Home / Elections
'Flood the Zone' Friday is here. Do your part. Anyone But Bush in 2004.
Via The Horse we find Michael Wolf's article in New York Magazine about the recent Aspen Institute conference:
The psychic heart of the conference was Bill Clinton.
Clinton had lost weight and—with a great collection of just-out-of-the-wrapper pastel-colored polo shirts on view throughout the conference—seemed in fabulous form. He was in campaign mode but without the restraints of campaign mode. While there was clear bitterness on his part toward the successor who had rushed “to undo everything I’d done,” and the Republicans who “will run over you unless you beat their brains out,” there was a feisty humor too. ...
Clinton kept referring to the media as (contrary to Kinsley’s view) the “supine” media, pointing out that when Bush insulted Helen Thomas (who, by asking a rough question in the infamous prewar press conference had, Clinton said, “committed the sin of journalism”), no “young journalists” stood up and walked out. The media, the supine media, was going to have to “go to the meat locker and take out its brains and critical skills.”
Everybody seemed to love this. Clinton was not just the beloved former president, but he had become some sort of sassy oracle.
There's more, read the whole thing. It sure made us miss Bill-- and get angry all over again that we got stuck with GW who has given us nothing but war and Ashcroft and judicial ideologues, sending our economy and civil liberties, not to mention hundreds of our young soldiers, down the drain, all in the first two years of his presidency.
2004 is only 15 months away. We still see a Democratic party in disarray with no candidate knocking us out or even making us want to go to bat for him. We hope something breaks soon.
Ezra Klein brings us Flood the Zone Fridays--it's a very, very clever idea to get the Anti-Bush message across to the media Bush is counting on for favorable support. Go sign up. [link via Matt Yglesias.]
Joe Lieberman rejects moving left as a campaign strategy. His loss. Our gain. We predict he'll be one less serious contender shortly.
Tom Tomorrow of This Modern World takes on the Gary Coleman candidacy.
Atrios finds the website We Love Arnold. Here's Arnold's platform.
A federal judge in California says he will rule Wednesday on whether to delay the recall election due to the ACLU lawsuit challenging the punch card voting machines in six LA Counties. Here is the text of the ACLU lawsuit .
The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, seeks to delay the election until the six urban counties that use punch-card ballots - including Los Angeles - replace the voting machines. If upheld, the suit would move the recall to a March ballot, when the presidential primary is scheduled to take place.
Without the order, "the election could be nothing more than a sham, given the universal recognition that punch-card machines are failed voting mechanisms," wrote Mark D. Rosenbaum, legal director for the ACLU.
During a two-hour hearing today, Wilson listened to arguments from both sides and said that he would return with a decision by midweek, the Associated Press reported.
Here is the story behind the study that exposed the flaws in Diebold's electronic voting machines. It all started with a website....
Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul , "dissenting slightly" with Kevin Drum at Calpundit, explains why Arnold Schwarzenegger's support of the group U.S. English is a problem.
Put aside, for a moment, the fact that "English only" laws -- the focus of the group's work -- don't serve to encourage immigrants to learn English (ESL classes in most places are packed full), but rather to restrict the government's ability to communicate with and provide services to non-English-speaking residents. Beyond that, U.S. English is hardly a benign organization. Its co-founder, John Tanton, founded or helped fund at least 13 anti-immigration groups, three of which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as "hate groups," including this charming collection of vigilantes. Tanton's no longer associated with U.S. English, but one of their current spokesmen is James Lubinskas, a contributing editor to the neo-Confederate American Renaissance magazine.
Jeanne has lots more.... We agree with her. Arnold should disassociate himself from the group. We're also troubled by Arnold's support for Proposition 187, the 1994 California referendum that resulted in illegal immigrants being denied government benefits.
Right now polls show Arnold and Bustamente are running neck and neck. We agree with Kevin that this issue alone will not cause Arnold to lose since he only needs a small percentage of voters to win. But as a symbolic gesture, his withdrawal from the board of U.S. English would be most welcome.
The Los Angeles Times Thursday runs a prominent article titled Huffington Paid Little Income Tax:
MTV commentator and author Arianna Huffington, who launched her campaign for governor with criticism of "fat cats" who fail to shoulder a fair share of taxes, paid no individual state income tax and just $771 in federal taxes during the last two years, her tax returns show.
Huffington, who released her tax returns for the last two years to The Times, lives in an 8,000- square-foot home in Brentwood above Sunset Boulevard that is valued at about $7 million. She socializes with many wealthy and prominent people.
But the returns show that at least for the last two years, her income was far outweighed by losses that she reported were incurred by Christabella Inc., the private corporation she owns and uses to manage her writing and lecturing business.
Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana grades the Presidential contenders on their medical marijuana stances:
Edwards has publicly stated that he would not change marijuana laws, and he favors the Justice Department's arresting patients and caregivers who defy federal law. (emphasis supplied)
....Responding to questions from Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana on July 7, 2003 on C-SPAN, Edwards reiterated his intention to set up a commission to study the therapeutic benefits of medical marijuana. When asked if he would jail seriously ill patients while his commission studies medical marijuana, Edwards responded "what'd you just say, there are raids?" However, when asked a week later on July 15, 2003 whether he would continue the current policy of jailing sick patients, he responded "the government has a responsibility to enforce the laws," echoing a comment he made six weeks earlier.
On May 29, 2003, Edwards was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, as saying,.....) "It's the job of the Justice Department to enforce the law as it presently exists."
Gephardt has switched positions and although he once voted against medical marijuana, he now says he'd support it. He gets a C-:
What Gephardt has said: When Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana's Linda Macia told Gephardt at a campaign stop on July 20, "I'm a patient and a medical marijuana advocate. I'm really ill, and I can't use drugs at all. I'm allergic to narcotics, I need your help. States' rights for sick people to--," Gephardt immediately said, "That's what I'm for...states' rights." When asked if he would sign federal legislation to allow seriously ill people to use medical marijuana with their doctors' approval, he responded, "Sure."
Note: We haven't seen a transcript confirming the above conversation.
John Kerry has backtracked the other way, earning a C grade:
Kerry previously said he favored federal legislation to allow people with cancer, AIDS, and other serious illnesses to have medical marijuana, with their doctors' approval. However, Kerry recently retreated from that stance, saying he wants to rely on a scientific review before he makes any decisions about protecting patients.
Joe Lieberman is another candidate who has switched positions. In 1999, he opposed medical marijuana. He's better on the issue this time around, but still earns only a D+:
(615 words in story) There's More :: Permalink :: Comments
Talk about pulling out all the stops....Billionaire Warren Buffett has agreed to join Arnold's campaign as senior financial and economic adviser.
As to media blackouts, not only are Arnold's movies off-limits, Adriana has suspended her LA Times column, and MSNBC and NBC are attaching this disclaimer to their Arnold Coverage:
His wife, Maria Shriver, is on a leave of absence from NBC News. MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.
| << Previous 12 | Next 12 >> |
