Obama leaves Russia
Death penalty for rioters in China
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Google announces operating system based on browser.
Okay? Cool!
After 6 weeks of campaigning, Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary last night by roughly 10 percentage points. Anyone who ever hoped that this primary might end soon (me) or ever (you) was proven sadly mistaken. Clinton won by increasing turnout among her core constituencies: poor whites, old whites, and catholic (whites). Just over 2 million people voted, which is more than 3 times the turnout of the most recent Pennsylvania presidential primary.
So what is next? First off, we never again have to hear Chris Matthews and Ed Rendell talk about how great Pennsylvania is. The next round of primaries is May 6th – so get out your Indiana and North Carolina guidebooks and start looking up interesting facts to throw around. Did you know that “historic Parke County [Indiana] has 32 covered bridges and is the Covered Bridge Capital of the world?” But do the bridges want to change politics as usual? Do they believe in the audacity Hope? I hate these states already.
To my surprise, there was news outside Pennsylvania, so Iraq, the food crisis, and the Supreme Court after the jump. Don’t worry if you skip it though, no one at the office will talk about anything bu the primary.
Finally, our long national nightmare of not killing people is over. The Supreme Court decided yesterday in a 7-2 decision that lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Within hours of the announcement, dozens of states lifted the moratorium they had placed on all lethal injections. Man, I sure am glad we managed to bring this issue to the forefront while the Pope is visiting. Careful, though, this is an awkward topic to bring up at work, probably even awkwarder if you work in a Federal Penitentiary.
The Pope has spent a lot of his trip apologizing for and trying to move the American church past the clergy sex abuse scandal. This is another one of those topics that is sorta tough to bring up at work. My go-to Pope related icebreaker is to mention how newspapers apparently have no problem publishing the term “Popemobile.”
As we mentioned yesterday, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama met in their final televised debate before the Pennsylvania primary. The general consensus seems to be that the debate focused on Senator Obama, with Senator Clinton and the moderators spending the first 45 minutes assailing him on a variety of topics. Whether you think this is fair or unfair probably depends one which candidate you support. However, I will point out that we can all probably agree that there are more important issues at stake in this election than the candidate’s choice of accessories.
Apparently, while I was in New York, there were like 4 caucuses and primaries or something. Who knew right? I thought we had another week or something. Anyway, Senator Obama this weekend won caucuses in Maine, Washington State, and Nebraska. He also won the Louisiana Primary and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These wins make him the leader in delegates and gives his campaign momentum and energy going into the week. There will be more primaries on Tuesday, including delegate-rich Virginia.
Word also came out yesterday that Senator Clinton’s campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, has been replaced. She is still on the payroll as a senior advisor. It is kind of like when my friend in high school was made a senior adviser at Burger King because he kept giving us free burgers — Oh wait no — He was fired. Apparently Mrs. Doyle’s days have been numbered since Sen. Clinton came in third in the Iowa caucuses. The Clinton campaign is saying that they think they will lose all of this week’s primaries and are focusing their efforts on the big states like Ohio and Texas.
The President, the Grammeys, and the Teevee after the jump.
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