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May 08, 2008 03:32 PM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 58 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“The fatal futility of fact.”

–Henry James

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58 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

  1. Nicholas Kristof, in today’s NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/opinion/08kristof.html?ref=opinion makes a compelling case that HRC needs to drop out asap and start working for Obama, i.e. to bring her reluctant NASCAR fans into the camp by shaking them out of the “if not Hillary then McCain” frame of mind

    Part of this scenario also involves failure of superdelegates to commit themselves to the eventual nominee–and it is obvious that this is Barack Obama. Enough already of platitudes about letting every vote count. It’s over. Obama has it sewed up! Whether or when HRC chooses to admit this has no impact on the math!

    The process of bringing Democrats together behind the nominee needs to begin NOW. Today. Continued posturing on the barbed-wire fence after Tuesday can only be interpreted as failure to work to bring the party together behind the nominee.

    That would be YOU, Pat Waak, Mark Udall, Ken Salazar.

    Udall: http://markudall.house.gov/HoR…

    Salazar: http://salazar.senate.gov/cont…

    Waak: http://coloradodems.org/compon…

    Democrats on this site need to email AND phone Udall and Salazar Bros, Waak, and any other superdelegate you can think of and get this message across in the strongest possible terms: commit to voting for Obama NOW.

        1. The others are Ritter, John Salazar and Roy Romer. An add-on unpledged delegate will be chosen at the state convention. Hickenlooper and Pena are in the running for that.

      1. …but why is May 20 better than May 8 in terms of wrapping up the primary? Or should I say: acknowledging reality. From Tuesday there were 26 weeks before the election. Two of them represents about 7.5% of the remaining time. Can we afford to waste a single minute, hour, day…much less two weeks…while HRC licks her wounds and/or prolongs the fantasy of NASCAR fans that she conceivably could be the nominee?  

        1. why Hillary Clinton might not drop out before the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries. Among them, so Obama doesn’t get trounced 2-1 against someone who’s already withdrawn. Pundits tout McCain’s weakness when 25 percent of Republican primary voters vote against him. What would the headlines read when it’s 65 percent?

          We’ll be able to tell the next few days whether Hillary is running this strategy. Obama is already running a general election campaign.

          We need to have a clear shot by Memorial Day. Before that, it’s a mixed bag.

          1. …what if she campaigned FOR OBAMA in WV and KY? Is it better for the Yokels to get their racism, or ignorance, out of their systems? Will voting for HRC, the known loser, in May somehow benefit Obama in November? Apologies–I don’t get this part. Yes, she needs to bow out gracefully …and the CO unelected delegates can help persuade her to do so by simply endorsing the choice of Colorado Democrats. Doing so need not be presented as an anti-Hillary gesture–merely one of following the clearly stated wishes of the electorate! Shoulda happened weeks ago–but didn’t because our “supers” were, I daresay, contemplating their own political futures in case HRC might pull it off. Well, she didn’t and that phase is over.

            (Plus I suffer from GEIS–genetic extreme impatience syndrome–which hopefully will be covered under whatever new health insurance scheme the Dems manage to put into effect by 2012.)

            1. .

              and ending the War.

              Based on the courage displayed by Team Pelosi and Harry Reid,

              you better wait until you have Medicare eligibility before getting sick,

              and McCain’s hundred years of war is going to look good in comparison.  

              The Democratic Party is as beholden to the corporation as the GOP.  

              .

            2.    If you don’t stop sounding so condescending to these middle class, swing voters who live in purple states, your candidate is going to end up like Michael Dukakis or John Kerry come Nov…..someone perceived of as out of touch with the rest of the country.

        2. To use a metaphor

          Its better when Grandma finally goes to the home, she feels like it was her choice.  Less hurt feelings.

          Don’t worry.

      1. he is a super based on being a former Governor…he is a super because he is a former chair of the DNC.

        I think he’s still chief of LA Schools.  He can likely be contacted there.

          1. a so-called “Polosi superdelegate,” which means he’s said he’ll throw his vote to whoever has the lead in pledged delegates after the last contest.  

      2. is a super because he’s a former DNC chair. Last I saw him quoted in the press, wasn’t he in New Orleans?

        I’d claim that, how did you put it, posturing on a barbed-wire fence, is entirely appropriate for the governor and state party chair for the national convention host state.

        There’s a good chance a handful of the undeclared Colorado delegates are Clinton supporters, so be careful which ones you annoy to the point of forcing a declaration vs. waiting until it won’t matter.

        That said, you’d do as well lobbying the super delegates who have already declared for Clinton. Several Clinton backers switched to Obama yesterday, maybe some of these might join them?

        Diana DeGette and DNC members Mannie RodrГ­guez, Ramona Martinez and Maria Handley.

        1. Sign. Do you doubt for a single minute that this question of the nominee will have been long resolved before a single delegate steps across the Kansas line? Colorado isn’t neutral. We had caucuses. Voted for Obama overwhelmingly. This is Obama Country. And just for good measure, the committee organizing the convention in all its splendid neutrality is separate from the Colorado State Democratic Party chaired by Waak.

          Entirely agree about DeGette et al.

          As far as annoying anyone, (a) that doesn’t bother me too much, as you probably have perceived; (b) I don’t give a shit about their feelings, egos, etc.–there’s a job of overwhelming importance to be done and they need to get started; (c) Two-thirds or more of Colorado Democrats voted for Obama in the caucuses…these “superdelegates” need to be worried about annoying THEIR CONSTITUENTS. (d) hopefully one outcome after November will be an overhaul of the state Democratic establishment if it doesn’t get on board NOW.

          1. I’m not saying I agree with it, but it’s protocol.

            I meant “annoy” in the best possible sense. Just be aware there may be some undeclared Clinton supporters on your list. If they want to stay undeclared until it won’t matter, I say let ’em.

      3. Besides the host state copout I don’t think Bill Ritter would actually endorse Obama over Hillary.

        The chair of Ritter’s transition committee was Jim Lyons, an old friend of the Clinton’ss and a member of Clinton’s 1992 transition team. He was even appointed to the 10th Circuit bench by Bill (blocked by Allard). And he’s the head of the Hillary Colorado team. I’m sure he has been  acting as an adviser.

        Lyons is a very close and trusted adviser to Ritter. Both of the Govs legal counsels came from his firm. The transition was even housed in Lyons law firm.

        Hillary began personally courting the gov and lt gov in the spring of 2007.

        Given all of these factors and others my gut tells me that Ritter wouldn’t endorse Obama even if he wasn’t the “host.”

  3. according to Hillary only white is right:

    “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

    “There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

    It’s not that blacks are voting for the black candidate, it’s Hillary, her husband and campaign, casting them aside as she has with every demographic who doesn’t support her.

    And her supports don’t think she’s divisive?  

  4. So confident are Obama supporters in Congress that some have begun talking of his convention acceptance speech this August. Sen. Obama first gained broad recognition for his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, when he was seeking election to the U.S. Senate. As one Democrat noted, if Sen. Obama were nominated, his acceptance address would be the night of Aug. 28 — the 45th anniversary of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/…

    1. even if other pundits don’t invoke “I” as much.

      Always enjoy reading Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi — who’s following in a tradition hewn by Hunter Thompson, P.J. O’Rourke, (although the publication is noted for William Greider’s political columns, as well), and excelling at his own voice.

      My favorite paragraph:

      It’s brilliant strategy, and it’s working so well that Hillary now has her crowds hurling catcalls at the mere mention of anything Obama. Moreover, she’s inspired such profound loyalty that her supporters no longer give a shit at all how they win, as long as they do. Like O.J. apologists who became overnight skeptics of DNA evidence, Clinton backers don’t see anything wrong with winning the nomination through a brokered convention, despite being behind in the popular vote and the delegate count. “Why not?” says Don Dileo, a union organizer who worked for Hillary in Pennsylvania. “That’s the system of government we have, right?”

  6. WASHINGTON – When the Pentagon announced an obscure California company had won a lucrative military contract, no one mentioned any plans for a Caribbean outpost – a tropical shell the company quickly created that allowed it to duck millions in taxes and deflect U.S. lawsuits.

    It’s legal, at least for now. Contractors large and small have been heading offshore to shield piles of taxpayer dollars, according to an Associated Press investigation, but irate lawmakers are thundering that they’ll put an end to it.

    Almost a decade ago, a few months after winning the deal that has totaled more than $2 billion, Combat Support Associates established its subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, a British territory and tax haven.

    War profiteering must end. Now.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24…

    1. .

      Red Danny,

      no thanks for posting that link.

      I read the article and got sick.  

      First, the article talks about an American company that is scamming the taxpayer by creating a shell subsidiary in the Cayman Islands.  

      So what.  Happens all the time.

      Then I read that the company doing the scamming,

      Combat Support Associates,

      is another shell corporation,

      created by Space Mark Inc.  

      That company in turn goes by several other names: TEKSTAR, INCORPORATED; SMI INTERNATIONAL; TAC SERVICES, INC.; ALEUT ENTERPRISE CORPORATION; TEKSTAR LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY; SPACE MARK INC are all aliases for the Aleut Corporation.  

      This info is at FedSpending.org.

      In Colorado Springs, they have large contracts at the Air Force Academy, Peterson and Schreiver Air Force bases.  

      They have a lot of contracts with civilian agencies that I am familiar with.  

      Here’s the part that makes me sick:

      as an Alaska Native Corporation, they are eligible for a preference program in federal contracting called the 8(a) program.  

      As an 8(a) participant, they can receive no-bid, no-advertising contracts up to $3.5 Million.

      And as an ANC 8(a) participant, the upper limit on no-bid, no notice contracts goes away.

      One ANC 8(a) has a no-bid contract with NSA worth over $1 Billion a year.  

      The reason is to make amends for the expropriation of tribal lands, I think.  

      This program was the baby of the most corrupt members of Congress, Don Young and Ted Stevens.  

      Almost no Inuit or Aleut people actually work in these companies;

      the companies are chartered by the tribe and supposedly turn all the profits back to the tribe.  

      So, Space Mark gets their contracts no-bid,

      in a preference program to benefit Native Americans,

      and then rips off its American employees.

      .

  7. In response to the notion that HRC is just figuring out some graceful way to get out, maybe after May 20, there is this from TPM:

    Top Hillary adviser Terry McAuliffe says that the Dem primary will definitely not be going to the convention. But today’s Wall Street Journal reports that Bill Clinton is privately urging her to keep going ’till Denver.

    WSJ story here: http://online.wsj.com/public/a…

    It ain’t over ’til it’s over. Contact those superdelegates today!

  8. I saw a bumper sticker on my way into work.  It said “Too bad people with closed minds don’t also have closed mouths”.

    At first I thought it was a little funny, maybe even a little true….  I thought of some closed minded people here, and how life could be easier if they would just shut up from time to time.

    But then I thought “Isn’t kind of closed minded to say that closed minded people should just shut up?  Why should it be a bad thing that they express themselves?”

    I think that too often, people operate under the guise of being “open minded” until a differing opinion comes to light, and all too often we shut them out by telling ourselves they’re just “closed minded”.  But is that always true?

    A.D.D. moment brought to you today by my parent’s genes.

    1. I prefer talking to people I disagree with – but most seem to prefer only talking to those that are like minded. What a boring world this would be if we all agreed with each other.

    2. ….when one of us doesn’t walk in lock step.  

      Everyone regular here has seen it with some of my opinions.

      Tolerance and diversity, indeed.  

      3.    Once the party elites have made their decision, everyone else must fall in line and tow the party line.

          Come to think of it, that sounds more like the Republicans than Communists.

  9.    U.S. Rep Vito Fosella (R-N.Y.) has disclosed that he fathered a child out of wedlock with his mistress.

      Fosella, who is married and has three other children with his wife, was arrested on May 1st and charged with DUI.  He was allegedly driving with BAC over twice the legal limit.

      Fosella has the distinction of being the only Republican member of the U.S. House from N.Y.C.

      His announcement made no mention of whether he’ll step down (to spend more time with the families?) or continue with his plans for re-election.

      Conservatives can relax….at least this one is heterosexual.

    2. When asked where he was headed, Fossela replied “to pick up my daughter,” and gave the address of his baby-momma, who then bailed him out.  Talk about alcohol lowering inhibitions…

      Fosella’s comment regarding his Congressional seat – that he had more important things to deal with than his political future.

    1. So Lamborn, Bruce and Polis walked into a bar….

      Lamborn, being broke and conspiratorial asked Polis to buy him a drink.

      Once Good ‘Ol Jerod pulled out his wallet, Bruce Kicked him and Doug Stole the wallet.

      Moral of tghe story, make sure you are de-bruced before you by Lamborn a drink

      1. walks into a bar.  Lamborn and Polis, sitting at the bar, ask him” “How are you doing?”

        “I can’t kick,” Doug complains.    

            3. A multimillionaire and two lame ducks walk into a bar.

              The bartender takes one look and says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”

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