It's Getting Nasty Out There... And I'm Not Talking About Weather

(No, if I talked about weather, I'd use plenty of four-, six-, and even voluminously polysyllabic words as I curse. Vermont has actually had a 36-hour respite from our daily 12 inch dumps of snow and frozen rain BUT...)

What I'm talking about is the talk between some Democrats. And no, I'm not talking solely about Hillary Clinton and her entourage vs. Barack Obama and his Oprah machine. Every day in my travels, mostly online but also off, I see people beating up the other candidate in ways that would give the anti-Clinton elves like Ann Coulter jealousy that they didn't think of the nastiness first.

OK, true, neither Barack nor Hillary is Perfect, by whatever definition we choose to assign to that term. And as much as I have long lists of pros and cons for each of the two, I'm still feeling rather deadlocked, Vermont primary over aside.

But they're like soooooooo freaking much better than what the Republicans want to give us - John McCain, one of those rare men who is actually much more difficult to deal with when he thinks he's winning than he is petulant and tyrannical when he's not winning (see the leadup to how he quit the 2000 presidential race and his frequent meltdowns, usually in the media's face).

Some call McCain a war hero. I once did. But the first time he said it was worth it to stay in Iraq when he knew we have lost SO many soldiers and far more innocent Iraqi civilians meant he was no longer a hero, but another ambitious dickhead with a God complex who never minds leading lambs to slaughter "for a good enough cause" (read: his own).

And when I remember who I don't want to see in the White House next January, Hillary and Barack sure look pretty damned good by comparison. Maybe we can evolve them toward protection by getting them into office and then getting them to do the will of the people (for a change).

Is It Just Me Or Is Everyone Dead Tired Of The Political Partying?

Once more, the Republican Party figures it's the right one to choose WHO the Democratic presidential challenger in November must be. Meanwhile, idiots who tend to get this stuff very wrong - and with someone like CNN's Schneider rarely noted for the sake of fairness to be a major Republican type/American Enterprise Institute "fellow" when providing "non-partisan" analysis - insist that Barack has to be the candidate because John McCain and Hillary Clinton will tie each other up.

Uh, I'll ignore the BSDM implications of that last sentence - not because I'm a pussy but because I can't think anything sexual about either Hillary or John within the same week in which I want to be able to keep down my supper.

YET. What I think this all mostly amounts to, in all seriousness, is the GOP playing its usual game of "Dare Ya" with the Dems and - as happens all too often - the Democrats do exactly what Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, et al want them to do, which is usually the exact opposite of what the American people happen to tell them is needed.

For Super(duper) Tuesday coverage

Please check out my posts at All Things Democrat (this, from a lifelong til now Indy) to see how:

• the Republicans are shitting themselves
• West Virginia votes first for Romney than seals its delegates to Huckabee "(Aren't dinosaurs still here?")
• why they're saying John McCain will break the Republican Party in two (don't believe it, myself - they've been a divided party for a long time, usually divided between those with a brain and no heart, and those with feint heart and little brain and then a huge number of folks with some brain and heart who get stuck with loser, pathological candidates).

The Loss of John Edwards Is The Loss of a Voice For Regular Americans

Yesterday was a very bad day for Americans who are not wealthy, don't own mega corporations, who don't have health care or job security or big political connections.

I won't pretend that I'm not bitter, sad, and very angry that Democratic presidential nominee candidate John Edwards suspended his campaign yesterday. I thought he and his wife, Elizabeth, and many fine Americans of all economic backgrounds, waged a brave and brilliant campaign that focused on something almost NO ONE else in this campaign, short of Dennis Kucinich who dropped out last week: the rising majority of Americans suffering at the bankrupting of America by Republican rule and Democrat-capitulation.

We ALL lost, regardless of your party or preferred candidate, when we let the media and the Republican party turn this race only into an Obama-Clinton slugfest, and let Edwards get pushed ever back and finally out of contention. Unlike most - virtually ALL - presidential candidates since I became eligible to vote in 1980, I really believe Edwards meant just about everything he said. And that Elizabeth, with incurable cancer, insisted he run AND participated with him, impressed the hell out of me.

As much as I can't imagine voting for ANYONE but a Democrat in November, I do not feel either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton speak for the majority of Americans. I think they, at another time, would be viewed as somewhat moderate Republicans. But, as I've said, if Republicans won't elect moderate Republicans to office, why the hell should the Democrats. All I can do is hope that we hold their feet to the fire if one of them wins Election 2008 and that they are just sounding "conservative" and ever so careful during the race, while they show less concern for millionaires and billionaires and corporations once they get to the Oval Office.

As The Republicans Regurgitate Everything Reagan...

Sorry, I got felled by hand problems the last few days BUT... I'm even more distressed to listen to the Republicans debate at California's Ronald Reagan Library in the last GOP debate before Super Tuesday next week invoke in every other word the name of Ronnie Raygun - the man who said "fuck the poor; if you aren't a millionaire, I don't want to hear from you" - in every other breath.

The LAST time Ronald Reagan had a salient thought was back in the 1950s when, as a Democrat, he headed the Screen Actors Guild and tried to mediate the damage being done by horrible hatemongerers like Joe McCarthy tried to force everyone in government and Hollywood to name fellow workers and friends as "reds", even when it was not true. After that, he got involved with Nancy Davis, an even less talented actress (but oh so rich and from old California Republican money) than First Lady - not that Ronnie was a good actor), became a Republican and, like too many in the GOP, disconnected his brain. By the time he reached the White House, he was already well into the grips of Alzheimer's Disease - it's a huge lie that the effects came after he left office; Alzheimer's does NOT work like that.

So if you aren't afraid YET that the Republicans want to return to the "glory" days of the Reaganomics 80s, you damned well should be. Anyone who didn't make it rich in the 1980s had a damned hard time... and the people who puppeteered Reagan made sure of that!

If It's An Election Year, Then It MUST Be Time For More Terror Alerts

Gee, where have we heard THIS before?

Is it any surprise we're hearing all this talk now of big, bad terror attacks planned soon - right now for Europe (Spain, etc.), but I'm sure we'll see this extended to us - when we have a presidential election come November? After all, they need to build up the case for supported "all war, all the time" guaranteed us by whatever GOP candidate rides into the Oval Office on the numbers from rigged electronic voting machines.

Perhaps you can spend your "huge" tax rebate check buying bullets for the Pentagon(again).

In A Panel of Bald-Faced Liars, Mike Huckabee Stands Out

[Methinks spending time around Chuck Norris and his drug-induced haze has affected the Huck's mental capacity (which was never exactly firing on all cylinders to start with).]

Mike Huckabee, the same man who last week insisted that it was his solemn duty to change the U.S. Constitution to reflect HIS interpretation of the word of God - namely, to outlaw homosexuality and a woman's right to choose and make any semblance of marriage restricted exclusively to a man and a woman - with a straight face during the Thursday night Florida GOP presidential debate, insisted that he would never, ever try to impose his religious views on the nation.

Say what?

With Kucinich Leaving Race, We ALL Lose

The blog at the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is dropping out of his bid for the Democratic nomination, abandoning his run for U.S. commander-in-chief in this november's 2008 race. Kucinich stayed in throughout the 2004 race but this time, faced with challenges for his Congressional seat back home (says CPD), the one-of-a-kind presidential candidate says he does not want to risk losing his House of Representatives seat - where he is one of the most truly progressive hearts and minds to be found on Capitol Hill - and I certainly would hate to lose him there as well.

Whether you supported Kucinich or not - and I admit I'm leaning more towards John Edwards - I think we all lose when a man like Dennis is forced out of the race. Why? Because he stands for real issues and stnads up for real people. It is a pitiful, quite obscene statement about what America has become if a person (and in Dennis' case, the best kind of idealist) who wants the United States to actually BE all the positive things we like to say we are (leader of the free world, a democracy, a fair and just society where the "lowliest" of people can achieve their greatest dreams, a beacon of hope, a role model to the rest of the world, to name just a few).

If only those candidates who pander to the most extreme zealots who would rape and plunder the U.S. Constitution - not to mention human rights and global citizenry -with the insane and obscene claim it's "for God's sake" as we have with the right wing, or those who cater to the the wallets and whims of American corporations as we see with the most mainstream Democratic politicians including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the more moderate Republicans - who also brown nose the Christian fascists and the richest of the Americans - such as John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, individual American citizens lose BIG TIME. We see it, too, with the almost rabid minimalization and ostracization of Democrat John Edwards who commits the "heresy" of trying to bravely represent the needs and dreams of even poorer working class Americans rather than the corporate money machine of the Democratic Leadership Committee (DLC).

We lose that which we claim to hold most dear when we allow a Dennis Kucinich or a John Edwards - or even a Ron Paul on the GOP side - to be forced out by those who use money and power and fear-mongering to transform our elections from being ABOUT the needs and dreams and votes of real American citizens and voters to what's in the best interests of a General Electric, a Viacom, a Rupert Murdoch, a Halliburton, a Beatrice Foods, et al.

Shame on the media... but shame on us, too.

For more coverage of Dennis Kucinich, go to the Openers blog.

"America's Mayor" Campaign Going Boom DOT Bust?

For weeks and weeks, GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani has been pouring all his time and resources (and we've learned that his campaign, even before Mike Huckabee's, has run out of money in ways that make it impossible to pay all staffers) into key primaries like Florida's after doing very badly in Iowa, New Hampshire, and others.

However, it's unlikely Giuliani, mayor of New York City on September 11th, 2001, will win even Republican voters when it's time for the Empire State to cast ballots. But if he does as badly in the upcoming Florida primary as polls suggest, how can the man who sold out the firefighters and other 9-11 rescue workers, who took billions in no-bid contracts not just from the Bush Administration but from our supposed sworn enemies, and who should have an in among Floridians who were former New Yorkers, stay in the race? Despite his focus down there, he's halved his polling numbers since November (from 36 to 18%).

The Republican debate in Florida is tonight on MSNBC. Urg.

John Edwards Is Public Enemy Number One?

[Hmmm... if I wasn't already for Edwards, this might get him my vote! ]

I know the press is too busy telling us how happy America is with Bush's bogus tax rebates to "stimulate the American economy" into more bankruptcies and foreclosures, AS WELL AS how odd it is that the folks who found 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger dead called Mary Kate Olsen (now there's a brain trust worthy of the Bush Administration) rather than 9-1-1 first BUT...

Why has so little attention been paid to the fact that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has declared Democratic presidential candidate and former Senator John Edwards "public enemy number one" and pledged to defeat him with all the ammunition they can fire at him, including a $60 million anti-Edwards fund.

Personally, anyone so villified by corporate and commercial America just makes me MORE interested in the man. I think others should be paying attention.

Fred Thompson Drops His Presidential Race

Not that his poor showing in Republican caucuses and primaries ever proved he was actually IN the race for GOP presidential nominee race for this November but...

Let me say that using the "I need to stop to care for my ailing mother" statement is about as ridiculous as Karl Rove quitting the White House "to spend more time with my (Manson) family (of Bushies)." A) Fred is no spring chicken so mama's got to be pretty old b) Fred doesn't look like the bedpan-and-chicken-soup server type and c) well, I suppose Fred's wife, who looks to be about the right age for one of his granddaughters, is not likely to want to spend all her time and designer wardrobe at mama's house while Fred plays nursemaid (which he won't). Thompson's wifey, if you notice, could never answer the most basic questions about his campaign; probably because it interfered with her shopping.

But that aside, Fred's leaving the race poses an interesting situation. Of all the GOP candidates, I'd call him the only true conservative (McCain is only part of one, and Huckabee and Romney aren't any part of one in the classic sense of the term). A lot of classical conservatives, I don't believe, will vote for a Huckabee or Romney or Giuliani and have voiced discomfort with McCain in the past.

Here's another difference with Fred that I actually appreciated. Fred Thompson refused to play the religion card. He indicated early on that his relationship with his God was private, his business. I appreciate that; it's how I feel about my faith, as well. People who don't seem to be more likely NOT to force their God down the throats of others.

I can't think of a faster path to hell (in whatever form you think it may take) than to use God and Christ as a selling point for your election (and frankly, I've never seen a more unholy lot than all these Republican so-called Christians on the campaign trail this year).

So let me actually thank Fred (and add that I hope he does not return to acting, because he's even worse at that - other than playing himself - than he is as a Republican candidate) for not hitting us over the head with his faith on a daily basis.

On The Day We Celebrate King's Birthday, What Would He Think of Racial America Today?

Since the Rev. Martin Luther King's actual birthday last week (born January 15th, 1929), I find myself wondering what the man who became this nation's most famed civil rights activist and left us with passionate legacies such as his "I Have A Dream" speech would think about the state of this nation had he not been gunned down in April 1968, just two months before Bobby Kennedy who just might have won the 1968 presidential race.

It was no secret to King that he was watched, recorded, and routinely villified by everyone from an FBI where J. Edgar Hoover was still in charge and treating the agency like his personal vengeance machine to a media that, at "best", did not want to infuriate paying white audiences by denouncing claims that King was only "in it" for himself. And, taken from us still so young, we can only guess what MLK really felt were the chances to fully break the color barriers and recreate an America that did not divide itself by race, color, creed, or religion.

In my musings, I can't seem to escape the conclusion that Dr. King would be profoundly disappointed that a fight for which he gave his life, although things HAVE changed, has really not resolved itself in the four decades since his assassination. We pretend race is no longer the big controversy it once was, yet we let our law inforcement organizations engage in racial profiling, let courts pretend crimes committed by people of color really ARE deserving of harsher punishment than those committed by whiter people with money. We sit back, albeit uncomfortably, while pundits have just moved the angry stereotyping of blacks to those we label "law breaking illegal immigrants" to whom we attach some of the same awful rhetoric: lazy, welfare cheats, people who "deliberately" grow large families to qualify them for additional public assistance and people who demand special treatment to get into good schools and jobs rather than "work as hard as whites" do.

I also believe Dr. King would be just about as incensed as many of us are that people insist "Obama isn't black enough", that he's the first black candidate for president (forgetting Frederick Douglass, Carol Mosely Braun, Shirley Chisholm, and yes, even Jesse Jackson to name a few), and that he can "only win IF" other people of color just "blindly" vote for him to promote their own race (like whites haven't done this).

While I would dearly love to think that MLK would have more reasons to be dutifully proud of "how far we've come" than not, this is the kind of wishful thinking we usually only allow white Southern Christian candidates and would be no more true coming from King than it does from them. At the same time, I can't help but think about how many - including a few of the tighty righty GOP presidential contenders out there today - griped when it was enacted and continue to resent it that King's birthday was made into a national holiday.

John Edwards: Stay or Go?

Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report discusses the big question(s) before 2008 Dem presidential candidate (and John Kerry's VP choice in the 2004 race), John Edwards, regarding whether it's time for him to pack it in or continue on toward the Dem convention this summer which is what Edwards has said he will do.

As I've said, I'm undecided at this time. However, Edwards (along with Dennis Kucinich) comes closer to my "ideal" candidate than do Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who, IMHO, are too willing to make concessions I don't like, don't believe are good for the country in its current shape (which isn't all that good). To me, both represent the DLC approach to Democrats which I find too much like middle ground Republicanism to help Democrats as a whole. If the Republicans don't want to elect moderate Republicans, why should Dems do it for them?

Interestingly enough, I did NOT support Edwards in 2004 though I came to support the Kerry-Edwards' ticket simply because Edwards was on it and I saw a progressive-ism growing in him that seemed utterly absent from Kerry. The Edwards running today is a much-changed man, I believe, from 2004 and I do NOT believe this is an act. John Edwards' approach on universal health care, the working class, and so many other issues.

Right now, his campaign isn't doing super great. But what's strange is that he's got at least half the delegates of Obama and Clinton WHILE, where Republicans like Thompson and Giuliani barely have a handful of delegates BETWEEN them, pundits aren't shouting to push Fred and Rudy off the campaign trail as they are with Edwards. Why? What's the difference? Could it be that Edwards is simply not "corporate money" enough for the DLC crowd while among Repugs, Rudy and Fred will definitely sell their souls?

What's your take?

On Lieberman, Likability, And (Sore) Losers

Karlo (the man who JUST can't ever get enough cat blogging) notes in Comments regarding my post about the possibility of a John McCain/Joe Lieberman ticket, This refers to Republican presidential nominee Sen. McCain's talk the other day where McCain - perhaps kidding, perhaps not - pointed to allegedly but not actually (Indy) Democrat Sen. Joseph Lieberman, there to provide support and an endorsement for his fellow hawk Republican ::cough::, and mentioned that Joementum might make a great vice president.

Specifically, Karlo asks "does anyone actually like Lieberman?" given his "new and disproved, not improved" status as the far right wing's and Bush's favorite Orthodox Jewish lackey. After all, it can be hard for the loony right to offer anyone who is not a fascist Christian the time of day much less that most minute hint of respect. Thus, when looking for a token "not me" to suggest they aren't racist, too, it helps that they can wrap a crazy war hawk together with a Jew who wants to see the Biblical rapture and armageddon occur every bit as much as they do, regardless of how many Jews and Muslims they have to consign to hell to do it.

So yes, Virginia...er... Karlo, someone likes Lieberman. His wife. The loony right just pretends to tolerate him, just as they often utter the words, "Some of my best friends are black" and "I don't hate gay people. I just feel justified in telling everyone gays are promiscuous and mentally ill while I deny them the right to marry and make their lives miserable."

However, in fairness, I have to say that there was a time when, as Lieberman's constituent, I had some respect for the man. He's always been prissy, a bit holier than almost everyone else, and likely to side with some weird issues, such as when he joined "Second Lady" (and I use the word "lady" very, very, VERY loosely here) Lynne Cheney and "morality czar" (and dominatrix-loving, millions-lost-in-casinos) William "Bill" Bennett in an effort to turn college campuses to the right while discriminating against those educators who don't think it's their job to tell students what to think, how to vote, and that their grades will be hurt if they don't believe in the same God as James Dobson and Jerry Falwell.

Quite seriously, I think a HUGE part of why Lieberman has turned so far to the right - and not simply because of 9-11 and his zealot's hatred of Muslims - lies right in the lap of the 2000 presidential election. Lieberman blames then presidential candidate Al Gore for not winning (and the American people for not choosing Joementum himself) which turned him into a sore loser and then he jumped on the ultra-hawk bandwagon, with all of his high praise for Bush and other tighty righties, SOLELY to advance his own position.

His pouting brat sore loser attitude soured him further to Dems after the capitulation to rigged voting so he had to realize Democrats would never support another candidacy for him - and they didn't; Republican money returned him to his Senate job when Dems wanted to flush the turd. Also, he saw the writing on the wall in terms of how completely the fascist right was willing to go to keep a Jew from the White House; to keep from becoming nothing more than a footnote to history, he switched sides. While the right will never like him, they might be willing to hold their nose to let him be a bridesmaid (VP) but never the bride (President).

McCain-Lieberman Ticket?

Did you catch the love-in between John McCain and (he's such a liar he still calls himself a Democrat) Joe Lieberman? The one where there was more than just a slight suggestion that McCain might actually consider the hawkish Orthodox Jew-slash-Unorthodox lawmaker as his running mate?

While anyone with a brain knows that among the countless reasons why Lieberman, in his current incarnation as loyal Bushie, should never be allowed near Capitol Hill, much less 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, his religious affiliation is not at all one of them, I still found myself wondering what the hell McCain is thinking.

Granted, McCain has tried to rebuild himself in the far right image, courting and getting the warm and wormy embrace of the late (and never great) hate mongerer, Jerry Falwell, and granted that the far right has painted itself the "great defender" of Jews of late. But this scurrilous crowd hardly "likes" Jews - no, they see them (most and revulsively despicably) as a "necessary evil" for the Rapture to occur the way they want.

But can even the increasingly erratic McCain think he can help his chances on Super Tuesday, or in South Carolina's primary, by suggesting he would consider as his vice president a man like Lieberman who is despised by most Democrats for his "me first" politics of late while many Republicans hold their nose as they try to find something nice to say about Joementum?

Chris Matthews, Hardball, Mea Culpas, And An Embarrassment of Rich (and Neverending) Embarrassments

Salon starts of this piece about how MSNBC's Hardball host, Chris Matthews, has caused the Internets (all of them!) to be agog about his terribly treatment of Hillary Clinton and goes on to say he's offering his mea culpas, which may or may not be because he could lose his job otherwise.

But let's be honest here: almost everything that comes out of Matthews unchecked and mealy mouth, usually about Democrats in particular, has been damned embarrassing.

Matthews started his very erratic slide - and this tool was never the most sharply calibrated instrument to begin with - when he went totally gaga about how MANLY Bush looked in May 2003 with his stunt landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to announce "Mission Accomplished" and "all combat pretty much over in Iraq". Matthews literally noted Bush's (quite obviously) padded crotch and opined that every woman in America had fallen in love with the brainless wonder and every man was proud that, if they had to have a president who had a bigger codpiece than they did, at least it was "this MAN's MAN". (Geez, I want to retch just thinking about this.)

Thus, Matthews simple-minded diarrhea of the brain isn't something that started with this election cycle. It's just that he's getting exponentially worse. In addition to the Hillary remarks, he's said Obama was inspiring because he did so well in Iowa considering he's a true candidate of the third world. Uh, I know Chicago has problems, but when did Illinois join the third world? And it gets worse from there.

Sadly, the only thing MSNBC is doing in having Matthews plastered on EVERY presidential campaign focused broadcast is to render useless the little bit of better analysis they DO have (and considering their team, we're pretty much down to Keith Olbermann who shouldn't have to be paired with a fellow host so incompetent he could be named a major Bush appointee).

Today's Nevada Caucus: Rules Must ALWAYS Favor the Voters, Not Specific Candidates

With all the talk the last few days of how critical it was that Barack Obama "won" a ruling in Nevada that permits caucuses in the casino areas (now there's something our forefathers probably did not envision) so that workers, like the culinary workers union that threw its support behind Obama, can participate in the caucus process despite the fact the votes are held on a Saturday (today) which has to be a very busy workday on the strip, comes a point too often lost.

The point is this: voting rules and laws should always favor the best interests of all voters. For example, anything that can be done to make it easier - and yet still able to protect the integrity of the votes cast - for voters to cast their ballots can and should be done. Such rules should NOT be designed to favor one candidate or another. In fact, screw the candidates: it's the voter's interest that comes above all else.

The most egregious example we've ever seen - and I pray it will never be repeated - of the system being rigged for a specific candidate rather than the totality of the American voters came in the presidential election of 2000. And no, I'm not talking specifically about the Bush-Cheney subversion of the votes through outright thievery.

When Bush's people, led by constant Bushie savior James Baker III, raced to the U.S. Supreme Court to be sure that the recount of votes in Florida was stopped (lest it was proven that indeed Gore won), Baker took a law designed to protect the voter and turned it magically into an argument that one single voter and candidate, namely our current Moron in Chief, would be irrevocably harmed if the Florida recount was permitted to continue to its logical conclusion.

Somehow (magically, through a packed court roster - though hardly as weighted to the extreme Bushian mindset as it is today), the Supreme Court not only let them get away with a total perversion of the laws, they rewarded Baker and Bush and Grand Evil Emperor Cheney with the presidency in a decision that boils down to "we can't let Florida finish its recount because if it does, it's likely Bush will lose, and that will hurt poor Georgie's feelings and nobody ever says NO to Georgie and Dick(less)."

Thus, regardless of whether the court decision to allow Nevada voters to cast their caucus votes (and the caucus system is really a strange way to go, but that's a whine - without the cheese and crackers - for another day) in a more convenient arena like casinos favors Hillary, Barack, John or Dennis, or hell, even the (choke) McCain-Lieberman ticket, the important issue is not which candidate benefits or is hurt, but that voters get to vote. This is exactly as it should be.

News Flash: Obama Is Black, Hillary's a Girl, GET OVER IT!

I think (excellent attorney and blogger) Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft gets it absolutely right in a way that too much of the country - and especially Lardass' Chris Matthews -just can't fathom (and a hat tip to Pamela at The Democratic Daily for pointing me to Jeralyn who I hadn't read yet today):

Obama is black. Hillary is a woman. Those are facts beyond change. Neither one qualifies or disqualifies them from being President. Let’s accept it, welcome the diversity and move on.

Race and Gender NOT Just Dem Issues, IMHO

According to this MSNBC happy horseshit, race and gender are becoming big factors in the Democratic presidential nomination campaign. But that rather IGNORES the fact that race and gender have ALWAYS been big factors on the right - and the farther right you go, the bigger the factor - which have pretty much FORCED them to be issues for anyone who doesn't think blacks, women, and other minorities don't belong strictly doing the dirty work for the wealthier white so-called Christians.

BTW, I hate that in 2008, we're discussing gender and race as much as we are. When I was a wee child in the 60s, I envisioned a time when these would not be big issues. Apparently, I was wrong.

But it's just as wrong to pretend that race and gender are only issues for Dems when the Republicans have never put forth a serious candidate of color and one who doesn't have a penis. This speaks VOLUMES about their fears and dark desires, IMHO.

Was New Hampshire's Primary Vote Count ACCURATE? We Need To Know: Here's Why

Last week, I noted that Ohio Congressman - and still Democratic presidential hopeful - Dennis Kucinich (along with a Republican few know) demanded a recount in New Hampshire to carefully recount the votes cast there last Tuesday. But what's gone under the radar is the WHY: that in the Democratic primary alone, whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama won, on the surface, depends on how the votes were counted. Specifically, the hand-counted votes seemed to go to Obama; the electronic machine counted ones seemed to favor Hillary.

I very much applaud Kucinich for making the demand; we NEED to know if there is a problem and, if there is, whether it's willful or a deliberate cheat. While our (already, if not always so fairly or appropriately) elected leaders have already kissed away true voting reform until 2012 at the same time that those in the know indicate that, even if verified voting reform were enacted TODAY, we can't even be sure the 2012 vote will be who we actually elected.

As you might imagine, there is HUGE doubt as to this November's validity of vote. And if you aren't paying attention to this, you may deserve what YOU get, but I don't think the rest of us do.