Lobotero’s Weblog

She has done a lot and said a lot trying to convince voters that she has the chance to win the nomination.  She and her handlers have come up with a new math; they have even said the vote count in Puerto Rico will help.  Delegates will help but the people of PR are not citizens and they cannot vote in the general.  They have even changed the number of delegates one needs to secure the nomination, 2025, but the Clintons keep saying 2209.

But best argument is that she can carry the swing states, like Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, et al.  She taunts her overwhelming win in WV as the key, but will it translate into a win in the Fall?  Doubtful!  Yes, Bill won in ‘92 & ‘96, but that does not mean that she will do so in ‘08.  She has however, pledged to carry all the swing states in the general……..thinking……is that a guarantee?  If so what will be her penalty for not honoring the guarantee, if she does not carry the swing states?

Personally, I do not think she will win the nomination, no matter how much much she and that irritating Terry MacCauliffe want it to be so.  But you have to give Hillary her props for cajones.

The big story is the John Edwards has endorsed Obama and crapped all over Clinton’s huge win in west Virginia and most likely piddled on her big fundraising dinner at the same time.  This could help Obama in his efforts to attract more blue collar workers, the people that are not taking much shine to his candidacy.

The auto industry will have a partner in the White House if Sen. Barack Obama is elected president, the Illinois Senator told about 200 people crammed into a conference room at Macomb Community College today.

The auto industry is “taking steps in the right direction, but we have to do more. And they need a partner in the White House and they will when I become president,” Obama said. “We won’t just revive and strengthen our automakers, but all of our manufacturers.”

It was a distinct departure from one of Obama’s visit to Michigan last May, when he chided the domestic auto industry for failing to effectively compete with foreign automakers during a speech to the Detroit Economic Club. He has followed that speech with harsh words for Detroit in speeches and advertising and in recent weeks has called the Ford Grenada a “tin can” and one of the worst cars made by the Big 3.

Sen. Barack Obama arrived at Chrysler Stamping Plant in Sterling Heights at 9:30 a.m. today, where he was briefly greeted by employees and then met privately with Chrysler President and Vice Chairman Jim Press, as well as UAW Local 1264 President Bob Stuglin.

Not much was covered at the plant inspection.  He, Obama, talked about the need for alt fuels, etc.  He missed a prime opportunity to discuss labor and relations with the corporation.  He missed a prime opportunity to find more and solid support with workers.  I realize that this was basically a photo-op, but he could have done more and said more pertaining to labor and the workers.

I am withholding my support until I see who he will choose as a Veep.  If it is one of the slugs from the Democratic Leadership Council, then I will support an alternate candidate.

This article was in the Boston globe and is something to consider:

A better way to elect a president
By Scot Lehigh
Published May 6th 2008 in Boston Globe
IF THERE’S one constitutional idea whose time has come and gone, it’s the Electoral College.

That arrangement for electing a president is a throwback to a different age, designed as a solution to circumstances that no longer exist.

But the antique system continues to present problems of its own.

Consider just two:

First, it poses the regular danger of a president who wins the Electoral College but not the popular vote, depriving the country of a chief executive who is viewed as fully legitimate.

That, of course, happened in 2000, when Al Gore won the national vote, but George W. Bush eventually prevailed in the Electoral College.

But we’ve had three other elections in which candidates who didn’t win the popular vote nevertheless ended up in the White House: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888. In the last case, Harrison actually replaced a sitting president, Grover Cleveland; four years later, Cleveland won a rematch.

Second, the Electoral College lends disproportionate general election influence to a handful of swing states, which become pivotal in each and every close election, while much of the rest of the country is neglected.

But trying to amend the constitution is a Herculean task.

That’s why the campaign for a national popular vote holds such promise. It’s a way of sidestepping the Electoral College without amending the Constitution.

Here’s how the plan would work. Individual states pass legislation to join an interstate compact, under which member states will award all their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. When states representing 270 electoral votes — the number needed to become president — have signed on, the plan goes into effect. Thus it’s in the power of state Legislatures and governors to catalyze the move.

So far, the bill has been introduced in 47 states. It has been passed into law in Illinois (21 electoral votes) New Jersey (15), Maryland (10 ), and, just last week, Hawaii (4), and is under active consideration in any number of others. In Massachusetts, the bill has a majority in both the House and the Senate, says Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause of Massachusetts.

If the plan goes into effect, it would change the nature of campaigns in a big way. Right now, it doesn’t matter if a candidate wins a state by 10 votes or 10,000; once you have a majority, every additional vote is essentially wasted. Thus there’s little point of campaigning in states that lean strongly for either party.

“Presidential campaigns do not visit, do not run ads, do not care about nonbattleground states,” observes Barry Fadem, president of National Popular Vote, the nonprofit organization promoting the idea.

Indeed, according to that group, in the 2004 general election, 99 percent of all the advertisizing money expended on the presidential race was spent in 16 states — with two-thirds of it targeted for just five states.

But in a true national election, that wouldn’t be the case. Each vote would count just as much as any other in determining the outcome. That means it would be just as important for a candidate to attract extra votes in a state he or she was already expected to win as it would be to concentrate on a swing state. That is, it would matter just as much for a Democrat or Republican to attract an extra 1,000 votes in Massachusetts, a predictably Democratic state, or in Texas, a predictably Republican state, as it would be to battle for extra votes in a swing state like Ohio.

“Neither political party is going to be able to say, as they have in every other election, we don’t care about the following states,” says Fadem.

By expanding the effective playing field, a direct national election would also probably change the mix of issues that candidates focus on, with national concerns taking clear precedence over matters dear to populations in the swing states but less vital to voters in other places.

Common Cause thinks a broader campaign would also have the effect of boosting political participation across the country.

Now, this obviously won’t happen before the 2008 election, but Fadem’s optimistic view is that enough states will join to put it into effect for 2012.

It’s a big change, but an outdated arrangement shouldn’t govern something as important as presidential elections. It’s time we graduated from the Electoral College. This is an idea both Democrats and Republicans should get behind.

Take that as a good sign. The strike by 3,600 American Axle workers will end soon, even if a tough ratification fight lies ahead.

Gettelfinger is being frank with his members so the tough terms of the deal ultimately seem more palatable.

The strike, which enters its 12th week today, will end soon because it must. The stakes are simply too high to allow it to fester longer. Too high for American Axle. Too high for its chief customer, General Motors Corp., which has ponied up $200 million to help close a deal. Too high for the workers. Too high for the union.

Say what?  It must end?  That is not something that is unacceptable……it should only end when the workers have a deal that they all can sign off on.

The UAW local that represents workers at a General Motors Corp. stamping plant near Mansfield, Ohio, have threatened to go on strike at 10 a.m. Thursday, GM spokesman Dan Flores said Tuesday.

The workers at UAW Local 549 in Ontario, Ohio, have been working under threat of a strike for several weeks, while a local contract is negotiated.

The four other UAW locals that issued strike threat notices at the same time as Mansfield have now either reached tentative contract agreements or gone on strike.

The strikes are often said to be related to the UAW’s strike against American Axle & Manufacturing, which is now in its 12th week. On Tuesday, the company said an agreement is close, but held up by a few outstanding issues.

GM is having a bad year with the unions…about damn time!  Without the workers GM has zip!  The more that the automaker is attacked, the more and the sooner they could come to an agreement.

President Bush promises to veto the five-year, $300 billion farm bill before Congress this week. The House and Senate have given him plenty of reasons to do so. The bill is so wrongheaded it’s the equivalent of beating swords into plowshares at the outbreak of a war that closely follows a bumper crop.

The bill enjoys broad support in both the House and Senate, where even free-market conservatives hypocritically vote to spare growers of food and fiber from the uncertainties of supply and demand. The bill would pay generous subsidies to farmers no matter how much or little they harvested.

U.S. crop subsidies hurt developing countries two ways at once. They discourage domestic food production and contribute to the high cost of imports. Result: more poverty, hunger and all the attendant social ills, not to mention riots and unrest. It reflects poorly on a Congress that could inflict such harm so blithely, with so little lost sleep.

Not only would the bill do nothing to ease global hunger, it does much to aggravate the crisis. The bill reported out by the conference committee rejects a needed increase in the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program; instead, it would cut money from the program. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. (no relation to former Sen. George McGovern), predicted that some poor countries would have to cease offering food to children as an incentive to go to school.

The final version of the bill retains the prohibition against buying food abroad, where it would be nearer to famine-stricken populations. This increases the cost and carbon footprint of food transportation and delays receipt of emergency supplies.

I would agree on the veto from Bush. This bill has enough earmarks to choke a horse. I do see where this bill will do that much to eliminate the hunger of the US and the world.  I know moist who know me are taking aback…that I would say anything good about the Prez….but on this bill, for now, I will agree on his action.

I have a problem with this whole situation.  Polygamy is a crime…..but where does the state get off taking children from their mothers, no matter what age they are?

Louisa Jessop’s children were among the more than 400 who were taken from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints compound raided early last month by Texas law enforcement and CPS officials. She says she’s 22 and has presented authorities with a driver’s license and birth certificate to prove it. But CPS spokesman Chris Van Deusen told NBC that the department has classified her as a “disputed minor,” the term used for FLDS women whose age has not been established to the department’s satisfaction. Until her age is established, they are treating her as if she is a minor.

“They said I looked like I was under 18,” she said.

And so Louisa Jessop is stuck. She’s been told she can leave, but she has to leave her newborn son and her other two children in foster care. Or she can stay with her newborn son, but can no longer be with her other children.

These children committed no crime and the mother’s have done nothing that would lead to them losing their children.

Jittery about a political backlash over gasoline costs as prices set yet another record Tuesday, Congress voted to halt deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in defiance of President Bush.

The action was expected to have a modest effect on pump prices, saving motorists an estimated 2 to 5 cents a gallon, backers said. But its overwhelming support, including from Bush’s usual GOP allies, underscored the potentcy of fuel costs as a campaign issue this year.

The measure is likely to be one of the few Congress approves this year in response to public angst at the pump as Democrats and Republicans agreed on little else Tuesday to bring down prices.

“Stopping the fill of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been tried before, and there is no evidence that it will affect the price of oil or gasoline in a meaningful way,” White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Tuesday. But he said Bush would not veto it.

Senators approved the measure by a veto-proof majority of 97 to 1. The two Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, returned to the Capitol from the campaign trail to vote for the measure. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive GOP nominee, supported the measure but was absent for the vote.

Watch the price of oil to see if this will have an effect.  Unbelievable, the Senate can work together on issues!

The week-long strike at GM’s Fairfax Plant is now having a ripple affect on suppliers.

There’s now word that Penske Logistics in Kansas City, Kansas has had to lay off 92 workers, at least until the strike involving 2,400 GM workers ends.

Penske receives and delivers automotive components to GM and without the Fairfax Plant in operation, there’s not much for them to do.

There have been all-day negotiations taking place since the strike began. And, on Monday, GM strikers held a rally to support their cause.

GM can ill afford to delay production of it’s Chevy Malibu which is made at the Fairfax Plant. It’s been one of GM’s best sellers at a time when auto sales are slumping during a weak economy.

The sticking points are how Gm is allowed to deal with outsourcing and seniority, two issues very dear to the UAW union.

“In this facility, you have a right to bid on a job, they wanna do away with that, that process, and there’s not one person out here today, one person in any organized labor that would not want to use their seniority to bid to a job that they would prefer to do,” said Jeff Manning, UAW Representative.

The strike is having its effect, but now it will be up to the UAW leadership to keep the pressure up and make the automaker deal.

I was fortunate enough after Vietnam to use the GI Bill to help pay for my education and I think that the new bill offered by Sen. Webb of Virginia has lots of merit and something that needs the American peoples support.  we owe a debt of gratitude to all the troops that do their duty.

– Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb has introduced legislation that would expand the GI Bill.

Webb’s proposal would cover the costs of tuition at any public college in the veteran’s state, as well as pay a monthly stipend equal to area housing costs.

– U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Chumuckla, is the co-sponsor of a companion House bill, which is expected to be voted on this week.

– President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation, if passed, because he says it is too expensive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the proposal would cost

$51.8 billion over 10 years.

– U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also opposes Webb’s bill, saying that such benefits could harm military retention efforts by coercing military members to leave the service so they can use their benefits.

– McCain has introduced his own GI Bill plan, which he said would encourage troops to stay in the military by offering increased benefits for serving 12 years or more. McCain’s proposal would allow benefits to be passed on to family members

Read this carefully and see if those opposed to this bill are worthy enough to be called “patriots”.  I say NO!  They are not!