Stop Me Before I Vote Again

According to the New York Times, Freddy is getting little help from Bill and Hill, who are, according to the Times, "the unofficial royal couple of New York Democrats" -- and what a sad commentary on New York Democrats that is.

El Diario, not surprisingly, has a little more detail on the event reported by the Times, and quotes Clinton as saying "In 1991, [Ferrer] supported a Southern governor, from a small state, named Bill Clinton. A lot of people in the Bronx and New York didn't know who Bill Clinton was or where Arkansas might be" -- and they wish they still didn't, he might have added.

Funny how Clinton has this impulse to inadvertent and ill-advised self-disclosure. Who hearing these words could help contrasting the actual support Bill got from Freddy, with the derisory, pro-forma efforts of the "royal couple" on Freddy's part? AP adds the telling detail that Clinton's myrmidons didn't want a stage or loudspeakers.

Of course, Freddy probably doesn't really mind either -- everybody, including Freddy himself, has written this election off, and is perfectly willing to let Mike have his four more years. After all, he paid for them, fair and square. The real-estate business, which owns both parties in New York, couldn't be happier with Bloomberg. Even elements of the New York kleptocracy that are normally aligned with the Democratic Party -- like the municipal employees' union DC 37 -- have actually downright endorsed the tiny poison-toad.

The Village Voice's amusing headline, "Billionaire Buys Union", neglected to point out that the union in question was for sale at a bargain price, as is the case, come to think of it, for every other circus act in the Democrats' "big tent".

You would think Hillary could no longer surprise me, but she does -- day after day after day. I'm always amazed when she runs true to form. Time to go back into analysis, I guess.

Yep, you guessed it -- the It Takes A Village girl had nothing but praise for Sharon's cattle-pen strategy. (Israel's wall is about four times as long as the Berlin Wall, by the way.)

"The primary responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens," she said. "That is the No. 1 priority. And after trying many things, it became necessary to pursue the security fence, and I understand that, and support it."

Were the ex-Arkansans thinking at all about the semiotics of the sequence -- sniveling over the bombing victims, and then, a few hours later, exulting in Israel's determination to rub Arab noses in the dirt? Was it just dumb, ugly-American ineptitude?

Well, maybe. But you know, I don't really think they're dumb. I think they must have known that the sequence would make a statement -- both abroad and at home.

How the statement would be heard abroad probably didn't concern them. These are not statesmen, or stateswomen, or a statescouple, or however you say it. In other words, they don't really worry much about America, or what may happen to Americans, or to the world -- in which Americans, like other nations, must live -- as a result of their little lap-dance for the Israel lobby.

No, they were thinking about sources of funding at home for the '08 election. And the little visual sermonette about the "victims of terror", combined with the usual Democrat blank check for Israel and whatever enormities it cooks up, sent a very clear message to the folks who really count.

Now I have a word for all you daily-Kosniks, and Deanites, and other starry-eyed dreamers who think the Democratic Party can be made a force for good: In 2008, this soulless monster will be your candidate -- she, or somebody even worse. Do you really, seriously, in your heart of hearts, doubt it? You know you don't. Well. You have three years between now and then. Do you want to spend them working vainly to reconstruct a party that will, in the end, present you with a Hillary vel sim. and ask to to go to your neighbors and explain, feebly, for the Nth time, that she isn't quite as bad as the other soulless monster?

You have, as far as we know, only one life. Three years, even if you're a young person, is not a small chunk of it. Can't you find some better way to spend your time?

A recent [Quinnipiac] poll ... found that 88 percent of Democrats who were interviewed said they approved of Mrs. Clinton's job performance.... Mrs. Clinton's approval rating comes at the same time that 83 percent of Democrats in the sample told pollsters that they regarded the war in Iraq as a mistake.

"She has the left in her back pocket," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac institute. "She doesn't have to worry about catering to them."

The Walton family, of Wal-Mart fame, must be feeling rather Lear-like just now. Hillary Clinton, a serpent long nurtured in the Wal-Mart bosom, has for the first time... returned their campaign contributions, according to AP:

Clinton returned $5,000 to the political action committee of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a company with long ties to the Clintons dating back to their days in Arkansas, where Wal-Mart is headquartered.

Clinton campaign spokeswoman Ann Lewis said the money was returned "because of serious differences with current company practices."

The senator served on the Wal-Mart board from 1986 to 1992, and was close with the Walton family that created the nation's largest retailer.

For the past twenty years or so, my liberal friends have offered me two reasons to vote for the Democrats: the Supreme Court and abortion. The Democrats haven't been very effective about the Supreme Court, but what the hell -- I think the Supreme Court is kind of a paper tiger anyway. Now, however, the Iron Wall of Democratic support for abortion is showing some cracks, too.

AP reports that Hillary gave $10,000 to an anti-abortion Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania. Her reasoning? Do you have to ask?

"Regardless of what differences there may be among Democrats, the differences between Democrats and Republicans today could not be starker," Clinton said at a news conference. "And if we can move toward a Democratic majority, we can prevent some of the ill-advised legislation and nominations we have to deal with from ever seeing the light of day."

Just about a year ago, one of the people I interviewed for my book in progress saw this coming: the guy I pseudonymized as Doug PIlsudski in Chapter Five. Excerpt:

Do you see any difference at all? Between the parties, I mean.

Abortion. Maybe. Though Hillary is busy revising that. Nothing else.

You might be able to do something with this Newsday story. It features St. Hillary and one Suri Harris who, unless there are lots of Suri Harrises in NYC, was a Bush donor in the last election.

"We've had a track record of success in bridging the gap between the military and business because we can bridge the information gap between the two worlds," says Alfred Schreiber, President and Co-founder of U.S. Alliance Group, formerly Director of Business Development for The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives. "We understand the language. We know that an 'Army 31W' is an expert in telecommunications switches and that a 'fire control technician' is really a telecommunications-network expert. We also know how to locate them. If a company needs 500 software designers or 800 fiber optic cable splicers, we can get them quickly and efficiently and efficiently. We have good working contacts at every military base in the world."

Earlier Schreiber was a senior executive at Young & Rubicam and True North, where he founded America's largest multicultural consulting and marketing group. His new book on how companies can meet the challenge of today's diversity business imperative will be published by NTC/Contemporary Press this year.

Schreiber points out that U.S. Alliance Group has "both the will and the way to provide strategic staffing solutions to corporate America."

That bastion of journalistic integrity, The New York Post, made some surprising odds on St. Hill's run for the roses in '08:

GAMBLING ON HILLARY IN '08

April 6, 2006 -- SEN. Hillary Clinton is a 3:1 favorite to be the next president, according to our favorite oddsmaker, Danny Sheridan, followed by Sen. John McCain at 6:1, and Rudy Giuliani and George Allen at 7:1. Sheridan, who correctly predicted on Page Six in 1991 that underdog Bill Clinton would win, lists several reasons why Hillary could be the first woman president: "George Bush and the Republicans have blown it with Iraq and the economy. The thought of having Bill Clinton as her adviser is like having two good vice presidents (him and her running mate) . . . I'd respectfully suggest she name Bill as her v.p. running mate, which would make her a big favorite." Sheridan has John Edwards, Bill Richardson, and Evan Bayh at 20:1 each, Bill Frist at 25:1, and George Pataki, John Kerry and Jeb Bush at the longest odds of 30:1. Sheridan believes, "The only way for the Republicans to win in 2008 is with a McCain-Giuliani ticket."

I wonder if I can call up the Post and place a bet with this guy.

The Invisible Hand of Alan Smithee

Well, she always has liked walls. But the idea that it needs to be a "smart" wall is delicious, isn't it? Democrats: The Party Of Smart People.

This morning's spit-take is courtesy of that organ of journalistic probity, MSNBC:

-------------------------------

Murdoch to host fundraiser for Hillary Clinton campaign

Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul whose New York Post tabloid savaged Hillary Clinton's initial aspirations to become a US senator for New York, has agreed to host a political fundraiser for her re-election campaign.

The decision underlines an incongruous thawing of relations between Mr Murdoch and Mrs Clinton, who in 1998 coined the phrase "vast rightwing conspiracy" to denounce critics of her husband, such as Fox News, the conservative cable channel owned by Mr Murdoch's News Corporation.

-------------------------------

That St. Hill has been playing kiss-and-makeup with former members of the vast rightwing conspiracy like Newt Gingrich hasn't exactly been a deep 'n dark secret. Still, I think this particular Rupe 'n Hill Mystery Date rates special mention just for it's nauseau factor alone. The mere potential for gag-inducing photo ops buried the needle on my Ick! Meter.

But all yuck aside, it makes perfect sense for Ol' Rupe to hedge his bets. Any future gov't goodies for his media empire, like Hubbie Bill's $70 bil. telecom giveaway back in '96, might very well rest with Prez'l wannabe Hillary in a few short fiscal years.

Seems Murdoch is switching his ride, 'cause the repubs are floundering.

He did it in the UK, with Blair. And here again, as brother Smith keeps insisting, the Blair experience shows us what we can expect from a triumphant donkeydom here.

Murdoch's fundraising effort for Hillary is certainly nothing out of the ordinary, as this August 2004 article from the Guardian UK shows (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1273376,00.html):

"Vodka Martinis poured through $12,000 ice sculptures as US lawmakers scoffed shrimps courtesy of the American Gas Association at a chi-chi Boston nightclub.

Meanwhile, reggae singer Ziggy Marley performed at the week's biggest corporate blowout: a $600,000 beach bash at the New England Aquarium, where steel bands, voodoo dancers and greeters on stilts were paid for by 20 big corporations, including pharmaceutical and tobacco firms. Rupert Murdoch sponsored an afternoon of 'fun and games' at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, while JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs hosted 'an afternoon of seafood and jazz' for Senate and House of Representatives banking committee members.

At the Democratic national convention last week, big business put on its biggest party at a political event. The return on its investment was simple: access and influence...."

First she marches past our eyes the best tally of notre dame's taundry cravenisms, then calls her brain emptier than a dead man's bladder -- a perfect, Medea-like exercise in Hellenic fury. What a mauling!

And as a final act of contempt, Miz A. compares the Golemess to the latest Hollywood thriller -- most unfavorably.

Why, I've not seen one powerful lady kick another powerful lady's head so far since Maureen Dowd put the shoe leather to Pinch's girl friend Judith Miller on her first day out of jail.

Then again, one needs to carefully consider the booted object. I know of no human head rounder nor more dimpled than Ms Clinton's -- not even Ted Koppel's. So hey, when properly kicked, dead center, with a solid stance and good follow-through -- zoom!

She got one specific, real-world question about something she could do now, and she dodged it:

QUESTION: Regarding fuel economy standards, do you favor making SUVs follow the same CAFE standards as passenger cars? And do you support Congressman Boehlert's bill to raise the CAFE standards to 33 miles per gallon for all vehicles?

CLINTON: Well, I have the greatest respect for Congressman Boehlert. We're going to miss him when he retires at the end of this year. He has studied this issue, and he comes down sort of in the middle of where a lot of people are. Some want to go to a higher MPG; others not so ambitious.

I think we can stage this in a way that is not disruptive to the economy, and by giving the right incentives and support to the car companies, manage this over the next 10 to 15 years.

...Not just a personal virtue but an important part of any sensible.... policy.

That's our lady of infinite ambition, St Hill on energy conservation. But ain't it just the perfect all-season liberal tag line?

When opportunity calls, after about one and a half rings, opportunism always picks up. "The party's prez nom may be slipping away, milady ..."

Let's sit back and watch the show as the battle-ready she-tiger turns herself, with a show of Luther-like angst, into a rainbow butterfly, ready to flutter to that high clovery place where lambs and lions bunk together.

Of course it may be a slow move, inch by inch, guided by the blink of those ever more comforting landing lights, the in-state New York polling numbers.

[Hillary] may very well have to begin retooling her position on the war soon if she wants to prevent her sheep from straying from the flock. According to one of Howie Hawkins' press releases:

A Zogby poll earlier this week found that 32% of New Yorkers would vote for an "unnamed anti-war candidate" vs. 38% for Clinton and 31% for other and undecided (a percentage that is close to the hard core Republican vote).

The task now for the Green Party and the wider antiwar movement is to attach a name, Howie Hawkins, to the "unnamed anti-war candidate" who already has about one-third support and to inform New Yorkers that the anti-war candidate is within striking distance of winning.

Here's to hoping!

It's not really possible to give both these lines in one campaign. Try it and you'll flame out. So it's either a battle of the bases, or a tea-for-two tug of war over the middle groundlings. After the recent mugwumpery St Hill's people must be recalculating all this for '08: "do we continue the swing scene or ..."

Her state run this fall, already underway, must lead to a convincing win, or '08 for her morphs into oh, never.

So where's the stop-her-now spoilers?

True, there's the Green Party guy, Howie Hawkins, bless him. But wouldn't you think with all the anti-Hillary feeling among the liberal-schmiberelite, some better-funded, better-known somebody would be taking her on? Like, I dunno, Meryl Streep?

It ain't enough just to jilt Muppetissimo Joe, next door in nutmeggery land -- Hillary must meet the pillory this fall too.

Hell, she's dead in the water right now. A decent flank slasher could have her bleeding prog votes like a tomato can. Put up an out now celeb as a non partisan indy candidate, not even a third-party one, and lady Rodham can kiss '08 bye-bye.

Speaking at a... rally for Israel... this afternoon, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said she supported taking "whatever steps are necessary" to defend Israel against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria....

[She] said the United States must show "solidarity and support" for Israel in the face of the "unwarranted, unprovoked" seizure of three Israeli soldiers by members of Hamas and Hezbollah, which she referred to as among "the new totalitarians of the 21st century."

"We will stand with Israel because Israel is standing for American values as well as Israeli ones" ....

"It is a message that we want not only those in the Middle East to hear, but the world, because no nation is safe from these terrorist extremists," she said. "They do not believe in human rights, they do not believe in democracy. They are totalitarians, they are the new totalitarians of the 21st century."

Amazing as it may seem, Hillary is not a lunatic. Lieberman is, of course, but I give Hillary more credit -- even though this carpet-chewing word-salad from Hillary is, on its face, no less crazy than Joe's new-caliphate reverie, discussed here a few days ago. Maybe I'm giving Hillary too much credit, but I just can't bring myself to think that she believes this stuff -- in fact, I can't bring myself to think that she believes anything at all. Joe, alas, believes every word of it, I'm afraid.

No, Hillary is reflecting Democratic Party orthodoxy here. That orthodoxy holds that there is and can be no downside to doing and saying whatever Israel wants, because the American people are too stupid to wake up and realize that the candidate seeking their votes has far more loyalty to a foreign power than he or she will ever have to them.

P. T. Barnum once observed that nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the public, and Hillary is obviously practicing the Barnum principle. Well. Barnum was no fool, and the cynical view has a certain privileged status -- you might almost say it's the null hypothesis.

Few people who know me well would call me a giddy optimist, but I can't quite embrace the full Barnum/Clinton view. I think the public is going to wake up one of these days -- and I just hope I live to see it.

It's the illustrious Mr. Y.

"So, JS, what say you? A shabby-ass cease fire -- quite a denouement."

He's calling me? As if i'm the oracle, not him. What a transparent ploy. But no, I won't ask his take, the egomaniac. Instead i go "Errrrrrrrr... indeed... exactly... good point... all I dare add is thank God uncle's got too fucking few boots, eh?"

Bzzzzzz... and he's gone.

I guess if you boil it all together long enough, that is the empire's final bone, and consequently its weakest link -- the footsoldiers, the grunts and jarheads. The ultimate smart weapon system is mostly made of meat. There's no substitute when you get to the short strokes.

Forget the cruise missile phase of wardom -- lesson from Iraq and reinforced by Lebanon: no more sky-hawkery. Hillary et al. want to give Uncle precisely more "boots", so he can get in there on the ground and rumble.

So who's the fightin-er party, gang? That corporate profiteers' grappler Don Rummy with his shock and awe blitzkrieg update and its minimalist ground force concepts, or Hilary, no longer the bomber-borne saint of Kosovo -- Hillary, who now has a new mystical inspiration: "We need lots more brigades ready to hit the beach -- lots and lots...."

Don Rummy is content with more hi-tech weapon systems, but our lady of the mano-a-mano wants tens of thousands more hard-ass regular forces flesh puppets.

Then what? Two, three, maybe more armed civilizin' projects going on at once? Hill and hubby Bill wanna create a chain of decent-acting emerging nation states all across this globe of ours. Build 'em from scratch out of the hundred or so post-cold war and post-colonial shambles we got lying around the planet. They're much bigger thinkers than old jackass Jimmy -- Carter only builds houses for the poor, but St Hill and her man Bill are fixin' to build whole civilized nations for 'em, and with the help of enough armed missionaries, who can say its just a dream?

She must have Joementum hung around her neck like a bag of skunks, hung and re-hung, till she gets flushed out and takes a strong position out in the open -- one that locks her in on a peace platform, or locks her out of the '08 prez nomination.

Former President Bill Clinton and Mrs. Clinton have offered to campaign for Mr. Lamont [and] his aides say the offer will be accepted....

Then there's the awkward matter of... the, pardon the expression, issues. Lamont beat Joe by being anti-war. But the most prominent AIPAC-drone War Democrat in the Senate is going to be campaigning for him? How's that going to play? "I disagree with Ned and agree with Joe on the most important issue of the day, but I still think you should vote for Ned."

Fudging the stark choices is, of course, a Clinton specialty, but this one will call for some real virtuosity. If anybody can do it, though, the Clintons can. They're the Paganinis of Fudge.

http://www.nswbc.org/Op%20Ed/ClintonOpEd-Aug28-06.htm

Excerpt:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is ... an elected senator who has served six years in her seat, never taking a strong stand in support of her constituents on any serious or controversial issue; a senator who has used her record-breaking TV public appearances to say “nothing”; a senator whose senate office adheres strictly to a motto of “See no Evil, Hear no Evil”; an elected official who has no record of conducting investigations into cases that are matters of great concern to her constituents and to our nation; a senator who has consistently stood quietly on the sidelines when the issues at hand demand public hearings –waiting to determine the direction of each blowing wind; a politician who has spent all her focus and energy on a campaign of shallow publicity glitz and her PR empire behind it.

But her prose is measured and thoughtful, and she does make good points at times, unlike some bitter, stupid, ranting, tag-along second raters I could mention :-)

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has a primary challenger on Tuesday, Jonathan Tasini, a liberal and former union leader who has based his candidacy on opposition to the war in Iraq.

Mrs. Clinton has a huge lead, but she has still spent money on a glossy mailing pleading for a huge primary vote.

A low turnout might skew the result a bit if liberals embrace Mr. Tasini; for image, the Clinton camp wants to limit the protest vote against her to the single digits.

I note with some amusement that in today's coverage of the result, neither the Times nor any other outlet I have seen mentions the "single-digit" goal. Gotta love that Memory Hole.

According to the New York Times, Sept 13, 2006:

"Primary Day came and went with little fanfare for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. She gave no victory party. There was no balloon drop. With the exception of an early-morning appearance to vote for herself in the Democratic primary at a mostly deserted polling station near her home here, Mrs. Clinton barely acknowledged having a challenger at all."

The following victory speech was, however, apparently delivered to a group of core supporters. It was found discarded in the rumpus room of the Senator's Chappaqua residence by a member of the Senator's household staff.

My fellow New Yorkers.

A great man once said that you can't fool all of the people all of the time and we now know exactly how many you can't fool: the number is 17% -- those who voted for my opponent Jonathan Tasini.

I know, and Jonathan knows, that I have spent most of my political career working tirelessly to oppose most of what those voting for me claim to believe in.

It is not only my continuing support for the Iraq war, even while over 70% of my constituents oppose it.

That's just the beginning.

I support the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; most of you oppose it as well as the massive human rights violations, environmental assaults and the war crimes enacted by the Isaeli defense forces.

Unlike you, I am a believer in military force as a first rather than a last resort. My enthusiasm for weapons system, even useless boondoggles like Star Wars, has no bounds. I routinely signed off on bloated defense budgets, even before the "war on terror" provided cover for a new generation of Democratic hawks and their paymasters in the defense industries.

Some Johnny-come-latelies to the cause like Chicago Mayor Dick Daley would have you believe they are lone voices in the wilderness when it comes to defending the rights of corporations to prey on folks like you.

Jonathan and I know better. I was there at the beginning -- serving on the Walmart Corporate Board when I was Arkansas First Lady. And I have continued as their faithful servant ramming through free trade pacts, doing nothing to prevent the continuing slide of unions into irrelevance while real wages have declined and inequality has skyrocketed.

My main achievement during my husband's years at the White House was to have scuttled all hope for a rational national health care system for a generation.

Yes, many of you will spend more of your pay check for worse care now and in the future, but not to worry.

I have an outstanding benefits package.

Do you have a problem with that?

83% of you say you don't.

For civil libertarians who have convinced themselves I am a faithful ally, I offer you the flag burning amendment and the greatest assault on civil liberties in recent history: the USA Patriot Act.

For African Americans, I give you personal responsibility and freedom, the freedom to leave your children unattended at home while you try to negotiate the mandatory work requirements of welfare reform. Over one million of you also have the freedom to rot in prison after being victimized by the drug war which I continue to support.

And for my core constituency: women have consoled themselves with the assurance that at least she won't play footsie with the zealots of the reiligious right. To you I present my new-found kind words for faith-based education, abstinence-only and my description of abortion as "a sad and tragic choice."

In short, my supporters want peace. I give them war. My supporters want democracy. I give them plutocracy. You want fairness, I give you a stacked deck.

Or, to put it slightly differently, I serve you a stew laced with arsenic and you ask for a second helping. I pee on your leg and you kiss my ring.

And so, as your nominee for Senator I come before you today to accept your nomination and your continuing support. And in so doing I offer you one word which will define my agenda: more.

More contributions from Ruppert Murdoch offered in exchange for my support of more media consolidation and more giveaways to the media conglomerates.

More contributions from K street lobbying firms and more obstacles thrown in the way of campaign finance reform. More carbon emissions resulting from increased coal power generation-- which I am on record as supporting.

More exemptions of the automotive industry from CAFE standards resulting in more greenhouse emissions and more global warming.

More troops to Iraq and, when the time is right, more troops to Iran and the middle east.

More attacks on New Deal programs under the guise of personal responsibility.

And in closing -- a final word to my distinguished opponent, Jonathan Tasini and his supporters:

What are you going to do about it, punk?

I am pleased to accept your nomination as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from the great state of New York!

J Alva Scruggs found a piquant web page, and comments:

What's remarkable is that there appears to be a squirrel wearing a judo gi on that page.

I note with amusement that Bill Clinton -- said by people who have met him to be quite charming -- is campaigning today for former Navy brass-hat Joe Sestak, who is running for Congress in Pennsylvania. Regular readers may recall that Sestak was probably the single creepiest item in the whole creepy scene when I attended the Yearly Kos convention last summer.

Of the many realms of power on Capitol Hill, the least understood may be the lawmakers’ prayer group....

Most of the prayer groups are informally affiliated with a secretive Christian organization called the Fellowship, established in the 1930s by a Methodist evangelist named Abraham Vereide....

Though it still sponsors what is now called the National Prayer Breakfast, the Fellowship scrupulously avoids publicity, as Vereide insisted it must.... Speaking about a group is strongly discouraged, and what transpires at meetings is strictly off the record....[A]mong the prayer groups, one holds special status: a tight-knit gathering of about a dozen senators which still meets every Wednesday morning for prayer and discussion, led by Douglas Coe himself.... The roster of regular participants has included such notable conservative names as Brownback, Santorum, Nickles, Enzi, and Inhofe. Then, in 2001, just after the new class of senators was sworn in, another name was added to the list: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

a Methodist evangelist who feared that Socialists were corrupting municipal government in Seattle in the mid-1930s. He thought he could bring about change by organizing regular prayer groups with local business and government leaders.

He took his idea to Washington, D.C., in 1942.... Pentagon officials secretly met at the group's Washington Fellowship House in 1955 to plan a worldwide anti-communism propaganda campaign endorsed by the CIA.... [T]he group financed a film called "Militant Liberty" that was used by the Pentagon abroad.

A 2003 piece in Harper's is quite an eye-opener:

The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries.

... [T]he Family's unofficial headquarters [is] a mansion ["the Cedars"] that the Family bought in 1978 with $1.5 million donated by, among others, Tom Phillips, then the C.E.O. of arms manufacturer Raytheon, and Ken Olsen, the founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation....

A four-story townhouse on C Street, two blocks from the Capitol, is owned by a sister organization of the Fellowship, and is registered with the IRS and the District of Columbia as a church. It pays no taxes. Yet eight members of Congress live there. "We sort of don't talk to the press about the house," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who lives there.... But at least one member of Congress who lives there, Rep. Michael F. Doyle (D-Pa.), said he didn't know the property was registered as a church.... Besides Stupak, Wamp and Doyle, residents include Nevada's Ensign and Reps. Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.), John Elias Baldacci (D-Maine) and James DeMint (R-S.C.). Former Rep. Steve Largent (R-Okla.) lived there until he left Congress to run for governor.

In a pleasing coincidence, it seems that one of the Senatorial front men for the Fellowship's national prayer breakfast this year was corn-fed Arkansas donk Senator Mark Pryor, abused here only yesterday.

J Alva Scruggs passed along this gem:

Clinton Equivocates on Torture

Despite her apparent opposition to torture, Hillary Clinton said in a Daily News editorial board meeting yesterday that the practice is acceptable in some circumstances.

Clinton got a rousing reception from the human rights community, and seemed to take an uncharacteristically bright-line stance, in a recent statement on the Senate floor during the debate over torture.... But at yesterday's Daily News editorial board meeting, it emerged that she's not actually against torture in all instances, and that her dispute with McCain and Bush is largely procedural.

She ... said that there is a place for what she called "severity," in a conversation that included mentioning waterboarding, hypothermia, and other techniques....

"I have said that those are very rare but if they occur there has to be some lawful authority for pursuing that.... There has to be some check and balance, some reporting. I don't mind if it’s reporting in a top secret context....

Katha's thinking seems to be that feminist solidarity requires that she leap to any woman's defense who is being criticized for doing things that a man could do with impunity:

...[A] man with the same positions would be less bad, because he couldn't use feminism (or female stereotypes of caring and nurturing) to disguise them. But since anyone with a realistic hope of becoming President will necessarily have made all sorts of unsavory bargains with the status quo, this amounts to saying we'll never have a woman in the White House. We'll continue on as now: "expecting more" of women and tacitly expecting less of men.

The last time we took up the sad case of Katha Pollitt here, she was arguing, it seems to me, out of the other side of her mouth --

Katha ties herself in knots trying to argue that single-issue reproductive-rights advocates should not be supporting candidates based on their reproductive-rights record. Rather, they should support Democrats no matter what.

I think the contradiction is more apparent than real, though. Because the practical bottom line in both cases is that you have to line up behind, you guessed it, the Democrat.

Drawing the same conclusion from contradictory premises is, of course, something that hardened Democrats get very good at.

Never mind the hypocrisy, cravenness, cowardice, opportunistic bandwagon-jumping, bloodthirst and power lust; the question in the top of my brain at this hour of the morning is: Who the hell is picking out Hillary's clothes? Seriously, man, is she picking out her own goddamn' outfits?

She's got this one with a dark blue jacket and about a million round brass buttons down the front, which looks like something she stole from a military cadet.

There's another one in powder blue which looks like a suit worn by an imperialist dictator's wife, likely made out of the same stuff that Our Beloved Kim Jong Il uses for his suits.

lately, I've found myself subscribing to what I call the Grateful Dead School Of Political Analysis. It seems lately that between "Uncle John's Band", "U.S. Blues", "Ship Of Fools" and "Casey Jones", my core social/cultural/political values are pretty much covered:

Trouble ahead, boys, lady in red!
Take my advice, you'd be better off dead!
Switchman's sleepin', train's a hundred'n'two,
on the wrong track and headed for you!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-stoller/hillary-clintons-dlc-pro_b_39566.html

He's going at Mother Clinton, and I realize she's the Iraq war of the pwoggery -- End her! Anyone but Hillary! -- for she personifies all things elitist, all things donor-class, all things superior to us about the orthrian party core. Matt sez: "There is almost no common ground between progressive activists and elitists like Hillary Clinton."

So, my prediction, it will be Hillary the party bosses burn at the stake this campaign season, to assuage the hunger for elite blood. All the better to slip some more zesty corporate kitchen mass market confection over on us. Like this rugged ole wooden masked warrior from Virginia -- this Webb freak -- or something else, anything will do, even... Johnny E. Anything but St Hill.

A bit poignant that, don't you think? Then again, surely martyrdom will become her, as it did another over-the-top super-striver, the great RN of Yorba Linda.

Even so, and though even our Matt, sensing the fall to come, calls her "tragic" -- I just call her set up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030101877.html?referrer=email

After the Hollywood donor dust-up, now there's the sensation in Selma over the black base vote -- all this worthy of the corny, mirthfully ironic hyper-hype that the greatest of them all, Mohammed Ali, put behind his title bouts.

Here mother Clinton and brother Obama make simultaneous dueling speeches over the 42d anniversary of the most televised cracker cop clubfest ever, in Selma Alabama, March '65.

The deal went down in stages: Obama first and foremost, giving the key speech where the various surviving participants will gather. Among other delights, it's church vs church -- black Baptist venue against Afro-Methodist venue. And even more delightful, Obama gets the prestigious Methodie forum, while Hil has to slum it among the Baptists. The bridge crossing re-enactment will be the scene of the two mighty forces merging in ruffled waters -- all for the sake of the suddenly contested and valuable black vote.

Clinton comes off much the more shameless -- and desperate. The best part is that they decided at the last minute to wheel Bill in -- Bill! -- to accept some sort of civil-rights award. Bill! The man who pulled the switch on Rickie Ray Rector, and contributed the phrase "Sister Souljah moment" to our political lexicon.

If he's the best ma C. can do to appeal to the black electorate, she's in some kinda trouble.

Clinton's strategy to win targets new women voters
The 'gender gap' could give Clinton an advantage

"A big piece of what we're working on is finding ways to reach women," said Ann Lewis, a senior adviser to the [Clinton] campaign.

But in addition to targeting women voters, her campaign is going after a far more elusive goal: women who have not even registered to vote. Surveys show the former first lady far outstrips her rivals among registered women voters, but also among unregistered women, a fat target that includes 21 million people under the age of 44....

Appealing to unregistered voters is one of the hardest tasks in politics, and it suggests the lengths Clinton is going to find untapped resources and capitalize on her status as a serious woman candidate.

Making the job more challenging, unregistered women tend to be younger, often move around a lot and may be at some economic disadvantage, making it harder for them to find the time to register and vote. But Page Gardner, president of Women's Voices, Women Vote, which tries to get single women involved in politics, said .... "What we have found is that at the end of the day, if you go to them and make it easier for them to register, they will. If you talk about their lives, that's motivational. They're incredibly civic-minded. They care a lot about this country. They know they should register, they know they should vote."

Still, they have something Hillary wants -- and may even need. So go do an Oprah and make cooing noises at them -- "talk about their lives." And maybe just enough of the poor naive things, conscience-stricken over electoral duty undone, will turn out to put Hillary over -- though they could hardly find a candidate with a clearer track record of promoting poverty and war than Mommy-in-Chief Clinton.

Another charming vignette:

One recent message, sent out May 7, touted Clinton's attempt to repeal congressional authorization for the Iraq war as a sort of Mother's Day present for women worried about the war.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Clinton Relies On Women To Make History

To attract young women voters, the Clinton campaign has recruited "American Idol" runner-up Katharine McPhee to perform Wednesday night...

Feminist icons Geraldine Ferarro, the country's first female vice presidential candidate, and Madeleine Albright, the country's first female secretary of state, will introduce candidate Clinton. Tennis star and women's sports crusader Billie Jean King will be on hand, as will Maya Angelou, author of such "empowerment" poems as "Phenomenal Woman," and the autobiographical novel "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

Yes, it's porn superstar Jenna Jameson, who, er, gushes:

http://justhillary.com/herwords/jenna0517.php

"I love Hillary. I think that in some ways she's pretty conservative for a Democrat, but I would love to have a woman in office. I think that it would be a step in the right direction for our country, and there would be less focus on war and more focus on bettering society....

The Clinton administration was the best years for the adult industry and I wish that Clinton would run again. I would love to have him back in office. I would love to have Al Gore in office. When Republicans are in office, the problem is, a lot of times they try to put their crosshairs on the adult industry, to make a point. It's sad, when there are so many different things that are going on in the world: war, and people are dying of genocide...I look forward to another Democrat being in office. It just makes the climate so much better for us, and I know that once all our troops come home, things are going to be better and I think that getting Bush out of office is the most important thing right now."

Kos should see if he could, er, bag Jenna for the next Kosventicle in Vegas. If he does, I'll attend again.

It is an old and historically established maxim that obsolete social forces, nominally still in possession of all the attributes of power and continuing to vegetate long after the basis of their existence has rotted away...... once more summon all their strength before their agony of death, pass from the defensive to the offensive, challenge instead of giving way, and seek to draw the most extreme conclusions from premises which have not only been put in question but already condemned.

I predict, if her party faction can buy her the nomination, by 2010 the whole damn donkey juggernaut will start to crumple up like tinfoil.

For your own sakes, ye hacks of electoral success -- cry out now, "ABH! ABH! ABH!"

Evidently not. Here's the new bright idea: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/17/AR2007091700118_pf.html

Clinton Health Plan Outlined
All Americans Would Be Required to Have Insurance

DES MOINES -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's sweeping health-care proposal, which she plans to unveil today, would require every American to carry health insurance.... The centerpiece of her "American Health Choices Plan" is an "individual mandate" requiring everyone to have health insurance -- just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance....

[T]he Democratic presidential contenders have been united in advocating universal coverage. They have parted ways on certain specifics, including the individual mandate -- the plan offered by former senator John Edwards (N.C.) includes one, while the proposal outlined by Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) does not.... Obama... has said that individuals cannot be forced to purchase insurance until the cost of coverage is substantially reduced.

Some of my lefty pals have been scratching their heads about why Hillary would "repeat the same mistakes" she made in 1994. But that's not what she's doing. She's repeating a triumph. She delivered the goods to the insurance companies then and she's raring to do it again.

Clinton: You can't cut insurers out of health debate

The influence of the health insurance industry can’t be removed from the health care reform process, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said today.

“They are incredibly powerful. You can’t just try to wish them away,” Clinton said.... Clinton, a U.S. senator from New York, wants to require all Americans to carry health insurance. She unveiled her plan Monday in Des Moines, one of the biggest insurance capitals in the country....

Clinton declined today to speculate on ideas for penalties for Americans who fail to obtain insurance. Congress should decide the specifics, she said....

Asked if she would give health industry lobbyists a seat at the table when it’s time to hash out details, Clinton said, with a laugh: “This is a metaphorical table. This is the dinner table. This is the table everybody talks about.... It’s going to be my job and the job of the allies I have — in the business community, the labor community, the health care community — to really make the case that what we’ve proposed makes sense.”

Noi siam venuti al loco ov' i' t'ho detto
Che tu vedrai le genti dolorose
C'hanno perduto il ben de l'intelletto.*

Quite apart from the nauseating cuddlesomeness it attempts to confer on a pack of scavengers and opportunistic predators, the word has been drained of all real meaning. Appropriately enough, I guess, for a nation that no longer has or apparently wants the thing that the word used to mean.

--------------------
* We have come to the place I told you of,
Where you shall see the miserable wretches
Who have lost the faculty of understanding.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR2007101601537.html

Clinton's idea for helping Americans save for retirement is this: Any family that earns less than $60,000 and puts $1,000 into a new 401(k)-type plan would receive a matching $1,000 tax cut....

George W. Bush made this case in his advocacy of personal accounts financed by a portion of individuals' Social Security taxes and invested in funds based on equities and bonds. When he proposed this, Clinton stridently opposed him....

Today her Web site calls her proposal a way to save for "a secure retirement." After an undisclosed epiphany, she belatedly recognizes that 401(k) funds invested in equities are a foundation for security.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=3105267&page=1

Des Moines Register's JENNIFER JACOBS: "Clinton exhorts women to aim high, speak out"

Des Moines Register: "Clinton defends taking money from lobbyists"

Talkin' 'bout my generation... Hillary is surely the type specimen of free-alterations feminism. To this sad consummation our high hopes have come.

What happened to my friend, you ask? She's a bond analyst* these days. Drives a Mercedes.

-------------------

*This phrase always summons a mental New Yorker cartoon to my mind's eye: bond on the couch, tweedy chap with a goatee and round steel-framed glasses taking notes. I've never been able to think of a good caption. They always start out, "Tell me more about your...", but then my ignorance of the bond market keeps me from closing the deal.

In an interview last week, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois telegraphed his intention to sharpen his distinctions with Mrs. Clinton. At the same time, though, he said he had no plans to “kneecap the front-runner.”

While other rivals have made no such pledges, the Democrats have yet to unleash the sharp personal criticisms to the degree their Republican counterparts have against one other.

Obama's differential is his mellow skin color, which is why he doesn't have to say anything beyond anodyne feel-good generalities and nondenominational uplift. Edwards, by contrast, has to talk a slightly more aggressive game (and since he's not in office, of course, this is zero-cost).

I don't know what Biden is thinking of.

Another morning-news REM State inspiration classic!

...[M]y wife flipping between early-morning news programs at 6:30am, this time landing on CNN's "American Morning" shitfest which, this particular morning, was running highlights of the previous evening's Donkeycratic Party "debate". Needless to say, of course, I emerged from my REM state just in time to hear that dopey-assed college chick asking Hillary Clinton if she preferred "diamonds or pearls?" to which Her Hillaryship answered -- in classic Clintonian fashion, "I like both"... Sigh...

I have become
comfortably numb!

Grayscale, 11x17 inches:

high-res .jpg image, 876kb:
http://www.sinkers.org/posters/diamondsorpearls/diamondsorpearls.jpg

high-res .pdf image, 1.2mb:
http://www.sinkers.org/posters/diamondsorpearls/diamondsorpearls.pdf

.eps image image, 3.3mb:
http://www.sinkers.org/posters/diamondsorpearls/diamondsorpearls.eps

"He wore antlers, and she wore him out," claims one elfin snitch.

They won Cow Hampshire with it -- all those job-dunced, low-rent French Canadian white ladies voting their conscience in a lily-white state. And the very same ring-a-ding got Hilly extra votes in Latino Nevada.

I guess Barack is not the black Jack but the black Al -- Al Smith, that is.

But after all -- is this news? You hardly needed to tell us that large herds out there of kulak Americans would rather a white woman prez than a black man.

But it ain't over yet, hoss... 'cause Barack really ain't black, at least not Jesse black. Okay, he's not Pullman car pale like general of the army Colin Powell, either, but look at his features and his diction -- he could be... Malcolm Little, or that blackfaced white actor DW Griffith sent to the Carolina legislature.

Identity politics devouring itself... just what Woodstock America deserves, eh?

If Feminism™ didn't truly jump the shark that weird-assed, B-list celebrity-studded, Democrat-heavy, mass-printed sign-soaked Saturday afternoon in April of '04, this surely must be the true and final Wheeze.

-----------------------------------

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UFRQV01&show_article=1

NY NOW Accuses Last Un-Dead Kennedy of "Ultimate Betrayal"

NEW YORK (AP) - The New York chapter of The National Organization for Women accused Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of betraying women with his endorsement of Barack Obama, prompting the organization's national office to come to the Massachusetts senator's defense.

"Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal," NOW's New York State chapter said....

"We are repaid with his abandonment!" the statement said. "He's picked the new guy over us....

Shortly after the local chapter reacted to Kennedy's endorsement, the national office of NOW in Washington, D.C., which has endorsed Clinton, released its own statement.

"The National Organization for Women has enormous respect and admiration for Senator Edward Kennedy," NOW President Kim Gandy wrote....

Clash of the titanobores! Toni Morrison, as noted here earlier, "stunned herself" (nt to mention the rest of us) with fluent but poorly-edited panegyric of Barack; and now comes Maya Angelou...

... emitting some equally embarrassing doggerel for Hillary:

State Package for Hillary Clinton

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

This is not the first time you have seen Hillary Clinton seemingly at her wits' end, but she has always risen, always risen, don't forget she has always risen....

She declares she wants to see more smiles in the family, more courtesies between men and women, more honesty in the marketplace.... Rise, Hillary.

Rise.

http://tinyurl.com/28amu3

Maya, Maya! Call yourself a poet, and you couldn't even keep the ballad stanza going for more than one quatrain? Even I think Hillary has deserved better than that. Two quatrains at least.

Much to enjoy here, but the very best, perhaps, is the notion that Hillary will be a promoter of "courtesy." And well she may, come to think of it -- in the sense that our NYC cops intend when they emblazon the word on their smoked-glass SUVs.

And of course, the idea of Hillary rising "like dust" is perhaps suggestive in ways that Maya didn't intend. Damn dust! Where the hell is that humidifier...?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/06/mark-penns-firm-paid-4_n_85192.html

The lady Hillary's brainbug Mark Penn -- pictured here easing himself down onto a greased broomhandle -- the shrewd author, no doubt, of much golden goodness baked into her she-ness's campaign so far, has taken home a kool $4 mill plus -- for his outfit's efforts, including his own $1.7 million for "consulting".

Uncle Mark's outfit has also fronted mother Clinton's world-famous brand a further $1.5 mil.

Looks like Owen was right all along. Hillary is starting to look very passée. Deconstructing the Magic Negro seems to be the order of the day, now.

PS -- I found this so wacky I had to try to transcribe the lyrics. Unfortunately I never know what people are singing, so I'm indebted to Loveandlight for filling in several blanks:

Vote from sea to shining sea,
Everyone for Hillary!

Fighting in the war,
But we don't know what we're fighting for.
School we're testing minds,
But we're leaving our children all behind!

The world is getting hot,
But our global warming plan is not;
Our goals are out of range,
So we know it's time for a change!

Hillary for you and me
Bring back our democracy!
Make this country proud and free
Let's stand up for Hillary!

Now Hillary will fight
For what we all know is right.
Experience is great,
Instead of war we can negotiate!
Education, health and world affairs,
Hillary's the one who cares!
This lady knows how to lead,
In this President's race she will succeed! 

Thanks to Charles Davis, I've found the ideal congressman for our times, Mr. Harley D. Brown.

In addition to being the “intake manifold to the Kingdom of God”, Mr. Brown has,

an intense burning desire to destroy all the works of those Progressive Liberal Politicians in Washington D.C. whom I brand as vile domestic enemies to the country and Constitution we’re SWORN TO DEFEND.

I endorse this man without reservation.