Another status quo enforcer speaks

Apparently, those of us who refuse to follow the Democratic party leader aka The Anointed One are not only hysterical old bats, but we are dumb sweeties pumped up by a Republican swiftboat conspiracy:

Pandagon writer Amanda Marcotte reaches the heights of silliness in her attempt to "prove" the John McCain holds PUMA's leash. Even though the movement started on the Confluence with Riverdaughter and other former Kossack writers, and even though many a well-known prog-in-exile (including yours truly) has pushed the thing along, Marcotte pretends that the entire thing was started by one Darragh C. Murphy, who appears to have given John McCain $500 in the year 2000.

That, says Marcotte, proves it's all a big fat Republican plot!

Actually , Marcotte's post proves that we are dealing with a big fat Obama plot -- since she lightly re-writes an Obot "talking point" previously sent to this blog, and to other blogs. The term for this sort of practice is, I believe, Astroturf. In other words, Marcotte simply re-typed a message handed to her by Obama Central.

The PUMA blogs, by contrast, do what they do on their own. We have no Comintern, no Central Commitee, no leaders, no home office, no money. Hillary has told Dems to support the Lightbringer, and we have told her no can do.

I have not received any communication from John McCain's people. Nobody pays me a dollar.

Me neither and as I have repeatedly asserted, I am not voting for McCain. Or Obama.

Who's questioning the motivations of A-Hole listers who rake in the Obama cha-ching? Oh, their loyalties couldn't be influenced by nothing but their own true-blue natures, eh?

Is Marcotte aware that Markos used to be a Republican? Does that mean the Orange Sippy Cup™ is a GOP ratfucking operation?

Funny how us dumb sweeties can't organize a resistance all by ourselves without men like John McCain. A bit of unconscious internalized sexism in play?

It's inconceivable to Marcotte and her ilk that PUMAs come from all quarters of the political spectrum including yours truly, a left-of-center liberal lesbian with a list of reasons for my opposition, "fed up and revolting against corruption, sexism, exploitation of racial tensions, homophobia, and the plutocracy of both parties."

Status quo enforcers don't think outside of the box nor do they see "status quo packaged as change."

Howard Dean thinks we're dumb sweeties

How stupid does Howard Dean think we are? This stupid:

SEELYE: Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, who says he was slow to pick up on charges of sexism because he is not a regular viewer of cable television, is taking up the cause after hearing an outcry from what he described as a cross-section of women, from individual voters to powerful politicians and chief executives.

“The media took a very sexist approach to Senator Clinton’s campaign,” Mr. Dean said in a recent interview.

“It’s pretty appalling,” he said, adding that the issue resonates because Mrs. Clinton “got treated the way a lot of women got treated their whole lives.”

Mr. Dean and others are now calling for a “national discussion” of sexism.

Truly, that’s pathetic. For the past sixteen years, journalists could say any damn thing they pleased about major Democrats—especially Clinton, Gore and Clinton—safe in the knowledge that Dem Party figures would never care enough to complain. Now we learn why this long roll-over occurred: Party leaders like Howard Dean weren’t regular viewers of cable! How were they supposed to know about the vile things being said? None of us are geniuses out here, but that “explanation” is even insulting to us. Dean would have been much better off if he’d simply said nothing.

He’s calling for a discussion now! Just in time for it not to matter!

Convenient timing. After Hillary suspended her campaign, after years of abuse. Thanks for insulting the intelligence of millions of Clinton Democrats, women, and men who love women with a blockheaded, cockapootie, lame to the 10th power, contemptuous excuse. Between the Democratic party and the GOP, voters have a choice between stealthy corruption and in-your-face corruption. What a world!

Just when we need the Democratic party to act like adults, they morph into vindictive teenyboppers spieling CDS fibs and a lust for kewl, cold cha-ching.

And it gets worse. Organizations like NOW that should have been on the front line when the sexist puke first started to hurl at Sen. Hillary Clinton have finally decided to act on the issue. NOW (irony alert!) and Emily's List will launch email campaigns aimed at "cable channels when they see sexism." Plus, NOW, says its president Kim Gandy, will create a "Media Hall of Shame" on the Internet to raise awareness of "sexist language" in the news.

NOW is starting a campaign! Just in time! Seventeen months later! And by the way, could Gandy possibly have less of a clue? Almost surely, Michelle Obama will not “be the recipient of the same kind of attacks that Hillary was”—at least, not from the media players named in this article. (Good!) The fact that Gandy doesn’t understand this fact means that she’s been snoring soundly for the past many years.

Or that she’s playing it dumb.

La-dee-dah! As a lapsed member of NOW--I didn't see the benefit of, you know, actual results--I have to wonder what's in the water that has made women's orgs so complacent, so out of touch with women?

I can appreciate a woman's right to choose as important turf to protect. But you know what grinds women down to dust every working day of the week? Unfair, stagnant wages and loss of benefits, discrimination, and underground sexism in the workplace. Get a clue, people. Get out of your offices and go talk to women on the street, in grocery stores, at doctor offices if they are lucky to have insurance.

And...

If Obama losing in November means Howard Dean and the new--we don't need no steenking working class--coalition pushers will exit the DNC, the incentive to reject the party's Anointed One just multiplied.

Hat tip to Bob Somerby.

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks, Joseph! My eyes were opened wide during this campaign season.

Apologies due to Hillary plus

Via Taylor Marsh, at U.S. News & World Report, Bonnie Erbe wrote that Hillary and her supporters deserve an apology from Obama, the DNC, and party leaders for their sexism.

The Democratic National Committee either doesn't get it or refuses to admit it. Nothing short of a lengthy, detailed mea culpa by the DNC and by Obama himself, directed to Clinton supporters for the sexist name-calling and personal, nasty characterizations Clinton was alone forced to endure, will do. Even that may not persuade these voters to consider supporting the party this fall. The DNC, Democratic Party leaders in Congress, and Obama should have been at her side, calling her treatment by the media (and even by some Obama supporters) unacceptable.

According to most polls, something in the range of 20 to 25 percent of her 18 million supporters say they'll vote for Senator McCain in November. That's 4.5 million votes—too many to take for granted. Yet taking them for granted is just what the party and Obama are doing. When CNN's Candy Crowley asked Obama how he would appeal to disaffected Clinton voters, he missed the mark entirely, giving a standard set of policy proposals.

I appeared on one of the cable news networks over the weekend, paired with a political reporter from a major newspaper. We were asked whether her supporters would kiss and make up with the Obama camp and end up throwing their support to the Illinois senator in the general election. He said, dismissively, "yes." I responded that with all due respect I thought he was quite wrong. But his laissez-faire attitude typifies that of the bulk of the MSM, the Democratic Party, and the Obama campaign.

M'yeah. The "highest, hardest glass ceiling" appears to have constructed a brick wall in front of it. Just try talking to it.

Meanwhile, Sapphocrat reported on how the denizens of DU expect Hillary Clinton to “self-immolate on the steps of the Capitol.”

With anti-Hillary attitudes still in force, pardon-moi if I don't participate in the June 21 Unity Day. It's a joke, n'est-ce pas?

My answer: PUMA!

Call me sweetie and hear me roar!

In the left blogosphere, I have already read posts this morning about how Hillary voters need "to get over it" and unite to elect Obama in November. Well, if I had not taken a leave of absence from a party I don't recognize after 30 years of voting Democratic, maybe I would give a hoot.

I am finished with blind loyalty to a party that demonstrated how un-Democratic it is during this campaign season. Who are these people who have usurped my party? Seriously, they don't act like Democrats. What happened to champions of the working class, representing and fighting for everyone's equality and prosperity?

I have read about the so-called "new" coalition but the adjective doesn't necessarily mean improved.

The pledged delegate sham alone is reason for a timeout until the party reforms its anti-democratic, disenfranchising voting process that enabled the foisting of the DNC's favorite upon 18 million of us because of why? The cha-ching? With further insult compounded by the leadership's silence against sexism and misogyny.

There's a way to change a political party: protest!

And a Puma PAC protest with a roar!

Booing Obama

Via egalia from yesterday:

Mark Hemingway at The Corner: I just returned from the Clinton rally, and I don't know if this really came across on TV but there was a surprisingly audible number of boos every time Obama was mentioned. There were also a lot of people who didn't clap for him. . [T]he boos sort of took everybody in the press area aback when she first mentioned his name."

I tuned into the C-SPAN broadcast and noticed what sounded like booing beneath the cacophony of whistles and cheers at one time. Egalia, however, posted a Fox News video in which you can hear a baritone harmonic of boos when Hillary mentions Barack's name during the 1:24 minute clip.

Revolt of the Clintonistas

We will not go calmly without dissent. We are women who honor those like Hillary who have paved the way for other women, for us. We will not be satisfied with a under-qualified male taking the place of a highly-qualified female candidate.

The Democratic Party has abandoned us and so we shall leave it with this message.

You will have to earn our votes and Obama is an obstacle, sweeties. You cannot rectify the division caused by your sexist, homophobic Precious.

We will not be moved. We will not vote for Obama.

He represents all that is wrong with the nominating process in the Democratic Party: DNC favoritism, a thin résumé propped up by stagecraft, the delegate sham, the disenfranchising of voters via caucuses, the silence against sexism and misogyny, race-baiting by the Obama camp, weasel tactics gaming the press to smear Hillary, and the dirtiest campaign ever perpetrated against a leading female presidential candidate. Obama has lied promising a new kind of politics but we have not been deceived by his unity talk, talk, talk.

We will not tolerate an Obama candidacy. We refuse to follow the call for faux unity when it is a capitulation to sexism and we will never surrender to such terms.

We stand with Hillary more resolutely than ever. No matter what she says or what she decides, we have crossed over to standing on the principle that sexism is never tolerated, never to go unanswered, never to be excused from any Democrat.

Why do we need the Democratic Party? Since the midterm elections, congressional Democrats have compromised with Republicans to set us back on fair wages, to keep funding the war, to refuse to impeach a renegade executive, to fail to filibuster Alito enabling the SCOTUS with its 5-4 vote to potentially overturn Roe v. Wade, to legalize warrantless spying on Americans, to provide amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, to succumb to Bush's every demand. Just as alarming, telecoms are attempting to buy amnesty through the enticement of millions from lobbyists. Democrats have failed to unify against a disastrous presidency and the shredding of the Constitution so I find it laughable and hypocritical to summon the electorate to unite behind Obama.

Why should voters do what Democrats have not?

As a crowning blow to the presidential race, the high shenanigans at the un-Democratic May 31 RBC meeting proved the Democratic Party does not deserve our votes. The Democratic Party is no longer democratic. It is an oligarchy.

Until the votes are cast in Denver, the nomination isn't cinched. November looks more and more like a loss with Obama as the standard-bearer. Sadly, the party will have to learn this lesson the hard way. Until they honor, respect, and treat women as equals, they have lost a large chunk of us. Hillary was savaged, called racist, and threatened. So were her supporters. Not a peep was uttered by Democratic leaders including Obama who benefitted from and or instigated the smears. By their silence, they colluded with the sexist media. We will not reward sexism, the old boys congressional club, or the politics of divisiveness.

We're saying no to sexism and yes to the best qualified candidate: Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In November, I'm voting for a woman who has earned my vote.

Hillary is free to do what she must but it is not up to her to win her coalition over to the Democratic Party.

That is a job for the alleged leadership of Obama and the party for they are the culprits who owe us apologies, who must make amends. Hillary cannot erase what Obama and the Democrats have done. Only they can make the peace and they are too arrogant to recognize the damage done. Many election cycles will be needed for Democrats to prove worthy enough to have earned our votes.

Hillary didn't do anything to us but inspire and win our hearts and minds with her policies, experience under fire, and tenacity.

In the meantime, we will boycott, protest, and not lift a finger or spend a cent to help elect Obama. The party has communicated to Hillary and to her supporters, YOYO. They have a new coalition, new voters. And so the party can move on without us with our retort, YOYO, sweeties. Good riddance!

I have used "we" because I am sure from reading other pro-Hillary bloggers and their comments that I am not alone in taking this stand.

Consider me an Independent with no loyalty to any party. Candidates get my vote.

Obama the divider

BTD of TalkLeft identifies an AP story, which reveals a political mistake of the Obama camp. The AP story states:

Barack Obama will reach a significant milestone Tuesday as he marches toward the Democratic nomination for president — a majority of pledged delegates at stake in all the primaries and caucuses.

A majority, eh? Is that something to celebrate since:

The Obama campaign will ignore Florida and Michigan. . . There simply is no getting around that. and for what? To declare victory on May 20 as opposed to June 3? This is simply stupid. The Associate Press of course is on Obama's side on this, but actually harms him.

The AP reporting mentions that Hillary Clinton is still fighting to get the MI and FL delegation seated, which "would increase the number needed to clinch the nomination," an endeavor that Obama has opposed. Why does Obama hate MI and FL?

When Obama takes the stage of his Spielfest in Iowa, he's dissing half of the Democratic coalition and 17 million Hillary voters. He's tossing off MI and FL. And he's pulling a political stunt that indicates his immaturity and inexperience, that broadcasts his arrogance. What a stupidly divisive move. His Spielfest decision demonstrates he's incapable of uniting a coalition behind him to win the WH.

To drive Obama the divider point further, egalia at Tennessee Guerilla Women posted an ABC News story that...

...highlights a few of the misogynistic blows directed at Hillary Rodham Clinton. . . including one from Tennessee's own Congressman Steve Cohen. Cynthia Ruccia, founder of the group, Clinton Supporters Count Too warns that if Obama is the nominee, the group will campaign against him.

The women's group will boycott the election and abandon the Democratic Party too. [Emphasis added.]

Egalia also cites an ABC News-Washington Post poll in which "nearly 25 percent of Hillary's supporters say an Obama nomination will cause them to abandon the Democratic Party by voting for McCain."

Thus, a perfectly spot-on, one-line summary from egalia tells the story:

But, of course, the Democratic Party abandoned women first.

She also provides a cache of linked sources that range from piffle to protest. An example of piffle via Howard Kurtz, The Sisters are Steamed:

Numerous women -- journalists themselves and those interviewed by journalists -- believe the former first lady has gotten a raw deal, especially from the media. [Emphasis added.]

Under what rock has Kurtz lived to miss how the media has been sexist and misogynistic? At the same time with his subtle choice of verb, he dismisses the reports of female journalists. Just scan the criticism of Kurtz by Bob Somerby to realize Howie has been a protector of media misdeeds and is a completely unreliable witness.

Go visit egalia to watch the ABC News video, "Clinton supporters count too."

The revolution is just getting started.

See
That no matter what you have done
I am still here.
And it has made me dangerous, and wise.
And brother,
You cannot whore, perfume, and suppress
me anymore.
I have my own business in this skin
And on this planet.
--Gail Murray, 1970

No more sweetie

Obama supporter Cara at Feministe took offense at Obama's "sweetie" remark during his tour of the Chrysler Stamping Plant in Sterling Heights, MI. Cara posted a different video of reporter Peggy Agar and offered some remarks beginning with, "Not cool. Not fucking cool at all."


At GiggleChick, you can affirm this message:


Operation Turn Down continues. A message left in comments:

Please join us again Monday as we continue OPERATION TURN DOWN 3P.M EST... listen in via INTERNET or RADIO.... Steve Corbett Wilk Radio Network
http://www.wilknetwork.com/index.php will hear state after sate Democrat after Democrat TURNING DOWN OBAMA. We will not let the DNC force Obama down our throats, we will not vote for a candidate that has exploited the race card for political gain at the [expense] of our country.