Let's put this one to rest, shall we?  Tweety on Hardball just now was buying into the McCain spin on his "good genes" hook, line and sinker.  Apparently McCain was touring around with his 90+-year old mother today as evidence that his rather advanced age is not a factor in this election.

Many of us have become frustrated with the level of spin and unreality eminating from the Hillary camp and the MSM after the Pennysylvania primary.  The biggest issue they are touting is this fantasy of Hillary being the winner of the "popular vote."

Hi all!  Happy Earth Day!  It's important that this day not get lost in all of the Pennysylvania primary hype, so bear with me while I chime in with some thoughts on how we can change our habits to benefit our planet.

Let me be clear:  I absolutely 100% support a single-payer system and do not believe that any current plan will solve our health care problems.  However, I also am a realist and do not believe the nation will be ready for a single-payer system immediately . . . at least, not until Obama's second term :)

Even before I was solidly in the Obama camp, I preferred his health care plan to Hillary's, largely (but not exclusively) because I oppose universal mandates.  I agree with Obama, that we should not mandate people who cannot afford payments to pay the insurance companies before prices become affordable.  We should trust people to make these decisions for themselves and not encourage them to resent government involvement in their health care.

Mark Penn is not the only person in the Hillary campaign with ties to Colombian government.  No, this goes all the way to the top.  I was alerted to this by Thom Hartmann today who made reference to Bill Clinton being paid $800,000 by the Colombian government for negotiating favors--I've yet to find the details, but he did help broker an oil deal with them a la the Kazakhstan deal :

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/...

I spent most of the day yesterday attending the Washington state 43rd district convention.  Though a mid-level caucus and thus a bit overlooked in terms of total state delegate count, it was more entertaining than I expected it to be.  Here's a summary of my experience.

I'm sure she will do great, though she admitted being nervous for days beforehand!

Rachel Maddow let drop on her Air America Radio show today that she will be substitute hosting Countdown for Keith Olbermann tomorrow (Friday)!

I just saw Eugene Robinson on Keith Olbermann's show tonight.  And he made a point I hadn't quite thought of before.  He said that, according to Clinton, "some states are more equal than others," paraphrasing George Orwell's "Animal Farm."

IT IS TIME.

It is time to get off the sidelines and implore our respective superdelegates to either drop their previous endorsements of Hillary Clinton or to openly commit to Barack Obama.  The following is the text of a letter I am sending to my Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell in Washington State who both endorsed Clinton before our caucuses showed overwhelming support for Obama.  

Please feel free to plagiarize as you wish, but in any case do consider writing your own representatives this week and letting them know that we will not stand for the voters' stated preference to be overturned by party insiders.

The MSM and Hillary Clinton supporters who are all a-dither about finally getting a win point to Pennysylvania as the next big stop in the campaign.  I'm not sure why it gets such special attention other than it being one of the last states in the "States Hillary Can Win" category, but let's take a closer look at the facts.

The Clinton campaign has been rife with contradiction this week.  And while they are shouting ever louder about how wonderful a leader she is, how tough and battle-ready, her actions demonstrate even louder how she will perform as president.

So it turns out that just after the Impeachment trials of Bill Clinton John McCain is suspected of having a "romantic" involvement with a lobbyist, a woman not his wife at the time.  This revelation inspired me to revisit the whole scene of the Clinton Impeachment trial which is becoming more riveting every year as more sordid details of Republican affairs come out.  

Important: THIS IS NOTHING BUT RUMORS AND SPECULATION AT THE MOMENT.  Specifically, I heard an interview on Rachel Maddow just now where the guy said there are rumors that he may endorse, and may endorse Hillary Clinton, by the weekend.

This is awesome:

We desperately need to get a handle on what the "real" delegate count in the race between Obama and Clinton is.  I am defining "real" as the following:

--Including all delegate totals voted on so far, using reasonable extrapolations instead of incomplete but "confirmed-to-date" totals.  These may differ by a few points at the end of the day but at least they give us a better idea of where the race really stands.

--NOT including superdelegates, though I do list those so we can compare the numbers the press spouts out all the time without clarifying that they do in fact include superdelegates.

PLEASE feel free to contribute numbers you have that may be different, but include a reliable source or link that follows the two above rules (for example, do not throw in CNN to-date numbers that do not approach the total number of delegates voted on to date).  If you have better sources than the ones I've used please mention those as well.  I'll try to update and refine the numbers as we go along.  Maybe with a group effort we can throw some light on this crucial issue!

Barack Obama's early experiences as a community organizer are becoming more evident by the day, not only in his campaign structure but in his words.  One centerpiece of his speeches always focuses on the idea that if you want change, you have to make it happen yourself, not wait around for others to change things for you.  It's a big part of how he's been able to make his campaign about US rather than about him.

I know it's hard to resist those magical future-tellers the polls, which are NEVER EVER wrong and give us all reason to hope or despair (no matter who we support) . . . however,