DNC redefines "putting lipstick on a pig"!

DNC Solution!

Indeed, some of the persons in attendance as the final DNC decisions were announced, called out "lipstick on a pig" repeatedly--and I tend to agree with them.

Seating Michigan and Florida Democratic Convention delegates with exactly one-half a vote each is hardly a compromise; it's downright discrimination against two states within which my family and I have lived--and Michiganders and Floridians are 100% Americans--not 50% Americans.

In either event, it seems clear now that, shy of another former parishioner buddy of Obama slipping out of the closet, Barack Obama will be the nominee of the Democratic party independent of which (Clinton or Obama) ends up getting the plurality of popular votes cast.

The DNC resolution increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama just 61 to 67 (depending upon which cable news channel is on your screen) delegates away from the majority needed to secure the nomination.

For the moment it sounds like November 2000 all over again.

Of course, Hillary can still take her case to the credentials committee in July ... or to the Convention itself in August.

But OWOTO, the new "magic number" (at least today) is 2118 to secure the nomination.

It ain't over till it's over, as Yogi Berra was fond of saying ...

111 nations sign on to Cluster Bomb Ban ... but the US and its defense manufacturers opposed the ban--of course!

B1-B Lancer dropping cluster bombs on God knows what

Is it any wonder why the US opposed the ban ... considering the millions of dollars spent on such marvelous killing machines as the one shown above?

Of course, the ban isn't perfect, but it was a step in the right direction. Limiting the weight and numbers of submunitions (fancy word for multiple bomblets or the cluster) would also limit the lethality of the cluster bombs and that was a step too far for the US.

It's as simple as this: we like the good old fashioned kinds of cluster bombs and their "bomblets"!

How else might we produce such smiling faces as the one shown below?

Say "Cheese"! ... and oh yes ... say, "God bless cluster bombs wherever they are sent to protect America!"

McClellan and Bush--good friends and fellow Texans ...

Scott McClellan saying "so long" to his friend and our President ...

Wow! I can't wait until his book is on the one dollar rack at the Ocean Shores Galilean Church Thrift Store!

It's about all I've heard on the radio and television today, and from what I've heard on Fox Cable News, it's all lies, innuendos and self-serving fodder for the Democrats to feast on for the next two or three days.

If what Scott McClellan wrote is even only 50% true, then the Iraq war, the aftermath of Katrina, the Valerie Plame affair ... hellfire--the entire Bush Presidency is built on a foundation [sic] of fantasy and manipulation ... of all Americans, but especially Republicans who thought that America was under patriotic and concerned leadership.

Basically, the book only confirmed what we all knew to be true--that the White House was campaigning for neoconservative goals from about the day that GWB took office.

So, for a few days, we will watch Scott McClellan and the White House response on just about every cable news network 24 hours a day.

But then, within a week, we will (as always) forget and be back to worrying about paying $4.09 per gallon at the pump and the falling NYSE.

That's all for now--just wait for the book!

Bush doing what he can to "support" McCain ...

The Picture that Keeps Giving ...

Three major fund-raisers for John McCain today by George Bush and I was unable to find a good photo-op of the two of them as they trudged the happy road to destiny together. But surely memories of the scene above will draw millions of dollars into the Republican coffers to support John McCain in his quest to lock up Arizona, Idaho and Utah in November.

I don't recall ... was John McCain or Cindy at GWB's daughter's wedding at the Crawford Ranch earlier this month?

What we do know is that Bush was asked not to attend a public fundraiser in Arizona (to which he was originally invited), but to instead attend a cozy kitchen conversation in a private residence with McCain instead--in keeping with the intimacy maintained by them for each other. For that same reason, no cameras or reporters were permitted to invade the close, personal get-together between Bush and McCain.

Sweet!

Memorial Day 2008 ... Thank you, PFC Ross McGinnis ...

PFC Ross McGinnis showing our enemies what we think of them!

In a couple of days (June 2, 2008), PFC Ross McGinnis will receive the Medal of Honor posthumously for his quick and courageous act last December 4th. He did it as much for his comrades in the Humvee (all of whose lives he saved) as for America when he smothered a grenade about to explode. He could as easily have jumped out from his gunner's turret as to jump down and yell for his fellow soldiers to "duck" as he covered the grenade that was lodged near the vehicle's radio ... with his body.

I read and reread his story and the stories of his fellow soldiers when it was published this week as part of our local newspaper's tribute to all of our fallen heroes over the past 250 years or so.

Memorial Day has terrific and deep meaning, I think, thanks to so many (like PFC McGinnis) to whom we owe our freedom. No, I do not personally support the war in Iraq, but I very much support the young men and women who are there because they feel the "need" to be there.

He was only nineteen ...

Libertarian or Conservative? The jury's out ...

Libertarian Candidate for US President, Bob Barr

My first (and gut) reaction to Bob Barr's nomination on the sixth ballot today (after my brother in Connecticut passed the word to me over the telephone) was ... well, I've liked what I've heard from Bob Barr lately ... but ...

He did vote for the Patriot [sic] Act and he did vote for authorizing us to enter Iraq and he was a vigorous anti-marijuana-for-medical-uses congressman in former days and ... etc. ad nausea. So I still have to wonder if the conversion from arch-conservative to libertarian (as in "liberty") has fully taken place.

In any event, I obviously admire his current rhetoric on all these issues and expect that he will do even more to support the causes articulated by Ron Paul in the Republican Debates as the summer months pass.

Besides, who other than Mike Huckabee is even breathing anything about the Fair Tax idea these days?

And he does add "charm" to the Presidential campaign, doesn't he?,

Negotiating is NOT appeasement ... how quickly we forget!

While we were refusing to talk ... forty years ago--the result of shooting first and asking questions later!

My brother Richard in Connecticut sent me an excellent newspaper article that listed several instances in which presidents and others "talked" to our enemies (rogue nations) in order to avoid an escalation of bloodshed. None of these resulted in direct conflict and, in fact, were largely the reason that the Cold War (as one example) was ended. I will likely blog more extensively on the issue of negotiating versus appeasement in coming days.

But this week, we saw yet another result of simply shooting first and asking questions (talking) later. A U.S. helicopter strike north of Baghdad (in Beiji) killed eight people in a vehicle, including at least three children. Iraqi officials in Beiji insisted all the dead were civilians. The Iraqi Colonel in Bieji described the victims as "farmers and children." The U.S. military said six were al-Qaida militants--but acknowledged "children were killed."

Like the My Lai massacre (partially) pictured above in one of the searing memories of the undeclared Vietnam War, children were clearly seen in the AP photographs taken in Beiji and I really doubt whether they cared whether we (the US) was or was not talking to the Shiite or Sunni insurgents in Iraq, Iran or anywhere else. In the case of Beiji, they were Sunni (as opposed to Shiite) whatevers (farmers, children, God only knows) and we may find ourselves back in the thick of it against Sunni insurgents--who have quietly slid onto our side while we're limiting the activities of the Shiites in most of the former strongholds of the Shiite militias.

What next? I suggest we "talk" to whoever and whomever ... quickly! There's still time for John McCain to become educated in Middle Eastern geopolitics while Mr. Bush turns his back on Big Oil and begins to negotiate with our "enemies" this summer and autumn.

If not ... just watch the headlines over the next several weeks and months.

Hillary--and women everywhere--victorious in the end ...

Women in America will never ever feel the same about themselves.

Who would have believed that a woman would have collected more popular votes in a primary season than any other candidate ... ever? That is, past and present, Democrat or Republican ... ever ... and still not be able to break the glass ceiling?

Well, whatever else you might call it, I call it a VICTORY of immense meaning in America and in the world.

Go to Denver, Hillary, and tell the world!

(I admittedly was not happy when she voted to give GWB the authority to wage war in Iraq and her fibbing while campaigning reminded me all too much of the rest of us--myself included. But her ultimate victory for women in America cannot be underestimated in historic importance.)

The DNC and almost all of the Democratic superdelegates believe that Hillary is finished ...

... but she fights on ...

It's interesting ... if all of the states with popular vote totals are counted today, Hillary would be ahead of Barack by more than 26,000 votes. But I recall all too vividly the time when George Bush--like Obama--lost the popular vote, but managed to ease his way into the White House anyway. Maybe that explains how Hillary could win by 41% in West Virginia one week and then have both of West Virginia's Senators, Jay Rockefeller and Robert Byrd, endorse Obama during the very next week.

Fight on, Hillary, and let's hear from every state before we head for Denver.

Of course, even if she wins big tomorrow, I would expect that another half dozen to a dozen superdelegates will endorse Obama before the votes are even counted and Obama will wonder tomorrow night why he's not quite yet been beatified as the "presumptive" Democratic candidate. Well ...


Here's why!

Now I know how Republicans feel ...

While visiting with my children last week--and during several phone conversations with both family (younger, of course) and friends (younger, of course)--I find that I am becoming fossilized just by being a fan (actually a precinct delegate in the State of Washington) for Hillary. Barack this ... Barack that ... Obama this ... Obama that! I find myself almost embarrassed to suggest (barely audible) that Hillary is both more electable and more Presidential than ... Barack Hip-Hip Hooray Obama.

Maybe it's my age; then again, maybe it's those sexy pantsuits ... but how is it that I don't even find Barack Obama's stuttering speeches "inspiring" (the only way they are ever described by the media--even Fox Cable News!) nor his demeanor charismatic (again ... as even described by Fox cable News)?

To his credit, he hammered back at both GWB and JSMcC on their foolish assertions re. his patriotism, but that was about as specific as he's been on nearly anything and everything over the past year.

Yeh, now I know how Republicans must feel ...

With Hillary's incredible victory in West Virginia, she has the leverage now to rub it in Obama's face!

Hillary will almost certainly select Charlie Rangle to be her running mate ... assuming that both Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton turn her down first!

But I would choose ol' Charlie. He's an old-school Democrat who more closely matches Hillary's fiscal policies and isn't likely to say things like, "God damn America!" in an October stump speech. He would likely pull Hillary toward the left in suggesting that taxes be raised beyond pre-Reagan rates on those earning more than $250,000 per year ... and besides, he's one of the few African Americans not to have jumped over to Obama after the superdelegates began jumping ship.

Yeh ... the more I think about it, the more I believe that Hillary should cross both the Right Reverend Jeremiah and Al Sharpton off her short list.

I wonder who my brother Richard in Connecticut thinks she'll choose now that she's finally upended Barack Obama.

The last I looked, her lead over Barack in West Virginia was 67% - 26% with John Edwards (remember him?) still on the ballots there and getting 7%.

(Who's John McCain?)

Someone on Air America called it John McCain's "asterisk" of evil ...

John McCain staring down his asterisk of evil

McCain has this week added China, Myanmar, Sudan and Saudi Arabia to George W. Bush's now famous "axis of evil" (a.k.a. Iraq, Iran and North Korea). GWB was syntactically wrong to use the word "axis" to refer to three nations as an "axis," but McCain has a virtual asterisk (*) of evil with his seven-pronged Evil Empire.

I honestly knew very little of John McCain's foreign policy or even his knowledge of foreign affairs since that was declared by friends and foes alike as his "strong suit." But as I begin to look back at his voting record and statements while in the Senate, I believe we have a genuine maverick on the loose and one who could easily become our next President (a.k.a. Commander-in-Chief of US Forces worldwide).

Recall that he criticized President Clinton for our intervention in Bosnia because it wasn't in our "national interest" and is now listing nations who exude evil intentions (primarily on their own populations) as "enemies."

I can look ahead only enough to worry that he might be willing to add to President Bush's serious-enough-to-go-to-war concerns (a.k.a. "oil") to the point where a real possibility of a World war III is emerging.

Whereas Bush's foreign policy is embodied in the country's need for cheap [sic] oil and Clinton's foreign policy was willy-nilly at best, John McCain's might be a hair-trigger policy that would be the most dangerous of all.

McCain's "Asterisk" of Evil

For the first time in my memory, I took off sick today ...

view from where I spent most of the day in bed

It is obvious that the great pride and joy I usually take in my possessions is ... gone!

Being sick with a cold during the coldest Spring in the history of Ocean Shores sucks! When you are feeling cold and dark, the cold darkness seems to manage to find every nook and cranny of every bone, cartilage and muscle ... every cell ... of your body. No that's wrong. The darkness is outside of the body and is a force that sucks the light and warmth from all those nooks and crannies.

Food? No taste buds! TV? Only the endless primary season!

But what is it that I hate worst of all? Right! Self pity.

Self portrait

But it's only a hiatus; I'll be fine in a day or two.

Media sucking this primary race for all it's worth!

The above cartoon by Daryl cagle on msnbc.com says it all. The media is having a field day ... and McCain? Whoddat?

The average American voter (that's me, right?) is continuing to be bombarded with statements that say, "it's all over but the shouting" and having to hear yet once more, "God-damn America" in the key of loud by the Right Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright.

Personally, I'm insulted!

No, the Democrats have not yet chosen their candidate and yes, Senator McCain continues to make statements that are worthy of being heard. But watching the nightly TV-casts (talking heads and supposed newscasts) would suggest otherwise.

Like Huckabee before her, Hillary is suggesting that all of the states who have yet to be heard from (plus Michigan and Florida) be tallied before the ballots are printed for November's General Election.

I admired Mike Huckabee's energy in the Republican race and can't help but admire Hillary for giving it her all in the Democrat race. Let's hear them out and let the chips fall where they may. To be honest, young Barack has seemed to have more logical arguments of late (Hillary's and McCain's summer gas tax "holiday" plans are both pure bunk--and pandering), but his smug and elitist demeanor happen to rub this old curmudgeon the wrong way. But that aside, he is certainly not a terrorist or whatever it is that Fox Talk is trying to tell me he is on XM-168!!

McCain is seeming more and more to be a puppet of Corporate America, but I do think he's right that Supreme Court justices should be more similar than dissimilar to GWB's choices (Alito and Roberts were super picks, IMHO) and not flaming liberals, which would be Obama's (and maybe Hillary's) likely choices.

Whatever, it ain't over till it's over (in Yogi Berra's words) and I'd really like to hear less of Rush, Bill O., Hannity and yes, even less of Ed Schultz who is (supposedly) the progressive counter-voice on Air America at XM-167.

I repeat: Hillary Clinton is not a blood-sucking witch; Barack Obama is not a radical Black Panther and John McCain is not dead!

Please, Mr. Superdelegate (is there a Ms. Superdelegate?), don't steal another!

Mr. Superdelegate!

As I watch the various superdelegates jockeying for position so as to swing the Democratic nomination from Hillary to Obama or from Obama to Hillary, I am reminded of just a few yesteryears ago when we had greats like Abraham, Martin, Bobby and John stolen from our midst.

In some strange way, the thought that an "inside-the-beltway" DNC insider could steal a President from us seems incomprehensibly worse than an assassin's bullet.

Am I wrong? When did our political process become so jaded that such is even possible?

I promised my brother, Richard in Connecticut ...

After my use of a caricature of Barack Obama with a crown of thorns in a recent posting, and many other "over the top" comments on the politics and events of our country and the world, I promised my brother that I'd state up front what exactly it is that I believe vis-a-vis Jesus Christ and my Christian faith.

The quote from David Anson Brown (below) says it all, although "believing" and "knowing" are two entirely different concepts and "hoping" is yet another. I personally cannot "know" that Jesus will condemn even one of His children (Muslim, Atheist, Buddhist, fallen away Christian, or whatever) to an everlasting Hell such as is preached in my church of choice on Sunday afternoons.

But that aside, I believe ...

• that God is the creator of the universe creating both of the seen (physical) and the unseen (spiritual) realms and that God the creator is also the giver of life.
• that the Holy Bible is God's word Personally spoken by God for mankind for the purpose of revealing who He is and it is without error in all issues to which it speaks.
• in some "form" of the Triunity (Trinity), one God in three Persons, consisting of Father, Son Jesus, and Holy Spirit. (No, I can't explain my belief in this concept.)
• that Jesus Christ is Divine God who came from Heaven to mankind as a man yet retaining the Divinity of God and who while living a sinless life was rejected and betrayed by man to be crucified and die on the cross yet not to remain dead but to Resurrect the third day in accordance with His Everlasting Divine life.
• that the death of Jesus on the cross provided complete atonement for all the sins of the world therefore cleansing those who choose to be cleansed from their sin to then receive the Holy Spirit and by receiving the Holy Spirit becoming "Born Again" and being Born Again becoming children of God. Children in the family of God and as children in a personal relationship with their Father who is God above all and as children also inheritors in the Heavenly Kingdom of Jesus the kingdom that is without end.
• that Jesus is the judge of all of mankind's thoughts, intentions and actions and that He is just and wise in His judgment. As judge, Jesus will judge the unjust to everlasting condemnation while to the righteous He will give of His life, His gifts, and His glory. Somehow, I believe that God's infinite mercy and infinite justice will meld in a manner that allows these to be "understood" in the Great Beyond--perhaps, we will all be seen to have done "the best we were able" ... maybe ...
• that Jesus physically rose from the dead, was seen by and interacted with many eyewitnesses including the Disciples and Apostles and that Jesus has now ascended back into Heaven where He originally came from. Jesus is currently seated in Majesty, Power and Authority alongside the Father and He is now accessible to us in both Prayer and Fellowship. (Yes, I pray to Jesus!)

I only modified the quote from David Anson Brown slightly to reflect my lack of infinite knowledge.

Maybe the shift will be towards the issues and away from race, religion, age and the latest scandal!

“Barack Obama: Stop Running for POTUS and Pick up my Garbage" John McCain: Stop Running for POTUS and Die Already!” Hillary Clinton: Stop Running for POTUS and Iron my Shirt!”

Ugly, huh?

Hate politics has never been so rampant. Maybe it’s because I’ve only been around for roughly 73.5 years, but I have never recalled such race bating, gender slander and age discrimination in my life.

I look at the three remaining candidates—and, for that matter, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, the last Republicans to leave the race—and I see class. More American Americans I can’t name. They’re not perfect by any means, but they are—any one of them—capable of running the US Government … with the help of God, of course.

Hopefully, we can limp beyond all of this hullabaloo about Jeremiah Wright (another perfectly good American) … or the foolish “misstatements” by Hillary … or the inability of John McCain to distinguish between Sunnis and Shiite Muslims and begin to look at means by which we can turn the economy around and disengage from the Middle East with dignity and a concern for the welfare of the world—and not the price at the pump.

Hopefully ...