The drip, drip is becoming more of a steady light stream.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

I must tell you I was pretty bumbed out today. I went and got my flyers made. they look good.

I went to Macys to just walk around and got really depressed. I called our committee chair and talked to him, He will be there tomorrow as Webb's rep.

Then I went to Costco and while sitting in the parking lot I just decided to call our 3rd district chair (her husband is on the "unity " ticket)

Well, guess what??

There is NO provision for slates on our caucus rules for the congressional convention.

Even if there was the ballots have already been printed!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we are back to a regular ballot with my name on top cause my last name starts with a B.

Well I am finishing the last touches on my speech for tomorrow.

Hmm, did they go to Eliz City and work? No . Did they set up all the 42 precincts for our elections?? NO

So I am feeling a little better here.

Thanks for all your support.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_project__080508_counter_framing_vote.htm

Supporters of strict voter ID requirements often invoke the ease of obtaining ID in order to dismiss any opposition to their measures. Indeed, Justice Antonin Scalia asserted that the burden of obtaining photo identification in order to vote is "minimal and justified," in his opinion upholding Indiana's voter ID law last week. But at least 21 million Americans without valid ID have a different idea of what the Justices deem "minimal". These real people include several elderly nuns and college students in South Bend, Indiana who were turned away from the polls for lacking proper ID Tuesday.

However, to engage solely on the relative size of the barrier to exercising the foundational right of American democracy is to miss the larger frame. Fundamentally, strict voter ID laws exist to stop otherwise eligible people from voting. The battle should not be about the size of the barrier, but about the existence of the barrier in the first place.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_sw_080509_the_last_sane_republ.htm

The Republican Party as a national mainstream organization began with Abraham Lincoln and ended with Lincoln Chafee.  Before and after those Lincolns, the party was not something that most Americans could relate to, was not something that many people could imagine offered any sort of benefit to all people as opposed to particular types of people.

and asked him to drop out of running for delegate in the 1st congr. district.

This guy works his butt off and has supported hillary big time.

now the clintons want "their " guy in.

How nice is that.

He isn't backing down.

Thanks Hillary for pissing on a supporter.

I made notes of what phil said to say tomorrow.
I will let you know.

"Obama picks up 9 superdelegates, union endorsement

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around the Illinois senator for the fall campaign.

Obama picked up the backing of nine superdelegates, including Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who had been a Clinton supporter."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ 20080...aZNMFMcsPSs0NUE

I think the floodgates are open. When I saw this story this morning the tally was only *3* SD's!
Demetrius | 05.09.08 - 3:59 pm

Sorry, next president. Al Gore is not available to be your interior secretary, or secretary of state, or whatever.

"I won't accept a cabinet post regardless of which of the three candidates wins the presidency," Gore said yesterday.

"I am looking for a way to bring about change in other ways," the former vice president and former Democratic presidential candidate said. Gore is in Rome to present the Italian version of his Current Media Inc.'s Current TV channel.

He is one of the superdelegates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are courting to try to secure the Democratic nomination

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/05/obama-now-takes.html

ABC News' Karen Travers Reports: For the first time this campaign season, Barack Obama has surpassed Hillary Clinton's support among superdelegates, according to the ABC News delegate estimate. 

Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., endorsed Obama. DeFazio was previously uncommitted.

With these endorsements, Obama has the support of 267 superdelegates and Clinton has 265 superdelegates.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/9/173948/8180/746/512849

As soon as we have our nominee, they'll unleash a flood of expensive negative attacks to try to define our candidate.

That's why we have to be ready for anything -- we can't let them Swift Boat us right out of the gate.

For God's sake--- They have their nominee. Why aren't we going all out to define him as the Bush Clone that he is?

DNC has run a coupla good ads. But to whine about what McCain's goons are going to do to us to extort money is just plain bodaciously stupid.

Keep up the attack ads on McCain. Then I might send you some money.

 I can't imagine ANY woman being in Obama's VP slot.

=======================

You may be right - I hate to say it, but we may have a "sophie's choice" on the VP.  Who do we need to court more?  Women (pissed about Hillary losing) or moderate conservatives?

http://www.counterpunch.org/kosko05092008.html

Leftists both within and without the Democratic Party have been for years operating under the delusion that, in order to oppose Republican policies, they must work to help the cause of any candidate that has a “D” after his/her name, regardless of how personally distasteful the candidate is or how unappealing the rightward moving Democratic platform is.  This “lesser of two evils” approach is dangerous, foolish, and damaging to leftist causes as it keeps many normally progressive people locked into a party that’s tenants and leadership have long ago stopped representing progressive ideals and instead have furthered the interests of Republicans and large corporations.

At first glance, “lesser of two evils” voting doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.  We support the candidate who is the “least worst” until such a time that we can run a real candidate who truly represents us.  However, no one seems to be able to say who that candidate is and when we will ever see him or her.  In fact, no one has ever even attempted to explain why a party that already is ensured the progressive vote under this “Republicans are worse” mentality will every seek to change, especially since a more centrist approach has given Democratic candidates a hell of a lot more financial support from various corporate interests.

But fortunately, in this election, we may be able to break free of this illusion, not only because it is logically unsound but because, this time, there truly is no lesser evil to speak of.   Rank-and-file Democrats will surely be appalled at such a statement. 

“Obama/Clinton at all similar to John McCain?  100-year war McCain?  Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran McCain?  Surely, no comparison can be made!” 

Unfortunately, a comparison can be easily made.  Stripped of rhetoric and pomp and laid bare, the political positions of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain on a number of issues are largely indistinguishable.

On Iran, all three candidates have been firm in their support for the intimidation, bullying, and possible annihilation of this Middle Eastern country, with Clinton stating that she would be more than willing to “obliterate” Iran by raining nuclear destruction down upon it and its 65.9 million people.  Clinton’s language is barbarically savage and callous in its tone and genocidal in its intent.  This is patently obvious to any observer and you would expect her opponent Obama to issue a harsh condemnation of recklessly calling for nuclear annihilation; instead, Obama meekly stated that it was “bluster” and “not the language we need right now.”  Not really that surprising, considering that all three candidates have insisted that “no option can be taken off the table” regarding Iran, the same warrior rhetoric used by George Bush. 

All candidates have also supported the demonization of Iran by urging the State Department to consider the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a “terrorist organization.”  The Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which McCain and Clinton voted for but Obama missed, wasn’t the only bill that asked for the Guards to considered terrorists.  S.970, the “Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007” co-sponsored by Obama, included a suggestion that the “…Secretary of State should designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a Foreign Terrorist Organization…”  Really, the only difference between the three is that neither Clinton nor Obama have put their plans for destruction in song form.

McCain, Obama, and Clinton are also committed in their undying support for Israel by appearing at AIPAC conventions and forums and supporting all sorts of Israeli atrocities and aggression.  We’ve all seen McCain and Clinton’s fanatical dedication to Israel, a dedication that includes support for the “separation barrier” and the movement of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but Obama, a relative newcomer, has shown that he can pander to Israel with the pros.  Obama supported Israel’s 2006 war against Lebanon as a rational reaction and by doing so implicitly condoned what Amnesty International called the “widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services…” which amounted to an Israeli “…policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population…” 

All the candidates have reiterated, time and time again, that Israel, the only country in the Middle East that possesses nuclear weapons, faces a perilous threat from Hamas, Hizbollah, and Iran, often repeating the lie that Iranian President Ahmadinejad threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.”  Not one of the candidates has ever criticized Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories, preferring instead to praise them as necessary defenses against terrorism.  We must then conclude that all the candidates support brutalization, occupation, murder, torture, arrest, arbitrary detention, home demolition, humiliation, degradation, property confiscation, and economic strangulation.

The candidates don’t do much better with regards to Iraq.  Both McCain and Clinton voted for the 2003 Authorization for Use of Military Force and Obama, while initially opposing the war, stated in 2004 that he was “unsure” of how he would have voted had he been in the Senate at the time.  Clinton has never apologized for her war vote and, like Obama and McCain, has refused to promised to end the occupation and completely remove all U.S. troops from Iraq, despite the fact that the occupation is opposed by an overwhelming majority of Iraqis and is the main fomenter of violence in the country.  Not only that, Obama has called Bush’s intentions in starting the war “sincere” but “misguided.”  Neither McCain, Clinton, nor Obama considers the war to be a grandiose atrocity that has resulted in the deaths of one million people and the displacement of millions more nor do they acknowledge their own culpability by either authorizing the war or refusing to stop funding it; no candidate suggests the possibility of war crimes trials, impeachment of the criminals, or the fact that war had nothing to do with sincerity or heroic intentions on the part of the Bush government but was instead a quasi-imperial crusade to preserve American power and hegemony in the Middle East.

On the domestic front as well, the Democrats fail to distinguish themselves from McCain in any reasonable way.  

If we don’t cease this destructive “lesser of two evils” approach, we will never see a truly progressive candidate in the White House.

Tom, Let's hear from you on "Political Pragmatism"

http://democracyforamerica.com/blog_posts/25235-congratulations-to-all-our-dfa-oc-endorsed-candidates#1195354

No tool bar and all the above posts are condensed down to showing just the subject lines...

Please update your blog to show that Paul Rancatore's (FL District 15) web and email addresses have changed:

http://Rancatore4Congress.com
info@Rancatore4Congress.com (email)

Thanks!