The news this morning is that a number of Hillary Clinton’s pledged superdelegates are switching their allegiance to Barack Obama. The group, led by civil-rights veteran and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, say they are reacting to the popular primary votes in their state, but they are also bowing to what is becoming more and more clear.
Mr. Obama is leading Ms. Clinton in fundraising, in elected delegates and in polls he matches up better against John McCain for the general election. Yesterday David Wilhelm, Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign manager, announced his support for Mr. Obama.
Timing now is of greatest importance to professional politicians. Candidates love no one so much as early supporters, who were on board before anyone thought they could win. They also love those who decide in their favor when the contest hangs in the balance, those who push the scales to their side. In this case, Mr. Lewis.
Sensing a winner in the race, we can now expect professional pols who have until now been on the fence (or on the Clinton side of the fence) to rush to Mr. Obama, hoping to get on the bandwagon before everyone starts calling it a bandwagon.
This is an election year. It’s a war year, the fifth, soon to be the sixth. It’s a recession year. If recent trends continue, it will be a year of heat, drought and storms.
All of this year’s presidential candidates – the ones that have dropped from the race and the ones still in – promise change.
Our world is changing around us at a rapid rate. Most changes are for the worse. Even if change is for the better, it’s difficult. People don’t like change and they really don’t like rapid change.
What people don’t like about change is uncertainty. Is my job safe? Will we lose everything if someone in my family faces a medical emergency? When will this war end? When will our troops come home? What happens if my town is hit by a major storm? Will I still be able to afford insurance?
Since the major accomplishment of the Bush/Cheney administration has been to deliver this bouquet of uncertainty to each and every American, all the people who want to replace George Bush promise change. In this case, change means a return to peace and prosperity. Continue reading »
In a post Thursday, I expressed concern over what damage George Bush and Dick Cheney might do in the 11 months they have remaining in office. Our worst fears were fulfilled within hours.
That day, before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the man who was supposed to be better than Alberto Gonzales, said he will not investigate the use of waterboarding by the CIA, nor will he investigate illegal phone taps of citizens.
The reason he gave is that attorneys at the Department of Justice had written memos authorizing those actions in advance and it would be wrong for DoJ to retroactively lodge criminal charges for the actions.
In other words, “we made it legal by saying so.” This is the worst transgression yet of the Constitution. It says, in effect, that the president can rule by fiat, doing just as he chooses, subject to no law whatsoever.
Congress, which is supposed to be the pre-eminent branch of government, has been directly challenged. What will it do?
Did you heave a sigh of relief on January 20th? Did you think, “Finally, we’ve got less than a year before we get these criminals out of the White House”?
Don’t celebrate yet. The Bush/Cheney appetite for crime will likely increase, if anything, in the months ahead. This morning’s Washington Post gives good examples.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey refuses to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee whether or not he thinks waterboarding is torture, although he admitted he’d think it was torture if it happened to him. Meanwhile, the other Mike, CIA Director General Michael Hayden admits his agency has done it. Three times. If the Bush administration admits waterboarding three times, no one will blame you for guessing that it happens a whole lot more than that.
The White House spokesperson corps – that bastion of credibility – confirmed the instances of torture. Spokesoid Tony Fratto said the administration is going public because of “misinformation” about waterboarding and because the White House wants to be clear about “what the benefits were” from this particular form of torture.
I guess they would know the specifics of various forms of torture. The people who run our nation, we should be proud to say, are torture connoisseurs. Continue reading »
It’s snowing in Burlington today, but it’s never too early to begin planning for spring break.
This year, you might want to throw the kids in a plane and hustle on down to EPCOT
at Walt Disney World. (EPCOT, btw, stands for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” – a rare “triple redundancy” and evidence of just how limited Disney’s “imagineers” are.)
Last week, Disney and Waste Management, Inc. announced a new “green” EPCOT attraction, in which tourists will be allowed to move trash around with forklifts and burn it in an incinerator. (It’s unclear whether this is real live smelly trash or prettied-up Disney trash.)
Disney and Waste Management call this “converting trash into energy” when it’s actually converting trash into dioxin and other carcinogens and depositing them in your kids’ lungs. If your family is rich and white, going to EPCOT may be your kids’ only opportunity to be crapped on by corporate America in just this way. The rest of the world doesn’t have to leave home for the experience, Waste Management brings it right to their doors.
In a year or so, perhaps Waste Management and Disney will add a exhibit on setting fire to your competitors’ garbage trucks and breaking the legs of people who won’t sign exclusive contracts with your company.
I have a hard time setting aside my skepticism when it comes to politics, but when this landed in my inbox yesterday, I thought, “Maybe I’ll finally have the chance to vote for something…
Last year, it was honey bees. Across the US, bee colonies were mysteriously deserted. Scientists call it “colony collapse disorder” and a year later are still arguing about the cause. It seems to be starting up this year in France.
It’s called “white nose syndrome” because many of the dead bats are found with whote rings around their noses. In some caves, 90 percent of the bats hibernating there have died.
This is more bad news for the environment because bats, like bees, are important pollinators. As important is the role bats play in controlling insects. Fewer bats equals more bugs, an uneasy realization in this age of global warming when tropical, insect-borne diseases are moving northward.
Is is global warming? Overuse of pesticides? Or merely better reporting of local phenomena?
The Price of Certainty
This is an election year. It’s a war year, the fifth, soon to be the sixth. It’s a recession year. If recent trends continue, it will be a year of heat, drought and storms.
All of this year’s presidential candidates – the ones that have dropped from the race and the ones still in – promise change.
Our world is changing around us at a rapid rate. Most changes are for the worse. Even if change is for the better, it’s difficult. People don’t like change and they really don’t like rapid change.
What people don’t like about change is uncertainty. Is my job safe? Will we lose everything if someone in my family faces a medical emergency? When will this war end? When will our troops come home? What happens if my town is hit by a major storm? Will I still be able to afford insurance?
Since the major accomplishment of the Bush/Cheney administration has been to deliver this bouquet of uncertainty to each and every American, all the people who want to replace George Bush promise change. In this case, change means a return to peace and prosperity.
Continue reading »