DISQUS

Ryan, get back to work... since you have so much time maybe you should poll everyone... I bet you would find that 95% of the people on here find your banter rediculous.

I finally passed BEC!! I've taken this exam every window since I passed my first exam and received 2 74s and a 69. Now I just have AUD left next week and am trying to motivate myself to push through it. Please let the hell of the last two and a half years be over soon!!

I'm dieing to know what my BEC score is. I don't think I've worried more about getting score results back more than this. The 17th couldn't come any faster! This will be my 4th time taking BEC in the past year after receiving a 69,74,and the dreaded 74. I left the exam an hour early becasue this time I didn't go back and change scores (which I did before causing me to lose pts by changing my answers to the wrong ones!). I feel like I definately know this stuff enough to pass, but we'll see if NASBA feels the same. Hopefully AUD will be my last one in 2 weeks, otherwise I'll be scrambling this summer before REG expires in August.

That was a thing of beauty.

Lee Coles said...
As "anything goes" as girlfriend is, she has a point about The Big O's inability to win the states w/ the most electoral votes. And Ohio, demographically, is a microcosm (cross-section) of the U.S.



No, she does not have a point. Unless her point is to come across as an idiot. Obama losing big state primaries like CA and NY does not mean he'll lose them in the general. Using her logic, that means she'll lose IL to McCain. I don't think so. As to states like OH, PA or even FL for that matter - well, both Clinton and Obama could easily lose them in the GE.

Excuse me, but what on Earth did Obama do to these people? Are they so offended by his positive message and talk of hope and massive restraint in the face of withering GOP attacks from a member of his own party? Does the fact that he has not stooped to her level cause that much rage? Really? What would these people say if he actually did attack her?


Thank you for expressing this!



I'm angry at the Clintons because of low rent crap like: "he's not muslim...as far as I know", "he won't stand up for women's rights", "SHAME ON YOU BARACK OBAMA!", "Jesse Jackson won SC twice" and the list goes on.



Hillary's core supporters are angry at Obama because he is winning. They feel he has no right to win, especially this being Hillary's year and all. She deserves it because it's her turn (huh? try telling Feinstein, Pelosi, Dodd, Biden, and on and on). She deserves it because she was humiliated (by Bill) and hounded by the republicans (wow, what an inspiring reason!). Oh, and Obama gave Hillary the finger (how retarded can these people be?)

i totally agree with you about how the judges should play a bigger role in the show. they're like not influential now and it's just who has more family and friends out there that will vote for them!

bring fiqa back :(

Wow - listen to this white minister defend Jeremiah Wright to an O'Reilly producer. Paraphrasing: "It's interesting that when white people criticize America they are 'raising concerns', but when blacks do it, they are angry racists who hate America" The interviewer is clearly retarded.


http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?videoId=1fd1c0cf-5c80-4d75-996f-bd53b2461ae0&sMPlaylistID;

Here's a great article on Wright. About damn time.


In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines...The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician...While this young man was serving six years on active duty, [Cheney] received five deferments... Bill Clinton and George W. Bush...avoided going on active duty through family connections.



Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0404wrightapr03,0,225570.story

Prior to the [Richardson's] endorsement of Obama, [Hillary] told him flatly, "He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win."


http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/candidate-clint.html



She's just a hot mess. The utter gall of making a claim like that - she can't even win the primary!



I would like Hillary to just come out publicly and say she believes Obama can't win because he's black. Halperin and other reporters know this is her argument but they keep dancing around it. Someone needs to force her to say this on the record.

It's not just white women - I saw Carol Simpson (sp?) on Larry King last night and she was spitting mad that people were calling on Hillary to drop out. She said it's only because she's a woman and why should she just take a back seat and take one for the team. Gee Carol, why don't you look at the facts of this particular situation instead of looking at Hillary as the embodiment of the women's movement? And to think Hillary's supporters are constantly yelling about Obama playing the race card. Project much?


Stephanie Miller was also on and tried to tell Carol it's because she's losing and there's no way she'll win NC, Oregon, SD, etc. And Carol had the gall to yell out "SMALL STATES!" Then she angrily spat out that Hillary's the best choice, yadda yadda, and it's time for a woman to be in charge!



Doesn't it bother her in the least that Hillary went to Richard Mellon Scaife to revive the Wright controversy? The godfather of the vast right wing conspiracy that accused Hillary of killing Vince Foster. Hillary went to that guy because she's desperate and needs a way to keep stoking racial resentments. How does such cravenness fit into Carol's belief that Hillary's such a great leader?



I've seen her before on shows defending Hillary and never saw that type of anger. Also, I don't think I've heard Hillary supporters openly show disdain for "small states". WTF? I thought it was just another excuse/ploy to keep the campaign going, I didn't think they actually believed that crap.



I was really ticked by her comments, but realized this morning that perhaps it's just a sign they finally see the writing on the wall. That's the only way I can explain the incoherent lashing out.

@ Anon: All I know if he had stayed on the ballot, all the delegates could have been counted.


No, those delegates were stripped regardless of whether his name was on or off the ballot. Also, I don't think the argument for FL is any more compelling because his name was left on - btw, under state law, they could not take their names off the FL ballot - or because the FL leg. is republican controlled or whatever. It was a democrat who initiated the line jumping and I believe a unanimous vote by the legislature to set the date.



What it boils down to is that EVERYONE knew and agreed to the rules before the game started - FL & MI will not count - and Hillary is doing her darndest to change the rules because she is losing. That's what it is. Just admit it. Yes, the DNC was being stupid; yes I feel bad for the voters of MI & FL (a lot of whom I'm sure had no frickin clue that it wouldn't count). The time for all this concern about disenfranchisement was BEFORE the primaries started not when it looks like you will lose.



Also, about airing those national ads on CNN and MSNBC: They were told they could not carve out Florida out of the national ad buy, so the Obama campaign got permission from the SC dem chair. The pledge to not campaign was a pledge to benefit the earlier states - IA, NH, NV & SC. And since SC had not had it's primary when the Obama camp wanted to run the national cable ads, it was the only early state that would have been affected.

I'm kind of glad Hillary is trying to revive the Wright controversy now because most people can see why she's doing it and it makes her campaign look desperate. But also because there are people coming out now to defend Wright and put his story out there and give some context.


From Martin Marty:

His critics call Wright anti-American. Critics of his critics charge that the clips we hear and see have been taken out of context. But it is not the context of particular sermons that the public needs, as that of Trinity church, and, above all, its pastor.



In the early 1960s, at a time when many young people were being radicalized by the Vietnam War, Wright left college and volunteered to join the United States Marine Corps. After three years as a marine, he chose to serve three more as a naval medical technician, during which time he received several White House commendations. He came to Chicago to study not long after Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder in 1968, the U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia in 1969, and the shooting of students at Kent State University in 1970.

...

I've been too impressed by the way Wright preaches the Christian Gospel to break with him. Those who were part of his ministry for years — school superintendents, nurses, legislators, teachers, laborers, the unemployed, the previously shunned and shamed, the anxious — are not going to turn their backs on their pastor and prophet.

http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i30/30b00101.htm

I'm surprised the number isn't higher than 28%. Look at the way Bill Clinton frames it - "they think they're better than you!", "they're trying to fool you!", "it would be a tragedy if Hillary won this during the day, and they took it away from her at the caucus!". He riles them up and tries to blame FL and MI on Obama as if he had anything to do with stripping them of delegates - which by the way were the rules that everyone agreed to when this started. But now that she's behind, she's waxing poetic about voters rights. Obama has no obligation to agree to a change in rules just because the opponent is losing.


I don't care if Hillary stays in it until the end - that's her right. But she can't seem to do it without the gutter tactics - that's what bothers me.

I hope the comedians have a field day with this.


"I am asleep at 3AM", said Clinton, "and, like Martin Luthur King before me, I had a dream. I had a dream of arriving in Bosnia, a country too small and too dangerous for President Clinton. I dreamed I arrived under sniper fire, and ducking for cover, but what I was really doing was pulling the bedcovers over my head." "I misslept", said Clinton, "hard as it may be to believe".



Clinton campaign misspokesman Howard Wolfson further explained Clinton's 3AM claims by noting that "she was ready at 2AM prior to changing the clocks to daylight savings, when 2AM became 3AM, so it was really the same thing, just the wrong month."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/hillary-clarifies-3am-_b_93381.html

Rhondacoca,


The Wright controversy is not hurting Obama the way the Clintons expected. And then this video surfaces of Hillary most definitely NOT dodging sniper fire. Her ridiculous response - I misspoke, I was sleep deprived, I speak millions of words a day, blah blah - isn't helping her any. They must be really worried about the sniper lie, because this latest tactic reeks of desperation.

More crap from the Hillary campaign. It's clear this is a coordinated effort to revive the Wright controversy - it must mean they're really worried about the Tuzla sniper fire story.


From a Hillary finance committe guy who spilled the beans that it's officially coming from their campaign and not some "gaffe" by a supporter.



"I think the issue that the Clinton campaign has seized on is that Barack Obama, you know, never once raised his voice to his pastor and said, `I think your language is quite extreme here, and i think you language is probably wrong.' Because let's turn this around. If this was David Duke and he was preaching on behalf of, and Hillary Clinton was in the pew, there would be outrage about this. And there can't be this double standard. Barack Obama has used race where it suited him, but when it doesn't suit him he backs away from it.""

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/



Let's stay calm. They are just waiting for the slightest excuse to scream "they're playing the race card again!"

Chris Matthews always brings up the Jackie Robinson analogy - says Obama has to be PERFECT and not react to the garbage thrown at him.


It feels like that's what Hillary and Bill are doing at this point. They want him to get angry and want it on tape. That's their last hope of getting the nomination.



I think the best way for the Obama campaign to respond is what they have been doing all along - that the Clintons will do or say anything to win. They embrace Wright when they need him, they throw him under the bus when it helps them. It's the narrative that the majority of the voters already believe - well, because it's true...

@ anon:


I was being snarky.



At this point, I can't summon up outrage anymore at Hillary's tactics.

Stay classy Hillary!


"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."...

The Clinton campaign has refrained from getting involved in the controversy, but Clinton herself, responding to a question, denounced what she said was "hate speech."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_558930.html

Finally! Someone in the press admits what we've known since the Wisconsin primary. Media bias, my ass.


One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning... Journalists, for instance, have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9149.html

From Frank Schaeffer on Huffington Post:


Obama came to us on March, 18 with one of the most generous and brilliant speeches that has been delivered on American soil. He spoke honestly of things all other American leaders have been too timid and self-serving to even mention. Standing behind him were the sprits of countless murdered, enslaved, tortured, lost black Americans. Their blood cries out for revenge and yet Obama offered forgiveness, perspective and understanding.



I ask this again. Why are there no democrats or liberals publicly defending Wright and giving his statements the proper context and history as eloquently as this conservative?

Is there ever a point where the Clintons will stop and say to themselves, "we won't go there"?


They'll use Wright when they're in trouble - the prayer breakfast where Bill is repenting for Lewinsky - but now will use Wright in a cheap manner to frighten superdelegates. They are doing this to the group most loyal to them during impeachment.



I understand people who prefer Hillary to Barack as a president. But, at some point, don't their tactics tell us something about how they'll govern? Opportunism and political expediency, without any moral center, sounds risky, to say the least.

Here's the link to Joe Klein's comments above.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/03/kitchen_sink_or_toilet_bowl.html

Joe Klein, who would know from his past association with the Clintons, has this to say:


I also have some residual respect for Amb Joseph Wilson, who told the truth about Niger and yellowcake uranium. But this is garbage. Especially this:



"Claims of superior intuitive judgment by his campaign and by him are self-evidently disingenuous, especially in light of disclosures about his long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko."



Clinton's slim hopes of winning the nomination are not helped by this. They are hurt. In fact, let me amend what I said in the first paragraph: If her campaign persists in peddling this sort of kamikaze stuff--and make no mistake, this sort of op-ed is usually vetted by the campaign--her judgment should be called into question.