Mark Casey Online

Sure, “classic” conservatives like Ann Coulter and Bill Cunningham might have a lot of fun bandying about Barack Obama’s middle name, but John McCain certainly didn’t stand for it.

Now, the Republican National Committee is following suit, saying after a cell in Tennessee put out a slanderous press release about Obama’s middle name and trips to Africa, “The RNC rejects these kinds of campaign tactics.”  And while that historically hasn’t been true, this is certainly a refreshing turn for the party of small-tent traditionalists.

Let’s see if the non-politically employed members of the conservative movement can grow up and follow suit.

No one is better at knowing the life and plight of the common folk than George W. Bush. That’s why he has that accent, remember? We’d all love to have a beer with him.

Today, after economists said that the price of gas — which is already $3.50/gallon in some places — would continue to rise, and would hit $4.00 this summer, some nice journalist asked our president what he thought about that. His response? He hadn’t heard about it. But he still knows whats best for us.

His solution? Make his special brand of tax cuts, which have been in effect for the better part of a decade, permanent. I mean, they’ve been working pretty well so far — right, people?

Tonight’s Democratic debate in Ohio was remarkably sterile and nuanced considering what the latest polls suggest is at stake between Senators Clinton and Obama. Based on the latest numbers, whichever candidate hit a home run in tonight’s debate could put the other down for the count in both Texas and Ohio.

In Ohio, Hillary still leads Obama by an average of ten points, although that is within the sum of the margin of error and responders who claimed to be undecided. As we’ve learned in previous primaries, that can add up to a big surprise when voting day actually comes. In Texas, the two are dead even, and nationally, Obama pulled ahead of Hillary by double digits, and continued to increase his lead in key demographics.

Here are the totals:

Ohio:

Clinton — 49 Obama — 39

Texas:

Clinton — 50 Obama — 48 (Margin of Error: 4.5%)

National:

Clinton — 38 Obama — 54

For all of America’s faults, all the secrecy and proto-fascism of the Bush Administration, all the debates about whether or not Evolution should be taught in high school classrooms, you have to give our culture one thing: we let people do what they want.

In France you can’t wear religious tokens or garments to school. In Italy your phones are tapped by the government 365 days a year. And in the Middle East — well, I’m sure we all know the numerous human rights violations that are so popular in that region.

The latest event is Pakistan’s banishment of the user-generated-content site YouTube, which it claims has “one or more” videos which are offensive to Islam. Maybe it was a video of a woman in which you can see her hair, or her ankles. Maybe it was two men kissing. Maybe it was someone drinking a beer.

Click here for a newspaper clip of this article.

Now that Oscar season has come and gone, it’s hard to believe that we’re still talking about some of the same issues in the 2008 presidential election as we were before the winning films were even released.

Of course, it’s probably a good thing that we spend far more time deciding who will lead our country for the next four years than we do deciding what the year’s best movie is. Even so, in a process during which everything from Rudy Giulianni’s love life to Barack Obama’s middle name has been endlessly discussed, it becomes apparent that a little brevity can sometimes add a lot of clarity.

Read more…

Fireworks flew today after the Obama campaign sent out a mailing in Ohio which was highly critical of Hillary Clinton’s proposed policies. Hillary held a big fancy press conference, along with the Governor of Ohio, to complain about it. Let’s check what the mailings said, along with whether or not they were true:

• Issue number one was health care. According to the Obama mailings, Hillary’s plan for “universal health care” is essentially little more than passing a law requiring all citizens to purchase insurance — basically the same as our car insurance laws. The verdict? This is true. The Hillary plan would criminalize people without health care (read: people who cannot afford to purchase it). At the same time, it would make it illegal for insurance companies to deny people based upon current or preexisting health conditions — certainly a step in a positive direction, but it would cause costs to go up, not down. And while the plan promises to “help” people who cannot afford insurance, that aid would come via “tax credits,” which historically just get lost in the shuffle of all other expenses for the cash-strapped middle class. It certainly wouldn’t make insurance cost any cheaper — in reality nor perception.
• Issue number two was NAFTA. The Obama mailing says Hillary’s claims to be against it are false, as the bill was introduced by her husband and has been supported by her, in rhetoric and in congressional votes, ever since. This is, and always has been true.
• Finally, the Obama campaign quotes Hillary as saying that she voted for going to war in Iraq even though she never read the intelligence reports that contradicted President Bush’s reasons for war. Hillary agrees with this claim, her only explanation being to bellow: “But, no one else read it, either!”

Obama said that Hillary’s outrage was “for show,” as appearing wounded has helped her win primaries in the past. I would have to agree.

It was announced today that Ralph Nader will be appearing on Tim Russert’s venerable politics show “Meet the Press” this Sunday.

For those that don’t remember, Nader is the aging social activist who torpedoed Al Gore’s campaign in 2000 and didn’t help John Kerry in 2004.  Nader is popular among liberals, particularly environmentalists and anti-corporatists.  In 2000 and 2004, Nader received only one percent or so of the vote — but since that was the margin of Kerry’s loss, and Gore actually won the popular vote (but not by enough) the actual influence of Nader’s “1% campaigns” could be called monumental.

Either way, it’s bad news for Hillary and Obama.  But since Democratic voters have been turning out in record numbers for the primaries, and Republicans have generally stayed home, not even Ralph Nader may be able to derail the Blue Party this year.

Tonight’s debate was an interesting one, particularly when it came to each candidate’s decisions regarding the “friendliness scale.” Before the debate, Hillary’s campaign and ads had been fairly negative, with Obama being positive. The debate seems to have played out in much the same way.

The biggest flap of the debate was centered on health care, with Hillary accusing Obama of “leaving out” 15 million Americans in his “universal” health care plan, and Obama shooting back that her plan did nothing to lower costs or to help people pay for insurance. (In fact, all it does is criminalize those people who, for whatever reason, choose not to purchase health insurance.)

The kicker is that most of those people don’t have insurance because they cannot afford it. Hillary would make those people criminals, and fine them for not buying something that they can’t afford, just like with car insurance. The only problem was that Obama didn’t use the operative word “criminalize,” because he’s trying to be nice — even though that’s precisely what Hillary wants to do.

Both candidates want you to believe that they’re just going to give you health care. That’s a problem. But the bigger problem is that Hillary wants to put you in jail if you don’t accept hers.

For years, the state of Florida’s educational systems have been required to use “code-words” and pseudonyms for the documented scientific process known as evolution.  You know, the reason we humans have a tail bone but no tail.

But, just when you thought the anti-evolution crowd was going to keep slowing down progress for at least ten more years before they got bored and went back to abortion clinics, Florida comes along and officially states “Yeah… we really don’t care.”

This week, the Florida State Board of Education voted to make the term “Scientific Theory of Evolution” the state standard for the first time ever.  Before that, teachers were ostensibly required to say “change over time.”  Originally, the board was to vote on the term “evolution,” but upon hearing arguments from Intelligent Designers, settled on pinning the qualifier “Scientific Theory” beforehand.

Funny.  They never require you to say “theory” before talking about how the Earth moves around the Sun.  One step at a time, I guess.

A new video released today expresses thanks to Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich’s brazen run for the White House (during which he discussed many issues other candidates wanted to avoid, such as ending war and… alien attacks). It’s also a means to raise reelection funds so he can successfully defend his seat in congress, which looks to be under fire this year.

Regardless of the outcome of his presidential bid, Kucinich has been well liked by liberals and always voted in a progressive, sane, and grassroots-oriented way. It would certainly be a loss to the blue party if his voice was silenced.