Remember that Dave Chappelle sketch? Well, these white people are really fucking up. Now, I'm a card-carrying Democrat, I worked a Democratic caucus in my district on Super Tuesday...I attended the state of Missouri's Democratic Convention when I was 11 years old. So this blurb comes from a boiling-over frustration with my own party. Here we are, poised to realistically, triumphantly, finally bring our party out of the gutter and get our agenda moving in Washington...and we're fucking up.
The Democratic presidential candidates are feeding the other side all kinds of ammunition for the race to the general election. By tearing each other down, they're doing McCain's job for him. And Republicans across the nation are sitting back smugly, watching our party make a mess we'll be digging out of (again) for years. And there's nothing that pisses me off more than a smug Republican.
I'm an Obama supporter, and I've been pleased up until now with how he has not allowed himself to be engaged in this kind of destructive campaigning. I also feel like he's not being given a choice when such a relentless attack is being waged against him from the Clinton camp. Yes, ultimately, it's my belief Hillary is to blame for the series of embarassing in-fights over the last week. (Incidentally, Jonathan Chait from the New Republic agrees with me.)
Just in case you haven't been following, let's take a look at the poo being flung, shall we?
Clinton Aide Compares Obama to Kenneth Starr.
Obama adviser calls Hillary a "monster" and later resigns.
Hillary endorses McCain. Over and over and over again.
Sinbad (yes Sinbad. the comedian.) refutes Hillary's "experience." He's an Obama supporter.
Clinton adviser says Obama is where he is because he's black and later resigns.
The only silver lining to all of this is this fuzzy video of Senate proceedings yesterday where, it appears, Hill and Barry may be ready to hug it out. One can only hope. (Oh, hope. I'm so punny.)
2. Italy's high court says if you're a woman wearing jeans you can't get raped.
Um, yeah... Italy isn't built on the foundation of a patriarchal institution that oppresses women. Not at all.
3. The American "justice" system.
Yep, sex offenders in Massachussetts are getting released from prison to go rape little boys in libraries...
Ahem, Chris Saunders.
while this dude who got caught buying a pound of pot:
Douglas Gray, still creepy-looking.
is doing life without parole in Alabama. Oh, hell no.
4. The war in Iraq is costing the U.S. 12 billion dollars a month.
From ABCNews: The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.
Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion — or more — by 2017.
Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.Full Story
What we could have bought with this month's Iraq tab instead:
- A nuclear power deal with France that comes with two European pressurised water reactors (EPRs) and a supply of more than a decade’s worth of fuel. (Times Online)
- 24 brand new public schools for every state in the nation.
- a month's supply of generic antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of AIDS/HIV and malaria for 1.3 billion Africans. (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report)
- a tank of gas for every registered vehicle in the United States.
5. That damn Head-On commercial.
I've got something you can apply directly to your forehead.
1 comment:
Hey, just found your blog on 20SB. I like the format for it... probably because I'm a fan of making lists and your posts are all packaged nicely into lists of related topics. Cool.
Anyway, I had to comment on this post because the second paragraph said everything I've been thinking for the past month. I hate the mudslinging that is going on and we're close to hitting the self destruct button if we're not careful. I also hate smug republicans and I DO NOT want to see any on November 5th... nor do I want to be on a thoroughly depressed U of Wisconsin campus like I did when I was a freshman.
Anyway... keep up the good work. I'll be adding you to my google reader!
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