Steve Jobs could not have created the personal computer working inside Hewlett Packard or another similar company. The existing movie studios are like HP. Truly revolutionary cinema would ask not just for acting chops but also an entrepreneurial spirit. The paradigms of racism and sexism that are the firm frameworks of the current corporate arrangements, both in terms of movie production houses and their twin counterpart, the mass media, especially television, would make truly revolutionary work impossible.
A successor franchise to Star Wars, not just in terms of science fiction, technology fiction, but also social science fiction, imagining the woman of tomorrow, is necessarily an anti racism idea. The intelligent life they have been looking for is in Africa and India; the vast cosmos was created so you may feel special, so humanity may feel special. A successor franchise to James Bond, a Cold War relic, is just a nod to geopolitics. The post World War II world order is over. A successor franchise to Jason Bourne, which had a shelf life of a total of three movies anyways, is that Bourne is slightly biologically enhanced; there is massive room for enhancement in the sociological sphere. You would end up with more dramatic results. Would make for great entertainment. It would be a major departure from current ground reality.
The earth is your only home. If God wanted to destroy humanity, He would send one meteor to earth, and another to Mars at the same time, if you might also be on Mars.
I have already started to flesh out the concept. I have no plans to approach any existing movie studio. I am going to create a new company to cocoon the movie franchise. I am going to create a family of companies anyways. What's one more company?
A truly global release would be big money.
Racism is Lucifer's final grip on humanity. That grip is to be broken. That is why I am here. That, and a few other reasons.
Your racist arguments are being supplied to you by Lucifer. He gets insider your head and talks. And you listen.
Sometimes, or maybe often times, the best way to break the glass ceiling is by walking out of the glass house. It's called entrepreneurship. It's called out of the box thinking.
for the first time in American history, a president walked into a federal prison. President Obama was there to see for himself a small piece of the damage that the nation’s decades-long binge of mass incarceration has wrought. ...... a week in which he spoke powerfully about the failings of a criminal justice system that has damaged an entire generation of Americans, locking up millions — disproportionately men of color — at a crippling cost to them, their families and communities, as well as to the taxpayers and society as a whole. ..... “These are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes that I made, and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. The difference is they did not have the kinds of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.” ...... people who commit violent crimes are not the reason for the exploding federal prison population over the last few decades. Most of the growth has come instead from nonviolent, low-level drug offenders caught up in absurdly harsh mandatory minimum sentences that bear no relation to the seriousness of their offense or to the maintenance of public safety. ...... “If you’re a low-level drug dealer, or you violate your parole, you owe some debt to society,” Mr. Obama said. “You have to be held accountable and make amends. But you don’t owe 20 years. You don’t owe a life sentence.” ...... Mandatory minimums like these should be reduced or eliminated completely, he said. Judges should have more discretion to shape sentences and to use alternatives to prison, like drug courts or community programs, that are cheaper and can be more effective at keeping people from returning to crime. ...... overuse of solitary confinement in which more than 80,000 inmates nationwide are held on any given day. Many are being punished for minor infractions or are suffering from mental illness...... the importance of removing barriers to employment, housing and voting for former prisoners. “Justice is not only the absence of oppression,” Mr. Obama said, “it is the presence of opportunity.” ..... Any comprehensive solution to this criminal justice catastrophe must come from Congress and the state legislatures which for decades enacted severe sentencing laws and countless other harmful measures. In recent years, the opposite trend has taken hold as lawmakers in both conservative and liberal states have reduced populations in state prisons — where the vast majority of inmates are held — as well as crime rates. ...... eliminate mandatory minimums for many low-level drug crimes and create educational and other programs in prison that have been shown to reduce recidivism. ..... One sign of how far the politics of criminal justice has shifted was a remark by former president Bill Clinton, who signed a 1994 law that played a key role in the soaring growth of America’s prison system. On Wednesday, Mr. Clinton said, “I signed a bill that made the problem worse. And I want to admit it.”
by the age of 10, white children don’t believe that black children feel the same amount of pain as they do, the first stage of dehumanization....... the grotesque contrast between the brutal police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice and the treatment extended to Dylann Roof, charged with murdering nine black people last month in a church in Charleston, S.C. — captured alive, treated to a meal by the arresting officers, assigned a judge who expressed concern for his family. ..... the kinds of pressures we put on language, our stubborn belief that the right word can be both diagnosis and cure.
I had great reservations talking about the one topic that I think about every single day. ..... "The only difference between people in The North and people in The South is that down here, at least people are honest about being racist." ..... New York State is one of the most segregated states in the country. Buffalo, New York where my aunt lives is one of the 10 most segregated school systems in the country. ..... She doesn't need to realize that "better schools" exclusively means "whiter schools." ..... I don't talk about race with White people because I have so often seen it go nowhere. When I was younger, I thought it was because all white people are racist. Recently, I've begun to understand that it's more nuanced than that. ....... They have no need, nor often any real desire, to think in terms of a group. They are supported by the system, and so are mostly unaffected by it........ an incessantly repeating argument where a Black person says "Racism still exists. It is real," and a white person argues "You're wrong, I'm not racist at all. I don't even see any racism." My aunt's immediate response is not "that is wrong, we should do better." No, her response is self-protection: "That's not my fault, I didn't do anything. You are wrong." ......
Martin Luther King did not end racism.
......... Racism is the fact that "White" means "normal" and that anything else is different. ...... Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan in Star Trek. Khan, who is from India. Is there anyone Whiter than Benedict fucking Cumberbatch? What? They needed a "less racial" cast because they already had the Black Uhura character? That is racism. Once you let yourself see it, it's there all the time......... The system was made for White people, so White people don't have to think about living in it....... Living every single day with institutionalized racism and then having to argue its very existence, is tiring, and saddening, and angering. Yet if we express any emotion while talking about it, we're tone policed, told we're being angry. In fact, a key element in any racial argument in America is the Angry Black person, and racial discussions shut down when that person speaks. The Angry Black person invalidates any arguments about racism because they are "just being overly sensitive," or "too emotional," or- playing the race card. Or even worse, we're told that we are being racist (Does any intelligent person actually believe a systematically oppressed demographic has the ability to oppress those in power?) ...........
The entire discussion of race in America centers around the protection of White feelings.
........ The reality of thousands of innocent people raped, shot, imprisoned, and systematically disenfranchised are less important than the suggestion that a single White person might be complicit in a racist system. ... This is the country we live in. Millions of Black lives are valued less than a single White person's hurt feelings.......... White people and Black people are not having a discussion about race. Black people, thinking as a group, are talking about living in a racist system. White people, thinking as individuals, refuse to talk about "I, racist" and instead protect their own individual and personal goodness. In doing so, they reject the existence of racism. ......... It's evident in the school to prison pipeline and the fact that there are close to 20 people of color in prison for every white person. ....... "Charleston shooting: Black and Muslim killers are 'terrorists' and 'thugs'. Why are white shooters called 'mentally ill'?" ....... America has a growing number of violent hate groups, populated mostly by white men, and that nearly *all* serial killers are white men can not shadow the fundamental truth of white male goodness. In fact, we like White serial killers so much, we make mini-series about them. .......... White people are good as a whole, and only act badly as individuals. .......... Racism is so deeply embedded in this country not because of the racist right-wing radicals who practice it openly, it exists because of the silence and hurt feelings of liberal America. ........ Racism exists because I, not you, am silent. .......... White people are in a position of power in this country because of racism.
I came from the kind of poor that people don't want to believe still exists in this country. Have you ever spent a frigid northern-Illinois winter without heat or running water? I have. At 12 years old were you making ramen noodles in a coffee maker with water you fetched from a public bathroom? I was. Have you ever lived in a camper year-round and used a random relative's apartment as your mailing address? We did. Did you attend so many different elementary schools that you can only remember a quarter of their names? Welcome to my childhood. ....... Poverty colors nearly everything about your perspective on opportunities for advancement in life. Middle-class, educated people assume that anyone can achieve their goals if they work hard enough. Folks steeped in poverty rarely see a life past working at the gas station, making the rent on their trailer, and self-medicating with cigarettes and prescription drugs until they die of a heart attack. (I've just described one whole side of my family and the life I assumed I'd be living before I lucked out of it.) ....... As a child I was constantly discriminated against because of my poverty, and those wounds still run very deep. ..... being a straight, white, middle-class, able-bodied male, can be like winning a lottery you didn't even know you were playing.
Everyone said, “I need a break,” but the subtext from my Black friends was screaming, “I needed to get out of the United States because I can not breathe.” ..... Most Black Americans, when shit starts hitting the fan, the walls, etc. — they can’t leave. ......... “Why are we even staying in a country that hates us?” someone asked me on Twitter. ..... racism in Paris can be acute, if not for African-Americans, most surely for the North Africans, whom I have been mistaken for on occasion. ..... Living while Black in America requires an intellectual and mental athleticism and finesse that has few peers. It is the startup of all startups. It is the ultimate marathon. Blackness demands from its cognizant participant a rigor and focus that can only produce majesty and mania. It is both heaven and hell. It is mercilessly reviled and hopelessly imitated. It is in short, a spiritual experience.
White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.
The journey towards understanding structural racism still requires people of colour to prioritise white feelings. Their eyes glaze over in boredom or widen in indignation. Their mouths start twitching as they get defensive. Their throats open up as they try to interrupt, itching to talk over you but not really listen, because they need to let you know that you’ve got it wrong. ...... they’ve never known what it means to embrace a person of colour as a true equal, with thoughts and feeling that are as valid as their own. ..... As the heckles rise and the defiance grows, I have to tread incredibly carefully, because if I express frustration, anger, or exasperation at their refusal to understand, they will tap into their pre-subscribed racist tropes about angry black people who are a threat to them and their safety. It’s very likely that they’ll then paint me as a bully or an abuser. It’s also likely that their white friends will rally round them, rewrite history and make the lies the truth. Trying to engage with them and navigate their racism is not worth that. ........ Amidst every conversation about Nice White People feeling silenced by conversations about race, there is a sort of ironic and glaring lack of understanding or empathy for those of us who have been visibly marked out as different for our entire lives, and live the consequences. It’s truly a lifetime of self-censorship that people of colour have to live. The options are: speak your truth and face the reprisal, or bite your tongue and get ahead in life. It must be a strange life, always having permission to speak and feeling indignant when you’re finally asked to listen. It stems from white people’s never questioned entitlement ...... I cannot continue to emotionally exhaust myself trying to get this message across, whilst also toeing a very precarious line that tries not to implicate any one white person in their role of perpetuating structural racism, lest they character assassinate me. ......... I don’t have a huge amount of power to change the way the world works, but I can set boundaries. I can halt the entitlement they feel towards me and I’ll start that by stopping the conversation. ..... Their intent is often not to listen or learn, but to exert their power, to prove me wrong, to emotionally drain me, and to rebalance the status quo.
A Jack Kennedy advisor who went to win the Nobel Prize in Economics once asked Kennedy to pick a political fight. If you win, you do good. If you lose, you will at least have fought a good fight, he said. Jack Kennedy did not like the idea.
"That's vanity, Paul, that's not politics," Jack Kennedy said.
If Hillary is still running Wednesday morning, put her on the cover of Vanity Fair, because by then she will have switched careers. She will no longer be in politics, she will have switched to being in the vanity business.
In February it was about not quitting. Ohio and Texas were about not quitting. Pennsylvania was about not quitting, it was about fighting all the way. West Virginia, Kentucky. Puerto Rico was about paying attention to the very last voter.
But after the last voter has spoken, and if Hillary keeps chugging along, that is not politics, Paul, that is vanity.
Hillary's best bet is to end up on Barack's ticket now. Someone who so badly wanted to become president can not now tell herself she is going to be happier being just Senator, or Senate Majority Leader, or Governor of New York. If you so badly wanted to be president, you must equally badly want to be Vice President.
During her scheduled Tuesday evening speech, Hillary has to decide she is now running for Vice President. You thank your staff, your supporters, voters, volunteers, your family. Then you congratulate Barack Obama and go ahead and flat endorse him that very night. You can't wait for those final 20 superdelegates as if they just might go for you. If you think they will, you lack political judgment, which is why you are not the nominee perhaps.
Show some political judgment. And do the next big thing you can do for the women of America and the world. Accept Barack's leadership, in good faith, and cheerfully. And get ready to go to the White House regardless. After eight years in the White House might be a good time to go full time with the Clinton Foundation and spend a ton of time with the hubbie guy.
Endorse Obama on Tuesday. Make it a joy for him to offer you the Vice Presidency. His decision to offer you the number two spot should not feel like constipation which it will feel like if you keep fighting like that Japanese soldier who was still fighting the second world war in 1973.
On Barack's part, I think it would be a bad idea to do the short list thing. Bill Clinton did not do the short list thing in 1992. He met up with Al Gore, and talked for a few hours, and when they emerged the world knew who the mate was. George W put Cheney in charge of the vice presidential candidate exploratory committee. That way the mate feels special. The mate has to feel she is who you had on mind all along. The heck with short lists. Short lists make for loser, lousy vice presidents.
It really is Hillary. Do the math. Feel the chemistry. Look at history. This is the woman you have in your mind. It has to be a woman, and that woman has to be Hillary.
If Hillary keeps pushing on after Tuesday, she is not a determined woman, but a white woman who believes in the caste hierarchy of white male, white female, minority male, minority female. The minority male might win the electoral race, but she will still not accept him for the leader he has proven himself to be. That would not be a great way to advance the gender agenda, and that takes the race agenda backwards rather.
Obama offers to meet with Clinton “once the dust settles” Reuters a conversation he had with Clinton when he called her on Sunday to congratulate her on her win in Puerto Rico. ...... “There aren’t many people who understand exactly how hard she’s been working. I’m one of them,” Obama said ....... once the dust has settled, I was looking forward to meeting with her at a time and place of her choosing,” he said. ...... has been making a point of publicly praising the New York senator.
Obama nears win amid signs Clinton may admit loss The Associated Press The former first lady has given no hint of quitting the race, and she has said repeatedly she may continue her candidacy even beyond the end of the primaries. ..... Obama's aides prodded uncommitted lawmakers and other "superdelegates" to climb on board quickly ....... he said, "It is my sense that between Tuesday and Wednesday we have a good chance of getting that number of delegates" needed for victory. ....... if Obama failed to gain 2,118 delegates by Tuesday night, one possibility under discussion was for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to issue a statement on Wednesday urging superdelegates — members of Congress and other party leaders — to state their preferences as soon as possible. ..... she has repeatedly declined to say she would concede defeat if her rival appeared to gain the delegates he needs. ....... Ickes also conceded that Obama was likely to reach the delegate threshold by Wednesday, and that Clinton would need some time to consider her next step. The Comeback Id Vanity Fair the private-jetting around with a skirt-chasing, scandal-tinged posse ...... the smiling, snowy-haired man who is the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral he attends ....... Burkle had come with an attractive blonde, described by a fellow guest as “not much older than 19, if she was that.” ...... On any given visit to London, for example, Clinton is as apt to dine with Tony Blair or Kevin Spacey as with anyone who might raise an eyebrow. ........... No former president of the United States has ever traveled with such a fast crowd, and most 61-year-old American men of Clinton’s generation don’t, either. ...... Bill Clinton’s relevance—and his presence in public life—is as close to permanent as any politician’s can be. ........ among the most popular figures on the planet ...... every future presidential election of his lifetime ........ his never-a-dull-moment presidency ....... his roving intellect, his protean political talents, his outsize personality ........ his indiscipline ...... the donors who have contributed some $500 million to Clinton’s library and foundation ...... never made more than $35,000 a year as governor of Arkansas and left the White House about $12 million in debt ........ the world of rich friends, adoring fans, and borrowed jets ....... his eight-year absence from a political workplace that has changed radically in the interim has left him conspicuously rusty at the craft of which he was once a master ....... an abiding anger in him ..... a huge force of nature ...... cavernous narcissism ...... presented him with a big batch of condoms, and a participant told me at the time that Clinton instantly replied, “My staff thinks this is the last thing I need.” .......... “Do you think I would be stupid enough to go running with someone I was foolin’ with?,” Clinton later asked Lewinsky. ....... . “I was lost for three weeks after I left the White House,” he said on the campaign trail this winter. “Nobody ever played a song anymore. I had no idea where I was.” ........ ‘I’ve always been a guy who could bloom where I was planted.’ ....... paid speeches at $150,000 to $250,000 apiece ...... he set about earning an income that would “support a senator,” as he put it. ...... $10 million in book income for Hillary and $29 million in book income for Bill, along with $51 million in speaking fees for the former president. ......... everybody wants to grab his sleeve ...... Democrats about their only two-term president in 80 years, a man who took the party from the wilderness of loserdom to the White House and created the strongest economy in American history ......... Clinton’s craving for conversational companionship ...... Burkle, 55, a onetime supermarket boxboy who eventually parlayed ownership of several grocery chains into a fortune that Forbes magazine estimates to be at least $3.5 billion, is said to have bonded with Clinton over their shared origins as outsiders who rose to the very biggest leagues. ............ the self-reinforcing network of rich personal, charitable, political, and business supporters Clinton has built since his White House years. ...... “Now, when I got elected, I had the lowest net worth of any president of the 20th century” .......... He is visibly older and thinner. His hair is whiter and his countenance paler. At times, as the day wears on, he makes an odd cotton-mouth sound, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth as he talks. ........... he now tires more easily, and loses energy. ...... “He still has energy, but not stamina. He can recover, but he used to do that nonstop, with three hours’ sleep.” ........ fatigue, muscle pain, dehydration, depression, and impotence. ....... Many people who have bypass surgery get depressed afterward, while others suffer from increased irritability. “It’s very similar to postpartum depression. You deliver a child and then a week later it’s a dismal anticlimax. The same thing happens with heart surgery: you wonder if you’re going to make it, and then you wake up in the intensive-care unit and you’re the center of the universe, and a week later you’re exhausted and sore and about to be sent home.” ........ the Reverend Al Sharpton said that it was time for Clinton to just “shut up.” His old flame Gennifer Flowers, who has endorsed Hillary, referred to him as an “idiot husband.” ....... Senator Clinton herself had to tell him—as she did after he revived controversy over her imagined landing in Bosnia under sniper fire by unleashing a string of new inaccuracies to defend her—“Let me handle this.” ........ “There’s not a detail that escapes his notice and commentary,” the aide said, “and as usual with Clinton, much of what he says is worth listening to.” ...... Clinton’s temper has continued to get the better of him. ...... You really gotta go something to play the race card with me—my office is in Harlem. ...... the kinds of smaller towns presidents never visit—47 stops in Pennsylvania, 39 in Indiana, 50 in North Carolina ......... a rambling tour d’horizon of world problems ..... the way you summon people up and get them to do things has changed. All of this stuff, the blogging and the YouTubing and the way in which everything is instantaneously available ......... funneling low-cost anti-retroviral drugs to more than a million aids patients, shining the singular power of a presidential spotlight on the good work of others, and raising millions of dollars for practical programs in places much of the world’s power establishment never bothers with. .......... Reagan briefly scandalized late-80s Washington by taking $2 million for a single speaking trip to Japan. ......... Harry Truman was so reluctant to accept any business or commercial offer, however high-minded, that might be seen as capitalizing on the presidency that he nearly went broke in retirement. ......... Each year at Christmastime, Clinton sends out to supporters a slim, paperbound volume of his Selected Remarks, with a gold-embossed “Happy Holidays” greeting card replete with the requisite “bug” showing it was printed in a union shop. ......... He was never, ever, on time. ...... “Ken Starr spent $70 million and indicted innocent people to find out that I wouldn’t take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon.” ....... Clinton’s invariable insistence that his problems are someone else’s fault ........ He will remain a presence, a force to be reckoned with, as long as he draws breath. ....... But for a politician with so many admirers, allies, acquaintances, faithful retainers, and hangers-on, Clinton remains a profoundly solitary man, associates say, without any real peers, intellectual equals, or genuine friends with whom he can share the sweetest things in life. A Woman in Fullthe unconventional family she and Pitt have created ....... the mother she lost last year, the father she’s estranged from ...... I happen to be with somebody who finds pregnancy very sexy. ...... It’s as if the Jolie-Pitts are pioneering a new genre of family, with children from every global hot spot and parents who are beautiful and famously not married. ..... she is a Method actor in reverse; whereas a Method actor brings the things of her life into her roles, Jolie brings her characters’ stories into her real life. Which is why, though Jolie is an outstanding actress, she’s a more outstanding celebrity. It’s not that she becomes the character—it’s that the character becomes her. ......... in the process forcing those who follow such things (everyone) to re-write the hierarchy of the lunchroom. ...... Angelina is a new kind of movie star in just the way Barack Obama is a new kind of politician ....... been among the highest-paid actresses ever ...... she has become an obsession to women in America ....... “After my last divorce, I said I was absolutely going to marry somebody in another field, an aid worker or something. ....... I don’t see him as an actor. I see him very much as a dad, as somebody who loves travel and architecture more than being in movies.” ....... “It’s our media,” she said. “People always slow down for a train wreck. It’s like junk food. If you don’t feel good about yourself, you want to read crap about other people, like gossip in high school. You don’t understand why it’s there, but somehow it makes a lot of people feel better. ......... Jolie has children from three continents ...... I’m giving them the childhood I always wished I had. ........ Shiloh’s birth—they decided to have the baby in Namibia, far from the paparazzi. ....... a book on every religion. That’s how we plan to raise our kids. Teach them about all religions. ....... and taught me about dying ....... what’s most fun—to put yourself aside for these other little people you’re raising ....... “It’s a great thing about being pregnant—you don’t need excuses to pee, or to eat.” ....... They are officially estranged. Like Syria and Israel. ........ Voight wanted to control his daughter
Kennedy Has Surgery for Brain Tumor New York Times Ousted Nepal king consults astrologers in house hunt? Reuters India Maoist rebels destroy railway tracks, buildings in Bihar Reuters India Clinton's Endgame Washington Post A Clinton nomination at this point would tear the party apart. An assault on Bill Clinton so powerful it just might change his image San Diego Union Tribune, United States Clinton faces another hurdle in Vanity Fair story on husbandMarketWatch an unflattering profile on the post-presidential life of her husband. ..... Bill Clinton is portrayed as keeping fast company in the eight years since he left office, but the story falls short of saying the 61-year-old ex-chief executive has continued his womanizing ways. ....... leaving the White House with more than $12 million in debt ..... Ron Burkle, the billionaire Los Angeles supermarket magnate, as well as entertainment producer Steve Bing Article: Friends Feared New Clinton Bimbo EruptionsABC News Clinton's office distributed a memo to reporters Sunday calling Purdum's 9,600 word article "journalism of personal destruction at its worst." ........ a portrait of an undisciplined, sometimes reckless man trapped in a vacuum of self indulgence. ....... "Clinton was apparently seeing a lot of women on the road" ..... Clinton has never been the same since heart surgery in 2004. ..... Ron Burkle, a California billionaire and Clinton business partner, who has investors that include an entity connected to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai. Clinton seeks to go after Obama superdelegates The Associated Press "One thing about superdelegates is that they can change their minds," she told reporters aboard her campaign plane Sunday night. ....... Obama, campaigning in Mitchell, S.D., confidently predicted Clinton "is going to be a great asset when we go into November." ...... Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor and a national co-chairman of Clinton's campaign, said Sunday: "It does appear to be pretty clear that Senator Obama is going to be the nominee. After Tuesday's contests, she needs to acknowledge that he's going to be the nominee and quickly get behind him." Clinton ponders next move in marathon race AP New York senator is said to be considering a range of options, including dropping out of the race and endorsing Obama .... some of Clinton's most stalwart supporters, who have reluctantly concluded that it's time to move on. ...... "I have put together a much broader coalition" of voters than Obama. .... Clinton is simply trying to keep all options open until Obama is declared the winner, at which point she'll reassess. ....... privately, her aides have said Clinton's run is over and it's simply a matter of when it becomes formal ..... Obama campaign aides have begun to reach out to their counterparts on the Clinton campaign in hopes of pulling together and ameliorating hard feelings. Obama: He and Clinton to work together in fallAP Obama said to applause that "she and I will be working together in November." ...... Both parties see Michigan as a key swing state in the general election. Clinton plans New York speechAP Clinton Will Have Abundant Future Options, All With ObstaclesBloomberg she could run for governor of New York or Senate majority leader, or try to become a legislative power in the mold of Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. ...... have led party leaders such as Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo to call for a joint ticket. ...... A more likely path for Clinton is a higher-profile role in the Senate, political analysts and fellow senators say. In that way, the role model may be Kennedy, who became a legislative heavyweight in the decades after his failed 1980 bid to challenge President Jimmy Carter. ...... Clinton is considered one of the most knowledgeable leaders on health care ...... she perked up when talk turned to the minutiae of education and health policy. .... David Paterson, is the first black governor of New York Franken's old Playboy article concerns DemocratsAP Lieberman plays down chances of being on McCain ticketAFP McCain wants nuclear talks with China, RussiaAFP Bush hits trail for McCain, sparking Obama attackAFP 71 percent of Americans disapprove of how Bush is doing his job, the first time any president had smashed the 70 percent barrier. Bill Clinton hints at end to wife's campaignAFP "I want to say also that this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind," the former president told Clinton supporters in South Dakota ...... she would hold an election night "celebration" in her home state of New York ...... far-flung members of Clinton's travelling staff had been summoned back to New York for Tuesday evening and told their roles on the campaign are ending. ...... Clinton is to huddle with advisers and her husband at her home in Chappaqua to monitor the final results and decide whether and how to end her campaign. Power awaits Mrs Clinton - just not in the White House at The London Times For five months it has been said that both major candidates in this race, if victorious, would transform America's political landscape simply by virtue of their race or gender. ..... she has out-toughed her every male rival, including Mr Obama. ..... she has instead dragged out this race at the risk of permanent damage to the Clinton brand. ...... Her determination has fatally clouded her judgment. For many the last straw was her mention last week of the assassination of Robert Kennedy late in his nomination bid in 1968, apparently to justify her own refusal to concede. ...... Her destiny, instead, is to lead the Democratic majority in the Senate. Obama: He and Clinton to work together in fallAP Clinton plans New York speechAP She planned to address AIPAC Wednesday in Washington. ..... There was a sense of denouement in the campaign. She planned to rally with husband and former President Clinton and their daughter Chelsea in South Dakota Monday night — a reunion usually reserved for election nights. Exit rumored for Clinton as Democratic race climaxesAFP she may challenge a decision by Democratic leaders on convention delegates from Michigan and Florida. ...... The two clashed anew Monday over Iraq, national security and Obama's advocacy of a new diplomacy with US adversaries such as Iran. ....... McCain's warning came hours after Iran's firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Israel "is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene." ..... Obama was set Tuesday night to address thousands of supporters in the same conference hall in St. Paul, Minnesota where the Republican convention will be held in September.
Obama poised for nomination despite Clinton victory in Puerto Rico guardian.co.uk Obama's former church seeks to step beyond controversy AFP Post-Rules Committee, Clinton Camp Argues the Popular Vote FOXNews Analysis: Obama's sole focus is general election The Associated Press It's Barack Obama's party now. He beat the ultimate insider at the insider's game. ..... the floodgates would open this week as remaining superdelegates jump on the Obama bandwagon. ..... Obama's complete break with Trinity United Church of Christ will provide a degree of cover for superdelegates poised to endorse him but possibly still uncomfortable about some of his entanglements. ...... the in-your face decision to hold Tuesday night's primary season wrap-up rally at the Xcel Energy Center, site of the GOP convention beginning Sept. 1. ..... "Obama has to deal with the issue of white working-class reservations about him, highly social conservative attitudes" ...... the sermons of two preachers who are among his longtime acquaintances and supporters...... "I have to say this was one I didn't see coming. We knew there were going to be some things we didn't see coming. This was one," Obama said. "I didn't anticipate my fairly conventional Christian faith being subject to such challenge and such scrutiny. Initially with e-mails suggesting I was a Muslim, later with the controversy that Trinity generated." Clinton Puts Up Popular Vote Ad Washington Post Obama has 2,052 delegates while Clinton has 1,877. The new magic number to formally become the party's nominee is 2,118. Clinton threatens "nuclear option"Melbourne Herald Sun
California Democrats To Clinton: We Prefer Obama Forbes, USA California Democrats disagreed with the Clintons' latest pitch: 51% of those polled preferred Barack Obama, compared to just 38% for Clinton. What is remarkable is that this is a state that Clinton won by eight percentage points in February’s primary. ....... Obama’s California margin over John McCain is currently 17 percentage points, the same margin enjoyed by Clinton ...... Democratic men preferred Obama to Clinton by 21 percentage points and Democratic women, who helped Clinton to many of her victories, preferred the Illinois senator by 8 percentage points. ...... 22% of Clinton supporters are unlikely to vote Obama in November (compared to 17% of Obama supporters who indicate that they would not support Clinton).
The promise of a Barack Obama presidency is not that white people have been ruling and now black people are going to take over, the promise is that any person born in this country can grow up and aspire to be president, black, white, man, woman, anyone. A Barack Obama presidency is going to be a milestone for blacks, but it is also going to be a milestone for whites. Racism is not healthy for either side.
It has been my personal experience in New York City that the vast majority of people who support Barack just so happen to be white. These are not self-flagellating whites, or whites who lack confidence, or guilty whites, or white people who hate white people. These white people, their motives are positive and about the future. They are not supporting Barack because he is black, but because he is the best candidate. He inspires. He promises a future that these white people want to relate to. And they are not supporting Barack as white people, or they would be hostile to me when I show up for meetings, and they have not been so.
There is an understanding that this is not about race. This is a job application and Barack is applying. May the best, most qualified candidate win.
Hillary's tears in New Hampshire were not an act of racism. How ridiculous to suggest they were? (Hillary Cried, Women Responded, She Won) If she had lost in New Hampshire, this fight would have been over by February 5. That would have been total humiliation to Hillary, who she is, what her qualities are in terms of brain and heart, what she has already done, what she means to the women of America and the world. She was under enormous personal stress, and she cried. When I am under stress, I cry, what about you?
I have been one of those who has not been happy that I have had to choose between Barack and Hillary. If Barack had not run, I would have been as fanatically behind Hillary and I am on record saying so in real time. But I have tried to stay positive. (Switching To Obama)
Then I decided my first choice was a Barack-Hillary ticket, and my second choice was a Hillary-Barack ticket. And I thought we were headed towards a Barack-Hillary ticket and we still might be, but Hillary's Bobby Kennedy remark shook me. (Hillary's Bobby Kennedy Comment: Bitter Heart, Bad Taste)
The idea of the first woman president is the idea of taking gender relations in this country and across the world to new heights. The focus has to be on that gender agenda. You respect the democratic result and you realize you lost and then you go for the second best option: how to meld the gender agenda into a Barack presidency.
I am willing to give Hillary the benefit of doubt. All I know about her from before tells me she just meant to refer to the timeline. Bobby Kennedy was still campaigning in June. Don't push me over, don't ask me to quit. (But, Hillary, Quit)
When Barack Obama was running for the US Senate, Hillary once fought bad weather to fly over to make a campaign appearance for him. After Barack got elected, like Ted Kennedy, she showed him the ropes. Hillary is not my idea of a racist person. Besides, I personally know too many sexist and super sexist minority males to get too hard on Hillary.
The Barack loyalist in me says keep your running mate options open, the Hillary admirer in me says it is Hillary or it is nobody. It is not just about putting any random woman on the ticket. Hillary was the woman who got crucified in the 1990s. Hillary has been the woman who has embodied the aspirations of many women in 2008. It is Hillary or it is nobody.
Women have to express their feelings. And after they do that, they come around. Hillary and her supporters are understandably frustrated. They are having to face an outcome that they did not want, they did not foresee, they are refusing to face, and that denial is going to be a brief phase whose reality we are going to have to accept. I can understand that. I doubt I would have been any less frustrated if Barack had been the one who had lost the nomination battle. So we have to allow for the period of mourning. Then we have to allow for a period of healing. Then step three would be melding. We bring the party together. We make all the Hillary supporters feel this was no defeat. Barack's victory is theirs to share. We march ahead together.
Let's face it, race and gender are extremely volatile issues to talk about. We should be ready for more emotional, incendiary outbursts by more people. We can't get overly defensive when those outbursts take place. To get too defensive is to snuff out discussion on race and gender, and that is not a welcome attitude. We should encourage conversations on race and gender. We should not try to snuff out the emotional outbursts. Instead we should channelize. Those of us who think we can do better when talking about race and gender need to step out, step up, speak out, take charge.
Democrats Push For Quick End To Nomination Battle Yahoo "By this time next week, it will all be over, give or take a day," Reid said Thursday. ..... Obama picked up two more superdelegates Friday, bringing him within 42 delegates of clinching the nomination ..... leads Clinton by 200 delegates. .... Obama stands to gain a minimum of roughly 20 delegates in the three remaining primaries .... even if he loses all three. ...... Obama's campaign is willing to give Clinton the major share of delegates from Florida and Michigan .... Nationally, Obama has developed a clear lead over Clinton — 54 percent to 41 percent Obama rejects pastor in latest Church flapAFP On Policy, Obama Breaks Little New Ground at The Washington Post Obama used party rules to foil ClintonAP Obama distances himself from another clergymanAP Condi Rice enlists in Kiss ArmyAP NASA Spacecraft Appears to Have Landed on Mars New York Times Clinton speaks of faith in face of adversity The Associated Press just 51 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination. ....... "I was making the simple point that given our history, the length of this year's primary contest is nothing unusual," Clinton wrote. "But I was deeply dismayed and disturbed that my comment would be construed in a way that flies in the face of everything I stand for — and for everything I am fighting for in this election." Hillary's Latest Delusion: It's Obama's FaultHouston Chronicle blamed the Obama campaign for Hillary’s remarks about Bobby Kennedy ...... "She was making a point merely about the time line." ....... "If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn't find offense to it, why is it that everybody else should?" Clinton Camp Stokes RFK Flap by Blaming ObamaWashington Post The Obama campaign, meanwhile, delivered a strong signal that it expects the nomination contest to wrap up in the next 10 days, after the final primaries. ....... Axelrod acknowledged, "There's an enormous amount of pride and investment in Senator Clinton among millions of women across this country" ........ a unity ticket McCain Hosts Three Possible Running Mates Washington Post Obama Stands In for Kennedy at Wesleyan New York Times Michelle Obama is fair game Boston Globe Clinton struggles to quell Kennedy furoreIndependent "Some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different – and completely unthinkable," she wrote in a front-page commentary in The New York Daily News. "I want to set the record straight: I was making the simple point that given our history, the length of this year's primary contest is nothing unusual." ........ Charles Rangel, the New York congressman and a Clinton supporter, said that she had said "the dumbest thing you could have possibly said". ......... Mr Obama himself said Mrs Clinton had made an understandable mistake. "When you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have ...sometimes you get careless," he said. "I think that is what happened here." The son of the murdered Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jnr, said he had not taken offence. Clinton Soaks Up Warmth in Puerto Rico New York Times Obama Reminds Grads What They Can Do for CountryWashington Post
