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They manhandled and bruised a teacher and a Democrat of over 40 years for feck sake..

Harold Ickes - who serves on the RBC and is widely recognized as an expert on the DNC rules and their history - talked about Michigan’s delegates during yesterday’s press conference call when an AP reporter asked him if it’d be acceptable to Hillary’s campaign if BO got any delegates from Michigan’s primary.  Here’s what he had to say…

AP - is it acceptable to you if BO gets any pledged delegates from MI?
Harold - Uncommitted status is considered as a presidential candidate. Closed in and given the same rights and protections as a named presidential candidate. There were 4 candidates who VOLUNTARILY took their names off the ballot. She [Hillary] didn’t - there was no requirement that she do so. Some 238,000 people voted for uncommitted - no way to discern the wishes of those voters. Our view is that while delegates who fill out those 55 slots have the absolute right to go and support whomever they want. They must be certified to the convention as uncommitted delegates. The RBC has no right to award those delegates to another candidate any more than they’d have the right to award any of her 73 delegates and give them to another candidate. Short answer - NO.

Giving away some of her delegates.  How prophetic that one turned out to be.
I’m too pissed and disgusted to really go into all the ways in which the RBC screwed over 2.35 million people today.  I’ll just let Harold Ickes sum up what I’m thinking right now.  What follows are my notes, taken as he spoke prior to a vote on the motion to seat all 55 uncommitted delegates as Obama’s delegates (which is illegal according to the DNC’s rules that folks have been blathering on about for the past few months).  On top of that injustice, the motion involved stealing 4 of Hillary’s delegates and giving them to Obama.
He spoke of the audacity (my word not his) of the RBC in thinking that the judgment of 30 people should take the place of the 600,000 voters in MI…

Was the process flawed?
You bet your ass it was flawed.
I’m stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for that of 600,000 voters.
…
You can not take delegates from one candidate and give them to another.
Not only will this motion hijack 4 delegates from Mrs. Clinton, it will take 55 uncommitted delegates and give them to Obama.
I submit that hijacking 4 delegates… is not the way to start down path to party unity.
Finally - one final word - we are … Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the Credentials Committee.
- Cheers -

Here’s what Hillary’s campaign manager - Maggie Williams - had to say a little while ago…

Decision on Florida and Michigan
Hillary has consistently stood up for the voters of Michigan and Florida.  She, like you, has insisted that the voice of all Americans be heard.  Today, the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee announced their decision on seating Florida and Michigan’s delegations. In recent days, almost 350,000 of Hillary’s supporters wrote in to the committee to make clear what an important principle it is for our party to count every vote.
Our campaign has released an official statement about the results of the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting and I’d like to share it with blogHillary readers. I know how passionate Hillary’s supporters are about the importance of counting every vote cast in Florida and Michigan and I hope that they continue to express their feelings with the respect and thoughtfulness they’ve shown during the course of this campaign.

Harold Ickes and Tina Flournoy made the following statement:
Today’s results are a victory for the people of Florida who will have a voice in selecting our Party’s nominee and will see its delegates seated at our party’s convention.  The decision by the Rules and Bylaws Committee honors the votes that were cast by the people of Florida and allocates the delegates accordingly.
We strongly object to the Committee’s decision to undercut its own rules in seating Michigan’s delegates without reflecting the votes of the people of Michigan.
The Committee awarded to Senator Obama not only the delegates won by Uncommitted, but four of the delegates won by Senator Clinton. This decision violates the bedrock principles of our democracy and our Party.
We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan’s delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast.

The RBC, in their infinite ignorance, stole delegates from Hillary and gave them to her opponent - a guy who saw the polls in the lead-up to the MI primaries, knew he was going to get his ass handed to him, and took his name off the ballot in order to kiss up to the voters in IA.  
And his little stunt worked.
IN other words - he told the voters of MI that their votes didn’t count and used his gigantic FU to them to win votes in another state.
And it worked.
Adding insult to injury… when the folks in Michigan tried to cure the problem (as seen by the DNC) by holding a new election - a plan that was signed off on by the DNC, the state leaders AND Hillary - BO told the voters in MI to eff off again by refusing to face the voters in that new primary.
There was even a plan in place to PAY for this new election AND - if memory serves - polls at the time were showing a much closer race in MI then than back in January.  He stood a chance of it being a wash so what was he afraid of?
BO couldn’t be bothered to face the voters of Michigan not once - BUT TWICE!
And now he’s rewarded for his refusal to face those voters with FIFTY-NINE DELEGATES?
This makes absolutely no sense.  None whatsoever.
BO and his supporters on the RBC might be celebrating folks - but they’ve just handed Hillary a damn fine reason to keep fighting at least through to the meeting of the Credentials Committee.
If they’re so convinced that BO has this locked up - that there are scads of super delegates waiting in the wings to help him claim “victory” in a day or three then why couldn’t they have just followed their own rules and left Hillary’s delegates alone and sent those 55 delegates to the convention as uncommitted delegates?
The RBC has just violated their own rules here by stealing 4 delegates from Hillary and giving them to a guy who couldn’t be bothered to put his name on the ballot so please spare us any more talk about your precious rulz .  
They’ve completely ignored their rules in giving BO any delegates from MI.
They’ve completely ignored the fact that people - in good faith tried to cure the situation by holding new primaries and that it was BO who stood in the way of that cure.
I’m beyond disgusted by this whole fiasco and I lay a lot of the blame at Dean’s feet for his complete and utter failure to lead us through this mess that he and Obama have created.  The only people who are paying for their failure are my family back home, and the 600,000 voters of Michigan.
Florida voters didn’t fare so well either.  Half a vote.  Is that all Florida is worth to us in the general election?  
Well I’ve got news for you guys - if the votes of my family are only worth half a vote, don’t be surprised if our party loses a lot of support over this come November.  I’m already hearing a lot of Democrats talking about leaving our party over this shite.  
This is NOT the way to bring a fractured party back together guys.
Not even close.
If you’re as pissed as I am over the way they’re railroading our party toward defeat in November, you know what to do dammit…

U P D A T E
Wow - I went poking around Jane Hamshire’s site a little more and found this other video she grabbed and posted of another women who’d been ejected from that RBC meeting. And boy is she PISSED

Seriously - the Credentials Committee had better find a way to clean up the mess the RBC made today. Donna Brazile and crew didn’t fix the problem - they threw gas on the flames.

UPDATE x2: From a friend, “It just occurred to me that today is the day that the Rezko trial is supposed to start [must check that -- today IS the day, but I think it may have been delayed, also interesting]. It’s at least likely that their campaign put that out, and threw a huge tantrum to a) distract from Hillary [and her major foreign policy address today] and the issues of healthcare and trade, b) distract cables from covering Rezko. Because, you know, if it’s a slow news day, they may run a lot of Rezko. But now, the beast has been fed, and is happy.” - SusanUnPC x2

25/2008
Statement by Maggie Williams, Campaign Manager

“Enough.

“If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him [BELOW THE FOLD] wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.

“This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.

“We will not be distracted.”

Right on, Maggie. Do you remember this photo in the New York Times following Bhutto’s tragic assassination? And remember the reprehensible attack from Obama/Deval Patrick media/messager provider David Axelrod following Bhutto’s murder?

Obama Campaign In Disarray? Making Political Hay Out of Bhutto Assassination?
By SusanUnPC on December 27, 2007 at 4:28 PM in Clinton, Obama, Pakistan

It’s hard to believe that Barack Obama’s campaign could be in such disarray that its campaign manager, David Axelrod, would use the tragic, horrific assassination of Benazir Bhutto to take, as CNN’s anchor just said, a “swipe” at Sen. Clinton. Writes Taylor Marsh, “The Obama campaign is in a panic. Mr. Axelrod’s reprehensible statement is meant to deflect the spotlight and rescue his candidate, because as people think about the implications of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination one thing comes to mind and it isn’t the leadership experience of Barack Obama.”

Taylor quotes The Page, which reports, “David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s top strategist, told reporters after the speech that Clinton will not benefit from a renewed conversation about foreign policy in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in Pakistan.” Clinton will not benefit? Is Axelrod so desperate he’d make a swipe like that right after Bhutto’s assassination?

In stark and relievingly somber contrast, the New York Times blog posted this new story at 1pm ET, “Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Bhutto” … READ ALL.

Then there’s what Obama goons are doing to civil rights hero John Lewis for his support of Hillary Clinton and for, so far, refusing to switch despite undue pressure:

John Lewis no longer groovy? Hutchins to oppose him
Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 02:54 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Rev. Markel Hutchins will announce today that he’s going to oppose Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta in the Democratic primary this July, saying the civil rights icon who has represented the city in Congress for two decades is un-hip.

Hutchins, who calls himself the “next generation civil rights activist,” will make his announcement at 5:30 p.m. …

Hutchins, 30, is pitching his campaign as a generational changing of the guard and himself as the youthful face of the Hip-Hop generation, with which, he said, Lewis is out of touch. The race, he said, is a choice between “the generation that started the movement to the one poised to continue it.” …

Repug-nant behavior.

Oh, and that photo that’s causing the dust-up? Drudge, who else, has it:

NOTE that Drudge constantly links to pro-Obama stories, and to anti-Clinton stories. He got the memo from Karl et al. that they want to face Obama in the fall, and he’s only too happy to oblige — including the false smear that this came from the Clinton campaign.

NOT A SINGLE pro-Hillary blogger I know would EVER post this. It is unfair to Obama, and meritless. As Maggie Williams pointed out, this is what politicians do when they visit other countries.

Even Politico.com has now admitted that they just “assumed” it came from Clinton’s campaign. If Politico had BOTHERED to check, they’d know that this was circulating all over the rightwing blogs all weekend. Memeorandum.com had a link to all the blog stories on it — all of them rightwing blogs / none of them Clinton blogs.

And please remember that it is Obama’s campaign that tried to make political hay out of attacking Hillary Clinton on the Bhutto assassination.

And it is Obama’s campaign that is strong-arming Black Caucus members, including the civil rights hero John Lewis.