Folks, I don’t want to use All Things Democrat in order to start flogging for Hillary Clinton at this point.  Despite the fact that I’ve found myself warming to her and defended her a lot in the recent past, I am still undecided on who to support in the primary.  

So, in the interest of not turning ATD into my personal pro Hillary megaphone,  if anyone wants to read my defense of Hillary’s response to the drivers license for illegal immigrants question, here’s the link. 

As I compile my notes from yesterday’s debate (probably posted tomorrow), I find myself reflecting on my surprise last night to see Mike Gravel missing from the Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate. Why was he missing? MSNBC didn’t invite him. Why? Shady popular support fundraising question dodging.

It’s the popular kids knocking off the fringe, not inviting them to the party. It’s the silencing of minority opinion, and we should be ashamed and we should be worried. Next they knock down Kucinich, then Dodd, Biden, Richardson, and Edwards, and you’re left with little choice and limited opposing ideas. Just the two most popular kids fighting it out.

Gravel did hold his own protest and live webcast; hopefully the archived video will be posted at some point so we can all experience a different point of view (and perhaps something other than the Attack Hillary Fest we saw last night).

The worst part about it? Not one person up on that stage - perhaps for fear of getting the hook themselves - stood up and said “Where’s Mike Gravel?” They, too, should be ashamed.

In the gusts, dead leaves scuttle ghost-like in the darkness. The promise of rain as the clouds darken the moon brings the odor of autumnal ending. It is Halloween. Some will hope for the Great Bumpkin, Georgie Bush. (more…)

His claim is that the Democratic Party machine conducted a campaign to keep him from running for president in 2004. And some very decent people, including former lawmen and substantial lawyers say he has a case.

Now, I know there is a great deal of anger - not just among Democrats - feeling that Nader kept them from a Gore victory in 2000. While I think Nader was a big distraction in that election, I think the overwhelming fault falls not to Nader but to the Bush/Cheney/Baker machine who made certain people like Katherine Harris, then Secretary of State of Florida, delivered for them… even illegally keeping many people, especially those of color, from voting. Compare Nader to the Bush machine: who do you think wields the most money and power?

I have no idea whether these charges are true. I hope they are not. While I’m registering as a Democrat for the first time - after being a lifelong Independent - I know I would fight to keep any dirty tricks out because democracy should mean more than who perpetrates the biggest tricks. We’ve had way too much of this since Bush came in office, no?

I know that Nader says he will run again next year if Hillary Clinton is the candidate for the Democrats. Sadly, I think the best of Nader has gone and he may be so minimalized now that he will be even less of a third party candidate than ever before. While I know many will say, “Good riddance”, I had the pleasure of meeting Nader’s father who was such an exceptional man that, even if I didn’t have mainly positive feelings about Ralph (though we certainly do not always agree), I would be tilted toward his offspring.

More than 400 days left of the Bush Administration…

I can’t even enjoy Halloween as I once did - and certainly not traditional horror movies - because of the terror, violence, and viciousness of this crew.

Before I start this ramble, let me say that I have not yet picked a favorite in the Democratic nomination. Recent events have me leaning for Senator Clinton, but I’m not all the way there yet by a long shot.

Marc Ambinder blogs for The Atlantic, and today he posted about an aspect of the horserace which casts Senator Clinton in a positive light.

Another two weeks, another impressive navigation through ever-trickier waters. Hillary Rodham Clinton now has nine serious opponents — four on the Democratic side (only Bill Richardson isn’t making a compelling case against her right now) and five on the Republican side (counting Mike Huckabee).

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From the delightful WaPo via CBS:

Ten months into his presidential bid, Rudolph W. Giuliani continues to work part time at the security consulting firm he promised to leave this past spring to focus on his pursuit of the Republican nomination.
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Several of the firm’s employees do volunteer work for his campaign. And Giuliani did not decide until mid-June, six months after he entered the race, to bill his campaign for the cost of the security detail traveling with him on campaign trips; before then, the firm paid the expense.
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Federal election laws prohibit Giuliani’s firm from absorbing costs or providing services that legally should be covered by political donations, campaign experts said.

I don’t have a problem with someone keeping a job while they’re running for POTUS (see: Congress), but it looks as though in addition to struggling to keep up with Mitt Romney in the polls, Giuliani is happily breaking campaign finance laws. More than any other candidate, Rudy has a consistent flow of negative information emanating from his campaign, like the underlying stench of body odor not quite covered by the rose water coming from the old lady in the fur coat in front of you in church.

I’ve already come out 100% for Kucinich and I’m not personally against Hillary Clinton (I fully realize I’m very likely to be casting a vote for her next November), but - for those who might be - this video is well-produced, raises a good point about her stance, and it’s put together by Democrats. Warning: explicit language and violent (war) images.

Sidenote: Hillary might take some heat at tonight’s debate because of her lack of a solid stance on Michael Mukasey.

UPDATE: Hillary: “We cannot send a signal that the next attorney general in any way condones torture or believes that the president is unconstrained by law. His failure to do so leaves me no choice but to oppose his nomination.”

Thank goodness.

Much of the time, it’s easy to believe you’ve heard it all, that nothing else can shock you.

But listening to MSNBC later Monday night, in a discussion of AG Nominee Mukasey, the way he’s hedging on whether something like waterboarding is torture or not (gee, what is it if not torture?), and how this is making “a sure-fire nomination” into a testy affair, my “delicate sensibilities” were once again tested.

The offender in this case in Michael Reagan, the adopted son of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, a right-wing talk show host who has always played very desperately into the extreme right fold because he knows he possesses neither the brain power nor the pizzazz to be anyone in his own right. Reagan, making fun of Sen. Lindsey Graham. a GOPeer himself - for having the nerve to question the Bushies’ insistence that God WANTS America to torture anyone Muslim (or Dem or Progressive), uttered something like, “heck, the only thing we can be sure of is now we’d like to see Lindsey Graham waterboarded.”

Nice. Really nice.

Michael Reagan has always sickened me. But this is a new low, even for him. That anyone in this country is even advocating torture - let alone making it sound like something fun to do to those who disagree with them - tells us a lot about the very wrong direction in which this country has been taken.

Terrorists on 9-11 didn’t destroy our way of life - our leaders did it, and any of us who stood up and declared they could take away any rights or liberties or human rights protections from us just to keep us safe destroyed our way of life.

Why, oh why, do the extreme righters - and surprise others like Alan Dershowitz - hate America so much?

Michael Crowley has an article in the New Republic regarding the underhanded tactics used in the Republican primary contest in South Carolina. This primary contest is rapidly gaining recognition as being the dirty stinking slime encrusted event which determines who will win the Republican nomination.  It’s like the Repubican who proves the nastiest and most souless in South Carolina is given the nod as the guy most able and likely to continue the practice and win a slimy general election campaign.

 Click more to read my defense of Mitt Romney and Mormonism! (No, I have not gone insane…)

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John Edwards, who has so far besides Dennis Kucinich been about the only candidate to pay attention to any American or other struggling economically, is coming out against a new NAFTA/CAFTA like trade deal between the U.S. and Peru. Buzzflash offers the details here.

In the meantime, I urge everyone reading to get to know more about these trade deals and how, rather than help working Americans or help working Mexicans/Central Americans, etc., they have actually helped only huge corporations while damaging the rest of us enormously. Most countries below the U.S. border have seen their workers become far poorer since we began instituting these suckers. Immigration problems certainly have not improved as promised.

Thus, whenever I hear a Dem like Barack Obama speak up in favor of these deals, I’m not terribly happy.

Walter Shapiro at Salon looks at the Republican candidates for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination and which one exudes the most macho image. Like we need macho, rather than thoughtful, again. Bush, after all, is great for trying to seem macho even if he can’t find his penis with a GPS and satellite guidance.

I mean, Hillary has bigger cojones than Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney put together but I’m still leaning toward a John Edwards, a Barack Obama, or - if he happened to run but I doubt he will - and Al Gore.

From the Center for American Progress:

Are you tired of Bush cronyism? Have you had enough of the ineptitude? Are you concerned that the way this administration has handled the war on terror is making us LESS safe?

The Bush administration treats the war on terror as a way to pad the pockets of friends, such as Halliburton and Blackwater. These companies are making a killing on the taxpayer dime and failing to deliver on services and products promised… or worse, destroying our reputation by their “malfeance” (make that malfeasance). We need oversight in Afghanistan, the real front in the war on terrorists. With Osama bin Laden and the Taliban roaming free in the Afghani countryside, bungling reconstruction there will only help them recruit more terrorists hell-bent on attacking us.

Click the link. Take action now.

Personally, I have no real problem with anyone, comedic or otherwise, throwing his or her hat in the ring for the presidency (and it’s hard to imagine who could do a worse job than the office’s current occupant). But some are getting hot under the collar about Stephen Colbert’s bid, some of them other candidates (mostly Dem, the Repugs don’t seem to have a sense of humor except about poor people and minorities so they know nothing about Comedy Central).

Thanks to Buzzflash, let me point you to the Columbia Journalism Review’s piece on Mock The Vote as well as this Buzzflash piece on how the John Edwards’ campaign is not happy.

How do YOU feel about Colbert’s prat fall entry?

If you read nothing else today, I highly recommend this piece in the International Herald Tribune that spells out some of the serious issues arising out of Bush’s latest push to take on Iran (a war we’ll regret far more and far longer than the one in Iraq - Iran has the resources to kick ass).

In many parts of the U.S., the weather has definitely taken a turn toward winter (and not just here in Vermont where I grilled dinner last night in a mini snowstorm). While you’re turning up the thermostat and putting another log on the fire, be aware that the Bush Administration has pretty much KILLED all federal funding for fuel assistance for lower income individuals. Of course, they didn’t sign an edict the media MIGHT see and report; instead, they just starved the accounts of funding.

Nice people.

The same people who point to Hugo Chavez and Venezuela and lambast those who take the low cost fuel oil from them because it’s the only way they can heat their homes and not freeze to death. Some of those affected, undoubtedly, are families of service men and women making piss poor wages to fight Bush’s wars of empire.