All of the presidential candidates took a moment out of the campaign to acknowledge the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Barack Obama was in Indiana. Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton were in Memphis.
Again, we see that John McCain isn’t the maverick that he has been trying to sell us. He has been a Republican foot soldier for decades. He originally voted against giving Martin Luther King a holiday. Come on! This was the easiest vote in history.
I have to admit, Hillary Clinton and her minions continue to come up with new ways to confuse the public. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away (December of 2007), Democrats were told that in order to win the Democratic nomination you needed to amass over 2000 delegates. Now, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Pennsylvania Representative Jack Murtha, both Hillary supporters, who have talked about winning the popular vote. We’ve all heard it before, if Hillary wins the popular vote, then super delegates like sheep should migrate to her.
How are you going to add up the popular vote? In places like Iowa and Nevada which had caucuses, how do you figure out the popular vote? Remember, if your candidate did not get 15% of the vote that you had to choose another candidate. So, how is this going to work? since the standard has been delegates for the last 40 years or more, why are we trying to figure out the popular vote?
Just to continue this absurd note, how would you include or exclude Florida and Michigan? It seems that the only fair thing to do would be to exclude both of them. At the end of the day, what you accomplished?
If we Democrats want the candidate with the most popular vote than caucuses must go. Also, we need to change the rules at the convention not as the contest is going on.
I’ll have more on my personal feelings later on this afternoon but Randi Rhodes was suspended from Air America. She wasn’t suspended for what she said on the air but it was an off-the-air comment she made.
Update: Most of these talk radio hosts are also entertainers. They go to local radio stations and help to bring out the folks. Randi Rhodes was doing just that when she was describing Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton. This was more of a stand up atmosphere. She wasn’t on the air. Everybody knows that Randi Rhodes says what is on her mind. She doesn’t pull punches. I’m not sure that she should have been suspended for her statements. If she was representing Air America she needs to apologize, otherwise can’t she say what she wants? For those of you who would like to point to Imus and ask what’s the difference? Imus was on the air. He was representing the station and the network. Randi Rhodes was not on the air. I’m not sure that she was representing Air America.
Anyway, I think that Randi should be reinstated.
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Here’s what’s has been written -
From NYT:
Randi Rhodes, an afternoon host for the progressive Air America radio network, was suspended Thursday after repeatedly insulting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at an event last month.
Ms. Rhodes used vulgar language that likened Mrs. Clinton to a prostitute at an event sponsored by KKGN, the Air America affiliate in the San Francisco area, on March 22. A video of Ms. Rhodes’ remarks was published to the video-sharing Web site YouTube on Tuesday, prompting condemnations by some bloggers.
In a statement, Charlie Kireker, the chair of Air America, said the radio network “encourages strong opinions about public affairs but does not condone such abusive, ad hominem language by our hosts.”
The network called Ms. Rhodes’ suspension “indefinite” and did not elaborate on the fate of her daily three-hour radio show. “The Randi Rhodes Show” is normally broadcast from 3 to 6 p.m. weekdays. Sam Seder, another Air America host, was scheduled to fill in for Ms. Rhodes on Thursday.
On the video, Ms. Rhodes is also shown using derogatory language to describe Geraldine A. Ferraro, a former congresswoman and a supporter of Mrs. Clinton. Ms. Ferraro resigned from a committee of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign last month after making controversial remarks about Senator Barack Obama.
Earlier this year, David Shuster, a reporter for MSNBC, was been suspended because of comments he made about Chelsea Clinton. Mr. Shuster said Ms. Clinton had been “pimped out” to make calls to superdelegates on behalf of her mother.
(other stuff) [Read more →]
I meant to post this a week ago but … 
Here it is. It is always good to hear the former President (Bill Clinton) talk about this nation. He understood the problems and could/can articulate them. He was well received here in Asheville.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote about conspiracy theories many people believe.
For example, 30% of black people believe it’s possible AIDS was deliberately manufactured to kill black folks.
This is held out as a crazy thing to think.
I don’t believe it myself.
But if you asked me if many white people and white politicians don’t care if poor urban black people live or die, I would say that’s correct.
And plenty of black politicians don’t care either.
In my own experience as a city council aide in Cincinnati, Ohio, I read the files of black cancer patients who had intentionally been given extra doses of radiation to see how they would react.
Get this—They suffered.
Poor black people in cities, blacks and whites in rural areas, our colonized undocumented labor force, and poor people of all kinds, get inferior hospitals and inferior care.
When you ask black folks if AIDS was the work of government, maybe what you’re really asking if the government would do things that would kill people who look like you do.
“Yes” seems to be a logical reply.
Mr. Kristoff says it is crazy that 36% of Americans believe that government orchestrated 9/11 or knew about it advance.
Well—I’ve always thought that was a mistaken belief.
George W. Bush was intent on going to war in Iraq before 9/11. He did not need any provocation.
What people know is that we lied about why we went to war, we did not give our troops the right equipment to save their lives, we sometimes kill innocent civilians, and that the troops sometimes get terrible care upon arriving back home.
Did the government or President Bush know about 9/11 in advance? No. Is the government as led by President Bush capable of terrible acts that cause people to die? Sure–All the damned time.
Mr. Kristoff mentions two other conspiracy theories in his column.
One is that the levees in New Orleans were opened on purpose in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
This is not so.
Yet it had been known for years that the levees might not hold during a bad hurricane and that much of New Orleans was vulnerable. Then, after it was clear the disaster response was poor, President Bush said his FEMA director was doing a “heckuva job.”
So why not figure that levees were opened by design? Is that much worse than the truth of the matter?
Another view held by many is that crack cocaine was deliberately introduced into poor neighborhoods.
These communities were already so flooded with alcohol, cigarettes, overpriced grocery stores offering little or no produce, bad schools and a host of other urban afflictions, why would you have introduce something new to harm people?
The history books tell us that we won our land in good part by exterminating the native population, and that we built up the land with the frequent and longtime use of slave labor.
Our own experiences in life show us that our cities are left to rot year after year. And the poor are getting more poor even as the rich get richer.
So when you ask if the people in charge of our country are capable of barbaric or even genocidal acts, why would many give any other reply than “yes.”
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, fulltime sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
