As my way of making amends to our dear old Dad, who Pete and I jab at pretty brutally, here’s an extremely entertaining video promoting bicycle safety. (He’s a cyclist.)
Update: Don’t read the comments before watching the video – total spoilers down there.
I was laughing more than usual throughout the show. Telling our dad’s new policeman ski buddy that the Old Man “hates cops” had to be the highlight for me, but only because I know how much Pops really does hate cops. That’s going to make for an awkward weekend on the slopes.
Lee Camp’s appearance on the show today topped it off for me. Todd called in with a serious agenda, and I have to say I think he handled himself pretty well on the air… until he tried denigrating Lee. That set Pete off on a Bill O’Reilly-style rant. Oh, the humanity. But Todd made good points about Paul Begala and George Stephanopoulos moving from the Democratic machine into the media, which I think was a counterpoint to Carl Rove moving to Fox News. Lee noted the preposterous imbalance of it all, but Todd’s points were well-made until it all degraded. I think his point was that a party operative moving to a network does not necessarily render the network invalid. Maybe he can clear that up. I’ll say it’s exactly why both CNN and Fox are shams.
Anyway, if you thought Lee was as sharp and funny as I did, check out his website (I guess leecamp.com was taken by a Civil War reenactment group or something) and his MySpace page (2815-friend loser). The priceless clip of him calling Fox News a “parade of propaganda” is on there. He also mentioned 236.com — here’s his link on that site. Busy guy, and very, very unsophisticated.
Superdelegates are powerful or prominent members of the Democratic Party who typically hold elected or other offices. They can choose or change the candidate they vote for at any point until the vote takes place at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August.
There are some 794 superdelegates. They will account for approximately one-fifth of the delegate vote and will almost certainly have the power to sway the nomination. Each technically has the power of thousands of Democratic voters.
About half of the superdelegates are white men, even though white men only constitute 28% of the Democratic Party.
About half of the superdelegates have already committed to Clinton or Obama. Some have committed because their constituency has already voted one way or another. If you’re a Congressman and your home district has already held its primary, it might not be so bad for you to pledge your vote to the winner of that primary.
But in many cases, the superdelegate has already stepped out and used his or her pledge as an endorsement.
What if superdelegates expect favors from the next president if they supported him or her? What if that’s already happening?
Here’s one of the really insidious elements, from a Boston Globe story, Superdelegates Get Campaign Cash:
Many of the superdelegates who could well decide the Democratic presidential nominee have already been plied with campaign contributions by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new study shows.
Obama’s political action committee has doled out more than $694,000 to superdelegates since 2005, the study found, and of the 81 who had announced their support for Obama, 34 had received donations totaling $228,000.
Clinton’s political action committee has distributed about $195,000 to superdelegates, and only 13 of the 109 who had announced for her have received money, totaling about $95,000.
Does this seem like a good way to run a “Democratic” party?
During our dad’s clockw0rk-like morning movement, the Old Man reportedly just about fell off the toilet when he encountered this article reprinted in our hometown paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard. So thanks for the tip, Pops.
John from Cleveland found this video for us, and I couldn’t help featuring it. One of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. Please point us to other political/humor videos you dig.
Here’s a link to the WhyTuesday website.
Here’s the Harper’s interview with Michael Scheuer.
And here’s the official website of Anti-Flag, the kick-ass band Pete is going to have on today’s show, plus their WikiPedia page.
Pete’s guest today was Omar Fekeiki. Here’s the Salon.com article Pete referred to during the interview. And here’s search results for his articles in the Washington Post.One comment on the interview: Omar said he couldn’t understand why Americans would protest a recruiting center in their own town. The reasons they’re protesting are quite explicit: they don’t want young people from their community getting swindled into fighting wars that don’t serve the interests of their community. Disagree or not, I just think it’s important that, before criticizing people for doing something and implying they don’t have a reason, asking them why they’re doing it is a good move. I’m not a big fan of Code Pink, the group Omar was referring to, but here’s what they say about why they are protesting recruitment.
Okay, here we go again. And, sadly, I once again have to request commenters remain civil and respectful. I also wonder how much better this blog might be if frequent/avid commenters held back a little and let others chime in without having to first sift through 50+ comments.
Today’s show discussed how we treat each other, the so-called “War on Terror” and the Iraq War.
This would also be a great place to bring up new topics you might want to hear discussed on an upcoming show.
Here’s a link to the video Pete and Scott the Trucker are discussing on the air right now.
Okay, all you PBM junkies out there, if you can’t wait for Monday’s show, feel free to post some topic ideas and get a discussion going here. Let’s please just keep the comments substantive and civil. Other than that, anything goes.
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