Hillary Rodham Fizzbin

(shown here with First Officer McAuliffe) in another episode of "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta".

“Fizzbin”, for those of you that don’t know, was the name of a fictional card game created out of thin air by Captain James Kirk in Star Trek’s "A Piece of the Action".

More from here…

While being held hostage on Sigma Iotia II with Spock and McCoy, he spontaneously invented a confusing card game to distract the henchmen guarding them.

The rules were intentionally very complex. Each player gets six cards, except for the player on the dealer's right, who gets seven. The second card is turned up, except on Tuesdays. Kirk dealt the henchman two jacks, which are a "half-fizzbin." When the henchman said he needs another jack, Kirk warned that a third jack is a "shralk" and is grounds for disqualification. With two jacks, one wants a king and a deuce, except at night, when one wants a queen and a four.

At this point, Kirk dealt a third jack, but to keep the ruse going, he ignored the disqualification rule he had just made up. He explained that, had a king been dealt instead of a jack, the player would get another card, except when it's dark, in which case he'd have to give it back.

The top hand is a "royal fizzbin," but the odds of getting one are "astronomical": when Kirk asked Spock what the odds are, Spock truthfully replied that he had never computed them.

Kirk called the last card a "kronk" and then purposely dealt a card such that it fell on the floor. As the henchman being taught reached down, Kirk punched him in the face after hitting him in the stomach, and Spock nerve-pinched the other guard, allowing the three to escape.

Which has what to do with Team Clinton?

Well, listen to this from Terry McAuliffe from May 11th.



Not May 11th, 1970 or May 11th, 1992, but less-than-two-fucking-weeks-ago May 11th.

Agree or disagree with his premises -- and I disagree -- what he is proposing is very clear: That seating half the delegates would be agreeable to Team Clinton, and that this palliative would all-but settle the issue of Florida and Michigan as far as they are concerned.

To repeat, for the audio-impaired, from the transcript here (emphasis added):

...
MR. RUSSERT: So now, Chairman Dean is saying the rules are the rules.

MR. McAULIFFE: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Michigan broke them, they're not going to be seated. Maybe they'll get half. Would you accept that?

MR. McAULIFFE: Well, first of all, that's now out in paperback, I want you to know. But second, I would say the rule is 50 percent. That's the point I'd like to make. I had the right, the party, to take away 50 percent. The party took away 100 percent of the delegates. The rule is 50 percent. Had they only taken away 50 percent like the Republican Party did, Tim, you and I would not be having this conversation today.
MR. RUSSERT: So you would accept that as a compromise, half the Michigan and half the Florida delegates?

MR. McAULIFFE: We certainly might, you bet. But in fairness, the Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet on, on the 31st to make that decision. The issue is 50 percent. They took away 100 percent. He can't deny that a million-75 people showed up in Florida and 600,000 showed up in Michigan. They voted, they were certified by the county and the state. These people voted. We have to win these two states in, in the general election. It's important, Michigan and Florida.

MR. RUSSERT: But you'd take half.

MR. McAULIFFE: Well, I'll--we'll let the Rules and Bylaws, it's up to them to make that decision. But the rule is 50 percent.
...

Got it?

Now listen to what Team Clinton is saying eleven days later...

From the Detroit Free Press (emphasis added):

Clinton lays out path to party nomination

By TODD SPANGLER • FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF • May 22, 2008

WASHINGTON – In case there was any confusion, Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff this morning made very clear her path to the Democratic nomination.

Have Michigan and Florida’s lost delegations seated in full, stretch the number needed for the nomination to 2,210 (from the 2,026 it is now without those states) and fight for the remaining pledged delegates and uncommitted super delegates.
…

There are a whole lot of hurdles to cross before then, however – beginning with the Michigan-Florida question.

A week from Saturday in Washington, the Democrats’ national Rules and Bylaws Committee – which includes plenty of Clinton and Obama supporters already – will meet to decide if and how to seat the states’ delegations, which were lost when they scheduled earlier-than-allowed primaries.

Of late, talk has been that both should see their voting power cut by half, to make sure some penalty attends their violation of national party rules. But Wolfson and Clinton strategist Harold Ickes – who sits on the Rules and Bylaws Committee and voted to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates last year – say the entire votes should be counted and the delegates apportioned as they would have been if the primaries counted.

As in, to Clinton’s benefit – since she won both states.

Ickes went further saying that the uncommited votes in Michigan – where Obama’s name did not appear on the ballot – should not automatically accrue to him, even though the Clinton campaign readily acknowledges there were major efforts by Obama’s supporters to get people to vote uncommitted to show their support for him.

Obama took his name off the ballot in protest of the primary. Clinton was the only top Democrat on the ballot in Michigan – though even she said at the time that the election didn’t count for anything.

Since it started appearing, however, that Obama would capture the nomination, her campaign has changed its tune.
…

“Both delegations should be seated, all delegates should be seated and all delegates should have a full vote each,” said Ickes.

What this is, is bullshit, and as pure and jaw-droppingly brazen as any I ever saw slung by Bush.

What this is not, is a sexism thing. No, this is a Clinton thing.

This is absolutely infuriating fuck-you-because-the-rules-don’t-apply-to-us thing that made so many of us discretely upchuck into our napkins even as we defended Clinton v1.0 time after time after time during the 90s.

This is (as Randi Rhodes said in the stand-up bit that cost her her job) the infuriating “Because her deal is always, 'Read the fine print, asshole!'"-thing.

After retroactively re-rigging the metrics for “winning” more times that I can count, it can no longer be said that Team Clinton moves the goalposts.

Now

they tear the goalposts down.


Make a bonfire out of them.

Have a weenie roast with ‘em.

Then whip their dicks out.

Then fuck the bun.

Then point a finger at us and solemnly swear that, “Ah did not have sex with that bun!”

Then yank a puck out of their pocket.

Fling it down field.

Announce that we were actually playing field hockey the whole time.

So none of Senator Obama’s “touchdowns” ever really counted.

And that the score is actually tied.

Wheeeeeeee!

For myself, in the last seven years I’ve had quite enough of a President who pulled magic, heretofore-invisible “signing statements” and secret Gonzalez-concocted legal opinions out of his ass whenever he fucking well felt like it would be really inconvenient if the law he just signed actually applied to him.

And then snickered about it while his minions applauded him.

To mend the terrible damage that the Bush Regime has done to this country, we so very desperately need that mentality -- for good and all -- to be over.

Done.

Shunned.

Buried.

And yet, over in Team Clinton’s Gangsta’s Paradise


it’s still all fizzbin, all the time.