Blatant Reality

For all their rhetoric about how Bush is spending way to much money, Barack and Hillary don’t really offer a way to save money. In fact, they are going to most likely increase the national debt with all their campaign promises. I bet you are wondering who is going to pay for all this. No, the Democrats haven’t figured out a way to directly tax the citizens of another country so we, the American citizens, will have to foot their bill. Go here and read Ed Morrissey’s complete article on this subject. It brings up some things you may want to consider if you are planning on voting for either of them.

Tonight I will be live blogging the CNN Democratic debate at the University of Texas. I’m not really looking forward to watching this because last time was really really boring. However, the talking heads are predicting a pretty vicious Clinton tonight so that might make this experience more enjoyable. We shall see.

UPDATE (8:02pm ET):

Oh this is funny. When the CNN anchor introduced the Univision reporter, he didn’t at first come out so she then made “come here” motions with her hands as if she were talking to a child. Priceless.

UPDATE (8:07pm ET):

Whenever Clinton insists on talking about individualism and personal responsibility, I laugh out loud (“lol” for all you who know AIMspeak).

UPDATE (8:10pm ET):

I really don’t understand how Hillary keeps insisting that the government just giving money people actually creates more jobs. Its simple economics that shows handouts actually decreases worker output a makes them less likely to decide work.

UPDATE (8:21pm ET):

After speaking a little espanol, the Univision anchor (Jorge) asks if they would be willing to meet with Raul when he is in charge.

Clinton insists that she would only talk with Raul if there was “evidence” that “change was happening” and there was a move towards democracy.

Obama will meet with Raul without “preconditions” but there has to be “preparations” on the agenda that Cuba will address human rights issues. This is Obama trying to not go back on him saying that he will meet with our enemies while still looking like a tough president.

UPDATE (8:30pm ET):

Next question from John King is about the Economy and how they differentiate themselves.

Obama says that we have to restore a sense of “fairness and balance” (aka Socialism). Viva la revolucion! And then he comes out with it. Obama wants to create a “green economy” and he doesn’t mean cash. He is actually sounding a lot like John Edwards in that sense.

Clinton wants a moratorium on home foreclosures and freeze interest rates for 5 years. Now Hillary also gives her stint about how green jobs will boost our economy. Finally she says that we need to stop Bush’s war on… science? When did he declare war on that?

UPDATE (8:36pm ET):

Hillary just said that if any illegal has committed a crime in the United States then they shouldn’t be allowed to stay here but instead they should be deported. Hmmm…I wonder if she knows that entering the country illegally is considered a federal offense (aka a crime)?

UPDATE (8:43pm ET):

Hillary wants a border fence, but not a complete one. Therefore she wants just to hire more people to patrol the border and use more technology to keep our border secure.

Obama agrees. Plus he wants everyone to prosper (illegal and legal alike).

UPDATE (8:47pm ET):

Next topic: Bilingualism

Hillary said that she wants English to remain as our common unifying language but she doesn’t want it to be our official language. I don’t get it.

Obama wants everyone to be bilingual (foreign born and native born). I agree on this sentiment. I don’t think bilingualism should be necessary within ones’ own country but with globalism and all, everyone should have another language handy.

UPDATE (8:57pm ET):

Ohhh John King just asked why in the world aren’t Hillary and Obama going at eachother’s throats. I’m glad that he did because I was wondering the same thing.

Hillary just claimed that her campaign has been a very positive one. I find that really really funny. Don’t you? She then goes on to attack Obama as all talk and no action.

Obama retorts that he has done a lot and proceeded to list off the things that he had done. A lot had to do with things on the state level.

UPDATE (9:00pm ET):

Oooo the fighting begins. Hillary says that Barack’s “plagiarizing” isn’t “change that you can believe in” but instead “change that you can xerox.” Classic.

UPDATE (9:07pm ET):

Another break. Here are some other Live-Blogs of tonight’s debate:

Vodka Pundit

Michelle Malkin

Right Wing News

UPDATE (9:15pm ET):

Hillary is looking pissed and this is getting good. I don’t know if it was too smart for them to sit so close together. She might just claw his eyes out. Clinton is also looking like she is about to cry and she is angry. All I got to say to this is YES! By the way, they have both hijacked this debate to focus solely on health care.

UPDATE (9:28pm ET):

So now we finally move on to Iraq and whether Iraq is better because of the surge.

Hillary sidesteps the question by saying that the purpose of the surge hasn’t been fulfilled.

Obama also sidesteps the issue by saying that we are wasting money and should focus on ourselves. I doubt he would have same reaction if we were sending money to liberal spending project.

UPDATE (9:38pm ET):

If the candidate is different than what the people have voted for in the primary, would that be a bad thing? (referring to the superdelegate question)

Clinton: Not really. This will all sort itself out.

Obama: YES! The voice of the voters must be heard.

UPDATE (8:42pm ET):

What are some crises that you have overcome in your life?

Obama’s greatest achievement is learning to take responsibility for his own actions. Weird how his party is almost completely for shifting individual blame on others.

Clinton’s greatest crisis is well, the crises she sees in many American’s lives. Once again, tears seem to want to burst forth from her. Mind you, they never did.

UPDATE (8:45pm ET):

Its over and I think Obama wins this debate just because he stayed civil the most. Plus he was able to get a rise out of Clinton that at least entertained me a little.

Here is what Putin said about Hillary in reply to her claiming he had no soul:

“At a minimum, a head of state should have a head”

Oh Vladimir, it might have taken you a month to think of it, but it sure was worth it. Keep the insults coming.

PS: Is it just me or does anyone else feel that this might have a double meaning?

One of Clinton’s superdelegate from NJ has changed her position to undecided.

New Jersey is also allocated 20 superdelegates, two of which won’t be chosen until April. Of the 16 contacted since Tuesday’s primary, Clinton has an 11-1 edge over Obama, with four undecided or uncommitted.

 

Of the two who could not be reached, one has previously said he supported Clinton, while the other was uncommitted. Including those two, Clinton has a 12-1 edge.

 

Democratic superdelegate Christine “Roz” Samuels of Montclair said she changed her preference for Clinton after remarks by the former president that cast Obama’s candidacy as “a fairy tale.”

 

“I’m disappointed in a few things that were said a few weeks ago by President Clinton,” she said. “I’m going to have to revisit what I’m going to do between now and when we vote.”

Captain’s Quarters posted a video today that put together clips from Reese Witherspoon’s movie Election (1999) and clips of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. Depending on how you look at it, the video can either be either quite funny or a little bit scary. Either way, I’m sure you will laugh at least once while you are watching it.

Last night, Bill Clinton gave a surprise visit to the University of South Carolina to do a little Q&A about his wife’s campaign. This event was publicized before hand because of the venue that was chosen would have been way to small and I’m sure security would have been even more crazy than it was. Since I arrived late (I had just happened to be walking by and went to find out what all the commotion was about) I don’t know exactly when he started this engagement but I think it was around 10:30pm EST.

When I arrived around 11:00pm, there was already a pretty sizable crowd in the room and it seemed that everyone there was texting someone they knew to come see him. One of the first things I noticed was that he was wearing a blue tie with a red plaid shirt that reminded me of those table clothes you put out on fourth of July. Another thing I noticed was all the secret service present. There had to have been at least seven agents inside the coffee shop. After the room got filled up with people, one of the agents actually manned the doors and would only let a certain number of people in who had just left.

The first question I actually heard the answer to was about Roe v. Wade. A girl asked what Hillary would do to ensure that it wasn’t overturned. Bill pointed out that all the democratic candidates have pretty much the same view on this and that they will do everything in their power to ensure that it isn’t overturned. For example, he stated that within the next four years, 1-3 Supreme Court Justices will retire which means that whoever is president will choose their replacements. If there is a democrat president, the Justices will most likely be ones who vote to keep Roe and if there is a republican president, the Justices will most likely be ones to overturn Roe. He then went on to say how Bush has overturned a lot of the policies he established while he was president. He sounded pretty bitter when he said this.

One of the most interesting this about this talk is that I swear he was talking in the terms that we were going to elect him. For example, he said that he would “bring back accountability” to the white house. He didn’t say that Hillary would, he said that “I” would. It was weird because he made this mistake more than once. I really wish I had my camera so I could have had taped this part. I’m pretty positive that I heard this but its just so outrageous that I wish I could have proof.

One of my friends (who I might add is an Obama supporter) was there and got to ask Bill a question concerning the Darfur resolution that Obama has already signed. Bill admitted that he had no knowledge of this resolution and didn’t know why Hillary might not have signed it already. In the words of my friend, after stating this he went on to talk about all “the great things he did in terms of foreign policy when he was president.” The most interesting thing was that as my friend was about to leave, Bill asked her if she could get him a copy of the resolution. She did and as he was leaving, he stopped and talked with her and her friends about genocide and poverty for about ten minutes. To say the least, she was very excited about this.

As he was doing his Q&A, I noticed something very interesting about the crowd. At most of these events, people stay the whole time to listen to what is being said, but here, people were coming and leaving after a while. Now, this may be because people felt guilty about those who had to wait outside until more people left but I have a theory that most of the people there just wanted to see “the man.” Most of those in the crowd didn’t really care about what he had to say all they wanted was a picture proving that they were there and had seen him in person.

Anyways, I must admit that it was pretty cool to see him in person even though I couldn’t dislike him any more. However, one positive thing about this event is that now I can see how he got the nickname “slick willy.”

UPDATE (4:13pm EST)

This is what I just found on my friend’s blog who spoke with Bill about Darfur.

Yesterday I attended the “NAACP King Day at the Dome” rally where the top three democratic presidential candidates spoke (Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton if you didn’t know). Let me start off by saying that it was freezing (20 degrees F) yesterday when I went to the rally. It was sunny though, so the crowd at the event was fairly large. One of the first things I noticed when I went there was that there were an abnormally large proportion of Hillary signs with almost no Obama or Edwards signs. The notion that this was going to be a mostly pro-Hillary crowd was shattered when I overheard a man talking about how he could never vote for Hillary because she is so “dishonest.” That is probably one of the only things that I could have agreed with him on.

After playing several speeches of Dr. King, a “Unitarian Universalist minister” got up and said an invocation. Now, it started off as most invocation would, being very vague about who he might or might not be praying to, but it ended up being a Bush bashing speech. It almost sounded like a little kid’s prayer where he started off thanking God then ended with something like “and please make little Betty not have any friends because she was mean to me today.” I really wish I would have recorded it, you would have laughed.

Dr. Lonnie Randolph, Jr. was up next and is the president of the NAACP S.C. State Conference. His speech was another funny speech and was way to long. He covered items from stating that the capitol building was a “shrine of bigotry” and if we took all the bad monuments down, there wouldn’t be very many monuments left on the premises. At one point in his speech, he mentioned vice presidents but then couldn’t remember who our current vice president was and had to ask the crowd. I literally was sitting there hoping that he was joking but from the look on his face, I really believe he didn’t know who the vice president was. This is another thing I wished I had taped.

Oh, another thing to mention. Obama and Edwards showed up on time but Hillary was late in her arrival, getting there after Dr. Randolph’s speech. Since we are on the topic of who showed up at the rally on time, one group that didn’t show up at all yesterday was the man made global warming advocates and its a good thing too. If they would have showed up, I know for a fact they would have been laughed at because it was so bitter cold there. Anyways, we’re moving on.

One more notable person to point out before I talk about the candidates themselves is Reverend Nelson B. Rivers, III. He is the NAACP Chief of Field Operations and is from Baltimore, Maryland. He basically went on a rant about how the NAACP has been responsible for every advancement African Americans have experienced. He likened the NAACP to a dog that protects your house. If you haven’t fed your dog recently (aka given money to the NAACP) how can you expect it to protect you. He then went on to say things that the NAACP is the only reason African Americans were let into the statehouse and that South Carolina has never done anything right on its own (it has needed prodding from the NAACP). Since I’m not originally from South Carolina and don’t know the state’s history too well, I will let other judge on how right these ideas are but I have a feeling they are not entirely true.

After a couple more people whose speeches I didn’t find too remarkable, the candidates were finally up and given 10 minutes of speaking time each. Barack Obama was first up (they randomly drew names for the order) and talked about how Dr. King described the need for unity back then and how the same is needed now to overcome the essential deficit of this country. Now, you may be wondering why I emphasize the word deficit. I do it because in each of the three candidates’ speeches, one word is focused on and Obama’s word is deficit. If you were wondering what deficit he was talking about, its a moral deficit. He basically just talked about how we now see that there is a deficit in our country and that we need to fix it. The implication is that Barack Obama is the only one that can fix this deficit because he can unify the country.

Next up was John Edwards. He started off by reminding everyone that he was born in South Carolina and was very proud to be a South Carolinian. After stating this, Edwards used both the race and gender cards to gain him popularity by stating that he was very proud to be on the stage with an African American and a women who are both running for president. The way I took this part of his speech was “Hey, its cool to see how far we’ve come in equality, but come on, I’m the tried and true so you should vote for me.” One ironic thing he stated was that he was with the African American people in their march for equality in the United States even though he didn’t attend the actual march after the rally. Obama was the only one out of the three to actually march.

The majority of Edwards’ speech focused on poverty. He talked about his poverty tour and that he felt the federal minimum wage should be at least $9.50 and hour which should be “indexed to go up on its own.” Oh, Edwards’ word is silence. He basically used it by saying that silence is what is keeping us from ending poverty and stuff like that.

And last, but surely not the least, Hillary Clinton gave her speech. As with everyone before her, Hillary thanked everyone for coming and those who organized the event. Hillary also did what Edwards did by pointing out that yes, Barack Obama is an African American and yes, John Edwards is a South Carolina native but she even went as far as referring to herself in third person. What I mean is after stating the obvious about the previous two, she said “and a woman, all of us running for President.” Couldn’t help but point that out, could you Hillary? As if John Edwards hadn’t said the exact same thing right before you and the crowd couldn’t see for itself that you are a woman.

Also, at one point in her speech, she paraphrases James 2:20. This verse says: “You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?” The funny thing is that in the verse before this, it describes faith a little by saying: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that-and shudder.” (James 2:19) I’m no Bible scholar but the implication of this is that even if you believe there is one God, that doesn’t make you saved. So be wary of politicians who say they believe there is one God and rely solely on good deeds to prove it. (Now, don’t think that I’m implying that Hillary is a demon, I’m just saying that true faith is more than just good deeds and belief that there is one God.)

The rest of her speech sounded much like Obama’s and Edwards’ and doesn’t include too much interesting things. I’ve decided that Hillary’s word is actually a phrase and its “git it done.” Now she only says this one time in her whole speech but its funny enough that I think it should be her phrase.

Now before you watch the videos, keep that in mind that they are inevitably very shaky due to me shivering. The audio is pretty good so please cut me some slack. Also, because I know all of you probably don’t want to watch the videos that much, I have a little game you can play. For each video, count how many times each candidate says their “word” in their speeches. This should add just a little bit of enjoyment to watching them. Here are the speeches:

Barack Obama’s Speech on MLK Day

John Edwards’ Speech on MLK Day

Hillary Clinton’s Speech on MLK Day (Part 1)

Hillary Clinton’s Speech on MLK Day (Part 2)

Sorry about having to break up the Hillary video into two sections. They guy waving the Hillary signs got in my way and was messing with the auto focus on my camera. That brings me to two of my pet peeves about going to these events. The two things I strongly dislike at these events are overzealous fans who think they can do what they want and news people who act like the candidate came just for them. So remember everyone, if you’re in front and waving a banner, consider their are people behind you wanting to see too. Also, if you see an amazing photo in a newspaper, remember that it was most likely taken at the expense of the crowd and citizen journalists like me. I know my blogs are highly opinionated, but at least when I attend these events, I try to include video of the whole speech so you can come up with your own opinions. In order to try to get the best video possible, I try to attend these events early and don’t appreciate people blocking my view.

Hope everyone had a great Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and this concludes my second day of coverage of the democrat’s primary race in South Carolina.

I really found this funny. Basically, as I was searching through Hillary’s campaign website looking for South Carolina events, I stumbled upon this picture under the “Newsroom” link.

It’s titled “Official Headshot.” My question is what in the world would anyone need this for and why in the world is it under the “Newsroom” section? Honestly, I doubt this picture is new enough to be considered “news” or else it would have had to been photoshopped quite a bit.

Hillary Clinton seems to already be downplaying the significance of a third place finish in Iowa tomorrow. I guess even Edwards has got her a little scared.

As the presidential candidates engage in furious pre-caucus spin, one of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s most prominent Iowa supporters said Wednesday that she’s already accomplished what she needs to in Iowa, and can declare success even if she finishes in third place.

The article continues by quoting much more cautionary remarks former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack than these he expressed last May:

Vilsack’s comments stand in marked contrast to optimistic predictions he has made in the past, including last May, when he endorsed Clinton’s candidacy.

 

In May, Vilsack was quoted in The Washington Post, saying, “There’s no question she’s playing in Iowa and playing to win,” said Vilsack, who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this year and endorsed Clinton.”

This time, however, it was a knife instead of a bomb.

A man who pulled a hunting knife inside an Iowa campaign headquarters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton was jailed Wednesday after being charged with harassment and carrying a weapon.