Richardson Endorses Obama, Then Disses Clintons For Their Spin

Yesterday's big political news was Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama (the picture is from YearlyKos and taken on this amazing MacBook). The Governor of New Mexico sees a true leader in the Senator from Illinois. Though that isn't the only thing he saw, the other was the petulant whining and ridiculous spin from the Clinton campaign. The spin was that his endorsement doesn't matter now, even though they were desperately courting to back their side. Well Richardson wasn't having any of it.

From CNN:

"I resent the fact that the Clinton people are now saying that my endorsement is too late because I only can help with Texans — with Texas and Hispanics, implying that that's my only value," the New Mexico governor told CNN's John King.

"That's typical of some of his advisers that kind of turned me off."Earlier Friday, Clinton campaign senior strategist Mark Penn said he thought Richardson's endorsement came too late to make an impact.

“The time that he could have been effective has long since passed," Penn told reporters on a conference call. "I don’t think it is a significant endorsement in this environment.”

In the interview Friday, Richardson also said he called Hillary Clinton Thursday to inform her of his decision to back Obama, a conversation he described as "painful."

I would also describe her entire campaign as "painful." As you can clearly see from above, Governor Richardson is a died in the wool Democrat and wants to see the best for his party. It may have taken him until late March to stand fully beside Obama. It is a shame that Hillary Clinton and her pack of wolves advisers have to try to tear him down and call him names.

How Wal-Mart Thinks About Gender Discrimination

Press releases that talk about how Wal-Mart treats women equally is great for the PR people that draft them, but actions always speak louder than words:

McCain Ignores Webb's Bill To Support The Troops

Senator Jim Webb is a hard man to criticize when it comes to our nation's military. The Republicans love(d) to own the issue of who supports our soldiers more, but they are beginning to lose on the issue, even after years of getting away with doing nothing for our brave soldiers. Jim Webb (D-VA) has a bill in the Senate that will support our troops in terms of educational assistance (aptly named the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act). Now he is calling out Presidential contender John McCain to support him on it.

From The Hill:

“McCain needs to get on the bill,” Webb told reporters after a Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting on Wednesday. He said legislation mirroring the post-World War II GI bill should not be considered a “political issue.”

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Il.), the Democratic presidential candidates, both have signed on to the bill.

In a major coup for Webb, Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, signed on as a co-sponsor earlier this month. Warner is a close ally of McCain, who is the ranking member on Armed Services. Warner has often been the committee’s top Republican with McCain
busy on the campaign trail.

Webb’s bill has 51 co-sponsors, including nine Republicans. Webb, a former secretary of the Navy, said he may have to get 60 co-sponsors to ensure Senate passage, but then added that many more Republicans could vote for the bill if McCain endorsed it.

Not surprisingly, The Hill notes George Bush is advocating against it, saying that it will encourage Americans to leave the service while the military is having trouble enlisting people. It is a ridiculous argument, but then again, it is a ridiculous Presidency. With McCain's willful ignorance of the bill, it isn't hard to see what kind of President he'll be, despite his military record. With McCain, it is party before principles.

Oh and before anyone asks what is McCain's response to this....remember that Webb introduced this bill in January of 2007. If a Senator is silent on this for over a year and another Senator has to call you out publicly, that is a powerful response by itself.

Bloomberg Praises Paterson For Supporting Congestion Pricing

Not so shockingly, Bloomberg is loving our new Governor for supporting his quest to enact congestion pricing for New York City. After hemming, hawing and making note of Bloomberg's obsession, the terms are changed slightly, for instance starting the zone south of 60th St. instead of 86th St. but for the most part, this is what Bloomberg wants and Paterson's support moves the issue along.

It is crucial that the state and city come together and have a plan before the end of the month so that they secure the hundreds of millions in federal funding that will pay for the implementation of the program. How much will go to capital spending for the MTA's large projects is anyone's guess, but supposedly our decrepit system will be improved to some degree. I'm down in D.C. for the weekend and I always get a little jealous that their system (albeit newer) is cleaner than ours. I would love to have a subway that looked like this, except for the fact that it shuts down overnight and doesn't cover the entire city.

Anyways, now the city council has to handle the issue, and they'll be having a hearing on it in two days time. Anyone can go and show up, but if you have a question it could take hours of waiting to get your chance at the microphone. So if you as passionate about the issue like Mayor Bloomie, then have at it. No matter what anyone has to say from the public forum, it looks like this thing will be a go, but the effect of it is still unknown.

Halliburton Is Killing Our Soldiers

How the f**k is this allowed to happen???



Halliburton officials should be in jail and tried for negligent homicide for crap like this. Our soldiers are in enough danger over there, they should not have to fear the greedy private contractors like Dick Cheney's company.

To Have Money In The Bank, Or Not

It may be almost April, but campaign watchers are still going over fundraising particulars from February in the Democratic primary contests. It has been known for a while that Obama out-raised Clinton in a $55-34 million fashion, but what about the cash they were able to hold on to?

From Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton lived hand to mouth during the rush of presidential primaries while Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama outspent her and put money in the bank.

New Federal Election Commission reports show Obama raised at a clip of nearly $2 million a day in February, an open spigot of money that left him with $30 million in the bank for March.

Clinton had her best fundraising month as well, at $34.5 million. But counting her debts to vendors she ended with a net $3 million. And that's not factoring the $5 million she lent her campaign and has not paid back.

Ouch, "hand to mouth" sounds harsh but in reality it is exactly the situation that Senator Clinton is in. People donate money to campaigns that have a good shot of winning. Donors want their candidate to go the distance and if they do not see it happening, then the likelihood that their money goes from individual wallets to campaign coffers is much, much less. Despite wins in Rhode Island and Ohio on the big March primary day, her chances of logistically catching up with Senator Obama became virtually nil. When going up against McCain in the fall, Democrats do not want to equate "nil" with their contender. That is just common sense and part of the reason why she has a tenth of the money on hand that he has.

I Though Hillary Put Bill Away For Good...Guess Not

Senator Clinton's campaign ship began to righten itself a little once husband and ex-President Bill was taken off the national stage after he made a number of inappropriate comments. Within a short amount of time, the philanthropic elder statesman was reduced to a campaign hack that would say anything to help his wife, even if it hurt. The Clinton camp got the message and hid him for the last month or so, but today he let another one rip.

From Atrios:

It'd be a great thing if we had an election where you had two people who love this country, who were devoted to the interest of the country and people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues instead of all this other stuff which always seems to intrude on our politics.

Um, no Bill. It IS a great thing that we have THREE people who love this country and are running in the election. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see past those carefully sculpted words of yours. The only ones biting that hook are your core supporters that will hang on as long as Hillary does. Shame on Bill for trying to infer that Barack Obama does not love his country. That is just pathetic.

Cheers To Chris Wallace!

Yes, thats right Chris Wallace wallops the tools on Fox and Friends this morning for their ridiculous Obama-bashing. Fox and Friends unfairly took Obama's speech and clipped it to suit their malicious talking points, but Chris wasn't having any of it.



Again, bravo!

Spitzer Goes Down Therapy Alley

Or at least so says the raggedy New York Post. I actually don't doubt this, since it in this day and age, many seek therapy to solve what ails them. Since hiring $4,300/hr women to have sex with while having a wife and three daughters at home is way out of the norm in our society, I'd say it would be a good thing for him and especially his family if they are to try and keep that marriage together.

From The NY Post:

Experts say this type of behavior exhibits classic signs of sexual addiction.

"If it becomes an overwhelming urge to the detriment of your professional and familial relationships - if it starts to screw up your life - that is addictive behavior," said Dr. Jeffrey Gardere, a clinical psychologist.

"Someone who displays this sort of behavior could be classified as having a sexual addiction."

Yeah, that sounds about right. I'd agree with the psychologist about that. I can only hope he works through his difficulties as our new Governor works on the state's budget fiasco.

Breaching Obama's Passport Info? Are You Kidding Me?

Seriously how childish is this latest episode on the campaign trail. Just as Obama began having a conversation with America on race, the economy and the war, this crap has to be dropped on us....on a Thursday night of all times. Supposedly these guys who looked at his information were low-level contractors, but it is still testament to the lack of security and right to privacy that the Bush Administration does not care about. Even worse, this comes out about the front runner that is out to take control of the Presidency back from the Republicans.

From NBC:

Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama "without a need to do so," State Department officials confirmed to NBC News.

The three people who had access to Obama's passport records were contract employees of the department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, NBC News has learned. The unauthorized activity concerning Obama's passport information occurred in January.

"A monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a high-profile individual," a department official told NBC News. "When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified."

Well thats nice that you have a system set up to catch this type of stuff. Too bad for the DoS's explanation, since it was actually a reporter that called them out on it. The other part of the explanation from Condi Rice and pals is that the whole thing was just imprudent curiosity and nothing more. Well that is possible, I will say that, but knowing the Bush Administration and their record of political maneuvers using private information held by the government...I agree with Barack Obama's campaign and demand a full independent investigation.

Why John McCain Really Went To Iraq This Week

Don't worry, it wasn't really to try and boost foreign policy credentials he doesn't have in the first place. David Letterman explains it:

Despite Rove's Advice, McCain's Campaign Goes Dirty On Obama

Less than a month ago, the alleged brain of Bush warned his fellow Republicans to not play dirty with Obama in regards to his race and ethnicity. He used the example of Senator Obama's middle name, but perhaps he wasn't being clear enough with the McCain campaign. Even though McCain himself said that the Rev. Wright comments should not be held against his opponent, his aide Soren Dayton certainly didn't get the message clearly, since he was caught circulating a racially-charged video of the Senator from Illinois.

From Talking Points Memo:

The move by McCain's aide could create controversy for the McCain camp, because the video itself is thoroughly reprehensible -- it interweaves footage of Obama explaining why he won't wear the American flag pin, Wright saying "God damn America," Malcolm X, and Obama's wife saying that his candidacy has made her proud of America for the "first time."[...]

That McCain's campaign aide spread this runs directly counter to what McCain himself has said about the Wright controversy. He suggested in a recent interview that Obama shouldn't be held liable for his pastor's views, and a top aide to McCain, Charlie Black, also recently suggested that McCain didn't believe in trafficking in such stuff.

Dayton posted the following on his own page at Twitter, a blog-hosting site.

Dayton described the video as a "good video on Obama and Wright." The link he provided leads to the Wright mash-up video on Youtube. A short time later the post was abruptly removed from his site, and an hour or so later, after I asked the McCain campaign for comment , Dayton's whole account was deleted.

And now he has been reprimanded and suspended, but not fired from the campaign. Why he wasn't fired is an odd move, but where the video came from is far from surprising.