COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Hillary Wins Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island


It is a whole new race. This is going to the end and there is no chance that the Clintons, who almost lost it, are going to do anything but now go for the kill. Obama is going to have to change his strategy big time. If you love politics you are going to love this. 

Hello Pennsylvania.

44 comments:

  1. Chris Matthews does not seem to have a tingle up his leg tonight.

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  2. People Finally Said Nope
    to the Hope a Dope.

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  3. The messianic soul train jumped the tracks. I think Obama has a tough time now, Billary has won mostly all the big states, regardless of the delegate count.That vote in Ohio was a clobbering.

    What are they going to do, revote in Florida and Michigan?

    Ah, to be young and a superdelegate, were to be in perfect heaven.

    By the way, that's piss on Chris Matthews leg.

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  4. She's digging the old knife in--

    "No one has won the Presidency--in recent history--who hasn't won the Ohio primary." Cheers, applause, cries of 'Go Hillary'.

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  5. It's a long way to the finish line, in Denver, fellas.

    Billary got drummed in South Carolina as bad as Obama got it in Ohio.

    Do not count the Messiah out, not after one bad showing, amongst twenty three. Even after PA, there will not be a definitive winner.
    The Obama factor could shatter the Democrats hold on the Black bloc, or at least keep turnout in November down, amongst that previously solid Dem constituency. Especially if he is disrespected in Denver, having more elected delegates, but losing the nod.

    Delegates do count.

    Even the raw vote, Obama whipped on McCain, in Texas. The Republicans to bored to care, while the Dems have record turnouts, everywhere.

    The real turnout numbers are exemplified in fund raising, where both Billary and Obama put the GOP and McCain to shame. Embarassing, really, for the vaunted GOP machine.

    As to whit and his border thread.
    Hate to say "I told you so", but...

    Clear a fifty yard strip, with two rows of triple concertina fence, ten yards apart, down the center line.

    Then use Army or Border Guards to patrol the line. Kind of "old school", but it works. Has for generations, would continue to.

    Great training opportunity for the military, going out on real world patrols, along the border.

    Or, like the Germans, develop a real Border Patrol. One that really patrols the border.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. But, proven by results, the Federals do not want to control, let alone demarcate the frontier.

    That is not a part of the Americas program. The borders between American States are not patroled, Mexico soon to be incorporated into the greater whole.

    A rose by any other name ...
    As exemplified by McCain's birth rights in Panama, Mexico just another "natural" part of America.

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  8. Rat,

    In re Westhawk: Mmmmmmmmno.

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  9. It's the Sudetenland in 1938, except Uribe has a pair of brass ones.

    I'd love to see that little commie bastard made a fool of.

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  10. Huckabee's out. Pleasegodpleasegodplease, don't let McCain choose him as a running mate.

    (The Sudetenland? And here I thought the Dept of Bad Analogies wasn't open for business until 9 AM.)

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  11. Sudetenland: allergy medicine

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  12. The Messiah is Human...

    Wow...

    We said that 2000 years ago and no one listened...

    but now?

    Another false messiah has been shown to be imperfect...

    swords into plowshares...

    peace from shore to shore...

    hasnt happened yet?

    no messiah...

    period...

    When you TRAIN millions of people to think that man is a god you get men who think they are a god...

    When you TRAIN million of people to think that the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and jacob CAN be a MAN, Man can and DO claim to BE G-d in the flesh.

    Cult of personality is powerful...

    People are stupid...

    People are sheep.....

    but maybe this false, empty suit has been popped.

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  13. Not entirely outside the realm of possibility. A commenter at Unqualified Offerings:

    "I’m in PA, and this morning the Clinton campaign brought two Sausage McMuffins to my door. Then the Obama shuttle bus (reclining seats, big plasma screen) pulled up to take me to work."

    I expect an Obama campaign worker to be out shoveling my parents' drive today, while Clinton staffers drop leaflets linking her opponent to the 2001 anthrax attacks.

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  14. Meanwhile...

    McCain is looking more ancient by the day. I mean seeeeeriously old. And a new 501 group (The Campaign to Defend America - from John McCain, I guess) running an ad in Ohio calls him McSame.

    Newt is right. McCain is going to have to push an agenda of change regardless of the nominee. Otherwise it appears (as some pundit put it) that he's simply gunning for the Presidency as a kind of lifetime achievement award.

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  15. bobal, you asked me a few days ago what I thought about the Palestinian/Israel issue. This post by Ioz highlights the Cul de Sac we've driven in:


    "La Condi, the belle de jour of the Bush administration, is, Chelsea forgive me my trespass, walking the Arab Street. The current topic is the "peace process." The term is a lie. The emphasis lies solely with the outcome, although the outcome--a "peace agreement"--is ill-defined. You can be sure that any party to negotiations whose opening gambit involves the assignation of blame rather than a statement of position does not intend to bargain in good faith. The transparent attempts by one party to shave off the more recalcitrant factions in another are also indicators of bad-faith. "We don't negotiate with bullies" is the first rhetorical refuge of a bully. Bullies tend to lose ground in negotiations, even despite some paper victories.

    La Condi is in a tight spot. Cannon to the right of her, cannon to the left of her:



    ""But highlighting the predicament in which the Bush administration has now found itself in as it tries to broker a Middle East peace deal, Ms. Rice has steadfastly refused to use the phrase “cease-fire,” even though several of America’s Arab allies, and even some Israelis, have said that what is needed is a negotiated end to hostilities between Hamas and Israel.

    “I’m saying that we want the violence to stop,” Ms. Rice told reporters on her flight Monday as she headed to Egypt. “Call it what you will.”

    Ms. Rice wants to avoid the word “cease-fire” because administration officials believe that a negotiated cease-fire between Israel and Hamas—which the United States and Israel view as a terrorist organization—would legitimize Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinian people.

    The fear, administration officials said, is that a negotiated cease-fire would likely undermine Mr. Abbas and make it look like Hamas is the entity with which Israel and the West should be negotiating, and not Mr. Abbas.""



    Fancy footwork, America! First you have the Swiftian madness of refusing to negotiate a cease-fire with the belligerent party. If your next-door neighbor's tree falls on your garage, you don't sue the guy across the street. Whether justified or not, provoked or not is irrelevant--Hamas is the faction firing rockets into Israel; Israel takes care to say it is responding to Hamas and has no designs on the rest of the poor bastards in Gaza. The PA hasn't got a dog in the fight, but it does want to regain the political supremacy that popular elections denied it, and since it cannot achieve that by electoral means or force of arms (i.e. through "Palestinian security forces"), it has manipulated the United States and Isreal--fortunately, the easiest nations to manipulate in the world--into waging a proxy war on Hamas.

    This has of course backfired tremendously and messily. If the US and Israel wanted to delegitimze Hamas, they'd start negotiating with them immediately. Continued confrontation is what cements the group's political legitimacy. When you strip away the revolutionary cant, the central tenet of the Hamas faction is that Israel is not now, nor will ever willingly become, a good-faith bargainer; that it seeks the subjugation of the Palestinian people; and that therefore the only right course of action is violent resistence. Israel and its American ally play their role perfectly: they reject Hamas utterly; they reject its popular legtimacy; and they respond to violence and provocation with extraordinarily disproportionate measures, which serve only to shore up Hamas' position among a battered civilian population.

    Israel and especially the US, contrariwise, appear genuinely to believe that their own approbation confers legitimacy, a notion so plainly contradicted by fact that it can only be a sincere article of faith. No cynical ploy would rest on so glaringly false a foundation. A good con is always 95% truth. La Condi et al. are actually invested in their game-plan--so invested that they haven't even noticed that they arrived at the wrong ballpark."

    http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/

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  16. Why is that no one calls for a negotiated settlement with Palestinian terrorists until Israel starts kicking their butts?

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  17. I've followed the middle east closely for many years going back to the days of my youth when my worldview was considerably kinder, gentler and more idealistic. Presidents and Prime Ministers have come and gone. Countless bombings and 2 intifadas have transpired. Arafat became the most frequest guest at the White House. Sadat and Rabin paid with their lives.

    Though my outlook has gotten progressively more conservative and my hair progressively whiter, one thing has remained constant throughout all those years; the lying, double-dealing, self-defeating Palestinians.

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  18. ...who, despite constantly getting their 'butts kicked', are still at it.

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  19. I support Hamas...

    I support their right as part of their platform to call for the destruction of Israel.

    that being said, I also support the right to completely and totally destroy all those that call for Israel, a member of the UN and a Nation of the world to be destroyed.

    Hamas and the palios have the right to call for war...

    and Israel has the right to RESPOND to the ASSAULT of their position to destroy them.

    It is NOT up to us to pick their leaders, nor their ideals, however we do not have to give the palios 550 million in US taxpayer money THIS YEAR.

    With statehood comes obligation, duty and a measurable record.

    If the lands of Hamas have shot over 1000 rockets in the past 3 months into israel, then this is an act of war.

    until the palestinians UTTER the words I SURRENDER they should, by all international standards, defeated.

    War is hell...

    But war is not a one way street...

    It CANNOT be the right and legal duty of all palestinians to shoot, bomb, stab and murder jews & israelis they disagree with.

    The penalty for attempted lethal attacks should be disproportionate and resolute.

    ONLY thru superior firepower and the willingness to USE it can stem the tide of those openly seeking your genocide.

    Israel should coat their munitions in pig fat, announce it to the world IN ADVANCE that from now on, all attacks will be responded to munitions imbedded with pig essence, all terrorists killed while trying to harm any israeli will be burying in a pig skin...

    You fight the enemy by KNOWING what they believe not what you believe.

    and if you kill a terrorist that is immune to such parlor tricks.... he/she/it is still dead....

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  20. Newt's ideas sound similar to those proposed by Giuliani:

    http://newt.org/tabid/102/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/3216/Default.aspx

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  21. There's talk of a shared ticket in the wind, shared tween Hillary and Obama; the nightmare scenario may come true. McCain won't be able to beat that.

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  22. Fudd can't beat Daffy and Bugs.

    Clinton Hints At Sharing Ticket With Obama

    NEW YORK (CBS) ― Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hinted at the possibility of a Democratic "dream ticket" with Sen. Barack Obama.

    Speaking on "The Early Show" on CBS, Clinton said "that may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of the ticket."

    Clinton said the race between her and Obama remains "incredibly close," with just "smidgens of difference" between them in both the popular vote and number of delegates.

    Clinton's remarks came after her campaign won two big states yesterday: Ohio and Texas. She also won Rhode Island. The wins enabled her campaign to break Obama's 12-state winning streak and pick up some momentum of its own.

    Speaking later on "The Early Show," Obama congratulated Clinton on her victories while maintaining he would be able to wrap up the Democratic nomination.

    "We still have close to an insurmountable lead in delegates," Obama said. Obama said his campaign had won nearly twice as many states as Clinton as well as a greater share of the popular vote.

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  23. Trish is right. Somebody's got to give McCain a blood transfusion.

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  24. Actually, the Obama camp released figures months ago that predicted which states they would win. They didn't expect to win Ohio or Texas, and don't expect to win Pennsylvania. However, if this thing goes through June they predict to come out ahead in delegates. Hillary will probably then say justify her getting the nomination by saying she won the big states. It could get messy.

    http://msinformedblog.com/?p=323

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  25. We nominated a Corpse living a mental life in the 70's, how can we lose?

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  26. If we lose, maybe we can sue for age discrimination?

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  27. (getting my inspiration from Ash's grounded in reality article)

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  28. Further on from lg, Add Florida and Michigan to the mess.

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  29. Yeah, I was going to say that Sam:
    They both were on the ballot in Florida, and both, more or less, advertised themselves there, even tho not in person.

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  30. I really feel for you Al-Bob,
    being Parochial Clodhopper in
    Ideehoe:

    I just concluded a computer-assisted international transaction w/Mr sridevi Addepalli.

    Harumph.

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  31. Bob,

    With Hillary as VP (which I gather she would be due to delegate count), I would expect an epidemic of falling anvils, grand pianos, and safes wherever Obama goes.

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  32. Whatever is necessary will fall BEFORE Barry might be nominated.

    Hitchens says Hill will be president:
    A Soul-Free Pursuit of Power Bot.

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  33. FLASH!

    El Salvadoran Police WILL be arriving to Co-ordinate with LA Police.

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  34. ...the first gift from the Transnational Gang Seminar, concluding today.

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  35. The shooting occurred as the suspect ran from an AutoZone store in the 5100 block of Vineland Avenue, holding a large amount of money and a butcher knife, about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, said Los Angeles police Officer April Harding.

    The suspect was captured on video wearing a green skeleton Halloween costume as he robbed a convenience store on Friday.

    The marshal and a colleague happened upon the crime while they were protecting the police chief of the nation of Belize, who was in town to attend an International Chiefs of Police Summit on Transnational Gangs, Harding said.


    N. Hollywood

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  36. I'm not that bad yet, Sam. Chop off that gut, the jowels, the mystic grin, it would be a distant resemblance. My daughter stuck in here, damn her.

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  37. Sounds like they'd be having seances in the White House, Trish. Maybe some levitations, even. I hear Billary has the reputation of being a witch. In addition to be two sexed.

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  38. I'm proud of my wedding pictures.

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