The supposed “contest” between Clinton and Obama does sell lots of advertising on TV and print news media.
Jim
Published on Capitol Hill Blue (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont)
Why is the GOP ignoring Hillary?
As far as Republians are concerned, Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama is the nominee John McCain will face in November and Hillary Rodham Clinton is an also-ran, an afterthought worthy of neither consideration or resources to oppose.
The Republican attack machines continue to unleash broadsides on Barack Obama while ignoring Clinton. Clinton may think she still has a shot but the GOP has written her off.
Or, as some think, are they helping Clinton destroy Obama so they can face her in November?
Good question.
Reports Politico [1]:
Hillary Clinton’s decisive Pennsylvania primary win last week may have reinvigorated her campaign, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to the Republican party.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has purchased $500,000 in anti-Barack Obama ads for use in two upcoming special House elections. The Republican National Committee is flooding reporters with anti-Obama emails. Presumptive nominee John McCain and GOP surrogates have seized on new remarks by Obama’s controversial former pastor.
From top to bottom, from McCain down to the youthful campaign and party staffers who work nearly around the clock to get him elected, the working assumption seems to be that the Democratic contest is over and Obama has won.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/6730
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Voter ID Laws: A "Solution" in Search of a Problem
By Marty Lederman
I'm just beginning to read through the opinions in today's decision upholding the facial validity of Indiana's Voter ID law. Along with many others, I have argued that the law is unconstitutional because it imposes burdens on voting without advancing any governmental interest. Thus, to my mind the most noteworthy paragraph in Justice Stevens's lead opinion is the one in which he tries to adduce evidence of an actual problem that this law would address:
The only kind of voter fraud that SEA 483 addresses is in-person voter impersonation at polling places. The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history. Moreover, petitioners argue that provisions of the Indiana Criminal Code punishing such conduct as a felony provide adequate protection against the risk that such conduct will occur in the future. It remains true, however, that flagrant examples of such fraud in other parts of the country have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists, that occasional examples have surfaced in recent years, and that Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor—though perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud—demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.
The third piece of evidence (Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor) is not really on point, as Justice Stevens more or less acknowledges, because it was "perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud," and thus would be unaffected by the Indiana law. So what we are left with is (i) "flagrant examples of such fraud in other parts of the country [that] have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists"; and (ii) "occasional examples [of such fraud that] have surfaced in recent years."
For the first proposition, what does the opinion cite? Only this: An anecdote about in-person voter impersonation allegedly orchestrated by Boss Tweed in 1868. And for the second -- occasional "recent" examples? Justice Stevens tips his hat to the Brennan Center's showing that "much of" the evidence of such fraud "was actually absentee ballot fraud or voter registration fraud." Nevertheless, he states that "there remain scattered instances of in-person voter fraud." The evidence for this? That in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election, a partial investigation confirmed that one voter committed in-person voting fraud...
I am disappointed by how cursory that [plurality] opinion was in its review of the state's interest in light of the highly partisan atmosphere of election administration, and I fear that, despite the Stevens-Kennedy-Roberts' opinion's best intentions, this opinion will be read as a green light for the enactment of more partisan election laws in an attempt to skew outcomes in close elections. It is a real disappointment from that perspective.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive/2008/04/28/a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem.aspx
I'm just beginning to read through the opinions in today's decision upholding the facial validity of Indiana's Voter ID law. Along with many others, I have argued that the law is unconstitutional because it imposes burdens on voting without advancing any governmental interest. Thus, to my mind the most noteworthy paragraph in Justice Stevens's lead opinion is the one in which he tries to adduce evidence of an actual problem that this law would address:
The only kind of voter fraud that SEA 483 addresses is in-person voter impersonation at polling places. The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history. Moreover, petitioners argue that provisions of the Indiana Criminal Code punishing such conduct as a felony provide adequate protection against the risk that such conduct will occur in the future. It remains true, however, that flagrant examples of such fraud in other parts of the country have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists, that occasional examples have surfaced in recent years, and that Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor—though perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud—demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.
The third piece of evidence (Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor) is not really on point, as Justice Stevens more or less acknowledges, because it was "perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud," and thus would be unaffected by the Indiana law. So what we are left with is (i) "flagrant examples of such fraud in other parts of the country [that] have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists"; and (ii) "occasional examples [of such fraud that] have surfaced in recent years."
For the first proposition, what does the opinion cite? Only this: An anecdote about in-person voter impersonation allegedly orchestrated by Boss Tweed in 1868. And for the second -- occasional "recent" examples? Justice Stevens tips his hat to the Brennan Center's showing that "much of" the evidence of such fraud "was actually absentee ballot fraud or voter registration fraud." Nevertheless, he states that "there remain scattered instances of in-person voter fraud." The evidence for this? That in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election, a partial investigation confirmed that one voter committed in-person voting fraud...
I am disappointed by how cursory that [plurality] opinion was in its review of the state's interest in light of the highly partisan atmosphere of election administration, and I fear that, despite the Stevens-Kennedy-Roberts' opinion's best intentions, this opinion will be read as a green light for the enactment of more partisan election laws in an attempt to skew outcomes in close elections. It is a real disappointment from that perspective.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive/2008/04/28/a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem.aspx
Monday, April 28, 2008
Is America not yet ready to vote for a Jew?
Gov. Ed Rendell, Hillary Clinton's most powerful advocate in Pennsylvania, put it bluntly. "I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."
What if the Clinton's Democratic opponent was Jewish and Governor Rendell said "I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for a Jew candidate."
How would that go over with Jewish folks?
Does that make easier to understand why Black people are so angry? If the Clintons continue with their Black bashing we might have a problem that lasts well beyond this election.
I did not think of this myself. It came from the street in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
Jim Pitcherella
"As nightfall does not come at once," "neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness."
Justice William O. Douglas
What if the Clinton's Democratic opponent was Jewish and Governor Rendell said "I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for a Jew candidate."
How would that go over with Jewish folks?
Does that make easier to understand why Black people are so angry? If the Clintons continue with their Black bashing we might have a problem that lasts well beyond this election.
I did not think of this myself. It came from the street in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
Jim Pitcherella
"As nightfall does not come at once," "neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness."
Justice William O. Douglas
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Hillary Clinton's racist appeal
Published on Capitol Hill Blue (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont)
Hillary Clinton's racist appeal
One expects racism from Republicans. The party of the elephant could merge with the just about any white supremacy group and not miss a beat. Hell, most people wouldn't see any difference.
But overt racism from a Democrat is something else, although it should not surprise anyone that Hillary Rodham Clinton would use racism in her anything goes quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Exit polls from Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary show nearly one-fifth of those who went to the polls admit racism determined how they voted -- and that's just those who admitted it. Most racists will swear on a stack of Bibles that they don't hate blacks.
Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania because she pandered to the overt racism that exists among blue collar whites as well as the latent racism in too many others. She won because the bulk of her appeal comes from the less-educated, the less-tolerant and the less-intelligent among us. If you're a stupid, illiterate, gun-totin' white hick you probably voted for Hillary. And so did your ignorant, baby-popping, big-haired wife as well as that bleached-blond bar maid that you're seeing on the side.
Now, before you hoist your Stars and Bars, clean your AR-15 and hunt me down as another Northeastern liberal who looks down his nose at just plain folk, remember that I can talk about chicken-fried racism with some authority because I'm a product of that culture: a son of the South, raised in the Bible belt where Southern Baptists sowed wild oats on Saturday night and then went to church on Sunday and prayed for crop failure.
Where I come from, the guys with the John Deere hats talk about how they voted for Hillary in the Virginia Democratic primary because "it will be a cold day in hell before I vote for the nigger."
But racism in America is not limited to the guy with the 185 bowling average and who has confederate mud flaps on his pickup. It's not limited to
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/6614
Hillary Clinton's racist appeal
One expects racism from Republicans. The party of the elephant could merge with the just about any white supremacy group and not miss a beat. Hell, most people wouldn't see any difference.
But overt racism from a Democrat is something else, although it should not surprise anyone that Hillary Rodham Clinton would use racism in her anything goes quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Exit polls from Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary show nearly one-fifth of those who went to the polls admit racism determined how they voted -- and that's just those who admitted it. Most racists will swear on a stack of Bibles that they don't hate blacks.
Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania because she pandered to the overt racism that exists among blue collar whites as well as the latent racism in too many others. She won because the bulk of her appeal comes from the less-educated, the less-tolerant and the less-intelligent among us. If you're a stupid, illiterate, gun-totin' white hick you probably voted for Hillary. And so did your ignorant, baby-popping, big-haired wife as well as that bleached-blond bar maid that you're seeing on the side.
Now, before you hoist your Stars and Bars, clean your AR-15 and hunt me down as another Northeastern liberal who looks down his nose at just plain folk, remember that I can talk about chicken-fried racism with some authority because I'm a product of that culture: a son of the South, raised in the Bible belt where Southern Baptists sowed wild oats on Saturday night and then went to church on Sunday and prayed for crop failure.
Where I come from, the guys with the John Deere hats talk about how they voted for Hillary in the Virginia Democratic primary because "it will be a cold day in hell before I vote for the nigger."
But racism in America is not limited to the guy with the 185 bowling average and who has confederate mud flaps on his pickup. It's not limited to
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/6614
It is a very sad thing to watch two people who you love and respect and have given us so much ruin their reputation.
I have been in close contact with Black people all of my life.
The Clintons have already lost respect and nearly all support from those that I know in the Black community. That happened months before it came up in newspaper articles. The Black people that I know do not forget.
I think that if the Clintons stop now they may be able to regain the respect of Black people.
It is a very sad thing to watch two people who you love and respect and have given us so much ruin their reputation.
Jim Pitcherella
Coatesville
"Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929-1968, American Black Leader, Nobel Prize Winner, 1964
The Clintons have already lost respect and nearly all support from those that I know in the Black community. That happened months before it came up in newspaper articles. The Black people that I know do not forget.
I think that if the Clintons stop now they may be able to regain the respect of Black people.
It is a very sad thing to watch two people who you love and respect and have given us so much ruin their reputation.
Jim Pitcherella
Coatesville
"Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929-1968, American Black Leader, Nobel Prize Winner, 1964
Factions battle for Republican committee seats
Among the approximately 5000 Republicans that switched their registrations to Democratic in “bucolic” Chester County some had other reasons in addition to national politics.
Some Republicans that are familiar with the structure of the local Republican Committees here may have switched partly because of local politics.
The article below refers to “groups” in Chester County Republican Committee Area 9.
I guess that you could say that there might also be “groups” in the region that CCRC Area 14 covers. In my opinion one way to tell members of one “group” from another in Area 14 might be to look to see if the committeepersons have “rap” sheets.
Some Republicans here that know the inner machinery of the CCRC and left for the Democratic Party tell me that they will never look back.
Jim Pitcherella
Coatesville
DAILY LOCAL NEWS
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Factions battle for Republican committee seats
‘PARTY UNITY’ GROUP LOSES THREE OUT OF SIX SEATS, ‘SOCIALLY MODERATES’ WIN NINE IN WILLISTOWN, MALVERN
By DAN KRISTIE, Staff Writer
MALVERN — Two slates of candidates battled during Tuesday’s primary for control of the division of Chester County’s Republican Committee that contains Willistown and Malvern.
One slate, some of whose members said their goal was to keep religious conservatives from co-opting the Republican Party, won the majority of the contested committee seats. The other slate, whose members said their goal was to unite Republicans of differing ideologies, lost a few seats to members of the first slate.
Twelve of the 20 committee seats in the local Republican Party’s Area 9, which contains Willistown and Malvern, were contested, and members of the first, “socially moderate” slate won nine of them. The “party unity” slate, which controlled six committee seats prior to the primary, held onto only three seats.
Labeling these two slates is difficult because some of their candidates are reluctant to identify themselves as members of a particular group.
But, over the last several weeks, the battle between these two groups has intensified, and candidates have begun to be more forthcoming about their alliances.
Part of the reason the battle came out into the open was a newspaper column written by Henry Briggs, who retired from Malvern’s Borough Council in January and who just stepped down as Malvern’s Republican committeeman.
Briggs, who calls himself a “pro-choice moderate,” wrote that religious conservatives who want to co-opt the local Republican Party were running for committee seats. He argued that these committee candidates were reluctant to tell voters about their agenda — an agenda, he said, that included opposition to legalized abortion.
In this column, Briggs refers to these candidates as “Weeds in the American lawn.”
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.dailylocal.com/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/Daily;jsessionid=vzhnLJ3GpJKkdQKVQBrGD3CJP7fcsQG2FhgyjsjTrdRQzvy3ZHGK!-806706688?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_article&r21.pgpath=%2FDLN%2FHome&r21.content=%2FDLN%2FHome%2FTopStoryList_Story_1960245
"As nightfall does not come at once," "neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness."
Justice William O. Douglas
Some Republicans that are familiar with the structure of the local Republican Committees here may have switched partly because of local politics.
The article below refers to “groups” in Chester County Republican Committee Area 9.
I guess that you could say that there might also be “groups” in the region that CCRC Area 14 covers. In my opinion one way to tell members of one “group” from another in Area 14 might be to look to see if the committeepersons have “rap” sheets.
Some Republicans here that know the inner machinery of the CCRC and left for the Democratic Party tell me that they will never look back.
Jim Pitcherella
Coatesville
DAILY LOCAL NEWS
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Factions battle for Republican committee seats
‘PARTY UNITY’ GROUP LOSES THREE OUT OF SIX SEATS, ‘SOCIALLY MODERATES’ WIN NINE IN WILLISTOWN, MALVERN
By DAN KRISTIE, Staff Writer
MALVERN — Two slates of candidates battled during Tuesday’s primary for control of the division of Chester County’s Republican Committee that contains Willistown and Malvern.
One slate, some of whose members said their goal was to keep religious conservatives from co-opting the Republican Party, won the majority of the contested committee seats. The other slate, whose members said their goal was to unite Republicans of differing ideologies, lost a few seats to members of the first slate.
Twelve of the 20 committee seats in the local Republican Party’s Area 9, which contains Willistown and Malvern, were contested, and members of the first, “socially moderate” slate won nine of them. The “party unity” slate, which controlled six committee seats prior to the primary, held onto only three seats.
Labeling these two slates is difficult because some of their candidates are reluctant to identify themselves as members of a particular group.
But, over the last several weeks, the battle between these two groups has intensified, and candidates have begun to be more forthcoming about their alliances.
Part of the reason the battle came out into the open was a newspaper column written by Henry Briggs, who retired from Malvern’s Borough Council in January and who just stepped down as Malvern’s Republican committeeman.
Briggs, who calls himself a “pro-choice moderate,” wrote that religious conservatives who want to co-opt the local Republican Party were running for committee seats. He argued that these committee candidates were reluctant to tell voters about their agenda — an agenda, he said, that included opposition to legalized abortion.
In this column, Briggs refers to these candidates as “Weeds in the American lawn.”
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.dailylocal.com/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/Daily;jsessionid=vzhnLJ3GpJKkdQKVQBrGD3CJP7fcsQG2FhgyjsjTrdRQzvy3ZHGK!-806706688?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_article&r21.pgpath=%2FDLN%2FHome&r21.content=%2FDLN%2FHome%2FTopStoryList_Story_1960245
"As nightfall does not come at once," "neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness."
Justice William O. Douglas
Saturday, April 26, 2008
She needs to pursue her own life and not her husbands; even if that means divorcing Bill.
In my opinion Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race. She needs to pursue her own life and not her husbands; even if that means divorcing Bill.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)