Blatant Reality

I’m going to be blogging the Democratic Debate tonight which is going to be basically a cage match between Hillary and Obama. This is going to be a very interesting night.

UPDATE (8:07pm ET):
Wolf Blitzer just stated the rules for tonight’s debate and they are:
THERE ARE NO RULES!
This is equivalent to him saying “Lets get ready to rumble!!!” Oh its going to be an interesting night.

UPDATE (8:17pm ET):

Gosh, Hillary just pointed out that “just by looking” at herself and Obama, the viewing audience can tell that they are not the same as the Republicans that debated the day before.

Hmmm…for someone who keeps stressing that this race isn’t about race or sex, she sure keeps bring it up a lot.

UPDATE (8:25pm ET):

Still no attacks on eachother. Just blathering on about socialized medicine, I mean universal health care.

UPDATE (8:27pm ET):
Barack Obama just worked in the fact that Ted Kennedy supports him.

UPDATE (8:30pm ET):
Hillary keeps driving home the point that Democrats need to carry the banner of universal health care.

UPDATE (8:34pm ET):

As Obama was talking about rolling back tax cuts of the rich, the camera cuts to a picture of Jason Alexander, who plays George Castanza. He seemed pretty indifferent.

UPDATE (8:45pm ET):

Hillary is talking about “cracking down on the border” plus then that we need to help create more jobs for Mexicans in Mexico. So, is she for creating a border fence plus outsourcing jobs to Mexico? For someone who doesn’t want anything to do with Republicans, that sure sounds very conservative.

UPDATE (8:50pm ET):

Hillary doesn’t want illegals to have ID’s because it would put them at risk to being found out. Is that honestly the reason she doesn’t want illegal immigrants to have ID’s? That is crazy.

UPDATE (8:53pm ET):

First commercial break. Check out these other live blogs of the debate:

Michelle Malkin

Gateway Pundit

UPDATE (9:02pm ET):

Wolf Blitzer just asked what experience does Hillary have because she was the first lady. Hillary initially dodges the question by focusing on 35 years ago, the time right when she got out of law school. She also talked about how she traveled around the world when she was the First Lady.

UPDATE (9:06pm ET):

Hillary brings up that having a woman president would be a very big change for the country. Yet again, the “change” she keeps talking about will be focussed on her gender, not her ideas.

UPDATE (9:09pm ET):

I just realized that all our accomplishments in Iraq will be for nothing if a Democrat becomes president. I pray for the Iraqi’s sake that this won’t happen.

UPDATE (9:12pm ET):

This is very weird but everyone is actually focusing on South Carolina. Barack and Hillary have both brought up the education issues in South Carolina and the lady from the Politico asked a question from a woman from South Carolina. Weird, I thought that South Carolina would be long forgotten by now in the grand scheme of things.

UPDATE (9:13pm ET):

Right before CNN cut to a commercial, Hillary made a comment to the affect that it took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush so it surely will take a Clinton to clean up after the second one. This got a hearty cheer from the audience plus a shot of Pierce Brosnan.

UPDATE (9:21pm ET):

Hillary just stated that the Iraq government is going to have to make the tough decisions and to take charge because they are “out of time.” Well, I have a good feeling that if this is going to be our message to Iraq, martial law will rain in there once we leave. I also bet that a year after we have all our troops out (theoretically two years after Hillary is elected) the relative peace we have now will have evaporated.

UPDATE (9:23pm ET):

Barack just said that if we are so afraid about Iran influence in the Iraqi government, we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq in the first place. Well sorry Obama, but we are there now and we need to take responsibility for our actions. This means that we need to guarantee the Iraqi people a stable government before we leave.

UPDATE (9:32pm ET):

On the topic of Iraq, Democrats always seem to focus on what the US needs to do, almost always ignoring what will happen to the Iraqi people. Hmmm…not caring about the people whose country we have meddled in has caused us a lot of grief in the past. Just look at almost every Latin American country’s history.

UPDATE (9:33pm ET):

Hillary just said she believes in “coercive diplomacy.”

UPDATE (9:38pm ET):

I just want to remind everyone at this point that Barack Obama was voted the Most Liberal Senator for 2007.

UPDATE (9:46pm ET):

CNN cuts back to the debate late after another commercial break to Obama talking about regulating the airwaves. He brings up how he wouldn’t want his kids to see a slasher movie trailer during American Idol. He wants to promote working with advertisers to work something out.

UPDATE (9:47pm ET):

When asked about Bill, Hillary gives one of her classic fake laughs along with the most forced smile I have seen all night. Oh Bill, you always seemed to bring out the best in people.

UPDATE (9:49pm ET):

Blitzer asked if either of the candidates would accept the other as a running mate. Neither wanted to answer either way which is the smart political move at this point. Barack did say that she would be on his “short list” after a little hesitation.

UPDATE (9:52pm ET):

The debate is finally over. Who won the debate? I really don’t know. Judging by how many times I had something to say about Hillary, Obama seems to have come out ahead.

One thing that everyone must note is that there wasn’t an all out brawl tonight. I was pretty disappointed by this because I was looking forward to a little more excitement.

With recent articles stating that there has been a 20% increase of military suicides since last year, one must always wonder wonder how this fact might have been taken out of context. Well, I’m not going to make you wonder too long because Gateway Pundit has done some research and found that military suicides were in fact more prevalent during the Clinton years.

Lawrence Solomon, the executive director of the Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and a writer for the Financial Post, has written a series of articles that cover a wide range of global warming topics. Basically, if you are a global warming “denier” as the media has dubbed us, these articles bring up a lot of counter points that can come in handy during every day conversation. Here is the list of all thirty-some articles that Solomon has published so far.

Statistics needed — The Deniers Part I
Warming is real — and has benefits — The Deniers Part II
The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science — The Deniers Part III
Polar scientists on thin ice — The Deniers Part IV
The original denier: into the cold — The Deniers Part V
The sun moves climate change — The Deniers Part VI
Will the sun cool us? — The Deniers Part VII
The limits of predictability — The Deniers Part VIII
Look to Mars for the truth on global warming — The Deniers Part IX
Limited role for C02 — the Deniers Part X

 

End the chill — The Deniers Part XI
Clouded research — The Deniers Part XII
Allegre’s second thoughts — The Deniers XIII
The heat’s in the sun — The Deniers XIV
Unsettled Science — The Deniers XV
Bitten by the IPCC — The Deniers XVI
Little ice age is still within us — The Deniers XVII
Fighting climate ‘fluff’ — The Deniers XVIII
Science, not politics — The Deniers XIX
Gore’s guru disagreed — The Deniers XX

 

The ice-core man — The Deniers XXI
Some restraint in Rome — The Deniers XXII
Discounting logic — The Deniers XXIII
Dire forecasts aren’t new — The Deniers XXIV
They call this a consensus? — Part XXV
NASA chief Michael Griffin silenced - Part XXVI
Forget warming - beware the new ice age — Part XXVII
Open mind sees climate clearly — Part XXVIII
Models trump measurements — Part XXIX
What global warming, Australian skeptic asks — Part XXX

 

In the eye of the storm of global warming — Part XXXI
From chaos, coherence — Part XXXII
The aerosol man — Part XXXIII
The Hot Trend is cool yachts — Part XXXIV
You still need your parka in Antarctica — Part XXXV
IPCC too blinkered and corrupt to save — Part XXXVI
Why melting of ice sheets ‘is impossible’ — Part XXXVII
Climate change by Jupiter — Part XXXVIII

These articles are pretty short and to the point but are filled with useful facts and quotes from other leading scientists. If you like these articles, Solomon is also coming out with a book on February 28th called The Deniers.

Because of the terrorist activities that have been generating from the Gaza Strip, Israel has decided to retaliate with slowly cutting off its electricity and fuel.

Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the government’s decision to reduce fuel and electricity deliveries to the Gaza Strip as a form of “economic warfare” against the armed Hamas group in control there.

 

In doing so, the three-judge panel rejected the arguments of Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups that the blackouts and shortages caused by the cuts represent a form of collective punishment against Gaza’s 1.5 million residents.

 

“We emphasize that the Gaza Strip is controlled by a murderous terror group that operates incessantly to strike the state of Israel and its citizens, and violates every precept of international law with its violent actions,” the judges wrote.

 

The ruling clears the way for the Israeli government to begin reducing its delivery of electricity to Gaza on Feb. 7, and to continue cutting back the shipments of fuel used to run Gaza’s power plant, generators and vehicles. Most of Gaza’s electricity is supplied by power lines from Israel.

I like it how not only is Hamas a terrorist group, its a “murderous” terrorist group. Way to go Israeli Judges for not being politically correct!However, Israel is probably going to get a lot of crap from the international community for this and this incident will probably end up being discussed in today’s democratic debate. Be prepared to hear stories about how the US and Israel are the reasons why all these terrorists exist in the first place.

Yep, Edwards has dropped out of the race leaving only Hillary and Obama.

John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race Wednesday afternoon, ending a spirited underdog bid that was watered down by his distant third finish in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

 

The decision leaves Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to battle it out in the increasingly competitive and bitter Democratic contest.

 

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and two-time White House candidate, had pledged to stay in the race through the convention despite suffering losses to Clinton and Obama in every early voting state. He had even hoped to benefit from the intra-party bickering of his rivals, and had banked on a strong performance in his home state of South Carolina, where he won in the 2004 primary, to give his campaign a lift before Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, when 24 states hold primaries and caucuses for both parties.

I am actually pretty surprised that he is dropping out now after pledging to stay in the race even though he placed third in South Carolina. Since Florida was a given win to Hillary, why didn’t he just drop out on Saturday or wait until after Super Tuesday?

Whatever the reason, Edwards dropping out just might make the debates more interesting. Without Edwards acting as a speed bump essentially giving Hillary and Obama a time to breath and collect their thoughts, the exchanges between the remaining two could become an all out 90-minute brawl.

I would definitely recommend watching the Democratic debate tomorrow night at 8pm ET hosted by CNN because it has the potential to be a repeat of this minus the Edwards part.

According to FOXNews.com, Rudy Giuliani is going to quit the presidential race after his disappointing (yet predictable) defeat in Florida.

Giuliani suffered a disappointing evening in Florida, placing well behind McCain and Mitt Romney after repeatedly vowing he would win the Sunshine State. With 92 percent of the precincts reporting, McCain won 36 percent to 31 percent for Romney. Giuliani received 15 percent of the vote.

 

Giuliani’s campaign team was said to have immediately huddled after the voting was tallied to decide how to exit gracefully from the presidential stage and whether to endorse McCain.

 

The confirmation that Giuliani — once the national front-runner in GOP nomination fight — would endorse McCain, was an acknowledgement of what many had been saying all day: that his all-or-nothing strategy to take Florida had backfired and he no longer had the money or support to wage a multi-state campaign ahead of Super Tuesday on Feb. 5.

All I got to say to this is that it is about dang time. He should have quit after such an embarrassing finish in Iowa that left him even behind Ron Paul.

I won’t be able to live blog tonight’s results but here are a few people that you might want to check out instead:

Gateway Pundit

VodkaPundit (via Pajamas Media)

Captain’s Quarters

Michelle Malkin

According to the Associated Press, Nationalism and Neo-Nazism are both on the rise in Russia. The worst part is, the government really isn’t doing anything to stop it. In fact, the Russian government allows their marches while still prohibiting pro-democracy rallies.

Kozhevnikova said authorities turn a blind eye to the ultranationalists’ actions, including public marches, “as long as they abide by certain rules: do not criticize authorities, show loyalty and stick to city outskirts.”

 

While pro-democracy opposition groups are denied permission to hold rallies in Moscow, authorities allowed about 5,000 nationalists to march in the capital in November, raising their right hands in a Nazi salute and chanting “white power!”

Right now this all may seem pretty harmless, but so did the Nazi party in Germany before it took control. Dealing with Russia is definitely going to be a major part of the job for whoever is elected in November.

Today, over 30 Missouri State legislators endorsed Mike Huckabee for President.

State Senator Delbert Scott and State Rep. Scott Lipke, two co-chairs of Huckabee’s Missouri campaign, introduced Huckabee and then presented the other state legislators supporting him.”He is a solid conservative who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is,” Lipke said . “As governor, Huckabee cut taxes where he could and made good use of the revenues he had improving roads and education in Arkansas. That is the kind of common sense leadership the country needs right now.”

Go to the article to see a list of who the other legislators are.

Bill Bradley from Pajamas Media has been covering the primaries and today is no exception. Here is an interesting excerpt about how Hillary is going to try to steal the show tonight:

In the wake of her big loss in South Carolina on Saturday, not to mention the endorsement yesterday by the Kennedys of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton is trying to get credit for a Florida win tonight. She’ll show up there tonight, and hope the media pays attention to her in the midst of the hard-fought drama of the Romney-McCain battle.

 

On a conference call earlier with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to discuss the lay of the land in next week’s contests, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry jumped on the phone to jump on the Clintons for trying to spin a “victory” in Florida.

 

“Everyone agreed,” said Kerry, “not to campaign in Florida. There are no delegates at stake in Florida. There is no contest in Florida. This attempt by the Clinton campaign is the sort of sleight of hand that voters rejected over the weekend in South Carolina.”