zone (which hosted the event), Mark Grashow of U.S. - Africa Children’s Fellowship and a 6 year old girl named Mackenzie who organized a beach cleanup for her birthday. The panel discussion was moderated by Tavis Smiley.

Once upon a time there was a high school. It was a beautiful high school, and rich in history, being more than 200 years old, and everybody in town wanted to attend it.

With its fine roots in liberal education and the almost unprecedented power over their own destinies that it bestowed upon its students, it was unlike any other high school in the district, or indeed, the state. At the turn of the last century, whole families, many of them Irish and Eastern European, moved across town so that they'd be zoned for it. The high school welcomed them with open arms, but the students weren’t so kind.

It is my sad duty to report that many of these new students were beaten up, or had their lockers vandalized. Thankfully, things settled down, and the high school was once again a harmonious whole.

In the 40s, there was a shameless and dangerous power grab by a school superintendent a few districts over. He was intent upon eventually absorbing every school in the state into his district, under his control, and decreeing with a wave of his hand who could stay and who could not.

Fortunately, the president of the student body, a well-liked disabled guy named Frank, worked tirelessly with the other schools until the superintendent was voted safely out of office.

But our story begins about fifteen years ago with the election of a Jock to Student Body President.

The Jock was a nice guy, everybody liked him, and there was no denying that he had charm. He was a great guy to grab a burger with, and, whoever you were, you felt like the Jock knew where you were coming from. At this time - actually, to this day - the Jock was going steady with someone who defied high school logic.

I originally posted this on the Daily Gotham earlier in the week.

Mark Twain said there are lies, damn lies and statistics and his adage applies to unemployment measurement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes six unemployment metrics monthly, each referred to in ascending order of inclusiveness of the unemployed as U-1, U-2, etc.

The measure reported by the media as the unemployment rate that severely undercounts the unemployed is referred to as U-3. The U-3 rate is obtained by dividing the narrowest definition of the unemployed by the work force.
The U-3 definition does not include whom the BLS calls discouraged and marginal workers, those who want a job but have given up the search because market conditions and personal experience indicate the process is futile.

U-6 Unemployment counts the marginal and discouraged plus those seeking full time employment but can only find part time work. The Federal Reserve tracks what it defines as the Augmented Unemployment rate, which I’ve read is equivalent to U-6 less part time workers. I couldn’t find any Augmented Unemployment releases on the Fed site and despite major data inclusion differences, some bloggers have used U-6 and the Fed’s stat interchangeably.

Naive supply side economics fans and the heartless and often evil advocates of cutting the wealthy’s taxes as a means to kill the beast of New Deal and Great Society programs love to brag that the historically low recent unemployment numbers (April’s seasonally adjusted U-3 was 4.5 percent) are evidence that their tax policy scam truly does trickle down to those who are not tax cut direct material beneficiaries. Despite those wishing to give handouts to Gates and Buffett’s (who personally don’t even want the cuts) spin, the economy just isn’t that robust. The seasonably adjusted April U-6 numbers, which are a much more accurate economic suffering barometer than what the media regularly announces, increased to 8.2 percent.

Whitehouse.gov photo of Ford's casket at the White House Rotunda

I wish I could get a screen-cap of what I just saw now on CNN --and I have been switching channels to see if I can get a better look at the seating arrangement on the left-hand side of the aisle.

Almost all of the Bush family is sitting in the front of the left-hand side aisle. Jimmy Carter and his wife are in the front row along with Nancy Reagan and Laura Bush. Condoleezza Rice is on the third row behind Bush I, his wife and one of their daughters.

Oh! I saw the Clintons.

As Bush is walking down the aisle with Ford's widow, I caught a glimpse of the Clintons. They are sitting to the left of one of the Bush daughters. Off-center and almost off-camera.

Also interesting ... they put Betty Ford with her immediate family on the right, away from the politically charged seating that was arranged on the left side.

The seating on those 3 front rows on the left side say way too much of the effed-up politics of United States. Talk about nepotism and The South controlling politics in the post-Civil Rights Movement Unites States.

ps : Did I just saw Dick Cheney express an emotion? He actually looked sad!