February 4, 2008 – Capitol Hill Blue

Super Tuesday, Super Bowl, and Fat Tuesday

February 4, 2008

As is our habit here, I will vote early and often in Illinois’ primary tomorrow. For the first time, my vote in a presidential primary may actually mean something. That’s a rather unusual sensation. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of it, other than to think it is a good thing. Seeing Obama’s numbers rise, while Hillary’s fall, well, I suspect that my cable news shows will be off tonight. I simply can’t take anymore spin from the pundits.

Now she shows her TRUE colors.

February 4, 2008

I will attempt to keep this one polite. Admittedly, it IS a hard thing to do when somebody threatens my rather humble living with more legalized theft of the fruits of my labor.

This year I became self employed. It was a simple straight forward decision based on my inability to find a niche that I could stomach in corporate America’s race for the buck above all else.

In the last decade or so, I HAVE been quite successful in my dealings with corporate America…more than I had any expectation of ever being as a matter of fact…

What to expect from right wing hate mongers

February 4, 2008

Without a swaggering, barely articulate, brush clearing "brat and a Bud Bush" the mouth breathers can relate to, and a Karl Rove to orchestrate the hate campaign, what can we expect from the far right opinion leaders when they seek to promote their less than ideal candidate?

If Hillary Clinton is the candidate talk show bigots and swift boaters will use anything and everything to lift the rotting logs of sexism and get their creepy crawlies to the polls. They will stoke the flames of racial and religious racial animus against Barak (fanatical Muslim) Hussein Obama if he is the candidate.

Time for just one national primary?

February 4, 2008

Democratic and Republican wannabes for President will most likely emerge from Super Tuesday with no clear consensus on who will be their party’s nominee for the next temporary resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

That’s not the way any of them wanted it to work. Each pretender to the throne wanted to lock up the nomination on Feb. 5. Mathematically, none of them will.

Coast-to-coast campaigning

February 4, 2008

The top presidential candidates and their big-name supporters campaigned from coast to coast Sunday, but one contender seemed atop everyone’s mind: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney contrasted themselves, and each other, with Clinton as though she were the nominee. Her Democratic rival, Barack Obama, played along to a degree, saying Clinton is so polarizing that he is their party’s better bet.

Rather than diverting the less-than-flattering attention, Clinton embraced it.

Clinton: Garnish wages to pay for health care

February 4, 2008

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.

The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC’s “This Week,” she said: “I think there are a number of mechanisms” that are possible, including “going after people’s wages, automatic enrollment.”

Romney’s economic lies

February 4, 2008

It’s part of Mitt Romney’s core narrative: Massachusetts, in the throes of a fiscal freefall, fell back on his CEO skills and turnaround wizardry to spark — in his words — “a dramatic reversal of state fortunes and a period of sustained economic expansion.”

It’s a rosy opinion of Massachusetts’ economy that few in the state share. Instead, observers say, the state’s recovery from a disastrous 2001 recession has been tepid at best, and Romney gives himself more credit than deserved on job creation and balancing the state budget.

U.S. soldiers kill Iraqi civilians

February 4, 2008

The U.S. military said Monday that it accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting al-Qaida in Iraq south of Baghdad.

The civilians were killed Saturday near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the Iraqi capital, U.S. Navy Lt. Patrick Evans told The Associated Press. Three more civilians were wounded and taken to U.S. military hospitals nearby, he said.

The incident and the events surrounding it are under investigation, Evans said.

Bush’s $3 trillion budget

February 4, 2008

President Bush is sending Congress a $3 trillion spending blueprint that would provide a big boost to defense and protect his signature tax cuts.

It seeks sizable savings in government health care programs and puts the squeeze on much of the rest of government, but it would still generate near-record budget deficits over the next two years.

Even before receiving the document Monday, Democrats were attacking it for slashing programs to help the poor while protecting tax cuts for the wealthy.

No free speech for Marines

February 4, 2008

The city council of Berkeley, Calif., where the Free Speech Movement was born, has decided that some people deserve more free speech than others and the U.S. Marines don’t deserve any at all.

For about a year, the Marines have had a recruiting station in Berkeley and the council wants it gone, voting 6-3 to declare that it “is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders.”