Jeffrey McManus

Link: Democrats Try to Settle Florida, Michigan Dispute

The Clinton campaign says that seating half the [Florida and Michigan] delegations is unacceptable. It has not said whether it would appeal the move to the party’s credentials committee in July and ultimately to the convention floor in Denver — a scenario that party officials desperately want to avoid.

“We will cross those streams when we come to them, but we fully expect they will do the right thing and seat full delegations with full votes,” Clinton adviser Harold Ickes, a rules committee member, said of the panel.

Ickes, Ickes, Ickes. Have you learned nothing from Ghostbusters? Never cross the streams!

Link: Dior Drops Actress for China Remark

Facing the possibility of a boycott of its products, the luxury company [Dior] said Thursday that it had dropped the American actress Sharon Stone from its advertising in China after she suggested last week that the earthquakes in Sichuan Province were karmic retribution for the country’s treatment of Tibet.

The gaffe, which has provoked calls for a boycott of Ms. Stone’s films, received sharp criticism in the media. The state-run Chinese news agency, Xinhua, referred to the actress in an editorial on Thursday as “public enemy of all mankind.”

That’s right, absolutely worse than Hitler. Wait, I thought there was already a worldwide boycott of Sharon Stone films? No? Hmm, ok.

Link: Clinton Sees Many Reasons to Stay In

Advisers say that [Hillary Clinton] continuing her candidacy is partly a means to show her supporters — especially young women — that she is not a quitter and will not be pushed around.

Wait a minute: “pushed around” by whom? The electorate?

Link: California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban

Our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation.

Dear other 48 states: there is this thing called equal protection under the law, have you heard of it?

Link: Bowling 1, Health Care 0

Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.

Link: FDA Regulation of Tobacco a Step Closer

Congress moved a step closer to handing the Food and Drug Administration broad new authority to regulate tobacco products, despite concerns voiced by many lawmakers that the agency cannot handle its current workload.

Now let me get this straight. Tobacco — you remember, that thing that kills more than 100,000 Americans a year — shouldn’t be regulated because it seems like it would be a lot of work?

Link: Paterson Is Sworn In as New York’s 55th Governor

Mr. Paterson then made a self-effacing joke about his visual impairment; he is the first legally blind governor in [New York] history. He recalled that at a State of the State address, while presiding over the Senate as lieutenant governor, “Apparently I was going to bring the gavel down on a glass, like this one,” grasping a water glass. Lowering his voice into a deadpan, Mr. Paterson imitated the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who, Mr. Paterson said, jokingly warned that he was not going to allow the proceeding to be turned into a Jewish wedding.

Link: After Big Wins, Clinton Sees Race Shifting Her Way

“After flying from Ohio to Washington overnight, Mrs. Clinton was in high spirits during her appearances on a bevy of morning news shows. She was even able to laugh off — though at the same time appear open to — the possibility of sharing a ticket with Mr. Obama, provided she got top billing.”‘That may, you know, be where this is headed,’ said Mrs. Clinton on ‘The Early Show’ on CBS with a broad grin and a laugh. ‘But, of course, we have to decide who’s on the top of the ticket. And I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me.’”

Possibly, although you are running for President of the U.S., not governor of Ohio. A more important constituency — that is, people who can perform arithmetic on the number of delegates that have been awarded to date nationwide and the number of delegates yet to be awarded — feel somewhat differently.

Update: Got an Omama-gram on Facebook this afternoon; they’re characterizing last night’s Clinton victory as roughly equivalent to one-half of a District of Columbia’s worth of delegates.

Secret Hand-Gesturers for Clinton

Originally uploaded by jeffreymcmanus

Note subtle differences in hand gestures between pink-skinned middle-aged female Clinton supporter and brown-skinned middle-aged female Clinton supporter. I’m convinced that there is some Illuminati-esque secret meaning to this but I’m not totally sure what it is.

Link: In Miami, Cuban Exiles Unmoved

"Senator McCain, Republican of Arizona, said that despite Mr. Castro’s action, ‘freedom for Cuba is not yet at hand.’ ‘We must press the Castro regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor union and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections,’ Mr. McCain said in a statement."

Dear Republicans,

Would it be possible to make all that stuff happen in the United States first before we sweat it with other countries?

Yours truly,

The Voters

Link: Ex - President Bush Says Attacks on McCain "Unfair"

"Former President George H.W. Bush urged disgruntled conservatives on Monday to rally around John McCain, calling their criticism of the Republican presidential front-runner ‘grossly unfair.’

The father of President George W. Bush said he was annoyed by attacks within the conservative wing of the Republican Party against the Arizona senator, the all-but-certain Republican nominee to face Democrats in November election.

Many conservatives distrust McCain because of his moderate views on illegal immigration and campaign finance reform and for having originally voted against President Bush’s tax cuts. Persuading them all to vote for McCain in November will be a central challenge. ‘His character was forged in the crucible of war. His commitment to America is beyond any doubt,’ the 41st U.S. president, flanked by his wife Barbara, told a joint news conference with McCain in a Houston airport hanger. ‘You know, if you’ve been around the track you hear these criticisms and I think they are grossly unfair. He’s got a … sound conservative record but he’s not above reaching out to the other side,’ he said."

Sort of sad that McCain has to suffer its slings and arrows, since he’s a reasonably principled campaigner, but wouldn’t it be ironic if the Republican swift boat slander machine were responsible for their party’s anointed candidate going down in flames in November?

It’s Super Tuesday; voters here in California and 23 other states will go to the polls to select candidates in their parties’ primaries.

I’m convinced that the damage that the Republican administration has done to this country will take a generation to repair. I lost my taste some time ago for the tenor of political debate in this country, and I have very little patience for the kind of candidate that will make equivocation and political gamesmanship the order of the day.

Although conventional wisdom states that the two remaining Democratic candidates are pretty much aligned on all the big issues, my vote is being informed by two things: 1) She voted for the war and 2) My discomfort with the notion of the White House bouncing back and forth between two families for decades on end.

This is not how government of/by/for the people was intended to work. At all.

So I’m voting for Barack Obama today.

In a related note, NPR began a story this morning by describing Bush as "the current occupant of the White House" which must have been a nod to the term that author Sarah Vowell uses to describe him. She can’t bring herself to use his name, ever: she calls him "the current president".

I don’t even think it’s necessary to comment about how perfect this photo is of Hillary in Las Vegas. Study it for a moment. There is absolutely nothing about it that is not hilarious.

From the NY Times’ election blog.

Link: Politics Wrapped in a Clothing Ad - New York Times.

"In a new series of ads, American Apparel is moving in a political direction. The cause is immigration reform, and the ads say in part that the status quo ‘amounts to an apartheid system’ and should be overhauled to create a legal path for undocumented workers to gain citizenship in the United States."

The piece goes on to quote a dessicated professor who is an expert on immgration, who states that the "apartheid" term can’t possibly be accurate because these people are breaking the law. Well, tiger, I gotta tell ya — apartheid was the law of the land in South Africa, too. If what we’re doing were not apartheid then we’d be building a big anti-immigrant wall on the Canadian border, too, wouldn’t we?

Link: Huckabee Sees Pakistan as Reason for Border Fence

"On Thursday night [Huckabee] told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: ‘We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.’ On Friday, in Pella, Iowa, he expanded on those remarks. ‘When I say single them out I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border,’ he told reporters. ‘And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders.’
In fact, far more illegal immigrants come from the Philippines, Korea, China and Vietnam, according to recent estimates from the Department of Homeland Security.

Asked how a border fence would help keep out Pakistani immigrants, Mr. Huckabee argued that airplane security was already strong, but that security at the southern United States border was dangerously weak. ‘The fact is that the immigration issue is not so much about people coming to pick lettuce or make beds, it’s about someone coming with a shoulder-fired missile,’ he said."

Maybe he’s addressing a specific constituency here, but it sure seems to me that candidate Huckabee is fumbling the ball on the 1 yard line with these disingenuously Bush-esque pronouncements on immigration. Building a fence on the Mexican border to keep out Pakistani terrorists makes about as much sense as invading Iraq to punish 9/11 plotters.

Link: Obama’s Complex History With Lobbyists

"Disclosure reports show he rarely accepted gifts or meals from lobbyists, even though there was no limit on such freebies until Obama helped pass a law establishing one. For him, a big gift was $50 worth of tickets to a Rembrandt exhibit from the Art Institute of Chicago.

Some lobbyists were even a bit hazy on who he was, spelling his name ‘O’Bama’ in their reports."

Link: Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders

"The documents show that in 2002, the company’s goal for Barbara Fowler, Health Net’s senior analyst in charge of rescission reviews, was 15 cancellations a month. She exceeded that, rescinding 275 policies that year — a monthly average of 22.9."

Excellent L.A. Times investigative piece describing how HealthNet assigned its analysts quotas for how many sick people to deny health coverage to, and paid them bonuses for hitting those quotas.

The next time someone comes up with an idea for expanding health care and it gets shouted down with McCarthy-era bogeyman phrases like "socialized medicine," remember that capitalized medicine is what we have now. Denying health insurance to cancer patients and poor children is what capitalized medicine is all about.

Link: Bobby Jindal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Afterwards, [Louisiana governor-elect Bobby Jindal] received a master’s degree in political science from New College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. While at Oxford, he wrote an article for the New Oxford Review claiming he personally witnessed a friend being possessed by a demon. After Oxford, he joined McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm."

Link: Chertoff: Illegals ‘Degrade’ Environment

"Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying it’s actually better for the environment than what happens when people illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico line. ‘Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I’ve seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas,’ Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. ‘And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment.’"

Finally, we get a rock-solid explanation about all this immigration hysteria. It’s not because we’re xenophobes, it’s because we’re environmentalists. We’re keeping out immigrants because they’re dirty. Letting in more immigrants is the absolute worst thing you can do to the environment, in fact. And that, dear citizens, is why they’re building the border fence out of plutonium.

Link: Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants

"The business district is fairly vacant now, but it’s not the legitimate businesses that are gone," [the former mayor of Riverside, N.J.] said. "It’s all the ones that were supporting the illegal immigrants, or, as I like to call them, the criminal aliens."

How inspiring it must be to have a completely culturally pure downtown business district, completely devoid of both immigrants and businesses. I can see why this dude is the ex-mayor.