The same analyst for the company who predicted 100 dollar oil three years ago believes oil will hit the 200 mark within 24 months.  This is a financial goldmine for investors.  But it's also frightening in more ways than just the price of gasoline...

More below the fold:

In all honesty, voter concern for the economy drastically eclipses serious media time spent on stimulus, homeowner-targeted and "bailout" proposals, where it ranks about even with flag pins.  

Also, national security is a very broad problem only tentatively put into context by the likes of Brian Williams and Charles Gibson.   That said, the most probably scenario in which we face another immediate Middle Eastern war is if Israel or the United States initiate, not Iran.  While Bush may well try that, what we really should be highly concerned about is the fall out of the economy working together with a destabilizing East.  Specifically, there's the prospect of war breaking out in the Caucuses--hello? oil?--this very month, and we've heard minimal from the candidates

I never thought I, Mr. "Blind With Hillary Hate" (per  Alegre) would have to defend Hillary Clinton.  But sometimes opposition derails the political agent--you and I--as independent consumers of media.  So here we go.

Problem:

She has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (32+ / 0-)
The only "reality" that is meaningful to her is one that can be construed to bathe her in the golden light she feels radiating around her.

The conversation then preceded to turn down the avenue of unfounded claims she is a sociopath.

As someone who was probably raised by a sociopath, let me tell you why this is not ok.

Hillary Clinton always seems to have a nebulously defined sense of the times.  

Unfortunately, her political intuition sort of resembles those possibly rabid miniature dogs that shut-in woman down the street keeps.  You know, the little dogs with the hand-crocheted sweaters and the ribbons on their ears that bite your pant leg and nip at your hand while their affable human gently reminds you that "they won't harm you!"  Clinton has about the emotional responsiveness of a... living being... as far as people noticing that their government is bought up and their tax dollars are going to a bunch of machismo dandies out of the liquor-soaked, cigar-perfumed parlors of the 1870s.  In the age when everyone deserves an award for doing anything decent, Team Clinton would have her heralded for visionary leadership when in fact she's pretty typical Washington stew.

Rather than ever confront these sources of frustration--bitterness?--and yes, malaise.  Hillary Clinton has learned to take emotional investment and divert it into a parallel political universe.  But can it work when you half-bribe people, half scare them on a vital subject: their energy expenses?

More yap below the flap...

The real border problm is not meek little factory and farm and maintenance workers swimming, crawling, climbing or hiking across our border, when you look at the scheme of things.  Though some of these people die every year because of our immigration policies.

Our borders are a mess because we have a drug problem, and appetites for human trade.

The latest human sacrifice to supposed morality, xenophobia and government power is only a drip into a giant sea of gore, and the stink is nauseating.

In only four months oil's made nearly 20% gain, gold has been one of the best investments of the last decade and you might want to stockpile your Costco food now, if you haven't already.

Unemployment claims spiked about 17,000 last week.

Know what these warning signs all point to?

There's a lot of tension and frustration and yes, bitterness among many here, most of whom wanted Obama to win, some of whom did not.  Either way, this was an essentially moral but empty victory for Clinton, as the delegate math by which a nominee comes remains barely shifted.  And her lead decreased from Ohio.  That makes people from every camp frustrated.

As an Obama supporter, I can sympathize with most of this, have felt much of it, and relate to what's nagging at those not believing in the hope.

But we're going to have to be more than empathetic.  We have to keep our feet planted and watch ourselves, for the stakes are high.  If we screw this up now we might spend months dealing with the damage.

"the major virtues of liberal society in the past was that it made possible such a variety of styles of intellectual life — one can find men notable for being passionate and rebellious, for being elegant and sumptuous, or spare and astringent, clever and complex, patient and wise, and some equipped mainly to observe and endure. … It is possible, of course, that the avenues of choice are being closed and that the culture of the future will be dominated by single-minded men of one persuasion or another. It is possible; but insofar as the weight of one’s will is thrown onto the scales of history, one lives in the belief that it not be so” -- Richard Hofstadter.

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Senator Obama, I've been supporting you virtually all of your presidential campaign.  Though my presence and stature are humble, I helped focus sentiment on this site before there was icebergslim's invaluable This Week With Barack Obama or other such regulars for Obama supporters.  I've never been able to see you speak, but I don't doubt you will be the next president of the United States--you have the math, the fundraising, the public sentiment, and the zeitgesit on your side.

But now you need to hear this, because you are in dangerous waters.

Let's get one thing straight, now.  There are no liberal Republican Senators.  But the GOP's got a secret-play in its handbook: the media carte-blanche from being an "independent"-minded poseur.  And 2006 showed us it works for Republicans..

Though I was never a fan of Richardson I've had my lightbulb moment.  Richardson is more qualified than Sibelius, Webb, et al to be Obama's VP.  And as many bloggers have considered an earlier time better for naming or choosing a VP, I've tried to lay out a thorough case for what Obama needs from a running mate.

More below...

The WAPO blog has a video of Senator Schumer making a noteworthy plug to donors to the DSCC.

You see, for once a Dem Senator for once did not shy away from raising expectations for the nationwide races.  In fact, he admitted that we really do have "a once in a generation opportunity" to increase our Senate seats.  

We not only can do it his way, we can make it a progressive majority...

Brazil is tri-racial.  Canada is now just as much, if not more of a beacon for immigrants.  Sorry, but that was gone sometime around when our friends who donated the Statue of Liberty and most of the gunpowder for the Revolutionary War were stricken from the Congressional Cafeteria menu and replaced with "Freedom Fries".

There are plenty of racially diverse countries: Australia, the U.K., Guyana, Trinidad, India, so on.

Switzerland is officially split between four major ethnicities and languages.  Without smugness or apprehension.

To claim that we're the most progressive, racially forward nation is a bald faced lie.

The debate around Iraq has been vague, general and shallow, essentially iterating over and over that neither Obama nor Clinton would immediately withdraw all troops. Don't wanna look too dovish!

So how is it Barack Obama will end the occuption?  The corpus of my diary. And not only that, he's already worked on legislation for oversight of these robbers--the defense contractors who've looted a trillion or so--in Iraq.

A London investment firm and the government of Guyana will agree to place a monetary value  on preserving a segment of one of the world's last four intact rainforests, securing one million acres of tropical rainforest.

I would not think of myself as a vicious or my-way-or-the-highway Obama supporter, but I was a Hillary critic rather early on and pretty consistently, enough so to be called "full of Hillary hate", sexist (which especially grated, my first political support was for Carol Moseley-Braun in 04) and a number of other things.  By authoritarian-minded Clinton supporters and unfairly embattled Clinton supporters.  I trollrated dubious cult of personality bloggers like LC Johnson when I thought they broke the rules, even when others told me not to.  I've grown better over two years at trying to understand how others can interpret my words and trying to be clear and accessible.  Often, I fail.

I point these things out, which you can look up yourself, to illustrate that I am not seen as even a neutral party.  Even though I supported Dodd for a time I was clearly pro-Obama back at the start of his campaign, and wrote comments and diaries critical of Hillary Clinton when it was not so easy to do so.  Now it is easy.  And there comes a time when

The best defense is no longer a strong offense.  It is not a question of ability or what you can do on this site but a question of effectiveness.  

I have no hatred of Hillary Clinton.  If she sincerely repudiated and put her efforts on reversing all the things that Kos listed that are totally against why I came to Daily Kos two years ago, I would probably be a supporter.  I don't forgive or forget with bills like Kyl-Lieberman, nor should you.  As far as her projected policies, many of them are quite supportable.  It's only contradicted by her record where the weight supports non-progressive initiatives.

Apparently SusanG's link might have just been missed due to all the primary turns and Bear Stearns' impending funeral. [Update: Susan G's post, smintheus' catch]

"Following scant debate, the Senate last week approved an amendment to an Indian health care bill that would permanently prohibit the use of federal dollars to fund abortions for Native Americans except in rare cases."

Are you kidding me?  Where are the women and feminists of the blogosphere?  Are you familiar with the words of Jesus Christ?  Because you may remember that he said what you do to the least of these is what you do to me.  And Senator Vitter (Scum-LA) just gave a big "screw you" to the women of the poorest, most frequently abused racial group in the country when he couldn't to you in the wealthier, more powerful communities.