I'm going to make this short and sweet.

McCain is not only a presidential candidate. For those of us who live in AZ, we have the honor of having him as our senator.

I had heard Pastor Hagee's views in dogemperor's past diary, but I really did nothing. When I read an expansion on Hagee's views in troutfishing's diary, I felt I had to do something.

I simply called McCain's office and stated that I was a constituent and had heard excerpts from John Hagee's sermons explaining that -

Hitler was a "hunter" for God - That what he did was fulfilling a biblical prophecy to force Jews to return to Israel

Ok. I'll admit it I am just here to rip off someone else's fine work.
On April 27th, when this fine diary was published, I was at my son's tournament, so I missed it.

As dengre sez:

In making connections to the Abramoff Scandal, the most tainted funds—the dirtiest money—would come from one of two sources:

  1. A direct donation from Jack Abramoff, his wife Pam, or his inner circle
  2. A direct donation from the Tan Family operating out of Hong Kong and the Mariana Islands.

Who are the Tan family? Well, to quote dengre again

...Money from the Tan Family is worse than money from Jack Abramoff.

Tan Family money is cash directly tied to crimes against humanity. It is money earned off of exploitation and theft of labor. It is money made off of human trafficking. It is the definition of "dirty cash".

Today we got the beeeg event! "Guamania! The primary!" and did anyone hear a peep of questioning yet to Hillary on her shady relations to the Tan Family, via Guam?

I have been periodically checking PA.
I know this is "old news" but I just think we need to be clear it wasn't "double digits"

And Clinton lost ground in PA, compared to OH.
Hillary won by 9.2% with a reasonable rounding this is 9%.

http://www.electionreturns.state.pa....

9,263 out of 9,264 Districts (99.99%) Reporting Statewide
CLINTON, HILLARY (DEM)  1,245,911 54.6%
OBAMA, BARACK (DEM)     1,037,953 45.4%

Note these are unofficial, and I am not sure if provisionals are still being counted. But I doubt they will change things much, and if they do, it will be only to lessen her margin, becuause provisionals would be mostly new voters.

Little diary here.

I note Chester County is supposed to be a bellweather county. - Swing county type place.

I did some back of the envelope calculations of chester county results (with about 30% of precincts reporting.) And Obama was up by 900 votes. Interestingly the CNN totals only show him up by 130 or so there, so I don't know where they are getting their numbers.

The following link for those who care.
chester county results

Henry Nicholas, president of the 150,000-member National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees AFSCME, AFL-CIO, announced today that his 16000-plus members of the Philadelphia local affiliate 1199C, its retirees and members of the United Child Care Union across Pennsylvania will support Senator Barack Obama in the April 22 Democratic primary.

link

(AP) a local labor affiliate of one of rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's biggest supporters broke ranks and backed Obama.

Henry Nicholas... made the endorsement while introducing Obama to the meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO in Philadelphia.

Members of the Philadelphia-based union are "now united behind Barack Obama," said Nicholas, an international vice president with [AFSCME]. The international union endorsed Clinton in October and its president Gerald McEntee is considered one of Clinton's biggest supporters.

AP via google news

There’s going to be a tough primary in the seat being evacuated by  Republican congressman, Rick Renzi(R-AZ-Corrupt). It smells like a Democratic year for this district and Howard Shanker is the progressive, grassroots candidate. He's an environmental attorney who has been representing Native American nations and environmental issues for many years.

He previously represented the Black Mesa Trust, a coalition of Navajo and Hopi who were fighting to stop Peabody Coal from draining the "N" aquifer to slurry coal to the Mojave generating station. Shanker is also an attorney on the case that recently kept the Desert Nesting Bald Eagle from being taken off of the endangered species list – a case in which many of the Apache tribes filed amicus briefs.

In short, Howard’s  from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.  

Take a look at a live blog session with Howard to get a feel for what a really exceptional candidate he is.  Or look over his excellent website.

I see all the great responses to kath25's diary But what are we going to do about it

It was like she read my mind.
I too, will vote for Hillary, but I will not work for her or donate if she wins the primary, and especially if she wins the primary with a skewed superdelegate total.

But I wanted to mention something. We can do something if the primaries are done in our states.  We can do a lot.  We can reach out with letters and calls to our super delegates, the ones in our states, the ones in other states whose campaigns we have donated to, or phone banked for.

Those of us who were Edwards supporters, but changed to Barack, can contact not only undecided super delegates, but also the ones who are still supporting Edwards, (like Brad Miller, a diarist here!)

I wrote this because I think that Hillary has lost, and this race is just like ripping a band-aid off really slowwwllly, so you feel the pain over and over... When it would just be better to end it quickly, instead of doing it publicly, in full view of your enemies while they celebrate your pain.

I am going to send it to all the uncommited super delegates in my state.
• Gabrielle Giffords, U.S. representative.
• Harry Mitchell, U.S. representative.
• Don Bivens, Democratic Party chairman.,

If I have time I will also write one to everyone who has come out for Obama, thanking them, and even to the ones who have committed to Clinton, asking them to at least move themselves back into the undecided category.

You can look up who your state "uncommited" superdelegates are here
If you got really ambitious, you could even send a letter to DNC members, former VP's (Al Gore anyone?) and other Democratic officials who are uncommited super deletates.

Conservative people who like McCain and don't like Democrats made up over 40% of Hillary's primary vote totals in Mississippi!  Pelosi we need you!!!

Republicans (13% of turnout) and White Independents (another 13% of turnout) gave a big boost to Hillary in MS, making up a large portion of her support.

70%  of those who said neither Clinton nor Obama have a clear plan for the country picked clinton
74% of those who said both do picked Obama

74% of those who have a strongly favorable opinion of Mccain picked Clinton
75% of those who have a strongly unfavorable opinion picked Obama

25% of those who say that Clinton is not honest and trustworthy picked clinton
7% of those who say that Obama is not honest and trustworthy picked Obama

19% of those who say that clinton does not inspire them, voted for clinton
4% of those who say that obama does not inspire them, voted for obama.

87% of those who are inspired by neither clinton nor obama voted for clinton

78% of Republicans picked clinton
59% of White independents picked clinton

56% of conservatives picked clinton

It's late.

But I found the following table from pollster.com  the most instructive one I have seen which visually lays out the head to head polling for the democratic general election.  It gives a gander at the question "who is more electable?"

In staring at this until my eyes glazed over, something interesting jumped out at me: While Clinton is weaker than Obama in a general election matchup against McCain in 19 states (combined 142 EV), Obama is weaker than Clinton in just 7(combined 95 EV).

For this purpose I have defined "weaker" as "moved the state one category closer to strong R"

But there's more...

So much craziness. Buck up obama-mamas, obamacats, and obamakitties.  A picture is worth 1000 dire predictions.

Intrade Predicition Market  Obama trades at 86%, Clinton at 14%.

Barack Obama to be Democratic Presidential Nominee in 2008:

Hillary Clinton to be Democratic Presidential Nominee in 2008:

This comment by GSpot 1 about "attacking McCain on his strength" made me want to jump up and down, screaming YEAH! because McCains' "reformer" and "maverick" stance is of course a perceived strength, not a real one.

McCain's bluster about reform is just a bunch of noise, meant to distract from what he is really doing.

Like a magician or a pickpocket, an attention-getting event catches the eye while the real action continues unobserved.

If you want a good laugh, or a sickening look at how obvious McCain's chicanery is, read on.

From the New York Times:

On December 12, 2005, a second female student complained to the police about an instant message Mr. Cho sent to her by computer. The police then spoke with Mr. Cho and asked him to have no further contact with the student. The police said the message was not threatening, and the student characterized it as "annoying."

We don't need to Toughen Up.
We don't need to ignore even "annoying" emails, let alone sadistic threatening blog posts!

No, I think we need to Wisen Up.
To Listen Up.
To Keep our ears to the ground.
To Speak Up.
But not Toughen Up.
And definitely not to Shut Up.
New York times on VA shooter Cho Seung-Hui

Didn't see a diary on this particular new email from Friday.

truthout has some new info gleaned from Friday's document dump and reported by Arlen Parsa.

Tuesday 27 March 2007

   According to emails released by the Department of Justice late Friday evening, DOJ officials tried to manufacture public reasons for firing several US attorneys late last year.

I been thinking about this US Attorney investigation thing. Especially GWB's fighting language (channelled by Tony Snow) that Congress has no reponsiblity for oversight - and he ain't gonna obey no subpoenas.

IANAL (I am not a Lawyer.) Though I find my self suddenly seized by an interest in constitutional law. I think that this fight is one that BushCheneyCo has been itching for. Because I think the idea that the Consitution does not in fact afford Congress oversight over the Prexy and Veep is in fact what they (Bush and Cheney) truly believe. Not a smokescreen.

Anyway, some comments in a recent diary that I am too lazy to look up referred me to John Dean's recent writings on FindLaw.Looks like he agrees with me.

Bondad's excellent diary "Why are food prices spiking?  " shows that falling food production causes rising food costs.

But why are crop yields falling? Comments in the diary discuss that global warming is a big contributor:

• Global warming goes against the grain - Toronto Globe and Mail, Feb. 24, 2007, projects:

for every 1-degree Celsius increase in temperatures above the mid-30s during key stages in the growing season, such as pollination, yields fall about 10 per cent.

(Affecting places like the US midwest.)

• But per Reuters, March 16 it's already happening:

Global warming has cut about $5 billion worth of the world's most commonly grown grains over 20 years

Kossacks are bookloving people. We not only read books, we write books, we are members of book clubs and we review books!

As a bookish person myself, I am a frequent vistor and purchaser of books at amazon.com.  According to the poll in this diary, 90% of us, like me, shop at amazon.com.  I was dismayed to read the recent diary by volvodrivingliberal about Amazon's inadequate response to our concerns about their support of Ann Coulter.  

I really don't want to give up Amazon, because I find great books there, and I don't want to pay a premium to go elsewhere. So I was thrilled to find an alternative.

A few definitions and a little background:

undervote=someone voted but no vote was recorded.
This occurs when:

• a voter signs in for a ballot but fails to vote,
• a machine screws up and does not register the vote (or someone messes with the count.)  

An undervote rate of .5% is normal in a presidential race. In 2004 New Mexico saw undervote rates up to 34 times higher than normal (almost 17%) in many minority precincts.  Undervote rates were higher in DRE than paper precincts, especially minority precincts.

DRE=Direct Recording Electronic device (A DRE is a voting machine, either touchscreen or pushbutton- like an ATM). Not to be confused with This DRE which is an equally unpleasant process.

And a little more history: After the travesty of elections in New Mexico in 2004, the state got rid of DRE voting machines in favor of optical scanned paper ballots for the 2006 election.

And how did that work out for them? Let's see after the flip....