Excerpts from a two-part essay on the destruction of Hillary Clinton according to the right-wing playbook. Daily Kos has several mentions. I must admit that it required independent thought on my part to not fall for the media's attack, but then the mainstream media tried to sell me Bush over Gore, Bush over Kerry, and the Iraq War so I will vote for the one not being sold by the corporate-consolidated media.

In 1998, as six years of a national campaign to demonize First Lady Hillary Clinton — funded by conservatives and rooted in profound anti-feminism — was reaching a fevered crescendo, then-conservative David Brock (now of Media Matters) penned a book called The Seduction of Hillary Rodham. The publisher's note for the tome says of its subject: "No public figure in contemporary life has elicited more polarized reactions than Hillary Rodham Clinton. The first presidential spouse who pursued a major policymaking role, the beleaguered first lady has been a heroine and role model to her feminist allies - and a malevolent, power-mad shrew to her conservative foes."

Sometime in the last decade, her liberal foes evidently decided that whole "malevolent, power-mad shrew" thing sounded pretty good, too.

Available at TalkLeft: Peniel Cronin's Caucus v. Primary report with numbers updated to today, showing how the caucuses, compared to primaries, have unfairly disenfranchised voters. (Background and original report here.)

I often thought myself how in early June the Democratic Primary in my home State of California used to still be in play, and the event that seared that in my memory was the tragic murder of Robert Kennedy, who would have gone on to win the nomination and changed history.

I heard Ann O’Leary speak about her experience working with Senator Clinton recently. O’Leary said that Clinton is best prepared to face the nation’s challenges.

1996. Obama got his start in politics by hiring Harvard election expert Thomas Johnson to challenge the nomination papers of his opponents, including the popular incumbent Alice Palmer, a community activist (Palmer is a  black woman Ph.D. who founded and presided over Chicago youth groups). Knocking them all off the ballot, Obama ran unopposed. He won.

December 27 1996 to Feb. 3, 1997  Rezko (Rezmar Co.)  tenants, mostly poor blacks, had no heat for 5 weeks. There just wasn't enough money to provide heat during that Chicago winter until the City of Chicago sued. Rezmar settled for $100.

January 14, 1997. While the heat was still turned off, Rezmar donated $1000 to the area's newly elected state senator Barack Obama. Did Obama not know what was going on in his district?

...or is he setting the bar of expectations higher than any elected official can achieve?

I wondered why the Kennedy and Kerry endorsements didn't win over Massachusetts' voters whereas Teddy campaigned strongly in Maine, which did go Obama. One Mass. voter suggested it was a case of unrealistic expectations running into the hard reality of governance.  Given the choice between another Axelrod candidate of "hope" versus experience, the electorate knew to choose experience.

Two recent articles address the parallels between the Patrick and Obama campaigns, both masterminded by David Axelrod. Candidate Patrick's theme was the "politics of aspiration," starting with "Yes, we can" and advancing to "Together we can."  Patrick on the campaign trail:

It’s time to put our cynicism down. Put it down. Stand with me and take that leap of faith. Because I’m not asking you to take a chance on me. I’m asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations. Take a chance on hope.”

The reintroduction of the California Condor to some of its historic ranges has been a success story except for one deadly environmental factor--lead in bullets.  My fascination with condors began more than a quarter of a century ago when I first saw Topa Topa at the L.A. Zoo. I spotted a huge black bird perched on a swing. This turned out to be Topa Topa, who was captured as a fledgling--at that time rather young, but now the zoo's 41-year-old veteran male and considered the oldest condor in the world. I was the only person around, and as I approached the cage, Topa Topa took off and glided--9 feet of wingspan-- next to me. Separated by some wire, I spent the next 30-minutes watching and talking to him. He was so ugly he was cute, and I saw a neurotic intensity in his eyes, that of an intelligent animal confined.

Afterwards, I've followed the plight of the nearly extinct condor. Never did I expect to see one in the wild in California.  Never did I realize that you and I could help save them.

An article published May 3, 2007 in The Independent by Johann Hari depicts the exhausting and harrowing daily grind of the Chinese worker producing our goods.  He tells of a woman who died from exhaustion--"expected to work 360 days a year, from 7.30am to as late as 9.30pm, with only a half-hour break for lunch and fines for taking too long on the toilet"-- and of the 50,000 fingers sliced off each month in Chinese factories.

Worker conditions are so horrible that, faced with a worker revolt, the  Chinese "government" (read dictatorship)  that holds our debt has agreed to pass basic worker rights into law. That is, until these unelected "legislators" encountered the opposition of the American Chamber of Commerce--Microsoft, Ford, Dell (Nike relented under pressure).

17 organizations, including National Audubon, paid for an ad in today's New
York Times urging the public to call representatives and senators to defeat
language in the budget bill that would permit drilling. The vote in the
House is tomorrow.

And yesterday, John Flicker sent a message that said Audubon lobbyists tell
him there is growing momentum among Republican moderates to keep drilling
out of the budget reconcillation bill. If you have family or friends in
states with pro-drilling representatives, please urge them to contact their
representatives today.

**email addresses added, but phone call mean more. One WH employee said a thousand calls to the WH would make a difference** Posted on World Parrot Trust:

From a friend of mine who is down there now:
I'm in contact with rescuers on the grounds. It's disgraceful.
I have made my call to the white house and FEMA.  

Things are really bad there. TV is not telling the
story. They are telling you how good things are looking there now.
Phil Keating on CNN was standing on dry ground acting like
everything is fine. It's not fine for the animals and pet
rescuers. They go out to save pets in houses and buildings, but
come across pets in the streets that are swimming through that water
to get to them because they are so desperate to help. The pets in
the houses are not being saved. 10's of thousands are still out
there needing to be rescued. 10's of thousands are dead already.
Soldiers are looking at pets in windows and make the comment about
how sad it is. They are supposed to follow their orders. Saving
pets is not their orders.

This part of an article published in counterpunch.org that describes what it was like to be two  emergency medical services (EMS) workers from San Francisco who were stuck in New Orleans while attending an EMS conference in New Orleans.

It's all worth reading. Go to Counterpunch.org for the rest.

By LARRY BRADSHAW
and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY
Printed in Counterpunch.org

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreens store at the corner of Royal and Iberville Streets in the city's historic French Quarter remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing, and the milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat.

The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers and prescriptions, and fled the city. Outside Walgreens' windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry. The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized, and the windows at Walgreens gave way to the looters.

I'm a member of the Santa Clara Valley Environmental Action Commitee. My representative Anna Escho ("why not CAFE standards"?) and my Senators Boxer and Feinstein are voting YEA, which is the anti-drilling vote. National Audubon is asking your help  to protect the Arctic Refuge. Where do your Senators and representative stand on this issue?

From Audubon Arctic Action Alert:" House and Senate negotiators are close to agreement on a budget resolution that is expected to include language that would open the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling. If the final agreement includes the budget language, the vote on final passage of the budget will be the most critical vote ever for the fate of the Arctic Refuge.

House and Senate negotiators are close to agreement on a budget resolution that may include language that would open the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling. We expect a vote as soon as tomorrow!"

then indicate that you have done so at the johnkerry/signup URL. There will be a tally that whoever sent this out will have access to (Kerry is in Iraq). Kerry will know what, if anything, the Dems are up to tomorrow. There is something to the TIMING of this email. Let Hastert and Frist know that the MSM's dismissal of voting irregularities hasn't worked.

From John Kerry's letter:

There are nearly 3,000,000 of you receiving this email. We accomplished so much together during the campaign. Now let's use our power to make sure that at least one good thing comes from the voting rights problems of the 2004 election. If we want to force real action on election reform, we've got to demand that congressional leaders hold full hearings. Make sure they hear from you and help hold them accountable.

Speaker Dennis Hastert: 1-202-225-0600
Leader Bill Frist: 1-202-224-3135

And please report that you've made your call right here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/signup/electoral_reform.php

Presidential election exit poll data is included for the following dates and times:

Time of Weighting: 11/2/2004 3:59:05 PM

Time Created: 11/2/2004 3:59:05 PM

Time of Weighting: 11/2/2004 7:33:46 PM

Time Created: 11/2/2004 7:33:46 PM

Time of Weighting: 11/3/2004 1:24:53 PM

Time Created: 11/3/2004 1:24:53 PM (about time of Kerry's concession speech)

Any number crunchers here who want to analyze this?
The person who gave these regional poll results to Scoop didn't pay the $10,000 for state-by-state results. After Mitofsky refused to turn over the raw data to Conyers, he posted these regional results.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/pdfs/Mitofsky4zonedata/

Of course, one wonders why the exit polls are secret this time around. Maybe this is why? Conyers staff has these files as of December 31. Check with 2004 Election thread on Democratic Underground for more information. This topic was also posted on the home page last I looked.

to be provided by a wealthy donor. Am posting from Democratic Underground because just sending a few dollars will help! Does anyone here have information about this request? Should we send our $$$ today? (tax deductible)

This just out from Cheryl at
http://www.stolenelection2004.com/alerts.html

This is a forward which encourages people to donate today to help the lawyers who are contesting the election in Ohio who need the funds to uncover new vote fraud evidence, etc. If you donate by today a wealthy donor will provide matchining funds. For more actions to help investigate vote fraud, contest election, and reform voting system CLICK HERE http://www.stolenelection2004.com/alerts.html
which has recently been updated and made more user friendly. Thanks, Cheryl

ALERT: Donations that could have huge impact on Jan 6th if made by Dec 30th.

Some Christmas amusement for politicos. This is well done and amusing. It makes politics light for a moment. KPFA was broadcasting a December 8th "forum" at Riverside Church in NYC this morning. I awoke to hear Al Sharpton take on Bush and praise the Americans who so loved their country so much that they put their lives on the line to get the right to vote. He said that the right Christians are not the Christian Right. It made me realize that the anti-war movement borrowed so much from the civil rights movement. This "forum" (not mentioned in other media that I knew about) brought together ministers from various denominations who were speaking out against the war and the divisiveness of this administration. Sharpton called the weapons of mass destruction the weapons of mass distraction (distracting us from the real issues of housing, health care, fair wages).

According to the Green Party web site, the million emails that Conyers wanted wasn't for his commitee, but emails to our own Senators and Representatives to request a formal hearing. The report I passed on recently as a diary was that Conyers wanted one million emails directed to the Judiciary Committee (to show solidarity, I assumed). Contacting our own Congressional representatives makes more sense.

From the Green Party's Update web page:
http://www.votecobb.org/recount/daily_update /

"The latest development is that Rep. Conyers has called for 1 million emails to Members of Congress to ask for a formal Judiciary Committee hearing, complete with the subpoena power that only the GOP majority can provide. Please send your emails today, and tell your friends to email as well. Messages to your own Senators and Representative, as a constituent, are the most effective. Send your message to both your Congressman and two Senators today."

From democraticunderground. Go to the site if you can donate anything to help the volunteers out.  A direct quote:

"3 precincts have been counted in Greene County (442, 224, and 31). The machine counts did not match the hand counts in 2 of these precincts. Yet, BOE Officials are refusing to conduct the mandatory hand recounts as prescribed by Ohio law.

Katrina confirms that the 3 precincts chosen were not at random and that Triad visited each of these precincts prior to the recount.

She also says that there will be a video showing that hand recounts should be done based on Ohio law. The court will be involved in this and the video will most likely be provided as evidence.

Lastly, for reasons that she didn't have time to explain fully, Katrina says that she understands and trusts the statements David Cobb made about John Kerry in his interview with The Raw Story.

She is a Dem and first suspected that the GP might be using the Ohio recounts for PR. Events on the ground, have convinced her otherwise.

The article is posted here:
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=502