postcards from the internets

by twit

Banksy! Perhaps his identity has been revealed? The twit’s not convinced, but this:

Asked by the paper whether Gunningham was Banksy, he replied: “Well, he wasn’t then”.

Gunningham’s father Peter said he did not recognise the person in the photograph, while his mother Pamela maintained she had never even had a son.

does seem like something that a mother of an artist would say…

They are the experts: Just because it’s a stone thrown in a glass house doesn’t mean it’s not true:

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said: “McCain’s crude remark on the indiscriminate killing of the Iranian nation not only testifies to his disturbed state of mind, but also to his warmongering approach to foreign policy.”

The Ron Paul Army: Laugh if you must, but these folks may swing the election away from McCain and the Hillary Avengers:

Hillary For Worldwide Emperor

by twit

Some of Hillary’s most avid supporters are under the impression that she has been offered the Veep slot on Obama’s ticket. So they have created a site, that allows comments without moderation, with the following inspirational message:

Hillary, don’t take a VP slot. Stay in the Senate (or retire or go worldwide).

We won’t let you sacrifice your own future to prop up Obama.

No Remington Steele presidency!

Go worldwide? Is it time for the Emperor of the World election already?

Click here to sign the petition, and don’t forget to leave a comment! Certainly we can all agree that we do not, under any circumstances, want Hillary anywhere near a ticket led by Obama…

Since so many of us actually want Obama to win.

Old habits die hard, I suppose

by lestro

So the McCain people continue to freak out over Gen. Wesley Clark’s continued refusal to back down from his statements about McCain’s war experience as a proof he can lead:

Despite criticism from Republicans, Clark declined to back down in an interview Tuesday morning with ABC. “The experience that he had as a fighter pilot isn’t the same as having been at the highest levels of the military and having to make … life or death decisions about national, strategic issues,” he said.

Asked whether he felt he owed McCain an apology, Clark responded, “I’m very sorry that this has distracted from the message of patriotism that Sen. Obama wants to put out.” [...]

“I think that you can always cite a candidate’s service in the armed forces as a testimony to his character and his courage. But I don’t think early service justifies moving away from looking at a candidate’s judgment,” he replied.

McCain wants blood, of course:

“I think the time has come for Sen. Obama to not just repudiate Gen. Clark, but to cut him loose,” McCain said en route to Colombia.

One ally of the Republican presidential contender accused Obama of “winking and nodding” when he should be condemning Clark and his comments. “This is now about Obama, not Wesley Clark,” added Orson Swindle on a conference call with reporters organized by the McCain’s campaign.

Swindle, a retired colonel and - like McCain - prisoner of war in Vietnam, added that Obama should tell his surrogates to “knock this crap off.”

It should be pointed out though that Wesley Clark was a Clinton supporter who only became an Obama surrogate after she dropped out and I am not even sure if he has an official role at all in the campaign.

It should also be pointed out that Obama has been extremely complimentary about John McCain’s service in Vietnam.

I also can’t think of any other incidents in which Obama surrogates have taken a shot at Johnny Mac’s military service, which actually isn’t relevant anymore as the world and “war” are completely different than when Mac was fighting “the gooks” that he will always hate (his words, from 2000), despite our normalized relations and the passage of more than 35 years since the Vietnam war.

Introducing our national nightmare

by twit

Via Maureen Dowd, writing for the New York Times on June 29, 2008:

Afterward, Carmella got her idol to autograph her sign, telling the smiling Hillary, “You’re going to be the next president.”

She told The Times that she and her friends were all voting for John McCain and that Hillary was just doing what she had to do.

“But I have a gut feeling,” she said with macabre faith, “that something’s going to happen so that she becomes the nominee.”

[emphasis added]

Somebody PLEASE get the Secret Service and the FBI on this… it is her certainty that really seems to qualify her as the kind of psychopath to keep an eye on.

um, i believe the answer is ’shirley chisholm’

 by lestro

and that ain’t her. sorry ted.

i see where you’re going though…

Gracious, she is not

by lestro

Even in defeat it is all about Hillary.

At a time when Democrats around the country should be celebrating and rallying around their now-official candidate, Hillary managed to suck all of the air out of the room and all the attention and headlines away from Obama with her non-concession speech Tuesday, in which she congratulated her opponent for “all they’ve accomplished” but never actually conceding defeat or officially pulling out of the race.

For the past two days, Hillary has had to have the spotlight on her, stealing all media attention with her “what does Hillary want” bit.

What does Hillary want? Attention. It’s that classic Clinton narcissism coming through in overt ways.

Word is now that she will continue to string this out for another few days before officially endorsing the party’s nominee on Saturday.

Her decision came after Democrats urged her Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama…

Her decision came after a day of conversations with supporters on Capitol Hill about her future now that Mr. Obama had clinched the nomination.

Gotta love that, she has to be begged to drop out of a race that’s literally over.

We’re still talking about this, of course, because her speech Tuesday night was despicable and her refusal to express support for her opponent while continuing to try and campaign was another fun bit of doublespeak, especially this bit:

In the coming days, I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way.

Bullshit. You want to see best interests of the party? here’s what it looks like:

LOL Journalism

by twit

From the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank on June 4, 2008, a detail from Hillary Clinton’s June 3, 2008 speech:

Terry McCauliffe, the campaign chairman, took the stage and read the full list of Clinton’s victories, from American Samoa to Massachusetts.

Introducing Clinton, he asked: “Are you ready for the next president of the United States?”

This brought laughter from the reporters in the back of the room, but Clinton induced the crowd to boo the “pundits and naysayers” who would have run her from the race.

The Clintons begin work for the GOP

by twit

Thank goodness Bill and Hillary have shot their credibility to shit, but this video is still a tripped out exploration of the kind of damage that the Clinton campaign has managed to accomplish.

Via McClatchy on June 4, 2008:

The New York Times reports from the future

by twit

As far as I can tell, it is still Tuesday around here, and it is hardly Wednesday enough on the east coast to be referring to it as “early morning,” yet the NYT says this:

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton talked early Wednesday morning by telephone. He congratulated her…

which is hilarious on its own, but still…

Yes She Will… congratulate Obama on his victory

by twit

It’s time for a drink! A strong one!

Double-talking jive, get the money motherfucker ’cause I got no more patience

by lestro

Well this is it, eh? June 3, the day of the last primaries. Obama has already won the delegate race for the nomination and we have finally reached the end of the road, right?

Very few people - including the Clinton Campaign - ever saw it going this far, but all things considered, it has been a very good primary season and when it comes down to the come down, Hillary may have actually helped Obama.

Thanks to her, he has already faced many of the bullshit character attacks, half-truths, whisper campaigns and the racism one would expect from a Republican candidate. Yet he has continued to gain popularity.

But while the campaign for the nomination has essentially been over since February, today has to be the end, right? After today she has no reason to keep going and will have to admit she lost, right?

Hell, even Bubba admitted it yesterday.

But, nope, not Hillary. Even after Obama secures the nomination tonight, Hillary will refuse to let go, clinging tenaciously to the possibility that the party Gray Beards will overturn the will of party voters and give her the nomination despite that fact that she is unlikable and unable to draw people to her campaign:

Hillary Rodham Clinton will acknowledge Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign sources told the Associated Press.

After the report, her campaign promptly issued a statement saying, “Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening.”

Breaking News: Bubba concedes the nomination

by twit

wait, what? perhaps file it under “things we already knew“…

Former president Bill Clinton dropped a hint Monday that the end might be nigh for his wife Hillary’s dogged campaign for the Democratic White House nomination, according to reports.

“I want to say also that this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind,” the former president told Clinton supporters in South Dakota, ABC and NBC reported on their news websites.

“I thought I was out of politics, till Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president,” he added at the start of his stump speech.

in the twit’s optimistic opinion, all these past-tense references to the 2008 Clinton campaign call for a stiff drink to properly appreciate the magnitude of this moment…

Bubba Gone Wild

by twit

A magazine that managed to make Angelina Jolie look like a porn star has written a long and sexified analysis of Bill Clinton. Yesterday, reports started up about Bubba’s reaction to the piece:

The Office of President Bill Clinton responded with fury Sunday to a Vanity Fair article that attacks the former president and suggests he is out of control personally and consumed by “cavernous narcissism.”

and reporters started trudging through the boring mass of fluff to find the tidbits of what we already knew:

More devastating is Purdum’s claim that about 18 months ago, a former Clinton aide tried an intervention with the former president because he was hearing so many complaints about inappropriate behavior.

According to the article, the aide believed “Clinton was apparently seeing a lot of women on the road.”

Today, the Clintons angrily continue to deny that Bill Clinton is an angry kind of guy:

The Clinton camp responded today to Vanity Fair’s long article on Bill with its own 2,476-word memo, which includes attacks on the magazine’s “penchant for libel,” on editor Graydon Carter, and on writer Todd Purdum and his wife, former Clinton aide Dee Dee Myers.

I think Hillary may be hitting the sauce

by lestro

Hillary’s been out of this thing for a while now, but they continue forth as if it is neck and neck and she’s got a shot at this thing. However, the complete disconnect may be explained by this photo published recently by the New York Times.

Ah, sweet bourbon.

It also explains recent statements by Harold Ickes at the DNC’s rules committee meeting this past weekend. During his rant on why all the votes from an unfair election - an election that broke the rules he helped write - should count now that his candidate’s campaign has stalled, Ickes said he didn’t believe the committee had the “gall and chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters.”

Of course, for his candidate to win, he has to convince the superdelegates to do exactly that: use their judgement to subvert the will of party voters around the country and choose his candidate as the standard bearer for the establishment.

It would be great to be Ickes’ kids. Imagine, being able to break rules and change your story at will with no repercussions.

But Ickes also did a little foreshadowing on the next step in the Clinton’s campaign, saying - as supporters chanted “Denver! Denver!” like rowdy pledges at a frat party - the candidate reserved her right to take this to the credentials committee.

I am not sure what the credentials committee is or what they do, but this is their move: keep their flailing campaign alive by taking it from committee to committee, arguing every little point and continuing to kneecap the party candidate while raising the specter of assassination all for her own personal glory.

She must be drunk.

morning cartoons

by twit

starring “Young Hillary Clinton”

Clinton Blames Obama for the RFK comment controversy

by twit

and who wouldn’t? Just look at what his campaign said:

“Senator Clinton’s statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

and then there’s this!

A prominent ally of Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin also weighed in, telling the Associated Press: “I know Hillary Clinton, and the last thing in the world she’d ever want is to wish misfortune on anybody. She and Barack are friends.” He added: “It was … a careless remark, and we’ll leave it at that.”

and worst of all, from Senator Obama himself:

“I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make, and I think that is what happened here,” he said in an interview with Radio ISLA. “Senator Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it, and I will take her at her word on that.”

I mean, really. These outrageous statements are over-the-top and simply uncalled for.

Beware the Ides of June

by twit

well, if we want to give her the benefit of the doubt, we could say Hillary was just thinking about the month of June and how the nomination isn’t always wrapped up by then.

morning cartoons

by twit

a new and improved “Black Knight scene” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail…

with thanks to Wired.

the clinton campaign takes a great leap forward

by lestro

yet, somehow more Mao than I expect they’d have hoped:

Hillary strip mines the Democratic party

by lestro

In the opening of her victory speech last night, Hillary Clinton dropped this little nugget and it got me thinking:

There are some who have wanted to cut this race short. They say “give up, it’s too hard, the mountain is too high,” but here in West Virginia, you know a thing or two about rough roads to the top of the mountain. We know from the Bible that faith can move mountains and, my friends, the faith of the Mountain State has moved me. I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard.

In a place known as The Mountain State, her speech writer must have been particularly proud of that bit, but one can go even deeper into Hillary’s mountain metaphor.

The biggest industry in West Virginia is coal mining and the newest thing is called “mountain top removal” which involves blowing the tops off mountains and dumping the dirt into valleys, burying streams, communities, whatever and is, as one might expect, absolutely horrendous for the environment:

Mountaintop removal involves clear cutting native hardwood forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800-1000 feet of mountaintop, and then dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams.

While the environmental devastation caused by this practice is obvious, families and communities near these mining sites are forced to contend with continual blasting from mining operations that can take place up to 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours a day.

Families and communities near mining sites also suffer from airborne dust and debris, floods that have left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, and contamination of their drinking water supplies.

It’s an absolutely horrible process, one the Bush EPA has looked the other way on for years while the Bush Administration has actually been trying to expand the practice.

So here’s the deeper metaphor drawn from Hillary’s speech: Instead of doing the hard work of actually building herself up to climb to the top of the mountain, the Clinton Campaign has been doing everything it can to slice the top off that mountain and bring it down to their level by knee-capping her opponent.

Meanwhile, in doing so, she has completely poisoned the surrounding party environment and vastly hurt their chances of taking back the White House, all in the name of her own, sick profit.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want Hillary Clinton waiting around for me to die

by lestro

As Hillary Clinton rolls to another victory among stupid white people (sorry West Virginia, but I call them like I see them: You are 95 percent white, only 15 percent of you went to college and you are a full 5 percent below national average on high school graduates) in a state that leans so red it isn’t even considered a swing state, a new Gallup poll says that a majority of Democrats want Hillary as Obama’s Veep:

“A new Gallup poll shows 55 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents surveyed think Obama should offer the New York senator a spot on his ticket.”

but the next sentence explains how that could possibly be true:

“That number is significantly influenced by Clinton’s supporters — close the 75 percent of her backers want the No. 2 spot to be offered, while only 43 percent of Obama supporters feel the same.”

It means like their candidate, Hillary supporters can’t let go. They are clinging tenaciously to the idea that she could still get back in the White House, that it’s not over, that she didn’t lose, couldn’t lose.

A majority of Obama supporters, meanwhile, seem to want a clean break and want to turn the page.

Imagine that.

New York Football Giants and The Democrats

by the squid

I am a New York Giants fan. I am more Democrat than Republican, but I do want a Democrat to win the White House. However, I am definitely a Giants fans.

All the Giants fans I know were happy, thrilled in fact, to see the Giants get to this years Super Bowl. We all gathered together, wore our jerseys and settled in for a nice Rocky vs. The Russian battle. But as Giants fans, we have gotten pretty used to having a talented football team find novel ways to blow leads or execute plays poorly and finally lose games which should have been won.

We saw it with the Panthers a few years ago; and lets not forget Junkin, the long snapper who flubbed two long snaps in a row in a tie game with no time left; that game ended with a wayward field goal attempt. As a Giants fans, one does not celebrate until the score is in our favor and the clock reads “0:00.”

This year, the Patriots with their golden boy quarterback Tom Brady and an undefeated season looked to smack around the Giants and waltz into the history books. We Giants fans thought the same and only hoped the loss would be admirable and tolerable. We were prepared, as Giants fans always are, for a new and novel defeat. As the loss comes, we always lean back and say, “Well, that was interesting. How will we lose next week.”

I feel the same about the Democrats. Somehow, someway, they always find a way to lose and I feel by having both Hillary and Barack running they will do just that; Lose a White House bid to more of the same Republican propaganda. The media loves that both Hillary and Barack are running. It makes for GREAT television, and it makes for great conversation. Hillary and Barack are breaths of fresh air in a stagnant room, but the reality is that people - voters - are NOT rational.

The First Black President

by twit

is not Bill Clinton. Please make a note of it.

Do you regret referring to Bill Clinton as the first black President?

—Justin Dews, Cambridge, Mass. [to Toni Morrison]

People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him.

I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.

Hillary hitches her Veep wagon to McCain’s gas tax plan

by lestro

From the Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s decision to take on members of Congress over her proposal for a federal gas tax holiday this summer -– “are they with us or against us” –- is tempting fate a bit, as she risks antagonizing uncommitted superdelegates who are members of Congress and who oppose the tax holiday.

Where have I heard that before? oh, right:

“Over time it’s going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity,” he said. “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.”

yeah, because that’s the kind of change we need.

But beyond that, one has to wonder who the “us” is. She must mean her and McCain, right?

Since just about every newspaper and economist in the country has come out against this plan and Obama has already nixed her ‘Dream Ticket,’ I figure she’s finally officially bucking to be on the ticket with Johnny Mac.

But Hillary, isn’t that YOUR fault?

by lestro

I was reading David Brooks’ column today and I am not sure what his point was, as this stopped me in my tracks:

New dynamos like India and China threaten American dominance thanks to their cheap labor and manipulated currencies. Now, everything is made abroad. American manufacturing is in decline. The rest of the economy is threatened.

Hillary Clinton summarized the narrative this week: “They came for the steel companies and nobody said anything. They came for the auto companies and nobody said anything. They came for the office companies, people who did white-collar service jobs, and no one said anything. And they came for the professional jobs that could be outsourced, and nobody said anything.”

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t it the Clinton Administration - including the first lady - that promoted NAFTA, as well as granted Most Favored Nation status to China?

And hasn’t she been in the Senate for eight years and on the national stage for 16? Shouldn’t she have said something before now?

You know, something other than this:

“I think, on balance, NAFTA has been good for New York and America.”

(Jan. 5, 2004)

Obama announces Yoda endorsement

by twit

thank you Wonkette, this just made my day:

Clinton rolls out improved operating system: Jobs v.3.0

by lestro

Despite the flaws and security holes in Inevitability v1.x, Experience v2.0, Fighter v3.3, Commander-in-chief v1.2 (a rush release that was hastily recalled when it was discovered to open the user to the nearly fatal error-inducing internet worm Bosnia Bullshit), the combo pack Experienced Fighter v2.4 and the most recent iteration Gun-Toting Shot Drinker v4.0, the Clinton Campaign has high hopes for the upcoming release of its newest opertaing system: Jobs v3.0.

So every speech she gave in Indiana on Friday and Saturday had the same topic sentence. “My campaign is about jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs,” she said, always to thunderous applause…

Since the race started, Mrs. Clinton has cycled through several political personas: the battle-tested White House veteran, the fighter, the girl — her word — tougher than any boy.

Now she is the Dream Boss: the one who will give you a job, provide health insurance, but also understand just how hard you work and the mundane details of what you do.

The new system is a throwback to the first Clinton system, which wowed the world with a fresh look and took the nation by storm 16 years ago with an effective advertising campaign that highlighted youth and hinged on the brilliantly catchy yet simple jingle “It’s the economy, stupid.”

the penis-snatcher strikes again…

by twit

poor Bubba:

WASHINGTON - He’s just not the same Bubba.

Hillary Clinton’s husband is still brilliant, still passionate and still a magnificent campaigner. But people who have known him and observers who have watched Bill Clinton for decades say he’s lost at least half a step.

it is possible that Hillary “penis-snatcher” Clinton has something to do with it…

Hillary “penis-snatcher” Clinton

by twit

what?

Read this and tell me the same damn thing isn’t happening to the Democratic Party:

“I’m tempted to say it’s one huge joke,” Oleko said.

“But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it’s become tiny or that they’ve become impotent. To that I tell them, ‘How do you know if you haven’t gone home and tried it’,” he said.

Over at the DNC, Obama needs 100 superdelegates to step forward and the nomination battle is over.

since the primaries will have lifted Obama over 1,900 delegates (elected and super), he’ll only need about 100 more, out of about 300 uncommitted superdelegates.

Yet some otherworldy force convinces them that they are impotent.

Vote Hillary for Lying Narcissist Bitch 2008

by twit

I agree with lestro:

“I would never vote for her for President, but I think she’d be great for that role.”

Just because whoever is running the campaign can’t spell the word ‘narcissist’ quite right, it doesn’t mean that Hillary can’t win.

morning cartoons

by twit

and the crowd goes wild…

when it looks like obama flips clinton a bird…

and then Obama gets that dirt off his shoulders:

with a little help from Jay-Z

Hey, did I mention that I slept with Chelsea Clinton?

by lestro

Yup, we got together, did a bunch of blow and then fucked like wild animals for an entire weekend, before her girlfriend came home and threw me out. I haven’t really heard from her since the abortion, but I get a text message every now and again.

Hey, it could be true, right?

and that is all that matters to me and Chelsea: