I just saw the number of donors a couple minutes ago... 999,841.

You can check out the number here on the index page. They are updating that number in real time. Tick tick tick...

If I remember correctly, Obama is seeking a million different donors, so repeat donations from people like me won't change the number.

Needless to say, the one million donor threshold is without precedent in American politics. We may well see it happen in the next couple of hours (see below). It sure would be nice if Night Owl Kossacks could push Obama over the top, so that we could greet the dawn a million strong...

This just in a couple hours ago, to Clinton supporters... Terry McAuliffe explains the "misconceptions" about the delegate situation:

Dear QuickSilver,

You've probably seen some of the news about the delegates it will take to win the Democratic nomination, including discussions about pledged delegates and automatic delegates, or so-called "super delegates."

There are a number of misconceptions about the role that delegates will play in this election, so we've launched a new website, the Delegate Hub, to help you cut through all the myths about the race for delegates.

In a nutshell, that's his epitaph—from the gay community, at least.

You would expect editorials about Griffin from the Washington Blade and other gay publications. But yesterday, the not-so-totally-gay Hollywood Reporter published a stunning editorial from Ray Raymond: 'Merv Griffin died a closeted homosexual.'

"Merv Griffin was gay," it begins.

Reuters picked it up, and more media have begun to run it. (Hat tip to PageOneQ, the compendium of gay online news, for the ongoing Griffin alerts.)

[The article was deleted hours after this diary on August 17, 2007 from the Hollywood Reporter website, according to HuffPo and other sources. Later, the article was restored under a new title: 'Griffin never revealed man behind the curtain.' See UPDATES below.]

Throughout his career, Libby almost never gave media interviews.

But his vanity got the best of him when The Apprentice was released in paperback in 2002, and he agreed to discuss it on the Diane Rehm show:

Rehm: Tell us a little about your role with the office of Vice President Cheney, and within the White House:

Libby: Well, I have, uh, three hats. Assistant to the President, Chief of Staff for the Vice President, and National Security Advisor to the Vice President.

And within the daily schedule, I divide my time up among aspects of those three, but primarily for the Vice President. I have the responsibility of putting together his staff, managing it, of helping him focus on the issues that he needs to handle, and always when he has – take a look at his schedule, help him manage that.

Is the Department of Homeland Security currently working to spring a wealthy, politically-connected American pedophile now being held in a Phnom Penh prison? If true, what sort of political favor is this, and why is DHS in the business of delivering it?

I’ve thought a few hours about whether, and even how, I should diary this... Yes, this diary is hearsay. But if what I heard this morning in Los Angeles is true, I cannot in good conscience ignore it. It came from two very close friends who left Cambodia early Friday morning, and who had quite a story to tell.

Sam Zell, the Chicago real estate billionaire, has prevailed in his efforts to purchase the Los Angeles Times (by buying its parent, the Tribune Company). Local suitors were rebuffed, including David Geffen (who made a $2 billion all-cash offer for the Los Angeles Times alone) as well as Ron Burkle/Eli Broad, who allegedly put in a more lucrative offer than Zell for the entire company.

According to the New York Times, Zell did this with a mere $315 million personal investment. Zell is famous for buying distressed companies, and this is his first venture into newspaper ownership:

People close to the negotiations said that while Mr. Burkle and Mr. Broad had initially offered more money than Mr. Zell, company executives wanted the company to go to Mr. Zell...Perhaps more importantly, people close to the talks said, the board was disinclined to sell the company to anyone with ties to Los Angeles because of bad blood between Tribune and The Los Angeles Times.

Yesterday's note from the Libby jurors was revealed this morning, and is being discussed right now on firedoglake:

We would like clarification on the charge as stated under Count 3 specifically:

Page 74 of the jury instructions, "Count three of the indictment alleges that Mr. Libby falsely told the FBI on October 14 or November 26, 2003, that during a conversation with M. Cooper of Time Magazine on July 12, 2003, Mr. Libby told Mr. Cooper that reporters were telling the administration that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the CIA but that Mr. Libby did not know if this was true." (i.e., is the charge that the statement was made or about the content of the statement itself)

(pdf)

Sgt. Raymond J. Plouhar, 30, died in a roadside bombing in Iraq "while conducting combat operations" in Iraq's volatile Anbar province, according to a Defense Department announcement yesterday.

From the Yahoo news story:

Plouhar, who was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., had taken four years off from active duty to serve as a recruiter in Flint after donating one of his kidneys to his uncle. He is seen in the 2004 film [Fahrenheit 9/11] approaching prospective recruits in a mall parking lot.

"It's better to get them when they're in ones and twos and work on them that way," he says in the film.

Plouhar is survived by his wife and two children, age 5 and 9, who live in Arizona.

You can feel it making phone calls, feel it walking the precincts. Something has shifted here in CA-36. Our gerrymandered Caifornia district, where antiwar progressive Marcy Winograd is challenging Jane Harman, is shaping up to be a real upset.

"Harman's own polls show [us] running neck and neck," Winograd said yesterday to a reporter. While that might sound like campaign swagger, there are similar noises coming from seasoned Democratic Party officials in Washington. They quietly admit CA-36 is now "too close to call" and "anybody's guess."

Needless to say this is a very exciting campaign. But despite hundreds of volunteers, the campaign still needs help. More on the flip....