I'm sure that tens of thousands of us are on Senator Hillary Clinton's mailing list.  I'm on her mailing list in addition to lists for Senator Barack Obama's and John Edwards.  I just got another e-mail from the Clinton campaign.  It is interesting that back in January through March, I would get only one or two emails from Clinton's campaign per week (Obama's camp would e-mail 3 - 4 times per week). Now, that the race is really over, I'm getting about four emails per week.

The theme in this latest email is two-fold.  First, she says "I can win."  Secondly, her plea is to send  money.  If I can't bend my mind around #1 then I will not be sending any money.  In her opening paragraph - "We are depending on the voters of Puerto Rico in our fight to secure the nomination."  How does Puerto Rico help her in any way?  How does Puerto Rico give Hillary enough delegates to win the nomination?  It doesn't.  In her next to the last paragraph, Hillary says, "We can finish the primary races strong and win the nomination." Again, I must ask how? The only way that Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination is if the Rules committee which meets on Saturday (today) changes the rules of this contest or the SuperDelegates decide to mass defect from Obama to Clinton which would cause the Democratic party to begin seizing.

Will Hillary try and take this fight to the floor of the Democratic Convention? How is that helpful to anyone who is a Democrat besides Hillary Clinton?

Hillary Clinton.  Barack Obama.  DNC Rules committee.  Saturday.  Let's get ready to fumble!!!

The Democratic party is on the verge of doing a Leon Lett.  Leon Lett was the talented defensive tackle for the Dallas Cowboys in the early to mid-90's.  In the Super Bowl, Leon picked up a fumble and ran about 60 yards to a sure touchdown.  He held the football out in his right hand to begin the celebration.  Don Bebe, on of the fastest men in the NFL, came from nowhere and swatted the ball out of Leon's hand and thru the back of the endzone.  No touchdown. 

The country is sick and tired of George W. Bush and the Republicans.  They are ready to vote for almost anyone who doesn't have an "R" after his/her name.  A fight on the floor of the Democratic convention will be a deal breaker.  I don't know how we are going to chose a Democratic nominee.  I thought we were going to chose by elected delegates but maybe I'm wrong.  I have gotten to the point that I really don't care any more.  We have to chose.  We can do it by flipping a coin or by Ouija board.  We just have to chose someone and chose NOW before we end up like Leon Lett, fumbling the ball at the 1 yard line.

Today I spent a good deal of time playing the Bush quote about appeasement. I thought is was important for everyone to hear exactly what President Bush said. Barack Obama's response was thoughtful, forceful and correct. He invites John McCain and President Bush into a discussion on foreign policy.

I interview Glenn Greenwald from Salon.com on the show.  We discuss his new book, Great American Hypocrites. I can't let Glenn get away without discussing the Telecom Amnesty issue.

Finally, I wrap up the show with Bush's quote on Golf.

Straight and to the point. Barack Obama directly responded to President Bush's appeasement comment and then turned to John McCain. Barack Obama correctly stated that John McCain has offered to difference between himself and George Bush on foreign policy. Here are Barack's remarks in South Dakota:

From WaPo - "If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting America, that is a debate I will have anytime, any place," he said to a cheering crowd. "George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for." Obama then launched into list of grievances, including a war fought on the premise of uprooting weapons of mass destruction that were never found, the failure to catch Osama Bin Laden and turning Iran into the "greatest beneficiary" of the Iraq war. "That's the Bush-McCain record on protecting this country," Obama said. "Those are the failed policies that John McCain wants to double down on." The senator's comments came in response to President Bush's speech before the Israeli Knesset yesterday, in which he likened a willingness to meet with "terrorists and radicals" to appeasement of the Nazis. "That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and alienates us from the world," Obama said. "And that's exactly why we need change."

Finally, there are a group of Democrats who believe that Barack Obama hasn't shown enough passion on the campaign trail. Well, I thought he showed plenty of passion in this speech.

I have been very frustrated the last couple of days. The blog has been screwing up. The politics of separate and divide are being used by the Clintons. It started with the 3 am commercial and it has just continued. Not only do we need to tear down Barack Obama but we also need to elevate ourselves. Instead, of telling the truth about what she has accomplished we have that Lying Man from Saturday Night Live (I know I'm dating myself). "And I was ... dodging sniper fire. yeah, that's it. Sniper fire. And everyone had to sit on their bulletproof vests. Yeah, that's right. And I solved the Northern Ireland conflict while I was brushing my teeth. Yeah, that's right. That's the ticket." Booman from Booman Tribute has a great post on the anger that many of us, progressives, feel against Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Clinton gang. Booman says: Hillary Clinton has gone too far. In a conversation with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Clinton presumed to tell Barack Obama where he should worship his God. She suggested that Reverend Wright is guilty of 'hate speech' and compared him to Don Imus.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor made. "He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend." ..."You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

Hillary Clinton has a lot of gall to question her opponent's choice of church considering her own kooky associations. And I think it would be equally repulsive if Barack Obama chose to make an issue of her decision to worship with Sam Brownback and Rick 'Man on Dog' Santorum. Obama certainly could question her faith and what her faith suggests about her political commitments. As Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported in Mother Jones last fall...

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

The Fellowship leader is Doug Coe, who Clinton has described as "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

Coe's friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Reaganite Edwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.). Under Coe's guidance, Meese has hosted weekly prayer breakfasts for politicians, businesspeople, and diplomats, and Pitts rose from obscurity to head the House Values Action Team, an off-the-record network of religious right groups and members of Congress created by Tom DeLay. The corresponding Senate Values Action Team is guided by another Coe protégé, Brownback, who also claims to have recruited King Abdullah of Jordan into a regular study of Jesus' teachings.

But Barack Obama has not made Clinton's kooky right-wing church into an issue on the campaign trail because he understands that a person's faith is an intensely personal and (hopefully) non-political affair. Clinton's decision to question Obama's choice of church is a bigger problem than her personal tastelessness. Her decision is an arrow aimed directly at the heart of the black community. It is one of the worst acts of public betrayal I have ever seen committed by a Democratic politician in my lifetime, and the most shortsighted and toxic decision I can recall. White Americans may be surprised by their introduction to the style of black sermonizing in the figure of Rev. Wright, but the black community sees nothing particularly out of place in his rhetoric. This may or may not be a political vulnerability in the general election, but a far greater vulnerability is opened up by telling the black church-going community that Rev. Wright is the equivalent of Don Imus and his 'nappy-headed hos'. The suggestion that Rev. Wright was engaged in 'hate speech' of a kind so loathsome as to require leaving his church is deeply offensive. The black community is feeling besieged by the national spotlight on Rev. Wright and the ensuing white backlash. They are looking around for allies, and find Hillary Clinton piling on and throwing them under the bus. Clinton is not only presumptuous, she is vicious and divisive and hurtful. She should be defending Barack Obama against unfair attacks, and defending and contextualizing the tradition of black sermonizing. In his speech, Barack Obama sought to educate and bring reconciliation. Clinton's response is to throw it all back in his face and suggest that there is something wrong with him for attending his church. If Clinton succeeds in pushing this racial polarization to the point that white people will not vote for Obama, the black community will never, ever, forgive her. This is especially true because she can only win on the backs of the superdelegates. At this point it is absolutely imperative that the party leaders step in and stop the Clinton campaign from inflicting lasting damage to the relationship between the party and the African-American community. She cannot be allowed to even try to win the nomination this way, let alone actually win it. This is poison of the worst possible kind. It will destroy the party's electoral viability more swiftly and more surely than anything I can think of. I call on Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Chairman Dean, and the other leaders of the party top step in right now and call this contest. The Clintons absolutely must not be permitted to do this. It must be stopped.

I think that whoever is the Democratic nominee for President will need to have the smartest team of political advisers ever assembled. The Republican political machine will not go into the sweet night quietly. They have far too much to lose. Let's think about this - in the next 4 - 8 years, there are going to be at least 3 and maybe 5 Supreme Court judges who will retire. With a Democratic lead House and Senate and a Democratic White House, could Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales be hauled before a court and found guilty of crimes against humanity? Could a former President and Vice President have to sit trial for outing a CIA agent? Would companies that have raped the American people, by pocketing millions and millions of dollars by being contractors in Iraq, have to re-pay moneys that were stolen or poorly accounted for? Did you see that a defense contractor has placed a $3 billion bid for Diebold.

I'm just asking because we have been holding Khalid Shaikh Mohammed for at least 5 years. Now, just before the 2008 election, there is going to be a trial. I wouldn't be surprised if other things pop up to galvanize the base and distract from the Presidential race.

The Nation has a great article on this trail. Former chief prosecutor Col. Morris Davis says that the trials are rigged. Who's surprised? After Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift (I thought that I posted his story but I haven't. I'll do that tomorrow.) resigned after he was passed over for promotion, he told his story of a rigged process.

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From The Nation:

Secret evidence. Denial of habeas corpus. Evidence obtained by waterboarding. Indefinite detention. The litany of complaints about the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay is long, disturbing and by now familiar. Nonetheless, a new wave of shock and criticism greeted the Pentagon's announcement on February 11 that it was charging six Guantánamo detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, with war crimes--and seeking the death penalty for all of them.

 

Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration's military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials have been rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo's military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees to foreclose the possibility of acquittal. (more...)