Both Florida and Michigan get their delegates seated, each with 1/2 their vote counting.

Democratic party officials said a committee agreed Saturday on a compromise to seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half-votes after Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to get enough support to force their positions through.

Clinton's chief delegate hunter Harold Ickes angrily informed the committee that Clinton had instructed him to reserve her right to appeal the matter to the Democrats' credentials committee, which could potentially drag the matter to the party's convention in August.

Obama picked up a total of 32 delegates in Michigan, including superdelegates who have already committed, and 36 in Florida. Clinton picked up 38 in Michigan, including superdelegates, and 56.5 in Florida.

Obama's total increased to 2,052, and Clinton had 1,877.5.

The Hillary people are still extremely worked up and were protesting and chanting outside of the DNC meeting. Some interrupted the announcement with chants of "Denver, Denver, Denver" which is a reference to taking their fight to the convention, which takes place in August, in Denver and which would be political suicide for Hillary.

All in all they are a scary bunch. Just take a look at this YouTube video.

Obama makes another smart choice.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. yesterday said his one-time presidential rival Sen. Barack Obama has asked him to "play a more prominent" and "deeply involved" role in his campaign, a signal the likely Democratic nominee is looking to burnish his foreign-policy credentials that Republicans are attacking.

Mr. Biden stopped short of endorsing Mr. Obama, but predicted the Illinois senator is likely to emerge as the nominee after the last contests on Tuesday. He also took a few swipes at presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.

I would put Joe Biden's knowledge of the military up against John McCain's any day of the week.

Bill Clinton hates me!

Okay well he may not hate me personally, but he hates my kind. You know, those who do not want his wife to be the nominee.

With Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on the verge of defeat, Bill Clinton has been placing blame on enemies including a brazenly biased media that tried to suppress blue-collar votes, a powerful anti-war group that endorsed rival Barack Obama and weak-willed party leaders unable to stand up to either of these nefarious forces.

Well I don't hate you Bill. As a matter of fact I don't hate Hillary either.

I pity you.

You have used every political trick, and called in every single favor from your party and supporters, and still have not managed to get what you feel it is your right to attain. A return to the White House.

But that is simply your ego talking Mr. President. You don't deserve anything of the kind.

To be honest what you deserve is blame. After all everything hat has happened to our country since you left office can be traced back to your monumentally stupid mistakes.

If not for you, Al Gore would have easily won the 2000 election. If not for you we would NOT be at war in two counties. If not for you thousands of Americans would be alive and home with their families. If not for you our economy would not be fighting for survival. And if not for you Mr. President George W. Bush would be nothing but an easily forgotten footnote in the history textbooks that our children will study for decades to come.

I guess pity may have been the wrong word Mr. Clinton, I guess what I really have for you is disdain.

Is the DNC Rules and Bylaws meeting today simply a dog and pony show? Has the decision already been made?

Two sources, including a high-ranking official with the Florida delegation, have confirmed that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee reached an agreement last night and will seat the state's entire delegation but give each delegate half a vote. The result would be a net gain of 19 delegates for Sen. Hillary Clinton, though no word yet on how the superdelegates from the state will be allocated. It is, the official says, a compromise that Sen. Barack Obama will be willing to make. "There will be theater but not much fight."

Well it looks like. At least in Florida's case.

Now how about Michigan?

Circumstances, however, are looking very much different concerning the battle over how to handle Michigan's delegation. As of Saturday morning, no compromise had been reached. The idea of splitting the state's delegation 50-50 has been discussed but Clinton's camp, one source said, was not agreeing to the arrangement. In addition, reports are circulating around the DNC meeting that Sen. Carl Levin, who will be speaking on behalf of Michigan, will press for the seating of the state's full delegation, with full votes for each.

Well that is just bullshit. No way can these delegates be given full votes. I mean Obama was not even on the damn ballot!

You know I would to mention that it is the Republicans who constantly change the rules to steal elections. Not Democrats!

James Carville just got crossed off of the Clinton Christmas list.

In a quick phone interview with me just now, prominent Hillary supporter James Carville diverged from the Hillary campaign message on several key "electability" questions, saying that he thinks Obama "will" win the general election.

Carville, surprisingly, also seemed to downplay Obama's problems with non-college whites -- a cornerstone of Hillary's electability claim -- saying that if Obama gets the same level of non-college whites that John Kerry did in 2004, he "will" win the general.

Asked if he thought Obama would beat McCain, Carville said: "I think he will. I think Democrats will win in November...There's a crushing desire for change in this country. No one has seen a party or brand held in such low esteem" than the Republicans.

Carville's repeated suggestions that Obama "will" beat McCain contrast with the core Hillary message -- repeated frequently by Hillary advisers -- that Obama merely "can" win a general election, while Hillary "will" win it. Carville's comments also suggest that with the fall contest looming, it's becoming tougher for prominent Hillary backers to sustain any argument that doesn't show full confidence in Obama's chances against McCain.

Somebody is going to get the "treatment" from Hillary.

I have no idea what the "treatment" might be but I am certain it exists and that it is administered personally by Hillary.

Oh the Hillary people are NOT going to like this! Not one little bit!

Paul Kane: I've spent the past several months talking to as many super-delegates as any reporter in America, I'd guess, since I cover on a day-to-day basis about 280 of them here on Capitol Hill.

I hate saying this, because all the Clinton people are going to flip out and say, You're biased, you're biased, you're biased. So go ahead and flip out if you want, but the simple basic truth is that the super-delegates stopped paying attention to the Clinton-Obama race about a couple days after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries.

They've stopped paying attention to the primary, and instead they're focused on an Obama-McCain matchup in November. That's the basic, simple, definitive reality that has happened in this race. The "undecided" super-delegates at this moment are not going to "decide" any time soon, because to them the race is over, they're just waiting for Clinton to drop out.

Now that is some interesting news now isn't it?

But if y0u think that is even slowing Hillary down then you just don't know her very well.

Unhappy with the fact that Obama now has more delegates in Texas then she does Hillary's people are trying to unseat them: Frederick Barrow, an Obama supporter who chaired the Collin County credentials committee, alleged that Clinton supporters were only trying to unseat the delegation because Obama won more delegates from Collin County.

Scott makes amends for past sins.

In an encounter last night in the lobby of a New York hotel, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan apologized for denouncing a former White House colleague, Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser, after Clarke wrote a book highly critical of the Bush administration in 2004.

Now McClellan is facing a similar denunciation from the White House for his own highly critical book.

"I should have known how personal it would get when they went after me, well, I mean, after what I said about you," Clarke says McClellan told him in the lobby of New York's Essex House.

"I think I can forgive you now," Clarke says he replied.

"I'd like to ask you to," McClellan reportedly answered.

Personally I would like to see a number of the Bush administratoin toadies getting a taste of their own medicine.

I think George Bush and Dick Cheney could do a tour in Iraq. Right on the front lines of course, not in the Green Zone.

Karl Rove might benefit from a little prison time.

Michael Chertoff can be moved to the Ninth ward of New Orleans where he is periodically frightened by reports of possible terrorist attacks in his neighborhood.

That is a good start though of course there are many more deserving recipients.

McClatchy correspondents respond to McClellan's book by asking "is this news to anyone"?

The correspondents produce an excellent timeline laying out all of the Bush administration propaganda and lies that they skillfully used to browbeat journalists into compliance and to convince the American public that they were in immediate danger from Saddam Hussein.

It is a painful trip down memory lane, but one that I encourage anybody whose memory may be getting fuzzy about the events that led up to this unfortunate debacle to take.

Keith spends entire hour on Scott McClellan's book.

Part one.



Part two.



Part three.



Final portion.



I really appreciate that Keith talked bout how the White House is using the same tactics that they used to convince the people that invading Iraq was a good idea to convince us that we need to do something about Iran.

Finally!

Top Democratic leaders intend to push for a quick end to the battle for the presidential nomination when primaries are over next week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday, adding that he, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and party chairman Howard Dean will urge uncommitted delegates to choose sides.

"By this time next week, it will all be over give or take a day," Reid said of the marathon race between the front-running Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I know this is going to cause a huge backlash among Hillary supporters but that is what the Clintons want. They want their people to stay home so that Obama cannot win and they can run again in 2012. They have just been holding out to force the party leaders to do this very thing so that they can play the victim again.

Democracy's only hope is that the Hillary supporters are smart enough to make the decision to beat the Republicans. Because to be honest Hillary will have absolutely NO hope of being nominated in 2012. She is not the cusp of being the most hated Democrat in the party.

I know her people don't see that, but trust me it's true.

Obama urges supporters to take the high road at DNC meeting. Yes sir.

Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) campaign is urging its supporters not to demonstrate at Saturday’s highly anticipated Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting on how to handle the delegates of Florida and Michigan.

In an internal campaign e-mail obtained by The Hill, the Obama campaign states, “We look forward to the meeting proceeding smoothly — and we’re asking our supporters not to show up to demonstrate, passionately as they feel about this campaign.”

As many of you already know Hillary's campaign is organizing a huge protest outside of the DNC meeting as some demonstration of how much support she still has. I guess she hopes this will intimidate the rules committee into deciding in her favor.

Clearly Obama and his people do not want the the newspapers and Sunday talk shows full of images and video of clashes between Clinton and Obama supporters.

It is clear that Obama recognizes how damaging that may be to the image of the Democrats. Sadly Hillary and her minions do not.

Are you ready for another Hillary lie?

In the link above you will see a news story that I am sure many of you heard after the Pennsylvania primary, that Hillary Clinton's campaign raised 10 million dollars in the 24 hours after that contest.

Well guess what? She didn't! (If you scroll down the FEC Campaign Finance Report you will come to April 23rd and April 24th. Even being generous enough to add them together they only add up to $4,361,884.89.)

In fact the FEC numbers show that the campaign fell at least 5.7 million shy of 10 million dollars.

Apparently Hillary believes that lying to Americans is how a future President must conduct themselves to win this nomination.

If you agree then she is your candidate.

Michigan high school finds itself in conflict between Christianity and Islam.

A veteran wrestling coach at Fordson High School lost his job amid concerns that his one-time assistant, who is a local minister and parent of a wrestler, attempts to convert local Muslim youths to Christianity.

The decision not to renew the contract of Jerry Marszalek, a coach for 35 years at Fordson, sparked a firestorm of controversy, with 200-300 parents packing a Board of Education meeting Tuesday night to support the decision of the school's principal, Imad Fadlallah. The board directed administrators to consider reviewing the source of complaints against Fadlallah.

Hancock insisted that he never attempted a conversion as part of his work with the wrestling team, or on school grounds. But when asked if he understood the concerns of Muslim parents, he said, "I consider it my work to pastor to anyone who is within my reach. So I can imagine they would be concerned. But is the Dearborn Public Schools going to be dictating what every pastor can or cannot do within his congregation?"

Marszalek says he was aware for 10 years that Hancock's activities "might be a problem," but the clergyman never discussed religion with the athletes or students in his presence.

"The principal has never, ever attended a practice or a wrestling meet," Marszalek said. "But he makes judgments on the team according to which Arabic parent complains about another parent, who is a Christian minister, and I get lumped in."

This my friends is why we have the separation between church and state.

Not to take the side of the Christians here but this man is really just following one of the central tenets of his faith. Christians believe that any soul that does not come to accept Jesus Christ as their savior is doomed to suffer eternal damnation. For the true believer that is like standing on the shore and watching people drowning in the ocean right in front of you. They desperately want to save them and often feel compelled to do so.

But...

People of other faiths have the right to worship however their religion dictates without any interference from well meaning outsiders. We could all imagine how apoplectic Christian parent would become if they heard that some Hindu was at their school trying to talk their little snowflakes into abandoning their religion and coming to temple with them. The shit would be flying all over that school!

Essentially all religions are interchangeable. They were simply the result of primitive people attempting to make sense of the world around them. It served the important purpose of connecting people to a shared belief, which allowed them to feel they had some understanding of their origins and their place in this world, even though obviously it was not factually based. I mean even if you have accepted the "truth" of a certain religion you have to acknowledge that the majority of people on this planet having chosen to believe in a fallacy. Atheists simply disbelieve one more religion then religious people do.

Fundamentally religion serves a very important function in the lives of many people and should be treated with respect regardless of your differing belief system or lack thereof. That is much easier for those of us who do not subscribe to any of them.

Beelzebub says Obama "will win" election. Uh oh.

Tonight at the "All Things Digital" conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. Rupert Murdoch -- Chairman of News Corp, new WSJ owner, and longtime torchbearer for conservative politics -- said this about Barack Obama: "He is a rock star. I love what he is saying about education. I think he will win and I am anxious to meet him."


I have to say up front that I have a deep sense of paranoia about anything positive that the people of Fox News have to say about Obama or Democrats in general. I always believe they re either being deceptive or that they have some underlying agenda.

I agree that Murdoch is correct, I just can't figure out why he would say it out loud.

Jessica Yellin backs up Scott McClellan's assertion that the press was not critical enough during the run up to the war.

On Wednesday night, CNN's Jessica Yellin talked to Anderson Cooper about Scott McClellan's tell-all memoir and agreed with the former press secretary that White House reporters "dropped the ball" during the run-up to war.

But Yellin went much further, revealing that news executives--presumably at ABC News, where she'd worked from July 2003 to August 2007--actively pushed her not do hard-hitting pieces on the Bush administration.

"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings," Yellin said.

"And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives--and I was not at this network at the time--but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, I think over time...."

But then a shocked Cooper jumped in, asking, "You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?"

"Not in that exact.... They wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces," Yellin said. "They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical, and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes, that was my experience."

If you have spent much time at all in the liberal blogoshere this will probably not come as news to you. But as one of those "liberal bloggers" I have to say it is very gratifying to see the truth finally being revealed to the public at large.

And it is especially important now when the administration is using the exact same tactics to push for war with Iran. Where is the critical news coverage about the Iran issue?

Will this thing ever be over?

That Clinton has impassioned supporters, many of whom link her candidacy to the feminist cause, hardly qualifies as news. And it's certainly true that along the campaign trail Clinton has encountered some outrageously sexist treatment, just as Barack Obama has been on the receiving end of bigoted treatment. (Obama has even been subjected to anti-Muslim bigotry despite the fact that he's not Muslim.) But somehow, a number of Clinton supporters have come to identify the seating of Michigan and Florida not merely with Clinton's prospects but with the causes of democracy and feminism -- an equation that makes a mockery of democracy and feminism.

Clinton herself is largely responsible for this absurdity. Over the past couple of weeks, she has equated the seating of the two delegations with African Americans' struggle for suffrage in the Jim Crow South, and with the efforts of the democratic forces in Zimbabwe to get a fair count of the votes in their presidential election.

This kind of crap is why many of us want Hillary to take her campaign debt, and her Hill-bots, and just go the fuck home!

She has tried every single dirty, unethical trick in the book and when she is not doing that she is claiming that Obama is using those tactics against her. Which of course he is not.

Bill Clinton claimed that the media was calling for Hillary to drop out. That is incorrect. The media loves this kind of crap.

However I am calling for her to drop out. I DON'T love this kind of crap.

Sorry if I sounded too much like the MSM (Main Stream Media). Technically I am part of the NBM (New Blogger Media).

So from the NBM, I would like to say "Hillary get out! Get out now!"

Oh and that new point that she keeps making that she is ahead in every single poll? Well that is just bullshit as well.

Today's news shows are featuring a 24 hour Scott McClellan book commerical.

Wow my television is literally burning up with the spin form the White House about Scotty's book on one side and the reporters spin about his allegation that they did not do their jobs effectively in the run up to the war on the other side.

The White House , of course, expresses anger and dismay and tries to minimize McClellan's allegations. Some going so far as to call it crap.

And it is no surprise that Nancy Pelosi agrees with McClellan's allegations against the Bush administration.

What I find really interesting is how defensive some of the reporters who allowed Bush to lie to us are being. I just watched David Gregory on Hardball and he came off as almost "Clintonesque" in his complete refusal to accept his part of the blame.

Now as a liberal blogger who tried to discover and disseminate the truth about all of this as often as I could, I have to say I am in hog heaven. This will have to go down as one of my most gratifying days in quite some time.

I hope Scott realized when he wrote this thing that he was going to have to do more then simply promote a simple tell all. I think he may have opened a can of worms that finally allows the Congress to aggressively pursue charges against this administration and might even ensure that Barack walks away with this election.

Yep I cannot wipe the smile from my face.

Jon's take on the Clinton's charges that they are being treated unfairly.

"Vast Left Wing conspiracy" that is hysterical! Here is part deux.



Did you notice that both Stewart and John Oliver assumed that we all had seen the video of Hillary invoking RFK's assassination?

Karl Rove denies accuracy of Scott McClellan's book. Raise your hands if you did not see that coming.

Rove also compares McClellan to "left wing bloggers".

Wow Scott that is really some kind of honor!

I mean left wing bloggers are the most important people on the entire Internet.

How is that for a transformation? Little Scotty was once a toady for the evil Bush regime and now he is numbered among the most influential people on the planet.

See? Dreams can come true!

This YouTube video puts all of the Obama rumors to rest.

Take a moment to watch it. It is well done and pretty funny as well.

American soldier stationed in Iraq talks about war atrocities.

I would advise you to prepare yourself for what this young man has to say. If you are anything like me, it will sicken you.

When Bushies attack! Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan wrote a book!

Little Scotty does not hold much back. And he also confirms much of what we all believed to be true.

Here are a couple of examples:

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Oh and McClellan does not spare the press either:

“If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.

“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

Ouch! And this from the guy who was paid to make it hard for the press to get the truth out of the Bush administration. Methinks Scotty is more then just a little pissed off.

I think I will do my part to help him heal by purchasing this book. If for no other reason then just to have confirmed all of the things that I believed to be true back when all of this was going on and the White House denied.

Republicans jump at opportunity to demonstrate that Obama is a liar. However the word for today is "FAIL"!

Yesterday, Obama mentioned that his uncle, Charlie Payne, helped to liberate the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. The Republicans were hoping that they could catch Obama lying - that maybe Obama never had an uncle who helped liberate the Jews in Europe. Well, in fact, Obama's uncle (his grandmother's brother) helped liberate the Nazi camp at Buchenwald (Obama mixed up Auschwitz and Buchenwald). So the Republicans (and a few Hillary fans emailed me as well) are trying to allege... what exactly? That Obama's family did in fact help save the Jews in Europe, but Obama got the name of the camp he liberated wrong? Okay. I'm not quite sure how that gives us any insight into Obama (other than his uncle is a hero) - I don't really know the difference Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen Belsen and the rest of the camps. I just know that I'd be damn proud if a member of my family helped liberate them. Not to mention, according to the US Holocaust Museum, Obama's uncle's Infantry Division didn't just liberate one of the camps that made up Buchenwald. It was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by US troops in all of Germany. That's pretty amazing.

Well now how can a man who cannot tell the difference between Auschwitz and Buchenwald possibly be qualified to be President?

I mean the only thing that would disqualify a candidate more would be one could not tell the difference between the Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq. Because that is a war that we are still fighting.

Or even worse, if we had a candidate who imagined that they had faced some dangerous situation in the past that had never actually taken place. You know, like imagining that you had once been under sniper fire or something like that. I mean that would probably end almost ANYBODIES political career.

McCain misses the point.

Republican John McCain on Monday sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for not having been to Iraq since 2006, and said they should visit the war zone together.

"Look at what happened in the last two years since Senator Obama visited and declared the war lost," the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting told The Associated Press in an interview, noting that the Illinois senator's last trip to Iraq came before the military buildup that is credited with curbing violence.

"He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time," the Arizona senator added. "If there was any other issue before the American people, and you hadn't had anything to do with it in a couple of years, I think the American people would judge that very harshly."

Barack Obama's position is that this war should never have happened. There is nothing he is going to see in Iraq that is going to make him change that position.

And what is the measure of this so-called "success" that the surge has provided? It is determined by the fact that there are fewer American causalities.

In other words Americans are being placed in an extremely dangerous place and are surviving the experience in larger numbers then before we started this surge, and that is being called "success". Of course we all know that this surge cannot be sustained indefinitely. And then what?

Well Obama would like to bring these brave men and women home. Then their survival rate would be almost 100%, give or take some accidents. I think we can all agree that would be a much more impressive statistic. Personally I would be very gratified to see our citizens home safe and sound with their families.

Then Obama could start the arduous task of repairing the diplomatic damage done to our country by the swaggering man-child that has caused all of this grief. Putting McCain in office is just replacing one war monger with another war monger. We simply cannot afford any more war.

Our country will be much safer with its armed forces here at home and our Commander in Chief giving the world somebody to admire and trust. That is what Barack Obama offers. Not more of the same kind of policies that have placed us in this dangerous position.

John McCain simply does not, and cannot, understand that.

Now it is Obama's fault.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign accused Sen. Barack Obama's campaign of fanning a controversy over her describing the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy late in the 1968 Democratic primary as one reason she is continuing to run for the presidency.

"The Obama campaign ... tried to take these words out of context," Clinton campaign chairman Terence R. McAuliffe said on "Fox News Sunday." "She was making a point merely about the time line."

How does Obama, or his campaign, have anything to do with the universal repulsiveness that this comment has received from the media and the public?

If anything Barack has gone out of his way to diffuse the situation. Like in this statement he made to the press when asked about it: "I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make, and I think that is what happened here," he said in an interview with Radio ISLA. "Senator Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it, and I will take her at her word on that."

How is that "fanning the controversy"?

I searched the Internet for any references of Obama or his people contributing to the controversy and I have found NOTHING!

This is just another in a long list of boldface lies.

The Clinton's simply will not take responsibility for anything that they do.

Is that really the kind of person that we want running this country?

Is it?

The sexism charge is not working so Bill Clinton claims his wife is actually winning but that there is a cover up. Wait, did I read that right?

Clinton also suggested some were trying to "cover up" Sen. Clinton's chances of winning in key states that Democrats will have to win in the general election.

" 'Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.' "

Clinton did not expound on who he was accusing.

So who is responsible for the cover up?

Come on Bill tell me! I love a good conspiracy!

Is it the media? You know they are always screwing up good plans with all of that reporting of the facts. The bastards!

Maybe it is the fellow Democrats. I mean they would certainly be willing to throw this election to the Republicans just to keep another Clinton from being President wouldn't they? The bastards!

Or perhaps it is those damn liberal bloggers. They keep pressuring Hillary to quit just because they want to focus on beating McCain in the general election and to stop dicking around with what is essentially a foregone conclusion. The bastards!

Or it could be those voters. I mean sure they have given Hillary some recent victories but overall they have given Obama more votes. He currently has 1,974 elected delegates to Hillary's 1780 elected delegates. The bastards!

Well whoever it is I bet we will never be able to identify them. Almost as if they were simply a figment of Bill Clinton's overwrought imagination. The bastards!

Maureen Dowd on recent Hillary RFK gaffe.

As usual Dowd does a great job of making pithy observations and painfully true characterizations that shine a bright light on the facts that many would rather remained hidden from scrutiny.

I think the sentence that I agree with the most is this one:

Maybe a tired, stressed Hillary was giving an unfiltered version of a blunt conversation that she’s had with her husband and advisers about staying in the race, using R.F.K. as an anything-can-happen example, in the same way she fantasizes about Sean Hannity breaking a story that would demolish Obama.

Because isn't that really what most of us kind of assumed? I mean who would mention this historically painful assassination out loud unless you had been talking about it privately? And then why would you be discussing it privately? In what context would it come up?

I think most of us can easily imagine in what context it would come up.

And that is why we felt stung and horrified that she actually made this statement in front of the camera. It simply reinforces the idea that she is wishing for some horrible catastrophe to befall Obama and get him out of her damn way!

But hey, she is not actually SAYING she wants anything to happen. At least not in front of the camera.

Obama campaign brings in too much money for FEC database to track. Still using an abacus to count McCain's money.

A milestone of sorts was reached earlier this year, when Obama, the Illinois senator whose revolutionary online fundraising has overwhelmed Clinton, filed an electronic fundraising report so large it could not be processed by popular basic spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel 2003 and Lotus 1-2-3.

Those programs can’t download data files with more than 65,536 rows or 256 columns.

Obama’s January fundraising report, detailing the $23 million he raised and $41 million he spent in the last three months of 2007, far exceeded 65,536 rows listing contributions, refunds, expenditures, debts, reimbursements and other details. It was the first report to confound basic database programs since 2001, when the Federal Election Commission began directly posting candidates’ fundraising reports online in an effort to make political money more accessible and transparent to voters.

Damn which candidate does not want to have this problem?

I had a conversation at work with some of my female co-workers, one of which blamed my support of Obama on "hanging out with the wrong crowd". I am guessing that the crowd I am "hanging out with" is the vast majority or the American people.

You know that group is always leading me astray.

Hillary Clinton underestimates the voters again.

This past Friday, during a meeting with a newspaper editorial board, I was asked about whether I was going to continue in the presidential race.
I made clear that I was - and that I thought the urgency to end the 2008 primary process was unprecedented. I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband's primary campaign, and Sen. Robert Kennedy's, had continued into June.
Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different - and completely unthinkable.

We took her comments "out of context"?

I saw the video, heard the question asked, and watched her give her disgusting response. How is that "out of context"?

And if that wasn't enough you can see the Special Comment by Keith Olbermann here (the first part) and here (the second part) where he lays out quite clearly that this is an old tactic that Hillary and her staff have brought up many times before.

Here let me give the proper context that existed when she made this horrible comment. Two weeks before the anniversary of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, and only days after Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer, Hillary Clinton brings up the murder of RFK in June to illustrate to her audience that "anything" can happen to remove the front runner in a campaign for President. Even assassination.

That was the fucking "context". Nobody is overreacting here. We are simply drawing back in disgust at the words coming out of the mouth of a person that many of us once admired.

But that was before we saw Ms. Clinton truly vetted. And now we have. Now we have.

Barack speaks to Alaska delegates.

He mentioned Mark Begich!

I am going to be working on that campaign this summer.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I firmly believe that having Obama as the Democrat's nominee in 2008 will cause an upsurge in confidence and energy within the party which will translate into more support for local Democrats, Alaska included.

We all benefit from having Obama as the nominee and our policies and ideas have a much better chance of being realized with him in the White House.

Obama is supposed to be coming up here at some point. I am gong to make damn sure I am able to attend.

Obama stands in for Ted Kennedy at Wesleyan commencement.

In the starkest contrast between our two remaining Democratic candidates, I think it is informative to realize that while Hillary Clinton brings up one of two of the most painful episodes in the Kennedy history, Barack stands up for his friend Ted Kennedy in front of these students to honor him.

Compassion is a personality trait that I demand from any candidate that I support. Senator Obama continues to impress me with the depth of his compassion.

Palin administration lied about scientific disagreement among scientists about danger to Polar Bears.

A newly released e-mail from last fall shows that the state's own biologists were at odds with the Palin administration, which has consistently opposed any new federal protections for polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.

The state's in-house dispute seems to refute later statements by Gov. Sarah Palin that a "comprehensive review" of the federal science by state wildlife officials found no reason to support an endangered-species listing for the northern bears. The governor invoked the state's own scientific work both in a cover letter to the state's official polar bear comments, and in an opinion piece published in the New York Times.

Steiner spent five months trying to get information about how the state reached its position, saying he suspected biologists were overruled for political considerations. He said last week it's ridiculous for the state to promote a conference on polar bear science while refusing to release its own experts' scientific opinions on the issue.

"Even the petroleum-loving Bush administration couldn't find a way around the science on this issue," Steiner said. "This perpetual denial of environmental harm posture is what gives Alaska a very bad image nationally and globally."

Ignoring or refuting scientific information that conflicts with the reality that you want to be true?

Whose administration does that sound like?

In this changing political climate it is ignorant for the Republicans to assume that they can continue to lie to people about scientific controversies in order to continue in a direction that is harmful to the planet and to the creatures that call it home. And that also includes human beings. If you think we are not going to be affected by these climate changes then you must not be reading the newspapers lately.

I am tired of politicians who vilify scientists and dumb down the population in order to inflict their bad policies on this state and our country.

I will no longer give Sarah Palin a free pass. She has shown she is not a different kind of Republican, but one that simply camouflages her indifference to science and our ecological needs with deceptive talk and political manipulations.

Kennedy family and others angry and shocked over Hillary's assassination comment.

Members of the Kennedy family are incensed over Hillary Rodham Clinton's invoking the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy to explain why she's staying in the race - and they think it could be the death knell of an increasingly desperate and sloppy campaign.

"That comment may be the last nail in her campaign's coffin," a Kennedy relative told The Post. "How can Hillary even use the experience argument when she repeatedly pushes the wrong buttons in her comments?"

An insider added, "I think people really felt that a line was crossed and that her campaign - and even her legitimacy as a politician - ended today."

Said a second relative, "She no longer has only her husband to blame for the ill-chosen comments coming from her camp."

While Robert Kennedy Jr. immediately came out in support of Sen. Clinton on Friday, others in the family's inner circle are fuming.

One cited "a perceived insensitivity" in her comment, made Friday before a South Dakota newspaper's editorial board, especially with the 40th anniversary of RFK's death two weeks away and Sen. Ted Kennedy battling a brain tumor.

"We were all sort of dumbfounded that she would say such a thing," the insider said.

There was also anger outside the family. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), a Hillary supporter, told Bloomberg News that she said "the dumbest thing you could have possibly said." And the Rev. Al Sharpton ripped the comment as dangerous.

The Kennedy family insider added: "I know that many Clinton supporters in New York and New Jersey are sickened by her comments and that they are more concerned with Senator Kennedy's health and well-being than they are her campaign anymore.

I called this Hillary's "maccaca moment" and I still feel that is an accurate assessment. I also think we are still seeing the ripple effect as it spreads throughout the media and Internet sites.

In the long run this may turn out to be a good thing, getting Hillary out of the race before she can do anymore damage to Obama or the party. However it will not be a good thing for Hillary, or the Clinton brand.

Indiana Jones is back!

I just got back from watching the latest (and I am guessing final), installment in the Indiana Jones movies.

Yes it was great.

Harrison Ford has definitely slowed down a bit (It was pretty obvious when the stunt double was on screen), but his charm and charisma were still firmly in place.

I liked seeing Karen Allen back because there was such good chemistry between her and Ford, and that lucky little shit Shia LeBeouf held up his end of the bargain as well.

Endless mobs of bad guys meeting their often humorous ends, a constant stream of near misses and close calls, the hat, the whip, it was just a hell of a good ride.

Do yourself a favor and go see it. You won't be disappointed.

Camille Paglia: Sexism has nothing to do with it.

I love this article because Camille Paglia addresses all of the things I have been wanting to write about Hillary but have hesitated to follow through on so as to not feed into the claims of sexism that many of Hillary's supporters have held up to shield their candidate.

Which by the way is a sort of preemptive censorship. I feel the same is true of anybody who claims every criticism against Barack is racist. Fortunately the latter much more rare.

I especially love this passage: For all her claims of media bias and ill treatment by her male fellow candidates, Hillary has got off absurdly softly in this campaign. No one — neither her rivals nor mainstream journalists — has had the guts to explore or even list the bursting catalogue of past Clinton scandals, in which Hillary was nearly always hip deep.

Charges of sexism have become Hillary's rote strategy for evading scrutiny. But by entangling the noble movement of modern feminism with her own knotty psychodrama, Hillary is reinforcing hoary stereotypes about women. Will every losing woman candidate now turn on the waterworks and claim to be maimed by male pride and prejudice?

I mean really which rational thinking person could disagree with that statement?

Obama to stand in for ailing Ted Kennedy at Wesleyan University commencement.

US Senator Edward M. Kennedy will not give the commencement speech Sunday at Wesleyan University, but he has found a replacement who will also make headlines -- Barack Obama.

"Considering what he's done for me and for our country, there's nothing I wouldn't do for him," Obama, an Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement. "So I'm looking forward to standing in his place on Sunday even though I know I won't be able to fill his shoes."

So while Obama is supporting Ted Kennedy in his time of great need, Hillary is bringing up the painful memory of his brother's death.

Whose Presidency do you think would benefit this country more?

Do you remember where you were when Hillary Clinton's campaign self destructed?

Below is Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on the unbelievable Hillary gaffe.



As usual Keith said it better then I ever could.

My only addition is to point out that this is going to go down in history as Hillary's "Maccaca moment". She will never recover from this.

McCain kicks another evangelical to the curb.

ABC News’s Bret Hovell reports: Sen. John McCain rejected the endorsement of a second controversial pastor Thursday, saying there is no place for the Rev. Rod Parsley’s comments about Islam.

“I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn't endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement,” McCain said in a statement.

The rejection of Parsley’s endorsement comes several hours after McCain rejected the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, who made controversial comments about the Holocaust and Catholics.

Wow this is getting pretty damn funny.

It is painfully obvious that McCain does not clearly understand just how unhinged many of these bible thumping preaches can be. He knows he needs them to bring the Christian conservatives into his camp, but I think he will be hard pressed to find any evangelical whose endorsement will not blow up his face now that there is so much scrutiny being aimed at these people.

I really think the only way McCain can the evangelicals on his side is to ask Huckabee to be his Vice President. Thank goodness he has never said anything controversial.

Hillary brings up RFK assassination FOR NO GOOD REASON WHATSOEVER!

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

I am sorry but what was the fucking point of this?

What does this painful episode in American history and her absolute refusal to drop out of this race have in common?

Can she be so callous as to be comparing the fact that Robert Kennedy was the clear front runner before he was shot to Obama being the clear front runner right now?

I cannot think of what else she could have possibly been going for.

This is a new low even for a campaign that has redefined the term "low".

Why is Hillary now acting like the rejected lover who just cannot accept that he is just not that into her?

The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said “no.” Obama is going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process.

And that is all that anybody needs to know to understand the childish and wounded behavior of Senator Clinton yesterday, grandstanding hypocritically to senior citizens in Florida, telling them they should consider themselves under sniper fire in Bosnia, er, Zimbabwe, aggrandizing herself as some kind of civil rights leader (MLK? or LBJ? She didn’t say this time) and attempting to corner 30 members of the DNC’s Rules & Bylaws Committee that will meet on May 31 to resolve the disputes over whether, and, if so, how, delegates from Michigan and Florida might be seated at the convention in August.

Well so much for Hillary bringing her people together and telling them that she deeply appreciates all they have done for her but now they need to support the Democratic nominee with the most delegates. You know like every disappointed Presidential hopeful in the past has done.

Hillary is not only going to damage Obama's chances against McCain, but she is going to sabotage any hope of another woman getting the nomination in the foreseeable future. I mean after seeing her throw this giant tantrum who is going to want to take a chance on getting a more rational female the next time?

I actually had a brief conversation at work today with two women who are still ardent Hillary supporters. One was even bragging that she was going to be on a conference call with Hillary tonight (She is a delegate) When I expressed disbelief the other lady told me that I was hanging out with the wrong crowd if I think Obama has a chance. I was, essentially, too stunned to respond. But I guess if I had responded all I could have said was....ditto.

Too late!!

Republican John McCain rejected the months-old endorsement of an influential Texas televangelist after an audio recording surfaced in which the preacher said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land.

"Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well," the presidential candidate said in a statement issued Thursday.

Hagee quickly responded that he was withdrawing the endorsement.

Now I do not subscribe to the notion that this John Hagee guy hurt McCain in any real way.

I mean he was just the first name that came up on the list of Christian ministers (After the recently deceased Jerry Falwell of course) that McCain went through to find a minister to endorse him and give him "Christian cred". It was a purely political decision and he did not spend as much time considering his choices as he should have. (Though he could have done worse, Pat Robertson anyone?)

But what this little snafu does is take the Reverend Wright issue right off the political campaign table. I mean how can McCain attack Obama on his choice of minister when he has his own crazed Christian minister in the closet? He can't.

So now the concern of many, and one of the reasons that people give for continuing to support Hillary, that Obama will be too smeared by the Reverend Wright incident to get elected is now moot. Moot I say!

Karl Rove subpoenad!

Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) issued a subpoena to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for testimony about the politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), including former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman’s case. Yesterday, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, sent a letter to the Committee expressing that Rove would not agree to testify voluntarily, per the Committee’s previous requests.

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests,” Conyers said. “Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters.”

The only thing that would make me happier then seeing Karl Rove forced to testify under oath would be seeing either Dick Cheney or George Bush sitting uncomfortably in the witness chair in a criminal court.

John Conyers is a great American who never fails to speak truth to power.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin finally shows her true colors, deep dark Republican RED!

The state of Alaska will sue the U.S. government to stop the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, arguing the designation will slow development in the state, Gov. Sarah Palin said on Wednesday.

Palin said the state will file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington challenging U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's decision to grant Endangered Species Act protections to the polar bear.

The Republican governor has argued that the ice-dependent polar bear, the first mammal granted Endangered Species Act listing because of global warming, does not need additional protections.

"We believe that the listing was unwarranted and that it's unprecedented to list a currently healthy population based on uncertain climate models," said Alaska Assistant Attorney General Steven Daugherty.

The Bush administration and the Republicans have been defying the legitimacy of the scientific findings on Climate Change in a desperate attempt to continue drilling for oil and sending carbon emissions into the atmosphere until they have completely devastated this planet. Who cares about the future when there is money to be made today?

I had thought, and hoped, that Governor Palin was cut from a different cloth then most Republicans and would recognize that our greedy pillaging of this planet was short sighted and ultimately disastrous. But I gave her too much credit.

In the end she is an acolyte of the oil companies and will do their bidding even to the very destruction of the creatures that reside in her beautiful state.

Alaska has so much more to offer then just oil and gas, we have other resources at our disposal which do not require punching gigantic holes in our tundra and upsetting the delicate ecological balance that we are currently watching crumble before our very eyes.

Palin may be a slight improvement over the usual Republican assholes that have traded our resources for political favors and lobbyist paid junkets to exotic resorts, but even her kicky hairstyles and attractive features cannot long hide the criminal arrogance that defines the Republican politicians in this state.

Civilian casualties continue to rise while America occupies Iraq.

Eight civilians have been killed in an air strike by US military helicopters north of Baghdad, Iraqi police say.

Two children were among those who died in the attack on Wednesday evening near the town of Baiji, the police said.

Baiji's police chief said the attack targeted a group of shepherds in a farming area. The US military said the incident was under investigation.

In other violence, an Iraqi TV cameraman is reported to have been shot dead in crossfire in Baghdad.

A US military spokeswoman, Lt Col Maura Gillen, said one of its helicopters fired in the Baiji area after noting "suspicious activity", and she said people travelling in a car had ignored warnings to stop their vehicle.

Locals said some of those killed had been people running away on foot after the US forces entered the area.

A local man, Ghafil Rashed, told Reuters that his brother and son had been killed in the attack:

"The Americans raided our houses... People started fleeing with their children, then the aircraft started bombing people in a street along the farm."

So long as the Republicans continue their illegal occupation of Iraq we will see our soldiers murdering civilians and terrorizing innocent Iraqi's as their mission becomes less defined and paranoia permeates their every action.

I am not suggesting that these soldiers do not have anything to fear, because they certainly do, but what I am saying is that as long as they keep killing innocent people the danger to them will continue to grow.

This is the difference between our occupation of Iraq and our military presence in Germany, or Japan, or Korea. In those countries we are not using our weapons on unarmed civilians.

If John McCain is too ignorant to understand that then he has no business even being considered for the highest office in the land.

In a list of which countries are the most peaceful the United States is ranked 97th out of 140. Thanks again George Bush!

Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation while the United States is ranked among the bottom third, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The "Global Peace Index," compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked the United States 97th out of 140 countries according to how peaceful they were domestically and how they interacted with the outside world.

This is the problem with the perceptions that Americans still have of this country.

No matter what horrible activities our leaders engage in we still tell ourselves that we are better then everybody else. And if anybody has the temerity to point out that this opinion is faulty they are labeled unpatriotic. (Reverend Wright anyone?)

Well the true measure of patriotism in my opinion is a realistic assessment of who we are as a country. And if we find ourselves falling short of our ideals then we have an obligation to do some serious house cleaning.

That time is now. The Republicans have made us look like fools and criminals in the eyes of the world and it is time to wrest control of our country out of their hands and to find a leader who will give us back our dignity.

And yes that is why I am a supporter of Barack Obama. I truly believe he is the one that can give us back the America that we all want to believe we live in.

I am an avid Obama supporter but this would drive me crazy.

I am not a big fan of birds that talk.

Hillary may have been a fighter, but Obama uses inspiration to win his battles.

Mark McKinnon, the lead media consultant for Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) presidential bid, is stepping down from that role -- making good on a pledge he made last year not to work against Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in the fall campaign.

McKinnon confirmed his decision to The Fix this afternoon. "I'll be transitioning, shifting position from linebacker to head cheerleader," said the always-colorful McKinnon. He added that he would continued to be a "friend and fan" to the campaign.

"I just don't want to work against an Obama candidacy," McKinnon told Cox Washington bureau chief Ken Herman; electing Obama, he added, "would send a great message to the country and the world." McKinnon said at the time he would vote for McCain.

Wow! Now this is an entirely different paradigm for winning an election.

"We will just inspire the opposition to walk away from the contest."

Damn, how does John McCain fight the attrition of his own campaign staff?

Hillary's debt grows to 31 million!

No wonder Sen. Hillary Clinton was so late filing her required campaign financial reports Tuesday night. Her political team didn't want the shocking news in it to overshadow her lopsided thumping of Sen. Barack Obama in Kentucky.

But here's the morning after, pay-up time. Clinton's campaign debt has now soared to nearly $31 million, according to numbers crunched early this morning by The Times' campaign finance guru, Dan Morain.

She added another $9.5 million in unpaid bills to vendors this past month alone, pushing her total debt to vendors and herself to the new astronomical figure, about a 50% debt increase in one month.

You know I keep hearing rumors that Hillary is trying to strike some deal to get Barack to help her pay down her debt before she bows out of the nomination process.

But I keep wondering if she is trying to sabotage his campaign by having him attempt to get donors to help pay off her mountain of debt.

Any money that Barack raises to help her is money that he cannot use in his own campaign. This is just more help the Clinton campaign is giving to Republican John McCain.

By the way if how a candidate runs their campaign really is indicative of how they would run this country I think we can see that Hillary would quickly plunge this country into even more debt then George Bush has managed to bury us in during his two terms as President.

She just needs to get the hell out of the race and then hold a giant garage sale to pay her bills. After all she says she represents the average American, and that is how we do it.

This is why our children are so damn stupid.

One in eight U.S. high school teachers presents creationism as a valid alternative to evolution, says a poll published in the Public Library of Science Biology.

Of more than 900 teachers who responded to a poll conducted by Penn State University political scientist Michael Berkman and colleagues, 32 percent agreed that creationism and intelligent design should be taught as scientifically unsound. Forty percent said such explanations are religiously valid but inappropriate for science class.

However, 25 percent said they devoted classroom time to creationism or intelligent design. Of these, about one-half -- 12 percent of all teachers -- called creationism a "valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species," and the same number said that "many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian theory."

This kind of thing is completely indefensible! These are supposed to be educators!

Creationism has no data! It has no theory! It has no evidence! And it has no place being taught in a classroom next to real science.

If they want to teach this crap they should start a class offering other pseudo sciences like Palmology, Astrology, Phrenology, and other bizarre ancient beliefs that now reside in the scientific junk pile.

Great article about Stephen Colbert.

His attacks on greens, pinkos and people who want to destroy Christmas have won him friends across the States - and enemies in the White House. Meet Stephen Colbert, host of a satirical news show that tells it like it is - sort of.

I love Stephen Colbert. Of course Jon Stewart will always have the most special place in my heart.

Did that sound too gay?

Polls show Obama overtaking Hillary in every single demographic.

Gallup Poll Daily tracking has documented a surge in Democratic voters' support for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in recent days, swelling from a four percentage-point lead for Obama during the first part of May to a record 16-point lead for him in polling from May 16-18.

Obama and Hillary are tied among whites with each getting 49%.

But Obama now leads Hillary among women voters with 49% to her 46%. (This was her most dependable demographic.)

He also finally leads among those who have a high school degree or less with 47% over her 46%. (This was her second most dependable demographic.)

And Obama is now even ahead with the Hispanics who the Clinton's tried desperately to turn against him by fanning the flames of minority competition between them and the African Americans. But now Obama leads with 51% to her 44%.

So that about does it. We will see much more of this in the near future and by the time of the general election McCain will find himself facing an excited determined Obama voting bloc that will overwhelm his campaign and give Obama a decisive victory in the fall.

Ted Kennedy diagnosed with brain cancer.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor Tuesday in what could be the grim final chapter in a life marked by exhilarating triumph and shattering tragedy. Some experts gave the liberal lion less than a year to live.

Doctors discovered the tumor after the 76-year-old senator and sole surviving son of America's most storied political family suffered a seizure over the weekend. The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962, and came as a shock to a family all too accustomed to sudden, calamitous news.

You cannot really call yourself a liberal without having the softest of soft spots for the Kennedy family.

I will admit that Ted is not my favorite Kennedy by any measure but he is probably the one that has had the biggest impact on liberal policies in this country over his long and complicated career in the Senate.

My heart goes out to the Kennedy family which has suffered far more emotional pain then most families could have imagined or survived.

Hillary attacks media sexism as reason for her difficulties.

In an interview after church services in Bowling Green on Sunday, Clinton for the first time addressed what women have been talking about for months, what she refers to as the "sexist" treatment she has endured at the hands of the pundits, media and others. The lewd T-shirts. The man who shouted "Iron my shirt" at a campaign event. The references to her cleavage and her cackle.

Later, when asked if she thinks this campaign has been racist, she says she does not. And she circles back to the sexism. "The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, or at least more accepted, and . . . there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head," she said. "It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists."

This argument is clearly a straw man with very little validity.

The real truth is that if Hillary were not named "Clinton", and she was not a woman, she would have been out of the race a long time ago.

Let's talk about the reality of why Hillary has lost this nomination.

It all started in October 2002 when Hillary voted to allow Bush to use the military against Saddam Hussein. It is easy to understand what her thinking was on the subject, but that does not excuse her vote.

You see Hillary recognized that one of the major knocks against women being President is that they will not be strong enough to stand up against our enemies. So in order to put that to rest Hillary felt she had to join the other Democrats that supported Bush's aggressive tactics against Iraq.

And then later when it became clear that voting that way had given Bush the power to make one of the biggest military blunders in history Hillary, unlike John Edwards, felt that she could not now show weakness by apologizing or expressing regret for that vote. So she did neither.

Hillary kept up that same theme of the aggressive "take no prisoners" fighter as she campaigned across the country. It did completely put to rest the idea that she was too soft to stand up to our potential foes in the world but it also made her look hard and, let's face it, bitchy. After all looking bitchy is one of the common side effects for a woman trying to project a more masculine persona.

But this still might have worked for her, if not for one thing. Barack Obama.

Barack presented a candidate with a whole different prejudice to do battle with. Barack needed to demonstrate intelligence and compassion and articulation. And he did all three amazingly well.

To be honest the idea that this newly minted Senator with the Middle Eastern sounding name could have any chance against the Clinton political machine would have seemed crazy a year or two ago. Which is one of the most compelling parts of his campaign.


And when Hillary's campaign started using subliminal racial slurs and "Rovian" strategies in an increasingly desperate bid to stop Obama's momentum, it just served to define the worst qualities of the Clinton political machine. And in the end this simply served to show the voters that Barack Obama really was a very different, very unique candidate. He was not like George Bush, or Bill Clinton, or even Hillary Clinton, he was an entirely new political entity. And that gives us hope that he may hold the secret to saving us from the damage the Bush administration has done to this country.

Yes there are people who still will not vote for Hillary because she is a woman. There are also those who will not vote for Obama because he is black.

There some who will not vote for another "Clinton". And those who could never vote for anybody who's middle name is "Hussein".

There are those who will not vote for Hillary because she did not divorce her husband after his very public affair. And those who will not vote for Obama because they are convinced he is secretly a Muslim.

So we can find any number of prejudices to support the sense that our candidate is not getting a fair shot. But perhaps it is less important to point out what deficits they bring with them then it is to point out the positives that let them rise above those deficits to be one of the two last Democratic candidates still in the race to win the Democratic nomination to be President of the United States.

In truth I think that the amount of sexism toward Hillary and the amount of racism toward Barack cancel each other out. Which really does allow us to choose one of these candidates on their merits alone.

So putting those divisive issues behind you who do your choose to lead this country for the next four, or hopefully, eight years?

Even Israel knows that Bush plans to attack Iran before end of term.

US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.

The official claimed that a senior member of the president's entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for.

However, the official continued, "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being.

In an earlier post I wondered where the calmer heads in the administration were to be found.

It appears that those calmer heads are Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates. I can only hope they have enough influence to keep this insane policy from moving forward.

Our very lives hang in the balance here.

Hillary tries to buy Superdelegates vote, but even a million dollars is not enough to keep them away from Barack Obama.

One of Sen. Hillary Clinton's top financial supporters offered $1 million to the Young Democrats of America during a phone conversation in which he also pressed for the organization's two uncommitted superdelegates to endorse the New York Democrat, a high-ranking official with YDA told The Huffington Post.

Members of the Young Democrats agonized about the potential fallout of Saban's call; his financial offer represented one-third of the group's 2008 budget. Democratic officials and fundraisers were consulted about how to respond, and at times the discussions were "emotional," one participant said. "It is scary for them, Haim is very powerful, he has great influence over donors who give to them."

Another source said that Hardt and others were acutely aware of Saban's status within Democratic circles and were concerned that their organization would suffer long-term harm if they declined his offer or if news of the proposal became public.

"I said I thought that the appropriate response was to call Haim back and say thank you but we are not interested," said the source. "I also said that it was surely the case that this story would get out because it is too interesting not to and they should think about how to deal with it. It was a day or two [before they responded]. They felt afraid. They were like, 'Holy shit, this is Haim Saban.'"

Nevertheless, the group declined the overture. A YDA official cited moral reservations as well as the overwhelming consensus of its members to back Sen. Barack Obama.

Just when you think you have seen the Clinton campaign using the ugliest, most offensive methods imaginable they do something that is even more horrifying.

I really feel for these young people and hope they have not had their idealism completely stolen from them by this embarrassing campaign tactics.

Hillary says she should stay in the race because Karl Rove says she can win. Oh yeah, Democrats should definitely trust Karl Rove.

Hillary Clinton defended her reasoning for staying in the presidential race Monday afternoon by pointing out that Karl Rove's analysis shows her to be the strongest candidate against John McCain in November.

“There has been a lot of analysis about which of us is stronger to win against Sen. McCain, and I believe I am the stronger candidate,” said Clinton, repeating a line from her stump speech.

Then she veered from her usual argument.

“Just today I found some curious support for that position when one of the TV networks released an analysis done by - of all people - Karl Rove, saying that I was the stronger candidate,” said Clinton. “Somebody go a hold of his analysis and there it is.”

Hillary's desperation is causing her to get careless.

Many Democrats, myself included, have believed that Karl Rove has been helping the Clinton campaign for quite some time now.

Of course Karl wants everybody to believe that Hillary is the strongest candidate. Because he knows what every intelligent person does, that having Hillary as the Democratic candidate is the only hope the Republicans have of winning. Or else he may personally have a vested interest in having Hillary win.

Perhaps an agreement not to launch a criminal investigation against him and his old boss perhaps?

Remember that it was Karl Rove who first decided that Hillary was destined to be the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008.

In the YouTube generation John McCain's campaign does not stand much of a chance.

Calling yourself the "straight talk" candidate will only work if there is no video of you being a hypocrite.

Sadly for McCain there is a potpourri of video goodness to demonstrate that his talk is anything but "straight".

Obama to Tennessee Republicans: "Lay off my wife!"

Democrat Barack Obama has a message for Tennessee's Republican Party: "Lay off my wife."

"The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record," Obama said. "If they think that they're going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family."

He called the strategy "low class."

If this is the kind of strategy that the Republicans are reduced to employing then they are even more pathetic and frightened then I imagined.

Only a coward insults an adversaries family in an attempt to injure them.

Hell even the Mafia leaves the family alone.

OH.....MY....GOD!!

Sen. Barack Obama has seen his share of large crowds over the last 15 months, but his campaign said they have not approached the numbers gathered along the waterfront here right now.

The campaign, citing figures from Duane Bray, battalion chief of Portland Fire & Rescue, estimated that 75,000 people are watching him speak.

The scene suggests this is not an exaggeration. The sea of heads stretches for half a mile along the grassy embankment, while others watch from kayaks and power boats bobbing on the Willamette River. More hug the rails of the steel bridge that stretches across the water and crowds are even watching from jetties on the opposite shore.

I cannot imagine how either Hillary Clinton or John McCain can see this without all of the blood simply draining from their faces.

Someday we will tell our grandchildren of this candidate and how he reminded us that in this country there has never been anything false about hope.

Christians change their focus from attacking literature by trying to ban "Harry Potter" books, and turn to caffeine by attacking "Starbucks" cups.

A Christian group based in San Diego found grounds for outrage over the new retro-style logo for Starbucks Coffee.

The Resistance says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," Mark Dice, founder of the group, said in a news release. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks."

The group, which claims more than 3,000 members nationwide and has found a place on the fringe advancing various conspiracy theories, is calling for a national boycott of the coffee-selling giant.

Okay maybe this is just me but I would TOTALLY be willing to get my coffee from a place called "Slutbucks".

John McCain on SNL

For me humor is non-partisan, and I have to admit McCain was kind of funny.

Iraq war veterans speak out about atrocities.

Antiwar veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took their case to Capitol Hill Thursday, baring their souls with stories of killings of innocent civilians, torture, and wrongful detentions.

“On several occasions our convoys came upon bodies that had been lying on the road, sometimes for weeks,” said Marine Corps veteran Vincent Emanuele, who served in al-Qaim near the Syrian border in 2004 and 2005.

“When encountering these bodies standard procedure was to run over the corpses, sometimes even stopping and taking pictures, which was also standard practice when encountering the dead in Iraq,” he told the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which organized the hearing.

Emanuele also said that U.S. military personnel often took “pot shots” at cars passing by.

“Our rules of engagement stated that we should first fire warning shots into the ground in front of the car, then the engine block, and the windshield. That is if the car was even moving in the first place,” he said. “Many times cars that actually had pulled off to the side of the road were also shot at.”

With the heat coming from this political season we often seem to forget that there are Americans who are over in Iraq being placed in situations that steal their very humanity.

And every day they are in that place the rest of the world is losing more and more respect for our great nation. We may still be having a debate in this county about whether the war was necessary or not, but in the rest of the world the verdict is already in and we are seen as invaders.

So having a choice between John McCain who mistakenly believes that this conflict can still be won militarily and then be justified to the world, or Barack Obama who recognizes it was always a mistake and we can only start the international healing after removing our troops, I think the choice is pretty clear for the educated voter.

Only Obama can send a message to the Middle East that things have really changed in Washington. His very appearance and demeanor will allow many to see America through fresh eyes.

And by the way as long as we have our military in Iraq, under fire, we will continue to have more stories like this trickling out. We will never convince the Iraqis that we can be their friends as long as we continue to serve as their conquerors and demonstrate this level of disrespect.

McCain misses last chance to win upcoming Presidential election.

There's a limit to how far John McCain will go to win over young voters. Wearing a dress on national television crosses that line.

The 71-year-old grandfather and Republican presidential contender said he hopes to use his appearance this week on "Saturday Night Live" to reach out for the youth vote.

"I think Senator Obama has done a very good job with young voters; we have to do a good job as well," McCain said, referring to the leading Democratic presidential contender, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

McCain said he expects the show's writers to decide how to best use him, but he declared there will be no reprise of the cross-dressing appearance once made by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

"Ah, no," the Navy veteran said when asked if he would agree to wear a dress.

Well that is that.

McCain has just lost the 2008 Presidential election.

If he would have agreed to wear the dress he could have tapped into the vital, but often ignored, "conservative cross dressers" voting block.

But now these poor isolated voters will continue to feel disenfranchised and McCain's campaign is surely doomed to fail.

All he had to do was notice how dressing in drag had benefited Hillary Clinton. Idiot!

Senator Ted Kennedy has been airlifted to hospital!

There is not much information yet.

The cause given is "undisclosed ailment", which tells us nothing of course.

We should all send our positive energy to the "Liberal lion" and hope for his speedy recovery.

Update: Undisclosed illness updated to "stroke like symptoms".

Update to the update: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the lone surviving son in a famed political family who helped define national Democratic Party politics, suffered at seizure at his Cape Cod home on Saturday and was recovering in good spirits at a Boston hospital.

(You can read the entire article by clicking the title at the top.)

I could not agree more.

Just off the House floor today, the Crypt overheard House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers tell two other people: "We're closing in on Rove. Someone's got to kick his ass."

Asked a few minutes later for a more official explanation, Conyers told us that Rove has a week to appear before his committee. If he doesn't, said Conyers, "We'll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We'd hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested."

I like the first quote much better. It is well past time that "Turdblossom" got a royal reaming.

Huckabee jokes about possible Obama assassination. Humor lost on every rational person on the planet.

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

There is nothing even remotely funny about this comment. Not even remotely.

Deep in the subconscious of every Obama supporter is a very real, horribly frightening thought that Obama may be too popular of a black man to not have some crazed redneck, or neo-con ex-military sniper, try to take his life.

We never speak of it, but it is always someplace in the deep scary recesses of our brains.

To have Mike Huckabee make a joke about it is so tasteless and idiotic that it makes me wonder if he actually understands just how possible such a thing may truly be.

The last man to run for President with the charisma and talent of Obama was Robert Kennedy, and we all know how that sad story ended.

But the possibility of this happening is even more frightening. If somebody were to do Barack harm it would quite literally tear our country into pieces. It would anger the liberals to a such a degree that they would take to the streets to vent their rage. They would be met there by an almost rabid group of African Americans and what happened next I shudder to even contemplate.

Our country would be be ablaze, and nothing our leaders could say would appease the angry heartbroken citizens.

So I certainly hope that somebody takes Mike Huckabee aside and tells him that the next time he thinks of a Barack Obama joke to kindly keep it the fuck to himself!

Well this is just terrible news. Hee hee hee.

The Democrats aren't the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they're finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They're busy being born.

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.

I don't usually take glee in the misery of others.

But I will make an exception in this case.

The Republicans cannot blame anybody for their fall from grace but themselves.

They had control of the Presidency, the Senate, and the House. And with absolute power, they were absolutely corrupted.

Today we have our military bogged down in an endless conflict, we are facing a recession, we have become a country that tortures for the first time in our history, we have spied on and lost the confidence of our citizens, and we are at the brink of losing our vaunted reputation as the world's last super power.

And all of that happened on the Republicans watch. They simply cannot blame anybody but themselves for all that we have suffered in the last eight years and the repercussions to come in the near future.

No I cannot feel sorry for the Republicans.

But I do feel immensely hopeful for the changes that are about to come.

Alaska's Republican politicians weigh in on the Polar bear being placed on the endangered critter's list.

Well this ought to be good.

First let's hear from Senator Ted Stevens:
"This is the California extreme environmentalists who've decided to use the polar bear as an example of global warming. They're gonna say this is global warming. It has nothing to do with global warming. This is a concept called climate change. It is a concept of a process that's been going on for years....This species is not endangered."

Well that was informative and...crazy. Now let's hear from Congressman Don Young:
“This polar bear decision represents an assault on sound science and common sense.”

That is Don Young for you. Succinct and totally incorrect. How about our newest Senator Lisa Murkowski? Let's see what she has to say:
“I can’t express how extremely disappointed I am that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has chosen to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. I believe it is grossly premature, even with qualifications, to recommend this action based on highly variable climate change models and projected impacts of loss of summer sea ice on a currently healthy population."

Well somebody has been drinking the Republican Kool-aid right from the pitcher.

So that only leaves our new Republican Governor Sarah Palin. Let's see how crazy and uneducated her response is:
“We offer the substantial expertise of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to assist in the protection of polar bears, and in minimizing negative impacts on the people of Alaska and on important activities elsewhere in the country,” she said.

“Alaskans take our public trust responsibilities for our resources very seriously, and we welcome the opportunity to work with the federal agencies to address the conservation needs of these magnificent animals,” Governor Palin said. "We will continue to take the steps necessary to ensure that polar bears continue to thrive for generations to come.”

WTF?

Either this lady is not your usual Republican or she is a tricky little bitch. Either way I am keeping my eye on her.

It does not hurt that she is so damn cute either.

I am not usually a big fan of Chris Matthews and Hardball. But he did himself proud today.

This Kevin James guy is one of the worst examples of a George Bush apologist I have ever seen. Just listen to his whiny little voice.

What a pathetic little bitch.

California welcomes gay marriage. Yeah I was surprised they weren't already doing this too.

California's Supreme Court declared gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry - a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.

Same-sex couples could tie the knot in as little as a month. But the window could close soon after - religious and social conservatives are pressing to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would undo the Supreme Court ruling and ban gay marriage.

I also heard that Governor Schwarzenegger will not support the amendment to defeat this law which I think means they will have no hope of passing it.

I am not a supporter of this. No not because I don't want homosexuals to have the same rights as those of us who like the opposite gender. I am just not a supporter of marriage.

I would not wish it on my worst enemy.

But having said that I guess we should allow the gay community to go through the same pain and suffering, and loss of half of their belongings, that the rest of us have had to go through.

I guess that is only fair.