Goin' Up (for F.H.)

The sole common denominator among Coltrane's Ascension, Coleman's Free Jazz, and Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Freddie came ready to deal in any context, even if the New Thing ultimately wasn't his thing. His creative, hard-boppin' trumpet work can best be appreciated on many classic Blue Note sessions, e.g., Art Blakey's Free For All, Tina Brooks' True Blue.

Here is a recent article on Hubcap by Howard Mandel.

A New Day (Is Here At Last) [UPDATE: not]

Today's election of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States was something I could have not foreseen four years ago today when I wrote in my inaugural blog post, "We must organize and fight. We should not be optimistic, but there are reasons to be hopeful."

Well, we've organized, we've fought, and now...



The damage done to this nation and to this world by the Bush Administration will take a long time to undo -- and they're not about to give up on their destructive agenda in their final weeks in power. The most significant damage -- again, ongoing -- can never be undone.

Let us indeed hope that...


UPDATE: So much for hope.
"Bush's Third Term? You're Living It"

What Ends

Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 09:24:53
From: "malachi" malachi@savagesound.com
To: "Jason Guthartz" jason@restructures.net

***

man i hope the bird-flu kills off all the stupid people -

starting with their god, rush limbaugh

Today we remember a man who gave his life.
Tomorrow we celebrate another man who gives us hope.
The following day, we must remember that man's promise:



Tomorrow, I'm headed back to Indiana one last time, leaving Chicago at four a.m., hopefully returning in time for the big party in Grant Park (yes, I lucked out and got a ticket!). It will be a moment of well-deserved celebration and self-congratulation.

But while we celebrate this new hope, we must remember the continuing crimes and horrors abroad for which we are responsible -- crimes and horrors not involving stock indexes and 401(k) balances, but flesh and blood.

Peace & Sanity (for S.T.)

"I hope for peace and sanity—it's the same thing."
—Studs Terkel (May 16, 1912 — Oct 31, 2008)





"Obama can't be a moderate! He's got to remember where he comes from! Obama, he has got to be pushed!"
—Studs, 2008

"Take it easy, but take it."

Chicago Tribune, founded 1847

"This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party's nominee for president."

Lips Are Important

Fool Me Once...

An excerpt from Taibbi's latest:

Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

One place where Taibbi may be proved wrong is where he says:

Americans like politicians who hate books and see the face of Jesus in every tree stump. They like them stupid and mean and ignorant of the rules. Which is why Palin has only seemed to grow in popularity as more and more of these revelations have come out.

We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm gonna have some fun tonight.

ps - Too funny.

The War on Coherence

Sarah Palin: Maverick Reformer of Language & Logic

COURIC: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials?

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our next door neighbors are foreign countries. they're in the state that i am the executive of. And there in Russia --

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We do -- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia -- as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go?

It's Alaska, It's right over the border. It is from Alaska, that we send those out to make sure an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

"It's like H.L. Mencken wrote a Christopher Guest movie starring Tina Fey"

Please make it stop!

DO ANYTHING YOU CAN - BUT DO IT!!!

UPDATE - Hertzberg:

This seems to be a case of incoherence of thought leading to incoherence of syntax. Pronouns wander in search of antecedents like Arctic explorers in a blinding snowstorm.
***
The whole thing reads like something rendered from the Finnish by Google Translate.

McCain's "Friends"

This is just sad: McBush is so desperate to make friends, he has to resort to this:

apparently, the Republicans couldn't find very many African American supporters to show on the Big Screen Of Triumph, when introducing McCain... so they simply put up stock photos of black people.

Maybe he can take a tip from Colbert:

It's Later Than You Think

With Labor Day behind us and pumpkin-flavored drinks already returning to your favorite coffee shop, it's not too early to start thinking about holiday gifts for those special someones. The friendly experiencers in your life would surely appreciate a copy of Anthony Braxton's 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 (Firehouse 12 Records).

I was never really happy with the audio/video quality of the YouTube trailer, so I've now made a higher-quality version available here:



And if you need to catch up on the hoopla:

• Getting the word out, part 1
• Getting the word out, part 1.5
• Getting the word out, part 2
• Getting the word out, part 3
• Getting the word out, part 4
• Getting the word out, part 5
• Getting the word out, part 6
• Getting the word out, part 7
• Getting the word out, part 7.5
• Damn You, Jeff Lorber!!!
• Getting the word out, part 8
• Getting the word out, part 9
• Getting the word out, part 9.3

Re Tensions

One of the great recordings of the 1970s, or any time for that matter, Roscoe Mitchell's Nonaah (pronounced No Nay Ah) (1976-77) has just been reissued as an expanded & meticulously remastered 2-CD set by Nessa Records. I vividly recall being completely eviscerated upon first hearing the solo version of the title track (perhaps on WNUR -- perhaps even during my own show -- can't remember exactly). This piece was performed for an audience that had come to hear Anthony Braxton, who cancelled at the last minute. Mitchell says in the liner notes:

The music couldn't move till [the audience] respected me, until they realized that I wasn't going anywhere, and if someone was going it would have had to be them.

This only hints at the intense tension-made-audible on this track. The entire album is as fresh and relevant as ever.

This reissue, along with the recent publication of George Lewis's AACM book, and the imminent release of Mosaic's box set of Braxton's Complete Arista Recordings, will surely lead to a reevaluation of a large chunk of creative music history.

link on how to order Nonaah

Mission Satisfied (for I.H.)

food for our soul:

and for other things:

The Hard Sell

During a 1945 Duke Ellington radio broadcast included on The Treasury Shows, Vol. 3, the announcer provides this astonishingly aggressive sales pitch:

And now, ladies and gentlemen, let's talk about waste for a moment or two. The Duke's music is much too good to waste. You know that. Anything good is too precious to be wasted. And important things like courage and lives certainly must not be wasted. Still, you in your safe homes can be guilty of wasting American lives.
Ask yourself: Isn't it true that if a man loses his life or a limb because he didn't have that extra bullet that would have killed the Jap who got him, it's somebody's fault that that bullet wasn't there?
[pause]
You've got to admit that.
Now, who can we pin that on? On you perhaps?
Because every piece of equipment in this war starts on its way to the fighting fronts from the United States Treasury. If the Treasury doesn't have the money, someone doesn't get that extra bullet. If the Treasury doesn't have the money, perhaps someone didn't buy that extra war bond. Perhaps that someone is you.

I Am Not Bruce Conner (for B.C.)

1934-2008

Manohla Dargis:

For better and sometimes worse, scores of other filmmakers in both the avant-garde and the commercial mainstream have been influenced by Mr. Conner’s shocking juxtapositions and propulsive, rhythmically sophisticated montage. MTV should have paid him royalties.

Bruce Jenkins, from 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story, Part II:

It would be Conner's singular contribution [to cinema] to remove the viewer from the Brakhagean paradigm -- from a close encounter, that is, with the personal vision of the filmmaker -- and from Hollywood's third-person, omniscient fictions as well. The result would be a completely novel viewing experience that might best be termed "second-person film," continually addressing itself to the experience of "you," the film viewer, through an active reworking of the already coded and manipulated cultural material of the movies. Highly constructed and meticulously crafted from cheap cast-offs, peripheral forms, and eccentric images of his own devising, Conner's work would challenge the very legibility of the medium in any of its contemporary manifestations. Through a break with realism and a defiant insistence on liberating the materiality of film, he would deliver cinema from the protocols of both conventional and experimental practice. No mere formalist, however, Conner deployed his uniquely radical practice, like the Cubists before him, in the service of understanding the cultural and social significance of his materials -- specifically, by unmasking the ways in which meanings are constructed and conveyed in the culture. It was, indeed, an explosion in a film factory.

Happy Days Are Here Again

Earlier this year, in a letter boosting John McCain's conservative bona fides, Bob Dole pointed out "that McCain’s voting record — as measured by support for the president — mirrored that of the ultra-conservative former [now dead!] U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.)." Since McCain seems to be having trouble finding the right people to run his campaign, I nominate Bob Dole.

Back to the happy occasion: I propose the July 4th holiday be changed from one celebrating the Declaration of Independence to one celebrating Helms's death.
We don't have enough holidays celebrating the deaths of major assholes.

Remember this:

On Aug. 3 [1993] Senator Moseley-Braun was in a Senate elevator with two other senators. Senator Helms entered the elevator, saw Senator Moseley-Braun and began to sing, "I wish I was in the land of cotton." Senator Helms then turned to Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the other senators present, and said: "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries."

Now, I know it may be un-ladylike, but wouldn't you love to see Carol Moseley-Braun squat over Helms's casket and take a big ol' dump while singing "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"?

Good riddance, motherfucker.

Lift ev'ry voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

UPDATE: Perhaps Helms fell dead after someone showed him this:

Barack Obama's promise to make a play for North Carolina -- a state that has consistently voted Republican since 1980 -- might just have some potential to really pay off, a new poll from Rasmussen suggests.

The numbers: McCain 45%, Obama 43%, within the ±4% margin of error. This is consistent with other recent polls that have shown McCain with only a small lead here.

Praying to Joe Pesci (for G.C.)

Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.

153

= the number of days until November 4, 2008, a.k.a. Election Day.

Though the map looks favorable right now, 153 days is an eternity in electoral politics.

And while McCain was considered too "centrist" by many radically regressive Republicans and neo-cons, it must be emphasized that, per Matt Taibbi:

McCain may be even more crazy than the Republican mainstream on the issue that matters most of all: the war in Iraq and war in general. My guess is that Republican voters are not going to mind that McCain's candidacy might drive a stake through the heart of the weenie fascism of Rush and Hannity, once they figure out that the candidate is a solid bet to deliver them World War III. And that should scare the shit out of us all.

Yes, we should be scared. And no, we can never underestimate American bloodlust. But I may be naive enough to think that McCain can't win on Iraq (or Iran), and he knows it. His strategy will emphasize his experience (quantity-over-quality, of course) and his "straight-talking maverick" persona to convince "his friends" that, policy details aside, he's the type of all-white all-right guy you can trust.

However:

This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

It will take time, money and hard work, but McCain must be defeated.

Let's go to work, people. The clock is ticking.

In The Gap (for R.R.)

1925-2008

My art is about paying attention – about the extremely dangerous possibility that you might be art.

I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.

John Cage:

Having made the empty canvases (R.R.: A canvas is never empty), Rauschenberg became the giver of gifts. Gifts, unexpected and unnecessary, are ways of saying Yes to how it is, a holiday.

To Whom It May Concern:
The white paintings came first; my silent piece came later.

It's Time To Go pt. 2

We're Walkin' - Yes Indeed...

It's that time of the year once again for Kath & I to participate in the Y-ME Race to Empower.
Please consider making a donation to support our team!

It's Time To Go

If you're nice, maybe President Obama will make you Ambassador to Bosnia.

UPDATE: Chris Bowers asks this trick question:

I have a simple question: why is it that the Democratic nomination was decided tonight? What happened tonight that hadn't happened before?

Why a trick question?

The reason is simple: the established media was never covering the Democratic nomination campaign. They were, instead, covering some form of kabuki theater where reality is ignored and liberals are ritually gutted on the public stage for the pleasure of elite, rich, white, male pundits everywhere.

The Quiet Revolutionary (for J.G.)

a postscript to the excerpt I posted here about Jimmy Giuffre:

Our longest run of work was a European tour of close to three weeks; I think the approval we found there caused the music to advance considerably. Shortly after our return to New York, we began a residency in a coffee house on Bleecker Street, playing for whatever money was collected at the door. We disbanded on a night we each made 35 cents.

--Steve Swallow, in the liner notes of the CD reissue of Free Fall.

Why Bother

Michael Pollan, in "The Green Issue" of the NYT Magazine:

The “cheap-energy mind,” as Wendell Berry called it, is the mind that asks, “Why bother?” because it is helpless to imagine — much less attempt — a different sort of life, one less divided, less reliant. Since the cheap-energy mind translates everything into money, its proxy, it prefers to put its faith in market-based solutions — carbon taxes and pollution-trading schemes. If we could just get the incentives right, it believes, the economy will properly value everything that matters and nudge our self-interest down the proper channels. The best we can hope for is a greener version of the old invisible hand. Visible hands it has no use for. *** Going personally green is a bet, nothing more or less, though it’s one we probably all should make, even if the odds of it paying off aren’t great. Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will. *** The idea is to find one thing to do in your life that doesn’t involve spending or voting, that may or may not virally rock the world but is real and particular (as well as symbolic) and that, come what may, will offer its own rewards.

He suggests we should grow "some — even just a little" of our own food.

Anyone know where I can get a pizza tree?

ps - Pollan's "Unhappy Meals" (now expanded into a book) is a must-read; more here.

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.
--Cree Indian Proverb

Mor[e]on Media Make-Believe

"Story behind the story: The Clinton myth" [via DHinMI at Kos]:

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.

Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet. * * * In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.

The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics. * * * One reason is fear of embarrassment. * * *

One important, if subliminal, reason is self-interest. Reporters and editors love a close race — it’s more fun and it’s good for business.

Abracadabra REDUX

One more time:

Yet the mainstream media continues to promote Clinton's strategy of coup-by-superdelegate.

Even the lefty media can't quite get it right: The Nation begins an otherwise spot-on editorial with this erroneous statement:

Hillary Clinton's commanding Democratic primary victories in Ohio and Rhode Island and her narrow win in Texas....

(sigh)

Mainstream Values

While a prominent Democratic politician gets caught with his pants down, we must once again ask this question:

The man in the White House invades a nation that didn't threaten us, kills 4,000 Americans, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, destabilizes an entire region and it was all based on blatant lies and he gets to stay in office, while Spitzer wanted to have sex, admittedly in an unthinking way, and he has to resign?

Abracadabra: Loss = Win

From: Jason Guthartz
To: New York Times
Subject: correction to "Obama Wins Wyoming Caucuses"

I am writing to correct the second sentence in the above-referenced article, published on March 9, 2008:
"The [Wyoming] victory, while in a state with only 18 delegates, was welcome news for the Obama campaign as it sought to blunt any advantage Mrs. Clinton might gain from her victories in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday."

This statement regarding Clinton's "victory" in Texas is inaccurate. While Clinton won more delegates from the Texas primaries, neither candidate can be said to have won Texas, since -- as the Times' own "Election Guide" shows -- the state's caucus results are not final. Indeed, most informed opinion expects Obama's gain in delegates from the caucuses will give him the overall delegate "win" in Texas.

The Times is not alone in conjuring up a Texas "win" for Clinton:

Clinton scored campaign saving victories in Ohio and Texas last Tuesday after 11 straight losses to Obama.

To recap:

Last Tuesday night, mainstream media bandied about the story that Hillary Clinton had won Texas; but it wasn’t true. Responsible journalism would have necessitated qualifying the Texas call, given the partial results of Tuesday night; but they didn’t. Texas has a two step contest- a primary and a caucus- much like a few other states. And now the Texas democrats have given a preliminary account of both the primary and caucus results, which shows that overall: Obama won at least three more delegates than she did. And also, that he won at least 100,000 more votes when both contests are combined. She won the primary in the day and he won the caucus in the night. This is a fact, and yet mainstream media perpetuates the myth that Hillary won Texas. What could be their motivation here?

It seems to me that the mainstream media, having generated the conventional wisdom that they themselves have "taken it easy" on Obama, now feel obliged to prove themselves "fair and balanced" by conjuring up a false "Clinton comeback" narrative. As if this primary contest weren't dramatic enough.

Markos Moulitsas brings us back to reality:

As Clinton gears up her efforts for coup by super delegate, threatening civil war within the party, it bears noting that in her best week of the campaign since her New Hampshire victory, she actually lost ground in the race.

[It was] a +6 delegate week for Obama officially, +7 unofficially.

Keep one eye on the math, the other on the shenanigans. (see prior warning)

UPDATE by Markos:

My list was incomplete. ...officially, Obama has a 13-delegate advantage for the week even before Mississippi votes tomorrow. Throw in the unpledged delegate in Wyoming who will certainly be an Obama delegate, and unofficially, Obama notched a 14-delegate gain in this "week from hell" for him. ...

A few more "bad" weeks like this and he'll have the nomination nicely sewed up.

In any case, we need to work for every vote in the upcoming contests.

On Its Ear

Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson on The Machinery of Hope:

...the Obama campaign has succeeded not by attracting starry-eyed followers who place their faith in hope but by motivating committed activists who are answering a call to national service. They're pouring their lifeblood into this campaign, not because they are in thrall to a cult of personality but because they're invested in the idea that politics matter, and that their participation can turn the current political system on its ear.

In reality, it already has. "We're seeing the last time a top-down campaign has a chance to win it," says [Joe] Trippi. "There won't be another campaign that makes the same mistake the Clintons made of being dependent on big donors and insiders. It's not going to work ever again."

Taibbi on "McCain Resurrected"

a new classic on the "wounded, crusading Ahab"

and something new from Robert Greenwald:

AGS @ HPAC

come on down:

TalkingPoint: Anti Gravity Surprise

6pm Monday, March 3rd at the Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell Avenue
Muller Meeting Room
http://www.hydeparkart.org

TalkingPoint is a free monthly Monday evening series in which Chicago-based cultural producers share their ideas as a starting point for conversation in an intimate setting.

Since 2001, public art group Anti Gravity Surprise has addressed the concept of world peace in 9/11-themed multimedia project Gathering Motion; mounted a full eight-hour day of art and discussion about work with Second Shift; and hosted $election community art events to engage voters.

Co-founders Kathleen Duffy and Jennifer Karmin will speak about their collaborative approach and ongoing work Tell Us What You Think, an evolving public art project that will be distributed as a free workbook.

http://www.antigravitysurprise.org

Come down to the Hyde Park Art Center for a chance to listen, discuss, and learn. Food and drink provided.

The Sound of Fresh Chicken (for T.M.)

Miles on the August 1969 Bitches Brew sessions:

I had told Teo Macero, who was producing the record, to just let the tapes run and get everything we played, told him to get everything and not to be coming in interrupting, asking questions. "Just stay in the booth and worry about getting down the sound," is what I told him. And he did, didn't fuck with us once and got down everything, got it down real good.

p.s.:

"You got to get the chicken... you ain't gettin' the chicken."
-- Miles Davis to Lenny White, during the 1969 Bitches Brew sessions

"Bitches Brew is not a frozen chicken."
-- Wayne Shorter, 1999

UPDATE:

Phoneathon '08

Phoneathon '08 starts tonight: Call 847-491-WNUR and show your appreciation for quality noncommercial radio.

There are lots of great Jazz Show premiums, including the autographed Braxton Iridium box shown above.

(If you want a T-shirt to complement the box, you might ask if they still have any shirts left from 2000.)

Hillary the Hypocrite

let the flip-flopping begin:

Mrs. Clinton’s aides said the delegates should make their decision based on who they thought would be the stronger candidate and president. Mr. Obama argues that they should follow the will of the Democratic Party as expressed in the primary and caucuses — meaning the candidate with the most delegates from the voting.

more flopping:

Hillary Clinton will take the Democratic nomination even if she does not win the popular vote, but persuades enough superdelegates to vote for her at the convention, her campaign advisers say.

The New York senator, who lost three primaries Tuesday night, now lags slightly behind her rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in the delegate count. She is even further behind in "pledged'' delegates, those assigned by virtue of primaries and caucuses.

But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.

Hillary on "the Will of the People"

my first DKos diary:

If Obama ends up with more pledged delegates when all the primary/caucus votes are counted (incl. any possible do-over of Florida & Michigan), will Clinton respect the will of the people and concede, or will she allow superdelegates to hand her the nomination?

Sen. Clinton should remember her own comments from 2000:

"I have thought about this for a long time," Mrs. Clinton said at a rally in an airport hangar in Syracuse. "I've always thought we had outlived the need for an Electoral College, and now that I am going to the Senate, I am going to try to do what I can to make clear that the popular vote, the will of the people, should be followed."
***
She said she wanted "to be on the side of the democratic process working," and so would support the effort to establish direct presidential elections.
***
"I believe strongly that in a democracy we should respect the will of the people."

Suuu-perb Tuesday

Impressive.

An interesting aspect of the results is the disparity in "big" victories, i.e., states won with 60% or more of the popular vote:

OBAMA:
Alaska - 75%
Colorado - 67%
Georgia - 66%
Idaho - 80%
Illinois - 64%
Kansas - 74%
Minnesota - 67%
North Dakota - 61%

CLINTON:
Arkansas - 69%

One of the better summaries:

As with every campaign, we have to deal with the reality of where things stand today. But, sometimes it does help to take a step back. Obama was practically unknown as a serious contender a year ago. He was running against the vaunted, inevitable Clinton machine. Last year, it was the conventional wisdom, we all agreed, that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee and the race would be wrapped up on Super Tuesday. That didn't happen. Her aura of invincibility is gone. Her inevitability is gone.

Much left to do.

Can We?

the numbers are looking good



tune in
and/or chip in

& stay tuned

Scheer on Clinton

Robert Scheer nicely summarizes the Problems With Hillary:

Her supporters have accepted Clinton’s refusal to repudiate her vote to authorize the war, an ignominious moment she shares with other Democrats, including presidential candidate John Edwards, who at least has made a point of regretting it. It was a vote that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, 3,940 U.S. service members—five more on Monday—and a debt in the trillions of dollars that will prevent the funding of needed domestic programs that Clinton claims to support. And it doesn’t end with Iraq. Clinton has been equally hawkish toward Iran and, in a Margaret Thatcher-like moment, even attacked Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden. Clinton’s apologists include Gloria Steinem and too many other feminists, who should know better than to betray the women’s movement’s commitment to peace in favor of simplistic gender politics.

***

Hillary Clinton has made “experience” key to her claim to the presidency and tells us she will do the right thing from “day one.” The reality is that her extra four years in the U.S. Senate hardly provides better experience than Obama’s eight years in the Illinois state Senate battling for progress with the nation’s most hard-boiled politicians. And if she lays claim to her husband’s presidency, then she must also take responsibility for caving in to big media with the Telecommunications Act, selling out to the banks with the Financial Services Modernization Act, and killing the federal welfare program—a political gambit that deeply wounded millions of women and children. Her political career began with the Senate and she hit the ground running, but, as her craven support for Bush after 9/11 shows, it was in the wrong direction.

Taibbi Time

Not the first time Matt Taibbi has made the Nixon-Hillary connection. Now he elaborates:

What people forget about Clinton is that she is basically a Republican at heart. She campaigned for Barry Goldwater once upon a time and even canvassed poor neighborhoods in Chicago looking for "vote fraud" by Democrats. She was president of the College Republicans at Wellesley. In 1968, at the height of America's most intense cultural debate in a century, she only abandoned the Republican Party because it backed Dick Nixon instead of her favorite, Nelson Rockefeller.

Which is ironic, because as a presidential candidate herself, Hillary has basically run exactly Nixon's 1968 campaign. Her stump speech from the get-go was all about the "invisible Americans," a nearly word-for-word echo of Nixon's revolutionary "forgotten Americans" strategy of that year. Like Nixon, she was targeting a slice of the electorate that had chosen to stay on the sidelines during a cultural war and secretly yearned for someone in the political center to restore order; it's no accident that Hillary was on the opposite side of every issue that sent lefties to the streets in the Bush years, from the war to free trade to the Patriot Act.

Suuu-perb

We're #1! We're #1!

from the Financial Times:

US leads on deaths from treatable disease

More patients die in the US from diseases that could be treated by timely intervention than in any other leading industrialised country, a study by senior health academics showed on Monday. ....

"If the US performed as well as the top three countries in the study" - France, with 65 deaths per 100,000, and Japan and Australia, both with 71 per 100,000 - "there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths per year," the authors write in the journal Health Affairs.

via Jerome a Paris, who comments:

But Like Madeleine Albright said about the death of hundreds of thousands Iraqi kids in the 90s because of the sanctions regime, "it is worth it" - some principles are worth upholding even if it is tragically costly to do so. These hundred thousand Americans dying earlier than could have been each year (imagine: one million preventable deaths over the past decade!) are the front line soldiers in the fight for freedom and against socialism.

Thank God for them.

Ah yes, the dangers of "socialized medicine".

I guess if you haven't worked hard enough to get the right type of job with the right type of benefits, then you deserve to die.

see also here