CNN's Paul Begala - Republican Or Democrat?

I just saw CNN Contributor and former Clinton Aide Paul Begala on "The Situation Room" talking "in defense" of Barack Obama on Campaign Finance and on NAFTA against a Republican Strategist who I will not name because it doesn't matter.

Begala sounded like he was half in support of Obama and half sympathetic to John McCain. Meanwhile the Republican Strategist was consistently on the attack against Obama. Paul did not effectively hit back. What's up?

Is Paul still smarting from Clinton's loss?

Obama gets AFSCME endorsement - Democratic unity growing

According to the Associated Press: Senator Barack Obama secured the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees [AFSCME], a large and influential union that had been backing his former Democratic rival Senator Clinton (D-NY) until she suspended her campaign.

AFSCME is the largest union for workers in public service with 1.4 million politically motivated members nationwide. The unification of the two camps to put a Democrat in the White House is well underway.

For discussion of what this means to and for Clinton backers, you can also visit an AFSCME discussion thread by atdnext at ClintonistasForObama.blogspot.com. Take note that this is a sign of healing in progress, that the members of AFSCME know who they want in the Oval Office beginning in January.

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Barack Obama Refused Public Financing For General Election

This is one of the news items of the day. Senator Barack Obama has annouced today that he is not going to use taxpayer money to finance his campaign for President of the United States.

To date, Senator Obama has raised more than $200 million in donations most smaller than $200 - unprecedented. Here's Senator Obama's message:

Leigh Steinberg's 22nd Super Bowl Party: Scottsdale, AZ - Video

This is the video account of Leigh Steinberg's 22nd Super Bowl Party. This one held at the Botanical Gardens outside Scottsdale, Arizona. The video features an interview with Leigh where he talks about the "Green Initiative" he's started, Ricky Williams, and "Athletes for Obama."

Republicanmarket - Racists At The Texas Republican Convention

Republicanmarket - Racists At The Texas Republican Convention

This sad report comes from the blog Great Lakes, Great Times, Great Scott, where it's reported that a button reading "If Obama's President, Will We Still Call It The White House" was being sold. The button is made by a company called "Republicanmarket" which claims to sell "Patriotic and Republican Products."

So racism is patriotic? I think they meant idiotic.

All bloggers -- Great Lakes, Great Times, Great Scott, burntorangereport.com, this blog, and more -- are calling for you to contact that organization and discourage them from using the mental illness of racism to make a buck.

You can email them at sales@republicanmarket.com. You should also contact Tina Benkiser, the head of the Texas GOP at info@texasgop.org and share your feeling with her.

Why is it that Republicans are generally associated with racist thought? I guess examples like this are why. But in an age where racism has been identified as a mental illness, you'd think the party would rush to avoid any associations with people who exhibit paranoid delusion.

But no.

Buttons like that one confirm the idea that the Republican Party has been taken over by the lunatic fringe. So if you're a Hillary Clinton supporter still fighting the civil war, and moving over to the GOP side, look at who your associating with.

Want to be thought of as a person who should be in a rubber room?

First Day of Legal Gay Marriage In San Francisco - Video Account

This video covers the events outside San Francisco City Hall involving the first day of legal same sex marriage in San Francisco: Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 5:38 PM. A historic news and politics event. I went with the objective of determining the opinions of people in the crowd.

What would a hope monger do?

Imagine a hope-monger came across the following in a search log:

"michelle obama" promiscuous

So obviously somebody is looking for dirt. All a hope monger has to do is describe the tactic in a blog entry, and include a few keywords, and suddenly there is both more awareness -- good press -- and just "more to sort through" for those who seek to attack the Obamas.

And the word promiscuous can have little or nothing to do with sexuality, obviously.

Promiscuous, for instance, is a song recorded by Nelly Furtado and Timbaland for Furtado's third album, Loose, in 2006.

It can also mean consisting of diverse, unrelated parts or individuals, even confused, as in: "Throngs promiscuous strew the level green" (Alexander Pope)

Sometimes there's the looser meaning, "not selective" of a single class or person, as in: "Clinton was criticized for his promiscuous solicitation of campaign money." which was obviously intended to echo the crisis near the end of Bill Clinton's Presidency while discussing an unrelated topic.

Now... folks are obviously "panning the stream" to find evidence of deviance, or perversity, or anything of a sexual nature to use to cast aspersions on Michelle Obama.

This is your chance to be a hope monger, and add to the degree of difficulty for the smear mongers and those who seek to use divide and conquer political tactics a la Karl Rove. The more these words appear, the more the power of the search engines is diluted, and the more time the folks taking that approach spend reading what amazing people Senator Barack and Michelle Obama are.