Newscoma

All times, as stated, are eastern.

It’s going to be a long night, campers.

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My dear friends, I got nothing this Monday morning, but as a fan of They Live, you knew I had to post this.

Go to their snazzy new website and see what the college is up to.

If you want to submit a question, here’s how you do it:

The Commission on Presidential Debates has partnered with MySpace to create a new Web site, www.MyDebates.org, to enhance the educational value of the televised debates and to engage viewers throughout the general election period. The Web site will become available in the days leading up to the first Presidential debate on September 26. You will be able to track the positions of the candidates on issues of interest to you, submit questions to candidates throughout the campaign and submit questions for possible inclusion in the October 7, Town Hall Presidential Debate.

By the way, that’s my birthday. Send presents or money.

Do you think the candidates will get stranded due to Nashville’s gas crisis?

The photo was taken on Saturday in Dickson.

Obama is currently looking for a running mate. Sharon Cobb has a comprehensive rundown at her place this morning about the pros and cons of some of the front runners.

Cobb says this may be the biggest decision he has to make and I can’t help but agree.

Although I have played armchair political pundit on this, I can’t help but think whoever he chooses is going to have to be chosen to be the best advocate for this country in the Middle East. Our economic situation, in my opinion, has so much to do with the Iraq War. We are borrowing money from China, people are doing without but we haven’t hit that moment of outrage yet but I think it will come and, of course, we’ve hit $4 a gallon so isn’t it just a matter of time before we start anticipating warily $5.

Let’s look at China. With the devastating earthquakes that have hit that country, they are going to need more fuel to rebuild. We owe them. Let’s think about that. I don’t know the answer but it’s a reality. The world needs petro not just the United States.

In a story from ABC, we get this:

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill says their profits have quadrupled since 2002.

“Last year ExxonMobil made $83,000 a minute,” Senator McCaskill said.

“What nerve does it take for us to give oil companies $17 billion in taxpayer money with those kinds of profits?”

Of course, Senate Republicans blocked the Democrats Monday on the windfall tax for oil companies.

For every one thing we think we know, there are five hundred different things lurking in the murky waters of government. With Obama looking at a V.P to campaign with him this summer, the vice-president is very important. Whoever he chooses, I hope that that person’s interest is in the American people, our global community is not tied into corporate greed. It’s corporate greed that ultimately got us in this mess we are in right now in the first place.

The McCain Girls are back.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPZEDiqzFI4]

I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but they are back.

Last night I missed all the fanfare in a monumental day in history. I was sitting in a local, very emotional board meeting that I’m not going to talk about here. I usually talk around the items that happen in my day job anyway and just write about my reaction to what I do for a living. It’s called a blog where we get to navel gaze about our lives.

So I missed the speeches and probably won’t get to watch them until later today when I have some time.

With that said, I have read the reaction of how folks perceived the last day of the democratic primary. I find that people usually deal with politics from an emotional level. Be it locally or nationally.

I read with great disappointment these posts from Aunt B. Left Wing Cracker and Mack regarding Tennessee Guerilla Women. That blog has won national kudos and has done a great deal for communicating the ongoing battle for women’s rights. I don’t want to take that away from TGW but I must say that as a woman in my 40s there is one thing that I’ve realized as the gray at my hairline becomes a bit whiter and that is not everyone who disagrees with me is out to get me. Sometimes it’s just a different philosophy.

Was there misogyny in this race? Yes.

As a woman, I cringed at moments where Hillary Clinton was asked about her pantsuits and pictures were photoshopped making her into some sort of wicked witch. I hated that.

Was there a covert, and sometimes blatant, thread of racism in this contest? Yes. I felt the nasty sting of Bill Hobbs’ attack on Barack Obama and I have listened to some rather nasty words thrown at the candidate.

And although I don’t always write about feminism here doesn’t mean that I don’t live a life of being a professional woman in a male-dominated world.  During my career in news and social work, I’ve had some rather nasty words thrown at me as well as other women have as well.

I try to let my actions speak louder than my words. People that know me know that I’m more than this blog.

So speeches were given last night and in internalizing the immediate needs of my particular community, I find my concerns about this country are more than just race and sexism which can’t be fixed in a day but should be fixed nonetheless. I don’t want my nieces listening to the nastiness that I have on occasion. With that said, there has to be a unified effort to make sure they are okay. And taking our toys and going home because our candidate of choice didn’t win doesn’t cut it for me. I just want something different from the last eight years.  This country has had a rough run. And I don’t want those same nieces to ever go through something like this ever again.

My concerns, for right now at least, are about the economy and the war (where women and people of color die too), about a recession in my community that has no access to rural public transportation and where gas prices have created such hardships where I’ve seen people reduced to tears choosing between milk and getting to work. Jackson Miller posted this yesterday and that’s what I’m talking about.

Politics are emotional and I don’t care what anyone says, it is. But there has to be unity in fixing some of the things in this country that are impacting regular people. It’s the only way.

A little bunch of nothing which started making the rounds this afternoon. Or is it something?

[youtube=[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR_Y5FqvFmU&hl=en]

Did John Edwards say at the end of this clip from Morning Joe “I just voted for him on Tuesday?”

You decide.

No official endorsement but interesting.

Nice interview at the Ticker this morning with John and Elizabeth Edwards. I thought it was interesting but they say a lot without saying anything.

When it comes to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards praised the New York Democrat for her tenacity, saying she “shows a real strength that’s inside of her.” But the former North Carolina senator also said Clinton represents a “lot of the old politics.”

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Edwards said she is a strong proponent of Clinton’s healthcare plan, though is disappointed the New York senator accepts donations from lobbyists.

As for Barack Obama, John Edwards said he wants to “see more substance under the rhetoric.” But he gave Obama praise for wanting to “bring about serious change and a different way of doing things.”

Elizabeth Edwards said she is impressed by the fact Obama has “motivated so many young people to be involved,” though she does not like his healthcare plan and said his advertisements on the plan have been “misleading.”

John Edwards later added he thinks it’s a “great symbolic thing to have an African-American who could be president.”

That sentiment, People reports, caused Elizabeth Edwards to roll her eyes:

“What about the great symbolic thing about a woman?” she asked.

I like the banter between them though. They seem very comfortable. I like that. In many ways, they have become the first couple of the Democratic Party. Not bad.

This is not only a really fine bit of writing but it’s also a lesson in history.

The talking heads of the TV babblerati certified it to be true — this is the first time in 40 years the Democratic primary election in Indiana has been important. That would be 1968, and Robert Kennedy had just jumped into the race for the Democratic nomination after Lyndon Johnson had just bowed out.

I know. I was alive. And I was there — in Indiana, the weekend before the primary election.

Read the rest of it. It’s amazingly good.

I’ve talked quite a bit about how I wish we were having a more “adult” presidential campaign right now. It makes me cranky listening to all the political rhetoric when there are more important issues to discuss.

I realize that it’s just not “sexy” to have conversations these days about politics when you aren’t looking somebody in the eye. That’s part of what is missing, I think.

When I’m sitting talking to friends and acquaintances I have who have and will vote differently than I will in November, I find that we never raise our voices, yell obscenities at each other and start threatening to throw fainting goats at the other’s family promoting a riot of some kind here in Hoots.

We have adult conversations. Not always perfect, mind you, but pretty decent.

I find we agree on what needs to be addressed, we just have different ideas on how to fix it and our ideologies on who the best candidate is to take over a government that appears to be nuts right now. Why anyone would want to be president right now is mind-boggling. There is no quick fix.

Where we agree is that the economy is in the toilet, the war in Iraq is a mess and when are we going to have to repay our debt to countries we’ve borrowed money from. Credit card companies will call you when they don’t get paid. We keep wondering when the United States is going to get that call, from let’s say, China.

I wonder what the interest rate will be? I wonder who’s going to pay it. Oh, wait …

We agree that the middle-class in many ways is not the middle-class anymore. We talk about rising gas and food costs. We talk about having health insurance (most of the people I know do) but that we really can’t use it because our health insurance companies won’t let us and the deductibles are killing us when we have to go to the doctor.

So, I mentioned earlier this week about how terrible I thought the Gibsonopolous debate was for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They waited nearly an hour to ask about the economy?

Politics is like a chess game. But real people with real problems don’t want to be pawns.

They just want to know when they are going to see light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m usually an optimist about most things, but right now, I’m worried. And if you sit down and look your neighbor in the eye and talk like an adult about the issues this country is facing, regardless of who you think they are, you will find out they are most likely a bit worried too. Or this has been my experience. Sometimes it’s talking to one person at a time where we see our similarities and can put aside our differences.

So in our news of the day, I introduce you to Keith R. Judd. No relation to the singing sensation of the 80s known as The Judds to my knowledge.

If you were having doubts of who to vote for president, Mr. Judd would like you to consider him for the highest office in the land.

Of course, Judd is in prison until 2013 in Texas, but that didn’t stop Idaho from putting him on the ballot.

A federal prison inmate got himself listed on the ballot for Idaho’s May 27 primary as a Democratic presidential candidate, the state’s top election official said.

Keith Russell Judd is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999. He’s scheduled for release in 2013.

Judd, 49, qualified for the ballot by submitting a notarized form and paying the required $1,000 fee, state Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said. As a result, Democratic voters will be able to choose between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Judd.

“We got conned,” Ysursa told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash.

Yes, I believe that con is a good enough word for what happened here.

Here, my friends, is the government taking care of business.

Betcha five bucks he even gets some votes.

Mabel’s campaign for president has been challenged by Happycat.

I’m going to let you choose. Here are Mabel’s issues.

It’s up to you. There are no superdelegates. There is only a canine or a cat that can lead our country to greatness again.

It’s up to you, my friends.

Mabel would also like to point out that HappyCat can’t spell. (It could get dirty.)