Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Senator Barack Obama won the Wisconsin and the Hawaii primaries last night. This means the Senator has won ten primaries in a row. If he has been getting his card punched, the 11th one is free. Everyone focused on the fact that Obama won Wisconsin by by winning majorities in every demographic, including white men and union households, which has been strongly for Clinton in part primaries. Everyone also notes that Clinton took a much harsher line of a attack against Obama in her concession speech; at least she did until Obama came out to give his victory speech early and cut her off. It should get fun from here.
Senator Obama has an Op-Ed in USA Today about public funding of campaigns, or finance limits, or something. Apparently John McCain won’t do something and that makes Obama sad.
Since Castro stepped down early yesterday morning, many of the papers have features covering Castro’s career as the longest-serving head of state in the world. The Los Angeles Times has a feature that briefly profiles the four most likely successors. Most people say that Castro’s younger brother, Raul (a hale and hearty 76), hass been running the country on a day-to-day basis for years now and will likely take over. However, some say that Castro is hinting at someone younger. If it comes up, just talk about how little is likely to change in Cuba until we have a new President. Also, you could make a joke about the embargo finally working.
The dust is finally settling from Pakistan’s elections yesterday. The Pakistan People’s Party, former led by Benazir Bhutto, appeared to be the big winner and will form a coalition government with the Pakistan Muslim League-N. President Musharraf has said he will not step down, but time will tell if he sticks to that. Time will also tell how the new government reacts to the United States, which strongly backed Musharraf.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The biggest news today is that Fidel Castro, the aged leader of Communist Cuba and track suit aficionado, will be retiring. Finally, the long national nightmare is over and we have defeated the godless Communists! Castro announced his retirement in his newspaper column. Can you imagine if our President had a newspaper column? Wouldn’t that be great? We could finally have a forum for insights like these unencumbered by the idiot “journalists.”
Pakistan held elections yesterday which saw President Musharraf’s party losing seats in Parliament to the two opposition parties. There were clashes at polling stations all across the country with dozens reported dead, but most experts say the elections were relatively free and fair (so about as good as Florida). President Musharraf may be removed from power by the new opposition-controlled parliament or he may step down himself. This won’t really effect the United States, since we do whatever the hell we want in Pakistan. If anyone asks you about this, just say that it will likely strain ethnic and tribal tensions in Pakistan (that is my go-to answer for when anyone asks me about anything having to do with Pakistan).
Keep an eye on the Wisconsin Democratic Primary Election today and watch as people are prepare for next week’s elections in Texas and Ohio. Many stories are highlighting the irony that a campaign that has been so dominated by race and gender issues is coming down to states where the largest voting blocks are white men. I, for one, think it is about damn time that white men decided something in this country.
Today’s New York Time’s column that if you replaced “Obama” with “Arcade Fire” could be a pitchfork review: David Brooks! Congratulations Mr. Brooks, don’t forget to pick up your gift bag. I guess they still tease him in the Times newsroom for this, so he felt the need to get some street cred back. For the record, this blog totally knew about Obama before he went all main-stream and thinks his early stuff was way better.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Your Morning News is a little late thanks to the President’s Day holiday and my ability to sleep in. I hope you all have the day off and use it to reflect on the true meaning of… used car sales or whatever.
Luckily, Presidents Day isn’t one of the Barbecuing holidays, because the Department of Agriculture has issued the largest-ever beef recall in history. 143 million pounds were recalled because a slaughterhouse was using diseased and injured cattle. The risk to consumers is low, but the slaughterhouse has been shut down because of this and the inhumane practices they were employing.
Democratic Primaries, DVDs, and Declarations of independence after the jump.
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