NO WE WON’T and PUMA Swag

Don’t forget that tonight we’re doing The Lion’s Share at NO WE WON’T.  Gary and Mawm are going to be guests and Darragh, Will and myself will be joining Sheri for a couple of hours of ranting, reviewing the news and lighthearted folderol.  We will even attempt to do a one act play by Madamab. Set your timers for 8:00pm EST.

Commenter JoeySky pointed me to this cool site with all kinds of PUMA swag.  It’s associated with 18MillionStrong.  Check out these bracelets.  I think these will the hottest new thing since Steven Colbert’s WristStrong bracelets.

Not bad for $4.00.  I don’t recommend bumper stickers.  I still have my Hillary bumper sticker and I’ve had a$$hole guys lean out of their cars to tell me that “SHE LOST!”  I intend to have the last laugh but not at the expense of my personal safety.  The bracelets are just about perfect.

If we’re PUMAs, then Obamaphiles are…

CHEATahs!

(Insert British narrotor voice): "The Obama CHEATah is a malignant predator on Democracy. Like its predeccesor, the DITTOHEAD and Republicans 2000-2008, the CHEATah cheats and steals votes in order to win elections. They also are experts in creating false narratives to hide the flaws of their incompetent, inexperienced and ineligible candidate. CHEATahs roam the blogosphere, DNC and mainstream media.

CHEATahs even have their own teeny-bopper girl group!

The CHEATah Girls, comprised of Senator Claire McCaskill, MADAME Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and DNC Committee Chair Donna Brazile are a triple-threat to Democracy.

UPDATE:  H/T to Delphyne for informing me that the CHEATah boy band sensation driving the O-borg astroturfing, “The CHEAT-o Boyz,” recently made an appearance at Netroots Nation:

Action Alert: Save Debra Bartoshevich as a HRC delegate

Last month, Debra Bartoshevich, a Hillary delegate from Wisconsin, said something rash. She said that she was going to vote for John McCain. This was not wise for several reasons, besides the fact that friends don’t let friends vote Republican.  The most important reason is that the convention hasn’t been held yet and we cockeyed optimists haven’t had enough fun.  She failed to get even before she got mad.

That’s OK, I forgive her.  We all got a bit rash last month.  In the midst of the RBC “shock and awe”, we lost our focus.  Some PUMAs *are* going to vote for McCain– if they have no suitable alternative.  But we are back to calmly, rationally pursuing more productive avenues before the convention.  Our objective now is to have Hillary’s name in nomination at the convention so her delegates can vote for her.  And here is where Ms. Bartoshevich’s spontaneous remark may be a bit problematic.

It turns out that the Wisconsin Democratic Party would like to decertify Ms. Bartoshevich.  I am sure that Debra regrets not checking her mouth with her mental policeman but now is not the time to think about how we might address the issue in the future.  Now is the time for all good PUMAs to come to the aid of their delegate.

Read and respond:

BREAKING NOW:
Quote FROM Debra Bartoshevich…
“The Wisconsin Democratic Party is holding a conference call THIS FRIDAY, July 25, to make a decision about whether to allow me to retain my status as a Hillary Clinton delegate to the Democratic National Convention in August in Denver.”

BACKGROUND: The Wisconsin DNC is telling Debra she will lose her delegate status. She is fighting so she can vote for Hillary @ the convention. Please help Debra by immediately contacting the Democratic Party Chair and ask them to stop rigging this process by punishing someone simply for supporting Hillary Clinton:

Joe Wineke, DP Chair
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin
222 W. Washington Ave.  Suite 150
Madison, Wisconsin 53703

CALL: (608 ) 255-5172
FAX: (608 ) 255-8919
EMAIL: party@wisdems.org

Midday at the Watering Hole: We’re 40% of Dems??

Hey, PUMAs and Conflucians.  Lookee what CNN has posted:  Preston on Politics: PUMAs Stalking Obama.  This piece has a little something for everyone and does a pretty good job of presenting everyone’s point of view.  But it also gives us a tantalizing glimpse of the discontent behind the Democratic party’s Unity Screen.  Here’s the money quote:

Should the Obama campaign be worried about the PUMAs? A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll showed that more than four in 10 Democrats still preferred Clinton as the nominee. But Obama is leading McCain in early general election polls. And as Clinton continues to vocalize her support for Obama, it is probably safe to say that more Clinton backers will likely fall in line behind him.

Crikey!  The media can lie to you but numbers rarely do.  Oh, sometimes you need to know how to read them and all but in this case, no complicated math is required.  Four in 10 can be converted to a percentage very easily.  That’s roughly, no, *exactly* 40%.  And note that the article says that the number of Clintonistas not supporting Obama is actually more than four in 10 Democrats.  Now, I know that Rasmussen’s presidential tracking poll has the two presumptive nominees statistically tied.  But why isn’t it higher for Obama given that he’s now on his Presidential Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East?  Talk about positive thinking.  He hasn’t snagged the nomination yet, more than 40% of his party doesn’t want him and he’s tied in the tracking poll.  Man-o-mah, I sure would HATE to be Donna B., Howard Dean and all of those hornswaggled SuperDelegates if Obama starts looking like a loser.

I’d hate to be Taylor Marsh too.  She has really started raking us over the coals.  I had no idea that Will Bower was an opportunistic phony.  *I* thought the guy quit his job so he could devote his life full time to bringing the Democratic party back in line with its voters.  I was completely taken in by the cad.  And Diane Mantavoulos of JustSayNoDeal and HireHeels is a publicist???  OMG, I had roommates like her.  So much fun and dressed to kill but I had NO idea how low they could sink in their careers.  Don’t they rank right between chimney sweeps and nannies?  PUBLICISTS, Conflucians!  We’ve been hanging out with adjunct media specialists!  We will be shunned, *shunned*, I tell you at the next meeting of The Passionate, Committed But Unheard Bloggers meeting.  We won’t be able to show our faces.  What did our mothers tell us?  Hang around with THAT type and you’ll end up with your mug on TV.  Perish the thought.

And Harriet!  How dare she call herself a Christian?  There she was speaking her mind, saying what all of us were thinking, but not the least bit biased against anyone.  And now Taylor finds that she hangs out in bars and drinks– alcohol.  I don’t know how Taylor deals with it all day, living where she does in that saintly, pure, idealistic haven of Las Vegas.  Mature Manhattanite women surely never go to bars in Las Vegas.  (Come to the dark side, Taylor.  We know you want it.)

Look at the company we keep, Conflucians.  Now that I think about it, I’m going to have a piece of my mind with that Republican incognita, Darragh Murphy tonight on a special edition of NO WE WON’T on blogtalkradio.  We call it The Lion’s Share.  We’re going to do a bit of experimentation tonight with one of madamab’s One Act Plays and Gary and Mawm will tell us about what life is like for PUMAs on the road.  Set your batchannels for 8:00pm EST tonight.

Tomorrow, we will be having virtual cocktails at The Scratching Post, right here, starting at 7pm EST.  We’re offering a special drink: $10 per Causmo.  I’ve heard that fundraising has been pretty successful but there’s no confirmation so far.  Personally, I hope we’ve far exceeded our goals and can now start thinking about the future while we put the past debt behind us.  But let’s leave nothing to chance.  If you can’t afford a Causmo, I’m sure Rico can whip up just about anything to whet your whistle.  Everyone is welcome, even you shy OPUMAs who are going cold turkey on the Kool-Ade.  We can probably get you some Crystal Lite to help clarify things for you.

One final thing: Ugghh, I just sat through a painful scripted press conference on the Middle East from Barack Obama who is in Israel.  It’s one thing to have to listen to 4 years of the “uhhhhs” and “ummms” but I just can’t take the “baffle them with Bullshit” technique.  His presentation is just so shallow and spotty that I simply cannot take him seriously, especially after I know that Hillary’s would be crisp, clear, detailed, in-depth and well reasoned.  Shoot me now.

Wednesday: Dignity?

Reader D. sent me this last night:

I know you don’t need another idea for a blog…  (I wouldn’t be so sure about that D.)

But below is something that I think I missed a meeting about somewhere.

Remember the Women Count Pac?  The one that did the fabulous ads for Senator Clinton?  I remember back in the my naïve days when I thought I knew what movements were about when I extended my hand for membership and sometimes with my precious few donation dollars after the Hillary donations and travel.

Imagine my surprise when I got this.  They sent out an email yesterday asking for people who want to be informed and attend a “Platform Listening Meeting” in my area.  How cool, eh?

Not so much.

Today I got this …and “lo and behold” when you click to find your area – guess what website opens for you to choose your area?  That’s right – the selected one.

I felt betrayed, ripped off, cheated – oh wait.  I guess that’s just the election process these days.

When the heck did they decide to support Obama?  You’d think that they would have sent a memo or something… 

I was just wondering if anyone else was a little deflated by this latest news.

Perhaps working so hard on the PCPC Conference has just kept me out of the loop?  

Hard to say…

Hope the news is more positive over on The Confluence…

A devoted fan,
~d

So, she sends me an email from Women Count PAC that shows the group now attempting to grovel for Obama’s attention for the platform because the *only* way you can influence the platform of the DNC is through Obama’s Website.   WomenCount PAC do “issue demands” regarding the intolerable level of sexism that surfaced during the campaign:

WOMENCOUNT LANGUAGE ON SEXISM IN THE MEDIA
2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PLATFORM:
 
“Our Party is committed to achieving gender equality in all aspects of American life. Therefore, we will not tolerate sexism targeted against our candidates or their spouses in the media or anywhere else in the political arena.”
 
“We acknowledge that the 2008 Democratic primary election exposed pervasive gender bias in the media during the campaign. From now on, when we see examples of this behavior, our Party leadership will take immediate and public steps to condemn it.”
 
“By doing so, we will establish that our Party recognizes that gender bias is a violation of Civil Rights and that men and women should be treated equally in the media and in all facets of our society.”

How did we get from this:
to this:

Jeez, the language is so quaint.  To their credit, they advise the attendees at these scripted soirees to be “aggressive and persistent”.  (You can read womencountplatform.  Note that the formatting may have changed from the original.) But the framing is all wrong.  It’s a little like demanding that your dungeon masters feed you a higher quality of gruel.

The problem is that these regional platform forums shouldn’t be held at all in this manner.  Since when did Obama own the Democratic party’s platform?  What we *should* be doing is asking this question over and over again at theses forums: “Who died and made you God of the Democrats?”

Will Bower and I got a quite different kind of letter from Hillary Clinton.  In it, she asks for our input on what concerns us most and she is asking for it in current terms not for future contemplation.  You can add your input at HillPAC here. I’m assuming that she doesn’t have to go to one of these Platform Listening Tours or whatever to get them to pay attention.

This song goes out to all the Obamaphiles and other Democrats who just can’t stay away no matter what their man is. I can almost hear David Sedaris singing it. (Garychapelhill and Mawm just spewed coffee on their keyboard.)

One more thing:  Commenter GRL from InsightAnalytical has a list of international news links that are local to Obama’s Grand European and Middle Eastern Tour.  You might like to see what gets filtered out of the CBS Evening News with Katie Chipmunk.