[Welcome, InstaPutz readers.]

After Hillary Clinton’s historic 41-point victory in the West Virginia primary, two questions loom: How long will Barak Obama cling to his shattered dreams of the presidency, and how much damage will be done to the Democratic Party by his stubborn and divisive refusal to accept the obvious?

UPDATE – Below: How will Obama win an Electoral College majority? at Salon by Paul Maslin, former pollster to Howard Dean. (h/t BDBlue)

UPDATE 2 – Below: Skirting Appalachia, an Op Ed in the NYT opining on Barak Obama’s Electoral College strategic options by Charles Blow, Art Director at National Geographic -and why not? (h/t again to the sharp-eyed BDBlue)  Read more 

[Readers, the comments section is long and noisy, but interesting. See if, in your judgment, the points the bringiton makes are addressed head-on, or not. And watch for the duellling haikus! —lambert]

[Update below, 11 May 08, bottom of main text - BIO]

Only one thing matters; winning the Presidency in November. Hillary Clinton has proven she is by far the strongest candidate an most likely to achieve that victory. How can she convince the Democratic Party delegates?  Read more 

What ever happened to my Democratic Party? Why doesn’t the donkey love me anymore?  Read more 

I don’t like Steny Hoyer. There’s just no way around it. Now he’s conspiring with Jay Rockefeller to force retroactive telecom immunity through Congress, so George Bush and his criminal conspiracy won’t have to answer any questions about violating the Constitution by spying on American citizens without warrants.

Again.

Did I mention I don’t like Steny Hoyer?  Read more 

This Obama phenomenon is a puzzle. Why him, why now? I have thoughts, but still more questions than answers.

I don’t want to get caught up in the “sheeple” thing, that’s a shallow and ultimately meaningless term, but bear with me for a moment on the concept of a bellwether. Not in the common political sense of a district that has had a voting pattern the same as the national outcome, but in the Old English sense of a lead sheep that the rest of the flock will follow out of instinct, the need to do so transcending rational thought or consequence.  Read more 

The Democratic voters of Michigan and Florida are unhappy, or so we read. They, or if you will, their representatives, moved up their primary dates and drew a punishment from the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. Since then, what have the voters of Michigan and Florida actually done to try and reverse or repair their problem? Nothing but complain.  Read more 

It turns out that if we feed our bodies with the diet we evolved to accommodate, we are healthier and live longer.  Read more 

Al Gore gave a talk at the recent TED Conference. It’s an updated and abbreviated version of his climate change slide show, with both alarming new data on the increasing speed of climate change and some heartening information on the growing public awareness that we need to act and soon.  Read more 

All at the same time.  Read more 

Democrats will have a new congress-person tomorrow, as Jackie Speier is sworn in to succeed Tom Lantos.  Read more 

The Republican party is an organized crime cartel that has been systematically stealing money from hard-working Americans and stuffing it all into the pockets of the very rich for 40 years.  Read more 

The parents of an 11-year old girl with diabetes let her die because they believe that faith in the will of God forbids doctors or any kind of medical care. Relatives called authorities after they learned the girl was in a coma, but help came too late to save her life.  Read more 

Recent concerns in Canada about increasing health care costs being unsustainable are based on flawed analyses. The Conservative Federal government has asserted that the rate of cost increase is more than can be paid out, and that a move towards privatization will increase competition for services and market forces will hold down costs - an assertion based on an erroneous report.  Read more 

We have a lot of problems, and no shortage of criticism. What we don’t have and need more of are positive, affirmative plans for action, ways to reverse the damage done and start building a sustainable and equitable future.

This is a start.  Read more 

In today’s WaPo, an article on Page 12 discusses Admiral Fallon’s firing expulsion forced exit resignation from CentCom. Not to worry, the article says, and surely with a placement on Page 12 there must not be anything in it to cause concern. If there were, WaPo’s editors would have made sure it was right up front and not down in the body – wouldn’t they?  Read more 

Each of these candidates deals with the press, they have to, and each of them do it in their own way. I’m not at all suggesting that the treatment they have received has been equitable, it has not. The Clintons have been subject to relentless smear and innuendo far outside what we in America consider fair treatment, although it would be everyday journalism in the rest of the free world. McCain, on the other hand, has been given a pretty free ride his whole life and like other press favorites including, to be fair, FDR and JFK, gets to skate along while his inconsistencies and foibles are only briefly mentioned if at all.

This isn’t fair, it isn’t reasonable, and it isn’t right, but it is reality. For Hillary to succeed, either as a candidate or as President, she will have to find a way to manage her relationship with the press in a manner that improves her coverage. I suggest that there are things she could be doing better than she is, and that while she is certainly not responsible for the behavior of the press, she is responsible for her own behavior. As examples, here are a couple of recent occurrences.  Read more 

About the only good thing that can be said for the Democratic primary process is that it has created a tight race, where the candidates are forced to scrape and dig for every vote and that means spending time in small places. Today the people of Wyoming will caucus and yesterday both Hillary and Barry came to talk to them in Cheyenne and Casper, little patches of bright light way out in the middle of nowhere. Hillary and Barry, working for a living.  Read more 

Fascinating article by Thomas Barnett in the April Esquire on Admiral Fallon, who sits as apparently the only remaining obstacle between the Bush-Cheney criminal regime and war with Iran. Every time Bush rattles his saber, Fallon makes the regional diplomatic rounds to calm fears of an expanded, uncontrollable conflict and makes public announcements that he thinks going to war would be a mistake.

According to Barnett, Bush/Cheney are tired of Fallon’s unwillingness to get with the program and are planning to move him out of the way.  Read more 

This campaign is playing out through what on the surface seems to be farce, but it would be a mistake to blame the campaign staff or the media for this exercise in rabid name-calling and apparent trivialization. All of the candidates are running for the same office, an executive position with extraordinary power and responsibility. If they cannot dominate their own staff and manage their own topical agenda, if it truly is the media and the hired help who are controlling the tenor and substance of the campaigns, why should anyone believe that any of the candidates can handle the Presidency?  Read more 

This wonderful discussion we’re having around our remaining two fine, upstanding presidential candidates has provided an exchange through which we may, when done, have learned that Hillary Clinton is not a cold-hearted opportunistic scumbag but a good, decent, warm, substantial, thoughtful and interesting woman and that Barry Obama is not a vacuous opportunistic scumbag but a good, decent, warm, substantial, thoughtful and interesting man.

Not swearing that will be true, not saying it for certain, but I am hoping it will be. What I am certain about is that while we work through this process it is critical that we not lose sight of the most important task ahead of us – the defeat of John McCain and the Republican Criminal Conspiracy he represents.  Read more 

While there is plenty being written about who the media or party bigwigs are trying to choose as the nominee, an election process with actual voters is playing out in curious ways. Turns out, Democrats have made a decision; they favor Hillary Clinton by 5:4, more than enough to make her the nominee if it weren’t for The Others, the hangers-on that this year may well choose who represents the Democratic Party while themselves rejecting party membership.

Why would any organization allow outsiders to determine its future?  Read more 

Under the sway of the larger issues, burdened by fear and sorrow and the very real possibility that things will get much worse for many people before they get better, that indeed they may not get better anytime soon or perhaps not at all, it is very easy to miss the small scale things, the equal truth that everyday people lead their everyday lives in generally decent, good and righteous ways and that sometimes, more often than we might notice, in doing so they create wonder in the simplest of ways.

For Jerry Meredith and Lynne Chapman it was love at first sight.  Read more 

Handing national security softballs to the Republicans so they can hit them out of the park, like MoveOn’s mocking of General David Petreus or the Berkeley City Council’s assertion that their town is too good for a Marine recruiting office, needs to stop. The Republican Party has destroyed the armed forces, killed hundreds of thousands of people and squandered hundreds of billions of dollars in fruitless foreign adventurism, all the while doing nothing to improve the security of Americans from another terrorist attack.  Read more 

Banner headline on the National page of today’s New York Sun:

Gay Republicans Flock To McCain on Giuliani Exit

And the accompanying photo was?  Read more 

Because I’m already done with mourning Edwards, enough already, and because thanks to Dick Nixon and his heirs there are plenty of worthwhile battles to choose from, here’s a bit of creative thinking that deserves a smile and an Atta-boy if nothing else. Out here on the West Coast, where the future lies, one of our clever entrepreneurs has found a way to marry high-tech with common sense and compassion – medical marijuana from a vending machine.  Read more