side note: I don’t want to rag on Hillary too much….we’re going to need a lot of her supporters come November…but I had to post this……this is what I try and talk to people about when we discuss Hillary. She has a wonderful circle of people defining her to the American people…but actions speak louder then words.

by Mark Karlin
Editor and Publisher
Buzzflash.com

Maybe we are naive, but we have always thought of progressivism — in its ideal form — as gender neutral. Men and women, people of all faiths and colors join together to promote the common good, peace and justice.

BuzzFlash has long championed the equality of people regardless of race, gender or religion.

So, as a male, it has taken me by surprise that so many avowed “Feminists” support Hillary Clinton merely because she has the anatomical features of a woman, when her policies and political style more closely mirror the more detestable side of “male” politics.

Does a true Feminist support “obliterating Iran”? Senator Clinton didn’t even discuss the complexities behind the whole notion of Iran hypothetically attacking Israel, an ally with enough nuclear capability to “obliterate” the entire Middle East on its own. In short, wasn’t it more Texas macho (think Bush and the Neo-Cons) for Clinton to offer her “obliterate” comment than reassuring Feminist diplomacy?

Wouldn’t it have been the more Feminist thing to do to answer by saying, “As leader of the strongest nation on earth I would look at every effort to prevent such an occurrence and I think that can be done through diplomatic means. Look, we survived decades of the cold war without a nuclear attack because we were patient and diplomatic. I believe that we can do the same in the Middle East.”

But, no, Hillary went Texan on us, and that’s not Feminist.

In fact, Mary Matalin’s uxorious husband, James Carville, boasted the other day that — and we are not making this up — if Hillary gave one of her three gonads to Barack Obama, they would each have two.

Now would a Feminist keep a high-testosterone male chauvinist clown like that on her staff?

Of course, wouldn’t a Feminist have read the NIE before authorizing Bush to proceed with the Iraq War?

Wouldn’t a Feminist have voted for the banning of cluster bombs in civilian areas, instead of for their continued use in populated communities, where they particularly kill children?

Wouldn’t a Feminist be supporting MoveOn.org’s anti-war work and party activists for peace instead of denouncing them as extemists?

Would a Feminist have stood by and said nothing during the slaughter in Rwanda?

Would a Feminist have sat back and let the Bush Administration run roughshod through our civil liberties? (more…)

Sam Stein
The Huffington Post

One of the most influential (and thus far subdued) voices in the Democratic primary all but declared the contest over on Friday morning.

“At this point, Barack is the presumptive nominee,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel during the New Yorker’s magazine conference. “Hillary can’t win but something could happen that could effect that Barack could lose the nomination.” (more…)

side note: Propaganda Bull Shit. You have the American College of Physicians who have come out and have basically said that Marijuana is extremely non-toxic and has many, many uses with regards to medicine. In addition, it has so many other uses. This is typical of our government, it completely ignores the factual data, and instead finds a way to scare the hell out of the public. Where are all the alcohol studies? Where are all the pharmy studies? Oh, and one last thing to think about, take a look who did the study: White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. enough said!

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer
Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.

A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. (more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cindy McCain says she will never make her tax returns public even if her husband wins the White House and she becomes the first lady.

“You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate,” Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain, said in an interview aired on NBC’s “Today” on Thursday.

Asked if she would release her tax returns if she was first lady, Cindy McCain said: “No.”

The Arizona senator released his tax return last month, reporting he had a total income of $405,409 in 2007 and paid $84,460 in federal income taxes. He files his return separately from his wife, an heiress to a Phoenix-based beer distributing company whose fortune is in the $100 million range. (more…)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

On Monday, Arianna reported that John McCain told her he had not voted for George W. Bush in 2000. Today, both The New York Times AND The Washington Post published articles with sources confirming John McCain had indeed told Arianna and others at an event that he did not vote for Bush in 2000.

From The New York Times:

Did Senator John McCain not vote for George W. Bush in 2000?

That question has kicked up a minor ruckus in political circles this week as Arianna Huffington and the McCain campaign have traded he-said, she-said barbs…

Now two other guests at the same dinner, given by the actress Candice Bergen, at her home in Beverly Hills, say they heard much the same thing as Ms. Huffington. Both of them, the former “West Wing” actors Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff, were asked by Ms. Huffington to speak to The New York Times. Mr. Whitford said he would be supporting the Democratic nominee and had donated to Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama; Mr. Schiff is supporting Mr. Obama. (more…)

http://blogs.abcnews.com

ABC News’ Karen Travers Reports: For the first time this campaign season, Barack Obama has surpassed Hillary Clinton’s support among superdelegates, according to the ABC News delegate estimate.

Sen. Obama, D-Ill., picked up two superdelegates this morning giving him a new metric to tout in addition to his current commanding leads in pledged delegates, popular votes, states won, and money raised.

Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., endorsed Obama. DeFazio was previously uncommitted. (more…)

side note: Another crazy Rev. who support John McBush for president. What does McCain do with his endorsement? Take a look:

You may have heard of Rev. John Hagee, the McCain supporter who said God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its homosexual “sins.” Well now meet Rev. Rod Parsley, the televangelist megachurch pastor from Ohio who hates Islam. According to David Corn of Mother Jones, Parsley has called on Christians to wage war against Islam, which he considers to be a “false religion.” In the past, Parsley has also railed against the separation of church and state, homosexuals, and abortion rights, comparing Planned Parenthood to Nazis.

http://bravenewfilms.org

original article

side note: Click here to be taken to the original home of the below document. You can download all the Pentagon documents that refer to this black ops operation.

Pentagon’s Propaganda Documents Go Online, but Will the TV Networks Ever Report this Scandal?
PRWATCH

Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon’s illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers — most of them with financial ties to war contractors — into the TV networks as “message surrogates” for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

News of the Pentagon’s online posting of the documents came from Joe Trento of the National Security News Service, who notes that NSNS provided the New York Times “limited information about a military office early in the reporting process.” (more…)

We here at NT wanted to make sure that when dubya leaves office, people don’t forget who got us into this mess. We have changed the name of our category: Iraq War, to Bush’s War. We will not let this SOB hand off his mess to the next President. We always want his name associated with one of the biggest blunders in United State’s history. We urge all blogs, websites…etc to do the very same thing! Here are some up-to-date numbers from Bush’s War:

Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $600 billion of US taxpayers’ funds. President Bush has requested about $200 billion more for 2008, which would bring the cumulative total to close to $800 billion.

U.S. Monthly Spending in Iraq - $12 billion in 2008

Cost of deploying one U.S. soldier for one year in Iraq - $390,000 (Congressional Research Service)

Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers’ money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors.

Also, per ABC News, 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles.
Missing - $1 billion in tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces. (Per CBS News on Dec 6, 2007.)

Mismanaged & Wasted in Iraq - $10 billion, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings

Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported - $1.4 billion

Amount paid to KBR, a former Halliburton division, to supply U.S. military in Iraq with food, fuel, housing and other items - $20 billion

Portion of the $20 billion paid to KBR that Pentagon auditors deem “questionable or supportable” - $3.2 billion

Number of major U.S. bases in Iraq - 75 (The Nation/New York Times)

TROOPS IN IRAQ

Iraqi Troops Trained and Able to Function Independent of U.S. Forces - 6,000 as of May 2007 (per NBC’s “Meet the Press” on May 20, 2007)

Troops in Iraq - Total 164,891, including 155,000 from the US, 4,500 from the UK, 2,000 from Georgia, 900 from Poland, 650 from South Korea and 1,841 from all other nations

US Troop Casualities - 4,064 US troops; 98% male. 90% non-officers; 80% active duty, 12% National Guard; 74% Caucasian, 10% African-American, 11% Latino. 18% killed by non-hostile causes. 51% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 70% were from the US Army (more…)

Not long after the polls close in the May 20 Kentucky and Oregon primaries, Barack Obama plans to declare victory in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
by David Paul Kuhn

And, until at least May 31 and perhaps longer, Hillary Clinton’s campaign plans to dispute it.

It’s a train wreck waiting to happen, with one candidate claiming to be the nominee while the other vigorously denies it, all predicated on an argument over what exactly constitutes the finish line of the primary race.

The Obama campaign agrees with the Democratic National Committee, which pegs a winning majority at 2,025 pledged delegates and superdelegates–a figure that excludes the penalized Florida and Michigan delegations. The Clinton campaign, on the other hand, insists the winner will need 2,209 to cinch the nomination–a tally that includes Florida and Michigan.

“We don’t accept 2,025. It is not the real number because that does not include Florida and Michigan,” said Howard Wolfson, one of Clinton’s two chief strategists. “It’s a phony number.”

Wolfson said they intend to contest the DNC’s 2,025 number “every day,” as well as any declaration of victory made by Obama based upon that number, because it does not include Florida and Michigan.

In January, Clinton won both states by wide margins when Obama did not actively contest them. The two states were stripped of their delegates for holding early primaries not sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee.
(more…)

side note: This is one of the reasons why Hillary and her supporters want her to stay in the race: the Jewish vote. Well, this author, writing for The New Republic blows that reason out of the water!

S.V. Dáte, The New Republic
Why Obama’s “Jewish problem” won’t give him such tzuris come November.

No point denying it: Barack Obama has a Jewish problem. Because of his sympathy for the Palestinians, his willingness to meet with enemies, perhaps even his Arabic middle name, he averaged ten or more percentage points worse among Jewish voters in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania than he did in those states overall. And then there’s been the ongoing Reverend Wright saga, tossing gasoline on the whole situation. Still, come November, simple demographics suggest that his “Jewish problem” will be significantly less problematic in the general election.

Here’s why: Jewish voters made up three percent of the national electorate in 2004, with their numbers concentrated in a handful of states where they constitute significant voting blocs. The states that have the highest Jewish populations, however, also tend to be reliably Democratic. Which means that even if McCain and the Republicans could somehow pry away most of the Jewish vote in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California (or if a lot of Jews were to decide to sit this election out), it’s likely that those states would nevertheless deliver their electoral votes to an Obama ticket. And most swing states, such as Ohio and Missouri, have too few Jewish voters to make much of a difference either way. Which, naturally enough, brings it all back to Florida. (more…)

side note: This super-delegate bullshit has got to go! Not only to super-delegate votes count as 10,000 regular joe and jane votes….but now we have one of them putting his up for sale. Ya…that really fits into “democratic values”! I don’t even care if it’s for a “good reason”….it’s just not right.

http://cbs13.com

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CBS13) ― In this tight battle for the democratic nomination we’ve heard a lot about the candidates courting super-delegates.

But, one superdelegate is courting the candidates. He says he’ll sell his vote for a price. A very high price: $20 million.

Sacramento superdelegate Steven Ybarra says that eight-figure price is peanuts for the presidency.

When asked whether it was right to offer what is clearly a quid pro quo?

“Yeah, absolutely. People do it all the time,” answered Ybarra.

But, not like this. Not in public, and not for such big bucks. (more…)

side note: I can’t tell you how much of a pleasure it was waking up and reading that Obama closed the Indiana gap to less then 2 percentage points. I opened the HuffPost and spread across the top of the page said it all: “The Presumptive Nominee”. I believe this is the nail in the coffin! For people who follow what is going on in our country and the world…..this is a huge step forward! It’s gonna be a great day!!!!

side note: I know we should be talking more about today’s voting….but most NT readers already know what’s at stake! On a completly different subject…I got Guitar Hero this past weekend and I’m loving it! I had heard about this 5 year old kid who played the most difficult song on the hardest setting but couldn’t really appreciate till I saw it again this afternoon. After struggling last night on the medium setting…….this kid blew my mind! Enjoy!

side note: Well, not only are the States moving along with legilation, but so is the Federal governement. Lets try and get this done. Call your Congressman and make it clear to them that you want them to support these bills. This is the only way we’re gonna get this done.

by Kipper Mathews
nolanchart.com

More than 734,000 individuals were arrested on marijuana charges in 2000. Eighty-eight percent of those arrested were charged with marijuana possession only.

On April 17 2008 US Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced two bills addressing the federal penalties for marijuana possession and the use of medical marijuana. The first decriminalization bill introduced in Congress for the last 24 years.

The first bill HR5843, co-sponsored by Reps, Ron Paul (R-TX) and William Lacy (D-MO) would eliminate all existing federal penalties including arrest, incarceration and fines that prohibit the possession and personal use of less than 100 grams of marijuana.

According to Congressman Frank “It is poor law enforcement to keep on the books legislation that establishes as a crime something in which society does not seriously wish to prosecute.” He then followed up by saying, “Having federal law enforcement agents engaged in the prosecution of people who are personally using marijuana is a waste of scarce resources better used for serious crimes.” (more…)