CNN

I know am coming late to the Campbell Brown party but I just have to post it here because it's so awesome. Campell Brown smacks down McCain surrogate Tucker Bounds for not being able to give not one example of Sarah Palin's alleged experience with National Security.

She goes after him like a pitbull and doesn't back down even as he acts insulted by not being allowed to stick to his talking points. Funny because now the Alask National Guard has responded directly to the question and the answer is, No. Sarah Palin has never had to deploy the Alaska National Guard in any situation akin to a national security crisis. (h/t to Andrew Sullivan)

It's amazing we have to congratulate Campbell for just doing her job.

The Rules and Bylaws Committees rules!

Harold Ickes proved to be a douchebag when he made the threat the Clinton campaign would take their fight all the way to the convention.

With the new decision the candidates need 2118 to get the nomination. With the new numbers CNN is saying that all Obama needs between 20 and 24 more superdelegates to win after the 3 remaining contests.

That's it.

If the Clintons take this to the credentials committee this would prove that they're waging a scorch earth strategy and wouldn't have a problem doing the Republicans job of making Barack Obama lose in November.

And by the way, the despicable screaming mimis in the room were chanting, "McCain, McCain, McCain".

The Clintonites know how to keep it classy.

Geezus fruggin cryst, the insanity of the Hillary Clinton campaign is just unbelievable.

She has a guy on CNN saying that tomorrow's primary in Puerto Rico is important because it will determine for sure that she is winning the popular vote. Not anybody in CNN has corrected this douchebag and told the audience that Puerto Ricans live in a commonwhealth, not a state and thus they have no executive, no senatorial and no congressional representation in the US government.

What does this mean?

Puerto Rico is a commonwhealth, a "free associated state". PUERTO RICO IS NOT A STATE. Puerto Ricans cannot elect a president. Citizens of the United States do not elect a president. The states are the only ones that get to elect the President of the United States.

This from the US Constitution, Article II, Secion 1 :

Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:

Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

So stop it, Stop It, STOP IT!

PUERTO RICO'S POPULAR VOTE DOESN'T NOT COUNT!

As has been widely noted, this past week marked the fifth anniversary of the Bush administration's unethical, immoral, and unwinnable war in Iraq. As the war enters its sixth bloody year, no end appears in sight. The fragile, fractious political situation in Iraq is no better now than it ever was. The public infrastructure is still shattered, with such basic necessities as electricity and potable water still widely unavailable in many regions of the country for more than a few hours a day. The so-called surge is stalled and its tenuous successes are failing to take hold. Everyday violence is still omnipresent, and the 3,000-year-old civilization of Iraq is still in shattered ruins. By any measure, George Bush's ill-advised Iraq adventure is an unqualified disaster.

Numerous comparisons have been made between the untenable situation in Iraq today and the equally untenable situation in Vietnam back in the 1960's. Not all of those comparisons are apt or accurate, but many of them are. America in the spring of 1968 was a very different place than it is in the spring of 2008, even though it's fundamentally unchanged in many ways today. Racial and political tensions were far higher then than they are today, with riots in the streets still in the news and bombings of banks and other public institutions still far too common for comfort. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were raw wounds in the shared psyche of America in 1968. And overseas, an endless war against amorphous insurgents continued to drain the hearts and minds and blood and treasure of our nation's best and brightest for the sake of a cause that no one could satisfactorily explain at home.

Why are all the Latino commentators in CNN Republicans, Mexican looking and ... ahem ... botoxed?

UPDATE - CNN story just posted here, with full transcript of statement.
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Still watching the live news conference on CNN and thinking it should be required viewing in every school worldwide -- that is, if we do mean to create and preserve real environments that sustain human life by right instead of might.

"Fighting back was simply not an option."
When one is "not equipped for a fight" and reason fails in the face of unhearing, blinded, singleminded Borg-like purpose with superior numbers and ammunition, then Reason itself becomes an unreasonable response forcibly redefined against your will, becoming not an academic exercise but a raw first-rung survival skill, a matter of figuring out who is fit to survive and what it will take.

"We realized that our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway. Nor were we able to calm some of the individuals down.
It was at this point that we realized that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won, with consequences that would have had major strategic impact. We made a conscious decision to not engage the Iranians and do as they asked.

And even that kind of Raw Reason falters without intelligence, sound information for making wise decisions, and being allowed untwisted, unmanipulated communication within one's one group of fellows and with the real world. Reason stripped, blindfolded and shoved up against the wall to hear the sound of guns being cocked.

There are likely going to be at least a dozen, probably more, debates between the Democratic Presidential contenders. One organization considering hosting such a debate is the Congressional Black Caucus, considered by many, including myself, to be the moral conscience of the United States Congress.

The CBC, however, is considering a partnership with Fox "News" to televise that debate, which is in turn raising hackles among activists.

Markos writes:

Now with the Nevada Democratic Party ditching propaganda outlet Fox News as a co-sponsor of its debate, attention is turning to the Congressional Black Caucus, which is choosing between CNN and Fox for its own debate. African American activists are putting pressure on the CBC to choose CNN.

Afro-netizen concurs:

In September of 2003 the Congressional Black Caucus co-sponsored a Democratic presidential candidate debate with Fox News at Baltimore HBCU, Morgan State University. Progressive-minded Blackfolk should have acted then, and we simply have no excuse not to act today towards keeping it (and any of its affiliated organizations) accountable.

How bad is the conservative cable channel, Fox, in describing Black Americans? Consider this video:

Empire Zone does a nice job of summarizing Glenn Beck's musings on drowning New York City.

According to a CNN transcript of the program “Glenn Beck on Headline News,” when it was suggested that a hurricane could cause a 20- to 25-foot storm surge in New York City, Mr. Beck said, “Actually, that would clean the streets out. It might not be bad.” Liberal blogs have cried foul, noting that studies show such a storm would cause “heavy loss of life.” One local blog’s summary: “Glenn Beck wants to kill you.” (It should be noted his show is based here.)

So you have to wonder: why aren't people talking about this? And why does the man still have a job?

As the Zone notes, it's the liberal blogs, pretty much alone, that are talking about this; certainly not the rightwing blogs (who are more interested in hysterically yapping about war with Mexico and muttering darkly about their crypto-terrorist luggage). You might think that those folks would occasionally wonder if their allies aren't bigger threats than whatever it is that they exercise themselves over so loudly and often. But that would require a bit of critical distance from the rightwing Kool-Aid, and that's a step none of these folks seem ready or able to take.