Now that a few days has passed over the uproar of President Bush’s remarks where he implicitly slammed Barak Obama on negotiating with some of America’s less than savory neighbors, I think it’s time for me to weigh in.

Michael Tomansky of the Guardian has a good piece up on how Obama has been able to blunt criticism from the Republicans on foreign policy. The gist is that Obama is going to present a very different vision of American foreign policy that is centered on diplomacy and he is not ashamed of presenting such a view.

While it shows very smart politics for Obama to use the opportunity to blast the foreign policy blunders of the Bush Administration and tie John McCain to it (nevermind that McCain’s foreign policy would be different from Bush’s), I do wonder if Obama’s vision is a wise one.

I should state upfront- I am no fan of the Bush foreign policy. I think this Administration was wrong in going to war with Iraq and once in Iraq it was too stupid to deal with the responsibilities of occupying a nation of 22 million people. It has angered long standing friends. Afghanistan is becoming a mess if it already isn’t a mess. We need a president who will try to repair some of the damage done by the President and his aides.

That said, I fear that Senator Obama’s emphasis on diplomacy could be as bad as President Bush’s emphasis on warmaking.

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In the present historic US Democratic presidential nomination marathon, the media and the blogs have now begun to write the obituary of Hillary Clinton’s ambition to become the President of America. (Did someone say that the media ‘obits’ had begun to appear right at the start of her campaign?!!!)

But the recent ‘obits’ also reveal a grudging admiration for the spirited fight she put up despite several odds, including (what her team has been alleging) media hostility.

Two such ‘obits’ caught my attention. The New York Times says: “To use her own phrase, she has been running ‘to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling’ in American life, and now the presidency — even a nomination that once seemed to be hers to claim — seems out of reach.

“Many credit Clinton with laying down a new marker for what a woman can accomplish in a campaign — raising over $170 million, frequently winning more favorable reviews on debate performances than her male rivals, rallying older women, and persuading white male voters who were never expected to support her.

“But as others watched a campaign that starred two possibly transformative figures, they felt a growing conviction that the contest was unfair. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters point to a nagging series of slights: the fixation on her clothes, even her cleavage; chronic criticism that her voice is shrill; calls for her to exit the race; and most of all, the male commentators in the news media who, they argue, were consistently tougher on her than on Mr. Obama.” More here…

And here is Arianna Huffington’s take on the subject: “I have regularly criticized Clinton over the course of her campaign (and long before it, starting with her vote to authorize the war), but there is no question that she has forever altered the way women running for president will be viewed from here on out.” More here…

(Photo courtesy AP/Elise Amendola)

Economy Sinks, Market Rises
It would be wrong the say that the stock market’s hefty jump in recent months is the result of an outright conspiracy. No secret cabal of Templars, Freemasons, Elders of Zion or Club of Romers is behind this curious upturn. Rather, a simple confluence of interest between government agencies and the market’s own major players is what’s kicking up stock prices while the real U.S. economy sinks.

There’s no question that the U.S. economy is, in fact, sagging badly. Consumer sentiment is at its lowest point in 28 years. There have been three consecutive months of nasty job losses. There’s terrible food and energy inflation. The U.S. dollar is spiraling downward. The overall profits of publicly traded companies fell more than 7 percent in the first quarter of 2008. Banks, meanwhile, continue to tighten their lending standards dramatically, making any economic recovery in the near future unlikely.

What, then, is causing the stock market to soar in this sour market environment? The apparent willingness of the Fed and the Treasury to pump endless amount of public money into some of the weakest market sectors is part of the answer. It’s the internal mechanics of Wall Street itself, however, that’s the real driver here.

There are, of course, market bears and short-sellers who make money when stocks fall. To an overwhelming degree, however, Wall Street players benefit far, far more when markets rise. That’s when money floods into their coffers, That’s when the commissions are rich. That’s when huge bonuses proliferate, and when employment on The Street is secure.

This preference being what it is, there’s been a natural inclination after a panic like the one that swept markets at the end of 2007 to over-react since then to the smallest scrap of positive economic news. And a rather bizarre mechanism now compliments this tendency mightily. A mechanism that turns even the most negative news into a reason for the market to rise— something called “analyst expectations.” In recent months, no mater how bad official numbers have come in, they almost always seem to “beat analyst expectations,” sending the stock market climbing in response.

Stop for a second and consider how very odd this is, How beating analyst expectations about economic numbers move the market, rather than what is actually being revealed about the economy by these numbers.

Consider also that the analysts whose expectations are exceeded are employees of the same Wall Street firms whose brokerages and other institutional departments are investing huge pools of OPM (other people’s money). If the expectations of these analysts somehow are exceeded by official numbers, no matter how bad these numbers are, then the firm’s investing cadre, sitting a few desks away from where the analysts are working, has a rationale for pushing up stock prices.

Thus the consequences of beating analyst expectations: Happy investors pour more money into the coffers of Wall Street firms; there are higher salaries and bigger bonuses for investing professionals and analysts; and there’s more job security for both. All of which suggests that whatever official numbers appear in coming weeks and months, they will continue to beat analyst expectations.

A conspiracy? Perhaps not. A most curious way to set stock prices and push market upwards? Most certainly.

The folks at the Fed, at the Treasury, and at major Wall Street firms may seem to have constructed almost perfect mechanisms for detaching stock prices from what’s really going on the real U.S. economy, and ensuring that no matter what happens in the economy, it won’t have unpleasant carryovers for the market.

I write “almost” because reality has an ugly way of reasserting itself no matter how cunningly its perception is temporarily finessed. This is something to keep in mind in coming days as the economy continues to sink and the market continues to rise.

Roadrunner. (As in the “meep-meep” bird partnered up with Wyle E. Coyote.)

Was roadrunner a boy bird or a girl bird? Did they ever really say?

As a chic living in Chicago and now D.C., I have a pretty honed gaydar. It’s a survival tool for a single girl. So excuse me if I’m wrong, but this is likely the gayest drawing of a non-gay politician I have ever seen. And I love it.

The drawing was done by Lukas Ketner for a Portland area paper on April 30, well before the mass we witnessed yesterday. Willamette Week - “For The Love of Politics”. The theme that WW was going for was a baptismal Jesus-ish sort of thing to embody this cultish worship crazy adoration going on, but it just ends up looking gay, and by gay I mean totally awesome. I have several male friends who are putting this up on their bedroom wall as we speak. And the white horse in the background would work under either theme.

Save the hate mail. I know people get so upset if you make any fun of the Chosen One. I love the guy, but this drawing is hilarious. It might replace the photo-shopped pic of him smoking a cig looking half sleep (which pisses everyone off too even though its wicked cool) as my official Obama picture for every post I ever write for the rest of my life, even after he is no longer president. I hope he makes this his official White House portrait and hangs it in the hallway or something. Then, every Sunday, he can bring it out onto the South Lawn for services and people can come light their candles.

You should know the tale. We all should know it. Kahle’s is the face of a modern-American hero, and Eric Mink ably summarized his story in yesterday’s edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

So the Federal Arts Commission has decided that the new MLK memorial is too “confrontational.” When I first read this and saw the image, I was ready to call SUSPECT, thinking this was about that “beware of the scary black man” foolishness because the arms-crossed gesture combined with a serious expression is generally code for “I’m a little pissed off.” I kind of like it, but the Christian in me is NOT a big fan of statues of individual people this huge. Looks too much like idol worship. I guess its no different than the Lincoln or Jefferson Memorial(my favorite), so if you like those, this might be your kind of thing. But would he want something this big?

However, back on topic, the commission’s problem is not that he looks angry, but he looks like a totalitarian dictator because it is done in a style similar to other images of dictators in history such as China, Russia or the most recent one we tore down in Iraq. Maybe its the crossing of the arms or the open leg stance. Either way, they want it torn down and done again. What do you think? Unhappy With “Confrontational” Image, U.S. Panel Wants King Statue Reworked - washingtonpost.com

BTW - Wouldn’t it be awesome if this thing was finished next year and a black president gave the unveiling/induction speech? Yes or yes?
Ahhh…symbolism over substance…how delightfully American.

Hallelujah. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has provided a welcome injection of sanity into the perennial debate over the United States’ bloated defense budget.

Reuters:

News Corp’s decision to walk away from Newsday is an unexpected twist in the three-way bidding war for the paper. Murdoch and Tribune Co Chief Executive Sam Zell had an agreement in principle to sell the paper to News Corp, with Tribune retaining a small stake to create a way to defer large capital gains taxes that a total sale would incur.

As recently as three days ago, Murdoch said on a conference call with investors to discuss News Corp’s quarterly financial results that the deal with Zell was nearly done.

“I don’t think Cablevision will prevail,” Murdoch said, responding to a question about why he has not raised his bid, which he characterized as “competitively priced.”

I find newspapers interesting; Rupert Murdoch, very interesting:

Murdoch is not prone to the whining and woe-is-meism that so many other newspapermen practice. He’s willing to invest in his properties. He’s willing to lose money. For a 77-year-old man, it’s almost as if he has begun the first year of a 20-year plan to modernize his media portfolio, so he’s a real optimist.

Remember when he started the Fox Television Network? Everybody in the country said, oh, there are room for three conventional networks. And when he started Fox News Channel, people said, oh, there’s really only room for CNN. There can’t possibly be room for another.

And time and again, he goes in and he defies the so-called experts because he’s a force of creative destruction.

He will go in and he will steal anybody’s bacon. And he generally steals it honestly by competing, and for that you really have to admire him.

That’s Slate’s Jack Shafer talking. Here he speaks to Murdoch’s conservative reputation:

I think you’re making a mistake when you call Rupert Murdoch a conservative. He is a political opportunist. If you take a look and see who he supported in the most recent Australian election, it was not the conservative. It was the liberal.

Likewise, in the United Kingdom, Murdoch eventually put all the support of his daily newspapers there behind Tony Blair. […]

He likes to back a winner. He likes to have access. He threw a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s reelection bid for the Senate in 2006. This is a mistake people make all the time about Rupert Murdoch, the idea that he is some sort of conservative ideologue who has come to the United States to, I don’t know, guarantee the Reagan restoration, when all he really is, is a political pragmatist.

RELATED: Rupert’s launching an old-fashioned newspaper war against The New York Times.

The United Nations said it would suspend flights into Myanmar after the military government seized the food and equipment it had sent into the country.

But then, some small portion of detente began to be worked out between the UN with the US, UK, and Burma. We shall see.

Various and sundry claims by relief agencies are flying over the internet today, adding to the garble instead of keeping the facts straight, in part, because no one can get a large enough overview of the facts. By all reports, General Than Shwe, the dictator of Burma has declined to get into a helicopter and survey the damage at close range.

The bottom line for Burma regarding aid at the moment is that those aid workers, such as a small contingent of Doctors to The World, that was already in Burma doing malaria intervention and education, et al,– before the tsunami/cyclone hit– and some Red Cross workers and some church group workers who were already there also before the disaster hit, say they’d been distributing supplies from their cupboards, and those are now exhausted.

Otherwise, if, and it’s a big if, there are other aid workers landed in Burma, it is most likely they are tending to Than Shwe and his friends’ families, or the city where Than Shwe can watch over them. It is highly unlikely, on this, the sixth day after the disaster, that workers and supplies have been given effective and rapid access to those who truly suffer in the interior — which is more than 200 miles from where Than Shwe is enthroned with his junta.

When A Nation’s Leader Chooses Hubris over Humanity, and Why It’s Important To Allow Experienced Relief and Rescue Workers In To A Disaster Site
As a post-trauma specialist working two earthquake disasters in various ways, Armenia and Mexico City, I can attest to the fact that one can load all the aid workers onto transport planes, fill the hold with all the cargo it can carry, fly more than halfway across the world, stopping to refuel at least once, and finally land at the target tarmac….

and then sit on the tarmac in the destination country for days, even weeks, raring to go, fully inoculated for every creeping grunge disease under the sun, full of heart and especially filled with modern skills, and having all the best supplies in the world… and nothing happens, no aid expert is allowed to go to the dying, the ill, or the dead, because the leader of the leader of the country literally bars the way.

More so, in so-called rogue countries, in countries run by juntas, really in any country where the leader is naive or ignorant about catastrophic relief and rescue operations…. often the supplies so lovingly and quickly assembled and shipped are confiscated by the ruling class, and often given to their own first, or sold for profit, or in many cases as with perishable food goods, just stacked in shelters, left to rot.*

This is why it is so very important for a government in a devastated country that might have lots of soldiers, as Than Shwe has by conscription, but has little infrastructure, and perhaps plenty of experience in ignoring or assailing people, but no experience in helping/healing them… to allow experienced aid organizers and service givers to bring in and execute a known and time tested recovery and rescue plan.

For the leader, this means a relinquishment of a certain amount of control. One can see that in a leader who has more experience in personal hubris than in public humanity, this can be quite a leap; but it oughtnt take 6 days to pat Than Shwe’s ego.

It oughtn’t take a pile after pile of newly dead children’s bodies to convince anyone to allow medicine, food and water to those most afflicted in Burma. Those piles of children’s bodies that have come about because of Than Shwe’s lag time may be the very thing he wishes to hide most.

The international community is calling out to Than Shwe to stop perseverating on his own image, or his trying to cover up his own mistakes, and instead to turn to the works of mercy needed now.

If Than Shwe did so, even today, the world would suddenly believe Than Shwe has a heart.

This good article from Asia Pacific reporter Seth Mydans, New York Times, an hour ago:
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RCP’s Tom Bevan shares a Clinton letter sent today to Obama re: Florida and Michigan.

My completely biased, semi-tongue-in-cheek translation of that letter follows, below the fold. I’m sure this translation will offend many people, so if you’re a Clinton supporter and agree with her efforts vis-a-vis these states, please either (a) skip this post, or (b) let me have it in the comments section.

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Showing up on the Google “Quotes of the Day” widget this morning, these back-to-back entries struck me as potentially relevant to the ongoing Democratic primary season.

Garrison Keillor, perhaps channeling Sen. Clinton on her chances to win the nomination: “I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.”

Philip K. Dick, perhaps channeling the Obama campaign in response: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann (D), who, during his race for AG in 2006 named Eliot Spitzer as his role model, has refused twice to acquiesce to multiple calls to step down in the wake of admitting last week that he had a romantic relationship with his former scheduler (Dann is married with three children) and firing two of his top aides.

As a result of this refusal, the Ohio Democratic Party has made their intentions to force Dann out extremely clear. From the Columbus Dispatch:

The Ohio Democratic Party, which strongly backed Dann’s come-from-behind campaign in 2006, is preparing to sever its ties with Dann. Chairman Chris Redfern said he expects the party’s executive committee to rescind its 2006 endorsement of Dann when it meets Saturday, which Redfern said would make Dann an independent officeholder. Democrats also are prepared to lead the impeachment drive, Redfern said.

“Pending Saturday’s events, he’ll be holding office as an independent who was elected as a Democrat,” Redfern said. “We will distance ourselves both figuratively and literally from Marc Dann until he makes the right decision, which is to step down.”

Ohio Daily Blog reports that one of Dann’s hometown papers says that the Ohio House Democratic Caucus had a conference call this afternoon and will begin impeachment proceedings tomorrow if Dann doesn’t step down tonight.

Plunderbund writes about the removal of information about Dann from the ODP website and also has a video of Gov. Strickland in which he says that they’ll use “whatever action is necessary” to remove Dann.

Pho writes about the legal provisions related to replacing Dann.

This article from ePluribus Media includes most of the key information from today and last week, but the situation is developing minute by minute, as it has been all day today. And it’s been exhausting.

I’m somewhat restricted from saying too much (code words on my blog entries are “mmmumbble mummmble damn packing tape”) because my SO is in the same law firm as an attorney whom Dann has asked to help clean up the AG’s office. Although it’s a voluntary role, and I’ve been told my right to express myself is being respected, I don’t feel comfortable writing about this situation in as an unbridled manner as I might.

I can say that I’ve had off the record conversations with the Ohio Democratic Party stating my intense upsetment about the hostile work environment that came to exist in the AG’s office and my belief that it must not be tolerated, not only because of the women who were subordinates but for the sake of the entire 1400 person “law office” that is an AG’s office.

Obviously, I wasn’t and still am not the only one saying that this is an intolerable situation that demands dramatic and obvious attention.

But as a Democrat in Ohio, who wanted to believe in Marc Dann, even when I wasn’t the most certain, it’s also just a very very, as another Democrat expressed to me, profoundly sad experience.

That’s all. From today to Guam; from Guam to South Dakota. Five weeks until May 29, and five days after that it’s June 3 and the end of the Democratic primary season.

Some will argue that it will take another three months, through the convention, to end this race. I doubt it.

I doubt it, in part, because I think the superdelegates will follow the DNC’s lead and swarm to the presumptive winner on June 4(Obama).

I also doubt it because, selfishly, I’m exhausted with this damn mess, and I want it to end — and I’m not even a Democrat and I’m certainly not alone. From Obama supporters to Hillary supporters to McCain supporters, I have yet to hear anyone ask for this to continue much longer. Five weeks + five days? Sure. Eight months plus or minus X-more days … no. No way. Nada. Not in a million years. Not for a million dollars.

Five weeks, five days.

That’s all.

Buck up, cheer up, ye tired ones. This endless amble is almost over.

The very final results are trickling in and it looks like the true margin of victory for Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania will be about 9 points. With 99% reporting, she has 54.7% of the vote and Obama has 45.3%, or a difference of 9.4%. Considering the only precincts remaining are in Philadelphia, Chester County and Delaware County, it’s likely that the 9.4 number will nudge closer to a clean 9 percent.

Hillary Clinton will not technically get her double-digit win. But Obama will not have done a whole lot better than Ohio either (which he lost by 10). Yes, Pennsylvania is older, whiter and less educated than Ohio. It also has a lot more Appalachia within it than does Ohio. So I suppose Obama gained something by treading water in the final result.

But all of this just goes to show how little has changed in this race after tens of millions of dollars spent on a primary with six weeks of campaigning leading up to it. Obama closed the gap from about 20 points, but he’s done that many times before. Clinton managed to win by more than a tiny handful, but not the large margin she needed to make up pledged delegates and popular votes. What’s more, all of this will be negated by North Carolina in two weeks.

So where does the Democratic nomination go from here? Does the ongoing battle help the party by rallying supporters and organizing voters? Or does it hurt the party’s chances in November by giving ammunition to McCain and by making each side’s supporters more insistent that they will ONLY support their own candidate in November?

It’s close to impossible for Hillary Clinton to win this nomination for reasons many others have laid out. She cannot overtake him in pledged delegates. She will almost definitely not overtake him in popular votes - even if Florida is included. She has not been gaining superdelegates since Super Tuesday even as he’s racked up about 75 new ones. Her only path to the nomination seems to be to raise enough electability doubts about Obama that superdelegates will balk at supporting him. But that may end up handing the election to John McCain.

So what should she do? She’s earned the right to continue; her 9-point win grants her that. Obama has major work ahead to consolidate blue collar women and Latinos for the general election; Appalachian voters and blue collar men don’t vote Democratic anymore and will go to McCain no matter what.

Will Obama have a better chance of consolidating his support from Hillary’s base if she goes to the end and gets beaten after ALL the votes are counted? Or can she better serve the party by bowing out after, say, a loss in North Carolina where she can work to convince her supporters to back Obama and the Democratic ticket? I have no idea. I’m just annoyed that the race is continuing on in the same fashion as before: no momentum, no game changers, no resolution.

Via Think Progress, we find a rather unusual tidbit from a recent John McCain interview. When the topic turns to the economy in general and gas prices in specific, Senator McCain is proposing a summer vacation from gas taxes to help out Americans. Strangely, though, he doesn’t seem to think it’s really going to change much.

I’m very concerned about it, Neil. And obviously the way it’s been going up is just terrible. But I think psychologically — and a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological — the confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home. This might give them a little psychological boost.

Let’s have some straight talk, it’s not a huge amount of money. But it might be nice to be able to save a few bucks and maybe buy something else the next time that they have to fill up their gas tank and say, “You know I’m going to be able to afford that little expense now.” A little psychological boost. That’s what I think it would help.

See? You may think that gas and food prices are rising, jobs are being lost and the housing market is swirling near the bottom of the bowl. But it’s all in your head.

Senator McCain has recently stated that he believes the country is in a recession, while earlier this year he was sticking with the White House line in saying that it was just a temporary slow down. However, this interview seems to indicate that he simply can’t drag himself away from the idea that everything if going well enough but the bad economic news is some sort of partisan political plot. However, with consecutive months of job losses and another anticipated report of gross domestic production shrinkage, it may become harder and harder for politicians to paint those skies such a bright shade of blue.

Again, a disclosure: I am a Catholic.

Catholic social teachings
disagree with abuses of power,
disagree with politics that omit and oppress the poor and needy,
disagree with trampling the preciousness of the life force,
disagree with any idea that preemptive war is good,
disagree with any idea that humans are not worthy of justice and dignity… and much more.

These principles are in place to keep the world from going dead black with avarice and sloth and cruelty and the sounds of many mouths banging in scorn like empty pots. They are not always easy to live, but they are to be rooted in the heart and soul, and to be striven toward even though it is hard in the winds that swirl through this world.

Here, one journalist writes about some who present George Bush as having a seemingly ‘Catholic conscience.’ You can read the entire article by Daniel Burke here “A Catholic Wind in the White House,” and you can read my article I filed this morning at The National Catholic Reporter in my weekly column there where, speaking as a Catholic, I felt I had to refute the idea that George Bush is in any way following sacred Catholic social teachings. You can see that article, entitled, “Silencing a Woman: Retrieving Her Voice,” here.

April 13, 2008, in the Washington Post, Daniel Burke, a national correspondent for Religion News Service, writes about how some imagine President George Bush is actually a secret Catholic ‘believer,’ and has met with and surrounded himself by Catholics during his administration… that his policies have directly grown out of Catholic social justice teachings… and that the Pope is coming to see the President and his Catholic appointees specially, as the Pope is his ally… even though the Pope disagrees with President Bush’s Iraq war and torture.

“Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, another evangelical with an affinity for Catholic teaching, says that the key to understanding Bush’s domestic policy is to view it through the lens of Rome. Others go a step further.

“Paul Weyrich, an architect of the religious right, detects in Bush shades of former British prime minister Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism last year. “I think he is a secret believer,” Weyrich says of Bush. Similarly, John DiIulio, Bush’s first director of faith-based initiatives, has called the president a “closet Catholic.” And he was only half-kidding.”

Mr. Burke’s article goes on to say,

“As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush’s inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president… this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians. These Catholics — and thus Catholic social teaching — have for the past eight years been shaping Bush’s speeches, policies and legacy to a degree perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history….”

But, I must say otherwise:
…At a time when hardworking fathers and mothers are literally piling the children’s toys and bunk beds at the curb, for they are losing their homes in the sub-prime mortgage bunco scheme promoted by the grotesquely avaricious…

…at a time when 25% of older women only have a social security check to live on and nothing more… and they have inherited nothing but a President who wishes to do away with social security… and who admires those who call this hard earned savings account belonging to individuals who worked all their lives long, “an entitlement…”

…during a time when the last small farmers, ranchers, and overland independent truckers are being run out of business from sudden spikes in fuel and government’s one-sided subsidies… and our farmers, ranchers and trucker-heroes are becoming desperate for they not only take care of their own families, but have long taken care of us, their nation’s families at a root level, delivering the food and necessities we need…

…at a time when pharmaceutical companies produce much good, and have some charitable programs, yet still, at the back door, many also hold onto medicine patents that would have expired, thereby allowing the formulas into public domain and bringing down the costs of vital medicines for human beings in need…. but instead, some change the formula in slight and meaningless ways and thereby file to re-patent the medicine again, so they are its only producers, and prices remain high… often out of reach of those in most dire straights… and all this is okay-ed by our government…

To read the rest of both Mr. Burke’s article and mine, please see the links above….

————–
h/t Helaine

Well, if only Nixon could go to China, who knows? I have to confess, when it comes to matters of Israel and the Palestinians, I’m lucky to be able to spell “Gaza” since it’s not in my spell checker. When I get confused, I turn to my own personal authority on All Matters Jewish, The One True Tami. Her Hebrew bona fides are fine by me and include having studied extensively in that country. She takes a look at some of the criticism Carter is receiving for opening talks with Hamas and has questions.

Really? Carter supports extremism? Why is it that I honestly feel that this guy supports peace above all else? Is it his mild demeanor? His lack of declaring wars? His work to provide housing to low-income families? His willingness to sit down with people who have their thumbs on an entire race of people and can influence their emotions at the drop of a hat to try and convince them that working with the US could help them more than working against it? Am I the only one who thinks he’s trying to make things better for everyone?

You can read the rest at the link above. Reference this article for the background work.

Apparently Barack Obama is not only far less popular than some of us previously thought, but he can take down the careers of anyone who comes in contact with him. Even Oprah Winfrey! I hate to hint and run, but I’m short on time so you can read more here. (Warning, large snark and satire content.) And in case you think it’s just comedy, the story really came from The Poltico.

Jon Stewart does a pretty hilarious take on how the presidential candidates exploited the anniversary of MLK’s assassination last week. The entire Hillary “recollection” is just too much. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.