I seem to spend a lot of my time musing on ways to take back power for the people.  I assume you do to.  Our progressive/liberal activism's most central tenet is about trying to re-balance the equation of power.

So my latest scheme comes from the old adage: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

We'd all agree that Media Ownership is a huge issue.  So why don't we own some of the media?

Our target: Clear Channel

There are 3,253 pledged delegates in the 2008 Democratic Primary.

To get the magic 50%+1 number with pledged delegates, a candidate would need 1627 pledged delegates

Using CNN’s current count of pledged delegates...

Obama pledged = 1,328
Current Clinton pledge = 1,190
Total pledged so far = 2,518

Obama is currently leading 53% - 47% in pledged Delegates.

Let's run some numbers.

There are 734 pledged delegates remaining (Total Pledged - Already Voted).

To reach the 50%+1 number of 1627 pledged delegates, Hillary Clinton needs to win 437 of the 735 remaining pledged delegates--or 60%.

Another reason why Ohio and Texas should vote for Obama from Rasmussen:

Looking ahead to November 2008, Barack Obama has a twelve-point lead over John McCain in a general election match-up. Obama attracts 50% of the vote while McCain earns 38%.

At the same time, McCain has a nine-point lead over Hillary Clinton, 49% to 40%.

So with Obama we start with 12 points up, with Clintion we start 9 points down.  That's a frickin' 21 point swing!!!

Rasmussen says it all with a new poll today:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that Barack Obama (D) currently holds a seven-point advantage over John McCain (R), 46% to 39%. However, if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, McCain will begin the race with a fourteen point advantage, 49% to 35%. National polling,  updated daily, currently shows the same general trend with Obama currently performing better than Clinton in match-ups with McCain.

There's a reason many "fly over" states have gone with Obama over Clinton.  And this poll confirms it.

Think of the down ticket races in these states!

The software that brings you Open Left, Swing State Project, Pam's House Blend, My Left Wing, Docudharma and the majority of the BlogPAC sponsored 50-State Blogs is proud to announce here on Daily Kos the first version of SoapBlox Lite.

What is SoapBlox Lite you ask?  Simple.  It's free online community software for you.

With SoapBlox Lite you'll get a blog with front page diaries, a "user diary" section and a "recommended diary" section just like Daily Kos.  

You'll get Ajax-based comments and comment ratings, nested comments, and a WYSIWYG editor for diaries and comments.  You'll have a fully functional tagging for post organization.  You'll have polls for your diaries and RSS feeds for you, your SoapBlox Lite, and every single user that joins.  

Everyone is finally realizing our economy is in the crapper.  Write-downs already are are reaching the $100 Billion on the subprime mess.

Since it’s an election year, fiscal sanity is again thrown out the window as "Tax Rebates" is what we’re going to get.  The tired GOP of "the consumer knows best how to spend money" will not be challenged.

So what will happen is we’ll be borrowing $150 Billion from China so we can buy $75 Billion worth of crap assembled in China, moved about with $75 Billion of oil from Saudi Arabia, to have it all end up being thrown in landfills.

If we are going to borrow $150 Billion, let’s do something worthwhile.

How many mass transit systems you could build for $150 Billion?

I'm sorry to break it to you, but American Capitalism is unsustainable.  Deep down, I know you already know this.

How do I know you know?

Because what Utopia does American Capitalism offer?  

The average cow produces 8 gallons of milk in a day.

A hen will lay an egg a day.  A hen will continue to lay an egg a day until it amasses a "clutch" of between 3 and 4 eggs in its nest.

It takes 20 acres of land to produce the amount of food the average American eats in a year.

(Inspired by Fundies in Colorado trying to give fertilized eggs the same rights as people.)

If every blastocyst is a person...

then there's one thing we must do.

We must require every woman capable of bearing children in America to report each month for a pregnancy test.

continued...

Or, as the GOP loves it, Work = Bad, Wealth = Good.

In America, if you are a hedge fund manager making $100,000,000 then you pay a 15% tax rate, since your "income" is labeled as "carried interest", and categorized as capital gains.

In America, if you are a working single person making $50,000 you pay 25% marginal tax rate.  Plus 6.5% in FICA tax, plus 1.5% in Medicare Tax.  Plus whatever your state income tax rate happens to be (in Colorado where I live its around 4.5%).  For, roughly, a grand total of 37.5% of your income going to taxes.

x-posted from SquareState

Finally!  

After all the tap dancing they've been doing for, well, forever, the GOP let the booze flow early this Friday, and gave the kiddies the keys to the House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans website.

One can only assume that this post today was an attempt at humor, using well known Republican C. Montgomery Burns:

Republican Senate hopeful Montgomery Burns today joined with Mayor Joe Quimby, D-Springfield, to support the Senate's gazillion-dollar SCHIP bill.

"If the poor children can get a piece of the action, why can't I?" explained Burns at a MoveOn.org rally in Capital City. "The little darlings are needy? Me, too. I need somebody to pay. Quimby here says he knows a bunch of low-income nobodies who are ripe for the picking. Excellent."

The "funny" conintues below...

I've been following the Mortgage Meltdown quite closely, and have posted things here on days when I wanted to hear from the Kossack Community.

Today is another one of those days.  While I'm no Warren Buffet, I consider myself a novice chart reader.  And to me, there's nothing but more trouble once you look at this graph:

I guess this would be third installment in my series of the coming subprime mortgage meltdown occurring in the U.S. economy.  Part I is here, Part II is here.

As my new favorite blog Calculated Risk is covering so well, Bear Stearns (BSC), the Collateralized Debt Obligation "kings", held a conference call this afternoon with investors to discuss the collapsing value of their "funds" invested in subprime mortgages.  Turns out they've lost 91% of their value!

Calculated Risk is my new favorite blog.  

They informed me that:

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Moody's Investors Service lowered the credit ratings on $5.2 billion of bonds backed by subprime mortgages and Standard & Poor's said it may cut $12 billion of securities after criticism they waited too long to respond to rising home-loan defaults.

Moody's cut ratings on 399 bonds issued in 2006 and said it may reduce rankings on another 32. S&P is preparing to lower the ratings on 2.1 percent of the $565.3 billion of subprime bonds issued from late 2005 through 2006, citing a deepening housing slump. U.S. Treasuries rose, the dollar slumped and financial company shares led stocks lower.

When this news hit the market today at around 1:30 ET, Dow dropped sharply, ending down 100 points.

My new favorite blog is Calculated Risk.

They quote the Wall Street Journal:

Investors received a letter earlier this week from Braddock Financial Corp. of Denver. It said it was closing its Galena Street Fund, which mainly invests in bonds backed by subprime mortgages extended to borrowers with poor credit, and suspending redemptions until it can sell assets in the roughly $300 million fund.

Is Colorado just the next victim of the Subprime Mortgage pinch?

I know this is mind numbing economics stuff, but as Calculated Risk documents on a daily basis, there's a huge sector of our economy that's teatering on the brink of a disaster comparable to the S&L bailouts of Bush I.

Yup, the "terrorist" got sentenced the other day to 5 years in prison!

From the 6/30/07 DesMoines Register (h/t to Fark):

DAVENPORT -- A Detroit man was sentenced to five years in prison Friday for trying to burn down a women's health clinic that he mistakenly thought performed abortions.

David McMenemy, 46, pleaded guilty in January to arson against a business affecting interstate commerce. He could have been sentenced up to 20 years in prison.

Police said McMenemy drove to Davenport and crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Health Care Center lobby at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 11. He then lit a Gatorade bottle filled with gasoline on fire, walked away from his car and surrendered to firefighters.

Hmmm... where have I heard a story like that before???

Two men rammed the Jeep into the airport entrance, shattering the glass doors and igniting a raging fire.

Can I take my vote back from yesterday’s "do you approve of Congress" vote?

If the Democrats can get Bush to veto this piece of legislation (via Yahoo), they'll have my confidence once again:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill on Friday that would more than double taxes on the pay of managers of private equity funds, hedge funds and other investment partnerships.

Throwing down a challenge to some of the nation's savviest and richest financiers, the bill would set a higher tax rate for "carried interest," the 20-percent cut of profits beyond targeted returns typically kept by senior managers of private equity firms and other firms on major transactions.

So what does all this mean?  Turns out these Private Equity Firms (a la Blackstone and the Carlye Group) don't report their income as income, but as capital gains.  Income is taxed at 35%, capital gains is taxed at 15%

Could the wave of Ron Paul enthusiasm actually be transforming in to political support?

From the Utah Republican Party website (with a big ol' hat-tip to marshall over at Wasatch Watcher).

The results:

Utah Presidential Straw Poll Results
2nd - Ron Paul 84 (5.66%)
3rd - Rudy Giuliani 63 (4.25%)
4th - John McCain 58 (3.91%)
5th - Tom Tancredo 23 (1.55%)
6th - Tommy Thompson 17 (1.15%)
7th - Mike Huckabee 14 (0.94%)
8th - Duncan Hunter 12 (0.81%)
9th - Sam Brownback 11 (0.74%)

I'll let you guess who got first with 80.98% of the vote.