Obama’s Clinton Initiative

The New York Observer’s Joe Conason offers an interesting take on rumors that Hilary Clinton may become the next Secretary of State.  Conason suggests that the Clinton family conflicts of interests should take second fiddle to what she (and of course Bill) offer as a statesperson.

Just Don’t Get Caught

If you’re thinking of scalping your inauguration tickets, ABC News’ Political Radar blog reports that Diane Feinstein may send the feds after you.  It appears as if there’s move to crack down on prospective ticket hawkers.  We’ll see how that plays out now won’t we.

Bobby Jindal: Something is Wrong Republican Party

We have got to stop defending the kind of spending and out-of-control spending that we would never tolerate in the other side.

Eric Cantor: GOP is No Longer Relevant

Where we have really fallen down is, we have lacked the ability to be relevant to people’s lives. 

Mike Huckabee Throws D’em Bows

“His amazingly lackluster campaign reflected just how disconnected he was with the people”

25billion is no paltry sum, nor is 300,000, the number for how many jobs would be lost if GM were allowed to collapse.

This entire scenario reads like a high stakes version of that icebreaker game when your co-worker falls back and you catch them.

It now remains to be seen whether Americans are primed to catch their brethren.

Last week Rachel Maddow issued a commentary declaring that “Joe Must Go!”  RaisingKaine followed Maddow’s commentary with this clip from Byron Dorgan.

Should the Democrats grow a pair as Maddow suggests and let Joe go, or should they keep him?

As we continue casting votes with our remotes in preparation of casting our ballots, it’s well worth remembering that what happens now goes well beyond election day.  The person we elect will play a role in not only shaping our foreign and domestic policy, but setting the standard for how we choose to engage each other.  Frighteningly enough, they will likely do this by following our lead.  Therefore it’s imperative that we learn sooner rather than later, what indeed is “our national conversation.”

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Obama was just nominated as the presidential candidate for the Democratic party 2008.

As an American and as an African American I am proud, but mostly proud of the American voters who brought this about. Sure I’m proud of Barack Obama himself but he’s just done everything I expect of an extraordinarily committed, good and brilliant public servant. I’m not at all shocked that he was able to accomplish this as an African American because as an African American myself I know first hand how immeasurably capable we are of achieving greatness just as well as anyone else.

The enormous feat today actually gets credited to the millions of Americans who ignored ignorance and got on board. Obama is brilliant because he is awakening the brilliance of all of the American people.

And what’s more, after this convention week, after we get beyond all the feel-goodiness, let’s also remember that he has presented a pretty brilliant plan for propelling America full throttle into the global, competitive, technological and green 21st Century.

Obviously, what still worries me is that this plot is actually vast and these few men arrested are right in step with the overall plan, they are being put forth as mere scapegoats to distract us all from more people involved.

What we do know after viewing his News and Views program is that Ed Towns is no Gil Noble. The discussion taking place in this episode is a really important one, and it’s unfortunate that few people will make it through to the end. There are legitimate concerns about the quality of health-care, and hospitals in particular in central brooklyn. Towns’ guest do an adequate job of relaying to him some of the struggles faced by residents in this district, notably egregious wait times when entering an emergency room.

Towns appears to be listening to these two men speak, but will he do anything about it in Washington?

Sometimes you have to dig deep to find something interesting to blog about, other times the stuff just falls right in your lap. Dude, John Ewards can’t be serious…

ABC NEWS:
John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter’s baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby’s birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father.

A former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said he was the father of the child.

That last line there, as stated by this aide Young — can’t you just hear that being said by Maury Povich? Read it again Maury Povich style… “John, are your ready to hear your paternity test result? John Edwards… you ARE the father!”

Elizibeth Edwards apparently knew about his side piece back in 2006, but it’s unclear how much she knew, like if she was aware or not whether it was just a 2006 one-off or an ongoing jump-off.

Dude, remember, she’s slowly dying, and this is his way of sticking by her? Doing more sticking than she knew.

No more from me on this issue, you’ll be overloaded by the coverage as the weekend goes on. The most scandalous political news always comes out on a Friday. So juicy, watch to see if NBC ever cuts away from Olympic coverage to soak up some of the attention the other networks will be getting with this craziness.

But wait, here’s the twist that’ll be a surprise to some but not to others — the whistleblower here, Sec. Chapman, is Republican and she’s alleging her fraud charges against the state’s Dems. This resurfaces the battle between the parties over voter requirements like multiple forms of ID. This was from last month’s NYTimes story, “Officials Investigate 3 Alabama Counties in Voter Fraud Accusations“:

The accusations have larger national implications at a moment when many Republican officials around the country have cited rampant voter fraud as a justification for stricter identification requirements at the polls, a move that Democrats have said is really designed to dampen the turnout among Democratic voters.

And here’s this week’s take from FOX:

RELATED: Last month I described voter fraud issues i this entry, “Voter fraud is real“

McCain’s “Celebrity” video unmasked the perceptions that up to now his campaign had been doggedly trying to override, which is that McCain is a ornery old man who is out of touch with the American electorate.  He may not be out of touch in a great guy to get a beer with sense of the term, but definitely out of touch when it comes to things like computers, the internet, and presumably pop cultural references.  If McCain had been in tune with any of these things then he would have realized that while drawing maybe a few giggles from the senior set in Arizona, comparing Obama to Hilton and Spears is like comparing Dubya’s kids to soldiers, it just wouldn’t register.  

The other flawed element in McCain’s video is how in comparing Obama to America’s favorite damsels in dysfunction, McCain threw his own image and brand into comparison with Spears and Hilton, which is where it really gets ugly.  McCain’s staffers should have told him about something called “hateration,” which is what he was doing big time in his campaign ad–and few things are more reviled in this world than haters.  To put it in republican terms, “haters” are for the rest of the world what terrorists are for people whose mental alarms have been set by Karl Rove.  It would have been one thing for McCain to have produced “Celeb” if he had stayed clear of acting like a celebrity himself, but as the two clips below show, McCain has spent much of this campaign trying to get put on:

and numero dos…

The McCain campaign’s personalized version of MTV Cribs and his appearance on talk shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live reveals the fact that he too has ambitions of becoming an American idol.  Ever since Bill Clinton’s breakout success with the MTV generation elite presidential candidates have been toeing the line between trying to be cool, without coming across as silly, or looking like the old dude at the party.  By making what amounts to a campaign version of a dis record, McCain’s camp has stooped to a level that neither of his recent peers would have dared.  He has tried turning the presidential campaign into a tabloid battle.  

Of course as they say in Hollywood the only bad press is no press.  McCain’s antics have made him the focal point of the newswire of late.  Ironically it was only a few weeks ago that McCain was being lauded for staying quiet as Obama scuttled around making pronouncements and responding to everything uttered.  Now it’s McCain who has caught a bad case of political foot in mouth syndrome.  Having essentially conceded the youth vote with his latest actions, it will be interesting to see what kind of base McCain aligns himself with moving forward.  

Now that August is here, kids will soon be going back to school thereby inducing shopping sprees that many retailers are hoping will help them stay afloat until Christmas.  For the rest of us, it’s another day, another dollar.

As you can tell we have money on our minds today here at RP and because we know you do to do, and are probably dying to vent, we’re giving you a platform.

Tuesday’s talking point is what happened to your stimulus check?

Did it dry up like a dream deferred?

Did you spend it all at the local store?

Or did you put in the bank and now your portfolio’s about to explode?