Even though Clinton and Obama stayed practically tied in every measurement in the end there is a clear winner. I have truthfully said this whole time that I would fully support any of our top 3 for president and I think that most Democrats feel the same way. So even though I threw my support behind Obama a while back, today is the first day that we can say that Barack Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Hold on to your pants, now its going to really get interesting.  Watch these two give their speeches last night.  Obama gives a great speech and I think Hillary does as well.  Some may have wanted something different from her but I think her supporters are all happy.  I know I am.

[youtube width="500" height="394"]http://youtube.com/watch?v=dtL-1V3OZ0c[/youtube]

[youtube width="500" height="394"]http://youtube.com/watch?v=T8-Bkbre_7A[/youtube]

William ~ WWJV4.com

“I want to say also that this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, ’til Hillary decided to run. But it has been, one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president,” said Clinton as he began his speech.

Political Radar

Anyhow, I just wanted to post that and see how it plays out over the next few weeks. No matter what Hillary decides to do I will support her decision. Even though I decided to back Obama I have a ton of respect for the Clinton’s. I think that she would make an excellent president (or VP) and I hope that her supporters are mature enough to realize that no matter what the last thing our nation needs right now is 4 more years of failed conservative policies.

I will go on record and say that I can’t see Hillary dropping out today with Montana and South Dakota voting tomorrow. After those voters opinions are counted and weighed I can see her dropping out and supporting Obama.

Let me know what, if anything, you think this means.

William ~ WWJV4.com

Hillary Clinton Wins BIG in West Virginia

[youtube width="250" height="197"]http://youtube.com/watch?v=OXONMGz_jAg[/youtube]

Even though I have decided to support Obama I am still very happy to see that Clinton is not only competitive in blue collar states, but overwhelmingly preferred 67% to 26%. I know that it wont happen but showings like this make my dreams of a unity ticket seem almost possible sometimes.

Hagee Flip Flops on Religious Views

[youtube width="250" height="197"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uViQ0hVV57Q[/youtube]

Taking a line from the McCain campaign John Hagee has flip flopped on his outspoken attacks on the Catholic Church. Every time McCain flip flops on a position his supporters can chalk it up to pandering for votes (or Alzheimer’s). What is it called when religious leaders flip flop on their beliefs?

The Rest of The News

• A bar owner in Marietta is selling racist Obama – Curious George T-Shirts. Just more proof that we have a lot of work to do still.
• Republican Congressional candidate Mike Erickson is being accused by an Oregon woman of having paid for her abortion. If true this will mark the one millionth Republican hypocrite outed this year. I think he wins a toaster.
• Conservatives are still trying to get amnesty for their big business telecom buddies. Over at DailyKOS mcjoan has listed the names and numbers for the conservative Democrats the Republicans are targeting. If they are yours give them a call.
• Was Einstein an atheist? Personally I could care less what Einsteins religious beliefs are but some people are making a big deal about it.
• In Ohio a father was jailed after his daughter failed to pass the math portion of her GED. As always there is more to the story, but it doesn’t get better. Read about it here at Newshoggers.
• Charges have been dropped against the “20th hijacker” Mohammed al-Qahtani. During his interrogation Mohammed was subjected to what people in a civilized society would refer to as torture.
  

  In the log, U.S. interrogators describe how they ratcheted up techniques on their captive during 50 days starting in November 2002 to extract a confession – by using sleep deprivation, leaving him strapped to an intravenous drip without bathroom breaks and having him strip naked….A special Guantanamo investigator, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, subsequently told Congress that al-Qahtani was also forced to wear a woman’s bra, dance with a male guard, “perform dog tricks” and was smeared with fake menstrual blood to lower his self-esteem – techniques the general described as “degrading and abusive” but not inhumane.
  Cageprisoners.com

Daily Video

Todays video is John Stewarts interview with the unapologetic neocon Douglas Feith. If there is one think to admire about neocons like Feith, they never get caught up in the little things like reality or facts. Crooks and Liars has a good write up on the interview.

Part 1

Part 2

Thats all for this morning. I’m going to take some more medicine and go lie down for a while. I know that some of the news is actually from this morning but yesterday was a pretty slow news day. Besides I normally start these the night before and then just check for new stuff in the morning. Of course this is an open thread and I’ll make sure and moderate comments through the day.

William ~ WWJV4.com

Today I am not backing off of those positions, nor am I ever going to suggest that any candidate should bow to pressure to drop out of the race. Hillary has earned the right to campaign and pursue the presidency all the way to the convention if that is her choice. If the blogs or media or whoever has a problem with that so what.

However I have been gradually convinced that despite Hillary’s many many positives Obama is the better candidate to receive the parties nomination. This decision isn’t based upon policies or experience as I still feel that Clinton wins in those categories. Instead its based upon something much simpler but vastly more important. Character.

I’m not necessarily talking about personal character as I still strongly feel that both candidates have impeccably strong characters. Instead I am referring to the character of their campaigns and how they affect the progressive movement. I have always felt that no movement can ever be about one single battle and the decision has to be not who can be elected but who can help build the progressive movement. Obama’s campaign is the clear winner by that criteria.

It also does not help that in order to sell the myth of “electability” Clinton consistently works to ostracize parts of the Democratic party. 4 or 8 years in the White House will not be enough time to fix the damage caused by George Bush. So to achieve the long term comprehensive success the progressive movement needs to fix this nation we need to bring liberals, progressives, and moderates together. Sorry Hillary but statements like this are exactly what we don’t need.

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me”

(h/t Bloggernista)

So today, for these reasons and many others, I am formally announcing my support for Barack Obama. At this point we will be moving on and focusing on the general election against serial flip-flopper John McCain. I wish Hillary Clinton the best of luck and will always support her as she will no doubt continue fighting for the progressive ideals she has devoted her life to.

William ~ WWJV4.com

McCain still hates farmers. Nothing to say here really. Maybe if they were rich businessmen with hot lobbyists they could get something out of the old man.

Post-War Veteran Suicides May Exceed War Casualties: Because of a lack of mental health care for returning war veterans it is very likely that psychiatric illness may claim more lives than combat. Remember last month when the VA was caught concealing suicide numbers, how likely do you think it is that this administration is going to be honest about this epidemic?

New Jersey has approved paid family leave for same sex couples as well as married couples. This is a big step forward. Now to get the rest of the states to accept that in America everyone is equal.

Eleanor Badger over at RH Reality Check has a good writeup of a practice that the anti-choicers are using to shut down abortion providers known as TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers).

230 top economists have signed a letter condemning Clinton’s idea to offset the cost by adding a windfall tax to the oil companies. Oddly little attention has been paid to McCain’s even worse gas tax plan. See Obama’s response here.

In ultra conservative Florida a substitute teacher lost his job after being accused of wizardry. yeah, wizardry. This boggles my mind and I live in Kansas so I have developed a pretty high tolerance for this fundamentalist crap.

Pat Tillmans mother was on 60 minutes reminding America of the deception that surrounded her sons death. Watch it at Think Progress.

Women in Malaysia may need a letter giving them permission to leave the country. This move to control women is being sold as a measure to protect them from being tricked into carrying drugs. You know, because women are too dumb to take care of themselves apparently.

Apparently in a move to increase the number of abortions anti-choicers are planning to protest against contraception. You know, that stuff that prevents unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortions. If you want to see the kind of woman who could promote such craziness here is Pam Stenzel. Pam wants to teach your kids that birth control can kill them and that abortions make girls anorexic, depressed and suicidal. (h/t Feministing)

[youtube width="500" height="394"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ezYNWIDB0[/youtube]

And finally I wanted to point out this post by Melissa McEwen at Shakesville. Its about a young girl who had the courage to fight back against her assaulter and the horrible consequences that followed. This story deserves a post of its own but I don’t have the time. Besides I doubt I could do it justice after Melissa’s post. This is my response to anyone who has ever wondered why women don’t fight back.

That is pretty much my roundup of the news from yesterday. If you have any comments please feel free to post them. Also if I missed anything please post that as well.

William ~ WWJV4

[youtube width="500" height="394"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8lvc-azCXY[/youtube]

William ~ WWJV4.com

While I wish our problems would be helped by something as simple as a tax holiday, the reality is this will only make the problem worse. So I applaud Senator Obama for having the personal courage to stand by the right decision in the face of public pressure. Like any great leader Obama understands that what is easy and comforting is not always best.

[youtube width="500" height="394"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHtFSi99shk[/youtube]

Thanks to MyDD for pointing me to this great video.

Since I am not an economist, and the few classes I have taken on economics made me never want to be, I am providing a small selection of articles about the gas tax. If you doubt what Obama is saying about the gas tax then please read these.

• Economists Knock Proposed Gas Tax Break
• Expert Support For Gas Tax Holiday Appears Nonexistent
• Dumb as We Wanna Be
• Gas Tax Holiday Splits Clinton And Obama: Who’s Right?
• What to Do About the Oil Crisis
• Gas tax follies
• Candidates’ plans to cut gas prices

William ~ WWJV4.com

If Hillary is tearing apart the Democratic party to the point where only Obama can hold us together why is Hillary getting substantially more votes? Also, if the relatively mild attacks that Hillary is throwing at Obama is enough to beat him so soundly what chance does he have against the Republicans?

Anyhow, here is a good post by Kate Harding from Shakesville that does a good job of outlining some reasons why I still think Clinton is just as good (or better) than Obama.

[youtube width="500" height="394"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAXucMY7Dvk[/youtube]

I guess it is only fair to point out the ad never makes any untrue claims nor does it go into the guys history at all. Its just a short statement mixed in with several others. In his quote he doesn’t say anything untrue or deceptive and never implies that he is from Pennsylvania. I Should also point out that while he voted in New Jersey he lives in Pennsylvania now and will be voting in Pennsylvania this November.

So I guess there isn’t really much of a story here after all. Sorry to waste your time. I’ll just join in with the other anti-Hillary liberal blogs in attacking her for tearing apart the Democratic party. Pay no attention to our blatant hypocrisy as we do exactly the same thing ourselves. Can’t help wondering what the response would have been from these blogs if it had been an Obama ad in question.

William ~ WWJV4.com

John McCain was busy last month

1. John McCain continues to break campaign finance laws that he wrote!
2. John McCain and his army of lobbyist buddies are responsible for European Airbus winning a contract over American Boeing. This move costs Boeing approximately 35 Billion and costs Americans about 3,800 jobs. I’m Sure the campaign contributions and being surrounded by the very lobbyists you promise to fight had nothing to do with it.
3. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has shown that he knows next to nothing about the economy, foreign policy, supporting the troops, the environment, Vaccines and Autism, Evolution, or Aids and Condoms. Knowing things is overrated, Bush doesn’t know anything and look how wonderful the past 7 years have been.
4. John McCain sought and won the endorsement of anti-Catholic hate monger John Hagee. John Hagee is known for calling the Catholic church the great whore and blaming hurricane Katrina on the gays.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

1. Barack Obama made the Speech of a Decade this month on race. Read Robert Creamer’s thoughts on why this speech is historic.
2. I’m writing up a story on the ongoing Obama vs. Clinton fight so you have to wait for that to hear more on these two.

Iraq War

1. The surge is a smashing and total success, thats why were not pulling out any more troops. I guess thats also why Iraqi casualties are at their highest level since last year and since the surge started 900 Americans have been killed.
2. Baghdad, which McCain described as being as dangerous as an American city last month, has exploded in violence when the cease fire with Muqtada al Sadr came to its inevitable conclusion. Don’t worry though, according to Bush this is a good thing.

Politics

1. The Republican economic theory continues its historic success and does not appear to be stopping anytime soon. Of course by success I mean rising unemployment and food stamps for poor people and government bail outs for rich people. Don’t you love Republican socialism.
2. “Curveball” the secret Iraqi informant upon whose word Bush and co. built their claims of Saddam’s weapons capability has been outed. More importantly he denies ever having made those claims. Surprisingly our mainstream media has ignored this story.
3. Another testament to Republican leadership, 21 countries are ranked as being more stable than the US. I’m sure this is Clinton’s fault somehow.

Religion

1. Apparently the Pittsburgh Steelers feel that domestic abuse is ok when its done for Jesus.
2. Parents pray while daughter dies. I’m a strong supporter of freedom of religion and all but no child should die because of the crazy ideas of their parents.
3. Students that attend private school with the assistance of public vouchers do not do any better than those attending “failing” public schools. Religious indoctrination and brainwashing are much greater however.

Other Stuff

1. Some experts are expecting tourism from conservatives to drop to the Netherlands and Japan. Not sure why.
2. Don’t listen to anyone who claims were not safer now than before 9/11.