Monday Open Thread [6.4.12]
Pennsylvania isn’t a top target for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign?
“Understanding why the GOP candidate might be skeptical about Pennsylvania isn’t difficult. A Republican presidential nominee hasn’t triumphed there since George H.W. Bush in 1988, and, as mentioned, Obama won easily there four years ago despite a heavy investment of time and money from the McCain campaign. The state has more than a million more registered Democrats than Republicans, and an early May poll from Quinnipiac University found the president leading over Romney 47% to 39%.”
Meanwhile, there are reports that Romney will pick his VP nomineee earlier than usual.
“The tradition is to announce the No. 2 around the time of the convention to inspire grassroots activists and seek maximum publicity for the final two-month push to the November 6 election. But in this case, the Romney team has discussed whether to announce the pick a few weeks earlier to generate buzz for his campaign during August and help raise campaign funds.”
I mentioned this several weeks ago. McCain waited until just before his own convention in late August / early September because he wanted his selection to cancel out any momentum and buzz Obama had from his own convention. Romney can’t do that this year since the incumbent party’s convention is always after the challenger’s. So why wait? I can see Romney announcing in early August.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tells the San Francisco Chronicle she is “upbeat about the prospects for a female president in her lifetime, namely her friend Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
“Why wouldn’t she run? She’s a magnificent secretary of state. She’s our shot.”
Seems as though Rmoney is counting his chickens well before they’re hatched – http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-picks-mike-leavitt-to-head-transition-team/2012/06/03/gJQAdVZhBV_story.html
Check out Delaware Way for the WDEL scoop on Judge “let me sit on the bench until I earn my pension”. His ex-wife is telling her story of good old Sussex lawyers and judges and the abuse of a closed family court on unprotected families.
The woman who was physically and verbally abused by Henricksen is known to many of you as John Flaherty’s girl friend, Bonnie (now fiance). I always knew her story (Bill Lee is involved – have yet to see those details) but she never told her husband’s name until now – now that he’s been fired for continuing to abuse women but is being allowed to stick around long enough for his pension.
WDEL has the story coming in a series starting today. Have a listen and get pissed off!!!
Not sure if this was posted before (I just saw it today), but there’s an interesting poll noting that pretty large numbers of Americans want the DOD to spend alot less money.
And that’s exactly what’s going to happen as long as Obama keeps his pen in his pocket:
Administration decision to include war funding in automatic cuts riles GOP
Coupled with the expiration of the tax cuts, Obama could end up with a progressive administration after all, simply by doing nothing.
Lindsey Graham is being douchey about that now.
http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2012/06/senator-lindsey-graham-were-not-just.html
If it riles the GOP, I support it.
Is Kevin Wade still under investigation by the FBI & the states Attorney Generals office?
Vote for Alex Pires Independent for U.S. Senate
In today’s News Journal it’s nice to see that Henry Topel is alive and looking well, (even if he was pictured with The Carperbagger). He led the Delaware Dems back in the good old days before the Reagan Revolution changed the Dems forever it seems. Fine man.
I clicked on puck’s link & tried to read the article. Ironically, the article was obscured by a giant Raytheon advertisement.
Pathetic:
Wisconsin recall: Obama hopes Barrett ‘prevails’
Both the DNC and Obama should be ashamed of themselves. Really too bad that Howard Dean was replaced by whoever is ‘running’ the DNC nowadays.
Let’s face it. As a Party, we suck.
Too bad Dean wasn’t succeeded by another Democrat who shared his vision and wanted to build on it. I guess you can’t start a fire with wet wood.
Did anyone else happen to see the Colbert Report last night? He was drawing attention to how many innocent people have been killed by Obama’s drones and how the White House has altered the numbers to fit their narrative. If only more liberals were outraged by this…
Digby, you do understand that the Colbert Report is a comedy show, don’t you?
“If only more liberals were outraged by this…”
Yeah, because the conservatives are SO concerned by it. If only more conservatives would realize that they have no standing for complaining about Obama’s anti-terrorism policies, because Bush is the one who invented them. Obama simply refused to cede the tough-guy-American pose to the Republicans.
Believe me, if the drone attacks stopped, the Republicans would immediately accuse him of being soft on terrorists.
how many innocent people have been killed by Obama’s drones
I don’t know – how many?
Liberal != pacifist, at least not all the time.
I”m open-minded, but I’d kind of like to see some credible numbers and narratives on this other than from Colbert. Are we bombing the wrong houses? Or are the bad guys using their families as human shields? Or are they just not that bad after all?
This was inevitable when our enemies finally wised up and stopped conveniently gathering in open fields where we could bomb them at will far from their homes and families. I don’t think we are going back to that kind of warfare.
Believe me, if the drone attacks stopped, the Republicans would immediately accuse him of being soft on terrorists.
And if we were sending full-sized missiles over to Iran, they’d be cheering and talking out of the sides of their mouths about collateral damage.
While I have no doubt that innocents are also being killed by drones, I want to know where these people were when many of us were criticizing the astonishing body count (a body count the Pentagon didn’t even officially keep) of innocent Iraqis — who didn’t have a damn thing to do with 9/11 or ongoing terrorist activity pointed at us.
I’m with you Cassandra. A war on terrorists shouldn’t involve invading a country. Bush proved that. In the WRONG country. However, targeted drone attacks seem to be just about the right force response. Sorry, so very sorry about innocents. But, their family members wouldn’t think twice about killing me or other innocents in an attack on us. It sucks but Obama didn’t start it. Neither did Bush, although he got the response totally screwed up. They did manage to kill over 3000 Americans on 9/11.
“Sorry, so very sorry about innocents. But, their family members wouldn’t think twice about killing me or other innocents in an attack on us.”
Nice set of conditional morals ya got there, Auntie. Ever stop to think that the exact same rationale motivated the 9/11 terrorist? An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind? Etc.
It’s just another sign that Obama was not the transformational figure liberals hoped for.
Conservatives may have no credibility to complain about drone attacks, but libertarians do. We were at those same anti-war demonstrations you were during the Bush years, and we’ve been wondering where you went since 2009.
What you’ve been wondering since 2009 has been how to inflict yourself upon Delaware politics. Go fuck yourself.
Hey Geezer,
You are right, totally conditional morals. I’m not proud of it. But I can’t come up with a better way to combat terrorism. Drones seem to wreak less havoc than a conventional invasion. Ask the Iraqis if they would have preferred targeted drones. Oh wait, no targets there.
Is this progress? Probably not. But I feel safer.
Oh, and, Geezer,
I never thought Obama was going to be transformational. I’ve learned there is no such thing in politics. Some are just a lot less terrible than others. You know the saying about never fall in love with a politician because your heart will get broken every time. I just try to take two steps forward for every step backward.