Barack Obama

He says that people should be able to go across state-lines in order to get health care. You know, because poor people living in the middle of Texas will be able to afford it.

So here's my question : Will he advocate for women to be able to use his free market health care so women and teenage girls can across state lines and get the best and most affordable care for their abortions?

5 minutes to 9pm.
Watching Soledad O'Brien talking about her group of "undecideds" out in Ohio. I find it hard to believe these people do not know who the vote for. Am sorry but these people are in there for the camera and free dinner. Seriously, if you haven't decided you who you're voting for, you've got some serious problem.

8:57 pm
Ahahahahaha. Maegan just twittered that she's watching C-SPAN and playing, "Spot the Latino". I would have called the game "Spot the Beaner".

9:00 pm
Just found out from Ben Smith's blog,  that even though there was talk about having no follow-up questions, Tom Brokaw hasn't accepted those terms. So the candidates are expecting to have follow-ups.

I will be liveblogging, pingcasting and Twittering the debates tonight. So please, drop by to rant and rave the debates.

Bruce Springsteen rocking for Obama at a Voter Registration Rally in Philadelphia:

(Picture and video thanks to Daily Kos)

John McCain has pulled out of Michigan, effectively ceding that part of the rust belt to Obama. Well, I've been saying it for years now, quite literally: It's STILL the Economy, Stupid! That is something the Bushs and McCain have never understood. Americans do NOT want more trickle down "Voodoo" economics when they can barely afford to heat their homes, feed their children and get healthcare.

But there is more news, not widely covered, that really shows the depth of McCain's problems among working class Americans...you know those "Joe Sick-packs" Palin loves to wink at. From the border between West Virginia and Pennsylvania comes the story that more than 400 mine workers walked out on the job after the mine owners and the NRA started filming an anti-Obama ad at the mine:

More than 440 workers who are members of the United Mine Workers of America took what's called a Memorial Day instead of going to work.

Union officials say they took the day to protest after a film crew from the National Rifle Assocation showed up at the Consol mine last week to interview union workers.

They say the crew tried to get union coal miners to speak out against Barak Obama.

I'd say that backfired on the mine owner and the NRA.

This exchange between Obama and McCain was also noted at The New York Time's Caucus blog :

So Obama crossed over into enemy territory.

He walked over to where McCain was chatting with Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida and Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut. And he stretched out his arm and offered his hand to McCain.

McCain shook it, but with a “go away” look that no one could miss. He tried his best not to even look at Obama.

Finally, with a tight smile, McCain managed a greeting: “Good to see you.”

Obama got the message. He shook hands with Martinez and Lieberman — both of whom greeted him more warmly — and quickly beat a retreat back to the Democratic side.

McCain deserves to have his nose wiped on the floor with a massive Obama landslide. Comeuppance. It's a thought that has been on my mind for the past few weeks whenever McCain is the topic.

Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO speaking to all working class Americans.

McCain and Palin like to talk about "Joe Six Pack," to use Palin's term, but Obama actually knows what working and middle class Americans go through.

Let me add a quote from the conservative newspaper, the Stockton Record, on this point:

Republicans have tried repeatedly to paint Obama as an elitist. Hardly. He grew up in a single-parent home and, by the sheer force of his desire and cerebral horsepower, ended up at Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

He could have gone for the money. He didn't. He went to Chicago, where he worked to give a voice to those who didn't have one.

That's hardly the mark of an elitist.

I guess they're going after the cougar vote.

From The Caucus blog :

Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen will do a benefit concert for Senator Barack Obama’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee next month at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on Oct. 16.

Mr. Obama will be appearing on stage as well for the event, which is set for the day after his debate with Senator John McCain at Hofstra University on Long Island.

The concert was being billed by Obama fund-raisers as the first joint concert for Mr. Joel and Mr. Springsteen, although they have appeared together on stage at least once before in 1987 during a benefit concert for homeless children at Madison Square Garden with Paul Simon, among others.

Tickets for the fund-raiser, which is slated to be Mr. Obama’s last in the New York area, are not cheap. Balcony seats are going for $500; a “premiere seat” costs $2,500; and a “lounge ticket” is $10,000.

Not long ago I mentioned (perhaps only in the Washington State section) that the conservative Seattle Times endorsed Barack Obama. Well, now the even more conservative Stockton Record is endorsing Obama. The reasoning behind these two endorsements is very telling!

From the Seattle Times:

An economic Katrina is shattering the confidence of hardworking, middle-class Americans. The war that should never have been in Iraq is dragging on too long. At a time of huge challenge, the candidate with the intelligence, temperament and judgment to lead our nation to a better place is Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent. Obama is a little young, but also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that's OK. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip...

Bruce Springsteen doesn't publicly get involved in politics much. Yet he came out and endorsed Barack Obama. Here is a great video made after Bruce Springsteen officially endorsed Barack Obama:

And I just found out Robert de Niro has endorsed Barack Obama:

Now, perhaps a little less impressive than a Bruce Springsteen or de Niro endorsement, yet still Macho, seems Hulk Hogan has also endorsed Barack Obama. You can see the video here.

Smart, very smart.

Capitalizing on the fact McCain not once uttered the words "middle class", Team Obama slapped together an ad that they're using to fundraise. They've titled it "Zero".

Here's part of the email, "In case you missed it", signed by Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe :

Just got this email :

“This was a clear victory for Barack Obama on John McCain’s home turf. Senator McCain offered nothing but more of the same failed Bush policies, and Barack Obama made a forceful case for change in our economy and our foreign policy.

While Senator McCain wants to keep giving huge tax cuts to corporations and said nothing about the challenges Americans are facing in their daily lives, Barack Obama will be a fierce advocate for tax cuts for the middle class, affordable health care, and a new energy economy that creates millions of jobs.

While foreign policy was supposed to be John McCain’s top issue, Barack Obama commanded that part of the debate with a clear call to responsibly end a misguided war in Iraq so that we can finish the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

John McCain needed a game-changer tonight, and by any measure he didn’t get it.”

It's part of the reason why I want to upgrade the site --so I can better integrate it to the services I use like Twitter.

How can you catch what I am writing? Open an account at Twitter.com and once you do that, "follow me" at http://twitter.com/blogdiva.

And with that in mind, who do you think is going to do better job, Barack Obama or John McCain? What do you want to see your candidate do? What do you expect them to do?

Yup. John McCain's campaign was never really suspended.

Jeff Toobin over at CNN's "The Situation Room" just pointed out the obvious : McCain is still campaigning. All this screaming around Washington DC is pure political posturing.

We already saw how McCain dissed Letterman so he could sit down with Katie Couric. Somehow he found "courage" to get his ass to Clinton's Global Clusterfuck. McCain is doing the rounds at all the major networks newscasts. His flack? They appeared in six different newscasts and cable shows. That was in less than 24 hours. Wow.

Ironically, the "media deaf and dumb" Sarah Palin seemed to have engaged today the media circus assigned to her. The networks and newspapers were so shocked to have Palin taking questions today that it made headlines.

Can I have a witness for Paul Slansky? Go read his A Note to Bill Clinton and testify :

Given that we would never have had the odious George W. Bush in the White House in the first place if it wasn't for your blow jobs, Bill, it seems obvious that you owe it to the people of this country, and especially to the parents whose kids died in the Iraq War that Gore would never have started, and to all the parents whose kids would be killed in the WarFest that would be a McCain/Palin -- sorry, Palin/McCain administration -- to do everything in your power to get Barack Obama elected.

[...]

If Obama loses a close election -- one in which even one state where you could have made a difference goes for McCain because you sat home and pouted -- it will be on you. We will remember that you couldn't be bothered to rise above your petty resentments for something as trivial as saving your country from the enemies of everything you profess to believe in. We forgave you for Monica, Bill, but we won't forgive you for this.

PREACH!

I love it how he starts his rant : Is it me or he didn't want to say Barack Obama's name?

People, it's time to give the shaft to Bill Clinton. It's not only the people who work for him that are petty. The bastard still can't take part of the blame for sinking his wife's campaign to the ground.

Many of us do not have any competitive races in their districts. Yet, particularly with the Iraq Quagmire, the Banking Fiasco and the Wall Street meltdown hitting us all hard, we want to help defeat Bush and the Republicans. What can you do? I want to present several things you can do either as a weekend day trip or right from your home. These actions focus on Pennsylvania (a day trip for voter outreach in what I believe is a must-win state for Obama), North Carolina (virtual phone banking to help Obama and an excellent Senate candidate whose chances of winning are about 50/50 right now) and Nevada (virtual phone banking to help an excellent Congressional candidate in a Presidential swing state).

NORTH CAROLINA: There are two actions in North Carolina you can do right from your own home, one helping Obama and one helping Kay Hagen, Democratic candidate for North Carolina Senate. This Senate race is currently a real nailbiter with Hagen tied with Dole 35%/35%...with lots of undecideds...that makes your efforts all the more important! Obama is behind in North Carolina by only 6%. With some real effort, North Carolina could join Virginia in going for Obama.

Oh yes, this time yes you can
Elect Obama your next President.
We love you, go vote Obama.

What candidate has raised this level of creativity in not just the citizens in his country but the whole wide world? This is just too awesome for words!

I wish I could give a H/T, but my source only gave me their email. So if you are a reader and you sent this to me,  "We love you, go vote Obama".

It's September 11, 2008.

We're seven years away from the attack on the Twin Towers. We're also 7 days away from the closing of the Republican National Convention.

The same convention in which Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin and even John McCain himself spent their time deriding community organizers and community service all the while claiming to be the party of people "who put service before self" in their quest to keep "America First".

So what am I going to do in a couple of hours? Thanks to the fine people of Kenneth Cole's Awearness blog, am going to the Service Nation Presidential Forum, to cover Barack Obama and John McCain and see them discuss their thoughts on community service and ... ahem ... community organizers.

Oh Democrats!

You are the ruin of "American the Beautiful" by wanting to have Change instead of just waving that flag and letting things be.

I was at Invesco Field the night of Barack Obama's acceptance speech. I thought I was there to witness history. Senator Inhofe has informed us that anything having to do with Barack Obama is all about his lack of patriotism. And since Democrats love Obama, it'll be easy to make up stories about how they hate the US of A too.

Did you hear the one about how 12,000 US flags had been "thrown away" by the Dems and later recued by a Republican patriot? Funny because the minute the event finished there were freaked out volunteers imploringus to take home the flags. If not, they were rather insistent on returning the flags to them immediately.

Anyway, who knew I was there to witness the gathering of 75,000 US of A hating Democrats. And it's more incredible to think I have photographic evidence!

Preparing and then going to the conventions has set me back on a lot of work including blogging. So while I process some of the footage I have of police brutality I witnessed in St. Paul, I've been going through my inbox.

Total h/t to Ari Melber for sending me this nugget

Check out Pat Buchanan, a historically rabid white supremacist, fanboying all over Barack Obama. What do I love? The look of disbelief on all the other talking heads including Rachel Maddow

LOL!

Let me just come out and say this right off the bat : We need more black and latina feminists on TV tearing into the right wing's forced pregnancy frame to reproductive rights.

I had the honor again to participate in Melissa Long's livecasting from the conventions. In the first one at the DNC we barely spoke of women's issues. Ironically here in St. Paul and with Palin's nomination the discussion was almost exclusively about her and about women's rights.

Which is why am being very candid about the need to put more colored feminists into these traditional media settings. Our perspectives on reproductive and women's rights are not filtered necessarily through the need to curtail our ability to have children as much as having the right to not have the government control our bodies by claiming surrogate ownership.

Which is why it is outrageous to me that someone as young and seemingly intelligent as Amanda Carpenter from Town Hall will go on wailing about how Palin is being vilified for not aborting her Down Syndrome child.

Is she serious?!?!

My father was born in Davenport, Iowa. His family (the Kunkels) have lived there since around the Civil War and used to have a sporting good store there. So I always pay attention to the local politics in Davenport.

Well, Obama just swung through Davenport and this video shows what a man of the people he really is:

Bush and McCain won't talk to anyone who hasn't been pre-screened to avoid embarrassing questions. Obama is willing to face the people, including potential critics. The Republicans are afraid of the American people. Obama is one of us.

Have you got this vibe going in your family? We do!

Evolved home education and most all forms of "alternative education" just go hand-in-hand with this vibe. (Anti-intellectual church-driven school-at-home excepted, of course.)

I'll bet your kids exude it too -- Colleen's long-haired Jerry, Not June Cleaver's skateboarders, Nance's two quintessential unschoolers, Doc's quirky country fair quartet, Daryl's dancers, COD's fencer and equestrian. Heck, I was a brainy counterculture fencer myself, once upon a time. (The True Vibe can't be contained, even in regular public school!)

Always unschooled Favorite Daughter and her mostly-schooled boyfriend were part of The World Yo-Yo Contest in Orlando. For five thrilling days, they were organizer Greg Cohen's trusted roadies and grips and security behind the scenes, technical crew supporting and marveling at these brainy counterculture young boys and what they could do.

The contest from July 31 to Aug. 2 drew 196 competitors from 20 countries, mostly teenage boys, who exuded an unthreatening and brainy counterculture vibe. They looked like skateboarders stuck inside on a rainy day.

Many admitted to not quite fitting in back home, where no one seems to take the yo-yo as seriously as they do. Most dressed in black T-shirts and wore their hair long. They had callused middle fingers and forearms scarred by string marks, and often carried backpacks or hard cases filled with yo-yos, some costing hundreds of dollars.

The younger competitors were chaperoned by proud parents or grandparents, willing to keep their distance . . .

Passing guests invariably watched in wonder.

When she got home that Sunday night, FavD didn't stop talking for hours. She planned to blog it all, when she could process it into power of story she could corral and tame. So far that hasn't happened, but maybe it will. If it doesn't, that won't mean it's any less real. Maybe it means it's MORE real than the same old standard stories.

Today Barack Obama is in Orlando (although not literally with yo-yos, AFAIK.) Right now he is saying to the veterans' group that "I believe the American people are better than that", that our performance now must include "acting tough AND smart" to clean up the "calamity left behind" from the past eight years of George Bush and John McCain.

What I love about Obama is that he has the brainy counterculture yo-yo vibe going on. It's like he's speaking a whole new language as he explains the great new moves he's working up to show us. We're all invited to join in and be part of something magical.

But just copying old tricks like churches and schools do, is not merely inadequate. It's a loser move and everybody knows it, which means it's downright embarrassing! Makes the audience uncomfortable even as they try to be polite and respectful. Yes, John McCain, I'm talking to YOU.

For years US military personnel favored Republicans. I was not always clear on why, I have to admit, and my stepfather was a clear exception to this rule. He fought in WW II and Korea, retired the youngest Lt.-Col. in the history of the US Army (at least up to that point) and taught at Westpoint. And was a lifelong Democrat who in his retirement took to reading The Nation. But the fact was that most US military personnel were Republicans.

That has changed starting in 2002 and as of this year deployed US military personnel have donated to Obama 6:1 over McCain.

From the above linked Daily Kos Diary:

Here are some key talking points:

1. US military 2008 presidential campaign donations, from deployed US troops, favor Barack Obama over John McCain by a 6:1 margin.

2. The Open Secrets study was comprehensive - as ABC notes, "The center tallied money from donors who list the Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy and National Guard as an employer".

3. US military personnel have made a major shift in their donations, in favor of the Democratic Party, since 2002, when military donations favored the GOP by almost 5:1. Now, in '08, those donations favor the GOP only 3:2. That's a huge shift.

I have to agree with Al Giordano, 2008 is the year of the viral video.

NOTA BENE from Liza : I am really excited to present Andrea Plaid, of The Cruel Secretary and Racialicious fame. I hope she makes cross-posting to our blog a habit.

By now, you’ve seen—and probably commented on--the latest cover.

The Washington Post’s and CNN’s Reliable Sources’ Howard Kurtz said: “I talked to the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, who tells me this is a satire, that they are making fun of all the rumors,” Kurtz added. (Source)

Bill Burton, The Obama campaign spokesperson, responded: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.” (Source)

Of course, people at Michelle Obama Watch, Daily Kos, Politico, and other blogs have expressed rightful and righteous outrage over the cover.

My current live-in partner, who works at the New Yorker, just couldn’t believe that so many people responded so angrily at the cover at the Daily Kos and other sites. He “wanted to see [my] reaction.” When I emphatically told him that I didn’t find it funny, he said, “You’re so angry.”

“Of course I’m angry. What do you expect? This is my reaction is to your employer doing something so racist.”

“I’m trying to have some fun here.”

Humph, you gotta love hipster bigotry.

MMMM! DO YOU SMELL WHAT NEZUA'S COOKIN'? It's the flava of the voting week, and that flava is currently simmering and spiceh!!! It may fade in a few, but for now, that flavor is Obama and McCain's Concern for Latin@ Issues. It also means that the "Left Blogosphere" or the "Liberal Blogosphere" is alight with talk of Immigration! Of course too much of this talk is related to electoral possibilities bereft of a moral context, and on the part of the candidates is frankly quite vague or rearrangeable from moment to moment.

WASHINGTON -- In a new ad targeted at the battleground states of the West, John McCain presents himself as a champion of Latino immigrants, making particular effort to highlight his differences with other members of his party on the issue.

It is a message that threatens to disrupt the delicate balance McCain had sought on the issue by simultaneously defending of the contributions of illegal immigrants to American life while demanding secure borders to prevent the arrival of new ones.

"So let's from time to time remember that these are God's children. They must come into the country legally, but they have enriched our culture and our nation as every generation of immigrants before them," McCain says in a clip from a Republican-primary debate in June 2007 in which he celebrated the sacrifice of Latinos, including those not yet citizens, to the US military.

—McCain goes west with pro-immigration ad

It's rather moving, eh? Especially given how lately he has been pushing the security-laser-fence-raid-detainment-punishment aspect of the issue. But you know. "Maverix" are people who say, quite honestly and from the belly, whatever they think will increase their popularity.

And we know Obama cares, right?

The American people are a welcoming and generous people. But those who enter our country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of the immigration laws.

—Floor Statement of Senator Barack Obama on Immigration Reform

Oh wait, wrong quote! Sorry. Here we go.

The time to fix our broken immigration system is now. It is critical that as we embark on this enormous venture to update our immigration system, it is fully reflective of the powerful tradition of immigration in this country and fully reflective of our values and ideals.”

—[Obama Statement in U.S. Senate, 5/23/07] (PDF)

Good.

This is why The Sanctuary has created a survey of very specific questions through which the candidates (and we don't mean just Democrats and Republicans) can flesh out just what these very noble phrases mean in the context of some issues that are pressing, not only to Latin@s, but to those concerned with Human Rights.

This is what I would do if I had several thousand dollars to spare these days :

1. I would have wire clothes hangers, like the ones dry cleaning stores us, and I'd covered them in dark blue rice paper with the blue and logo of the McCain campaign.

2. The tag line under the logo? "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

3. A second design option would have his fateful words about how he would change the Supreme Court of the United States with the judges like like Roberts and Alito or his dear friend Chief Rhenquist.

4. If I had more money, I'd hang a Supreme Court Justice looking robe from several hundreds of them and deliver them to each and every one of the high-profile Democrats, whereas politicians or funders, who are being assholes about supporting Obama.

Plain and simple message : You support McCain? Kiss equal rights for women away.

And a big WTF!

We know that Barack Obama is a control freak when it comes to his image (the suits just tells you all you need to know). But honey, this is getting friggin' ridonculous. I mean, they have in Latin, "Yes We Can" (Vero Possumus).

I keep reading that as "Very Possum", so that's how "too much" that seal is.

My question is, who's the semiotician in his PR and communications team.

H/T Dave Winer, via Twitter

Image Courtesy of BarackObama.com at Flickr.

I have been covering to some degree the terrible flooding in the Midwest and describing how the levees breaking, leading to the flooding of towns and cities in Wisconsin and Iowa, are a direct result of deliberate Republican neglect of America's infrastructure. Republicans prefer giving your tax money to Halliburton, Exxon and Blackwater than using that money to fix our roads, bridges and levees. This morning on NPR I heard as many as two dozen levees are in danger of breaking as flood waters flow downstream along the Mississippi. A huge chunk of the Midwest has been affected. These levees should have been maintained! This began as a natural disaster, but Republican neglect of the levees is responsible for the scale of the disaster...just like in New Orleans.

Democrats vote for funding to maintain our infrastructure. Republicans vote against that funding. That means, when Republicans are in control, our levees, roads and bridges decay, leading to disaster. But the dedication of Democrats and the neglect by Republicans goes deeper than that.

As the floodwaters rose in the Midwst, Barack Obama grabbed a shovel and helped:

Where was McCain? Where was Bush?

Is this too little too late?

A few hours from now I will step on stage in Detroit, Michigan to announce my support for Senator Barack Obama. From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure he is elected President of the United States.

Over the next four years, we are going to face many difficult challenges -- including bringing our troops home from Iraq, fixing our economy, and solving the climate crisis. Barack Obama is clearly the candidate best able to solve these problems and bring change to America.

This moment and this election are too important to let pass without taking action.

The endorsement will be streamed live tonight at 8:30 p.m. EDT at a rally at Joe Louis Arena in downtown Detroit, Michigan. Just go to http://www.BarackObama.com and they'll have a link to the streaming page.

It is the place where John Edwards also announced his endorsement. Am wondering if, due to the demographics of the state the Obama camopaign is putting their eggs in the Michigan basket and leave Florida up for a tossing win.

I am not sure if that is a rogue or dangerous strategy, given Florida's history of stolen elections.

Can't this man just say, "I'm not interested in being VP, thanks so much" and just leave it at that? Why does he have to give any ammunition to the Obama haters by saying shit like this?

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Ohio Governor Ted Strickland – who has often been mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama – said Tuesday that if asked, he would “absolutely not” join the party’s presidential ticket this fall.

Strickland, who backed Hillary Clinton during the primary season, told NPR’s Michele Norris that he was taking himself out of the running. “Absolutely not. If drafted I will not run, nominated I will not accept and if elected I will not serve,” he said, in an interview on NPR's All Things Considered. “So, I don’t know how more crystal clear I can be.”

Obama lost the Ohio primary to Clinton.

The swing state governor, who has endorsed Barack Obama, dismissed the idea that all potential running mates deny interest in the job. “No, I don’t think they all say that. I’ve heard people say, ‘you know, if I was asked, it would certainly be something I would have to consider.’ That does not mean that I am any less committed to helping Barack Obama become the next president,” Strickland said in an NPR transcript of the interview, which is scheduled to air Tuesday night. He is scheduled to join Obama on the campaign trail in Ohio this Friday.

Now, you'd think that people would understand that professionally, it would be absolutely STUPID for John Edwards to run once again as VP to anybody. That's why people like me are clamoring for him to get the Attorney General post.

So what do Hillarytons have to say about this? That it's proof Obama is mediocre and is being reject by the party establishment.

I came in just in time to watch Hillary Clinton give her endorsement to Barack Obama. It was an interesting speech. She never talked about losing, she talked about the disappointment of not getting the nomination. She also didn't talk about Obama's legitimate win, she only mentioned his victory.

I was on Twitter writing about the speech and I have to say I am relieved she finally said the words a lot of us wanted to hear 2 months ago : that is time to come together and support Obama.

I thought it was gracious and I also noticed that she kept on repeating at the end "we need to help elect barack obama our president" , almost as if she repeated it seven times herself she would truly and honestly embrace it.

I was also taken aback by her late realization that she became a woman who ran for president as opposed to being a candidate who happened to be a woman. I've always said that Hillary Clinton never struck me as a feminist, but as one of the millions of middle class white women who benefitted from the equal opportunity policies that came after the Civil Rights and Women's Rights movements.

Yet this campaign seems to have made her a born-again feminist :

One of the illest songs to come out of this campaign.

Not only is NAS remixing Barack Obama's victory speech, he's thrown the immortal Tupac.
Download it here.

By the by, what do you think about the cover of NAS' album?

H/T To dnA over at Too Sense and XXL.

This from the improbably named Candy Crowley:

CNN's Candy Crowley confirmed that the two met to discuss plans for "bringing the campaigns together in unity for the party."

Earlier, reporters on Obama's press plane learned that the presumed Democratic nominee for president was not aboard when it departed Virginia, where he had been campaigning. Aides said staff members "scheduled him some meetings" in Washington.

The meeting originally was believed to be at Clinton's D.C. home, but sources later said the two met elsewhere in Washington.

Of course, the power-hungry Clintonistas have to have their VP delusions in, and so it was chronicled :

A group that is urging Obama and select Clinton as his running mate praised the meeting. "We are thrilled to hear that Senators Obama and Clinton are meeting already," said a statement from VoteBoth. "We hope that Thursday night's conversation is a step toward an Obama-Clinton ticket that will unify the party."

A word to the wise : Obama is gracious but not stupid.

As John McCain is lying to try and get Jews to vote for him, it might be a good idea to review the facts about Obama and McCain from a Jewish perspective. This comes from the National Jewish Democratic Council:

OBAMA STANDS WITH PROGRESSIVE VALUES ON DOMESTIC ISSUES

• He supports reproductive rights and will uphold Roe v. Wade.
• Obama cosponsored the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007.
• He will provide affordable access to health insurance for every American.
• He has fought for increased investment in renewable fuels.

OBAMA PERFECT PRO-ISRAEL VOTING RECORD

The pro-Israel community has always used voting records to determine whether a candidate is “pro-Israel.”
• He has voted in favor of foreign aid to Israel every time.
• He has signed onto numerous pro-Israel letters and resolutions.
• When in the State Senate, he cosponsored a bill authorizing the state of Illinois to invest in Israel bonds.

OBAMA BELIEVES ISRAEL’S SECURITY IS PARAMOUNT

• Obama said, “Israel’s security is sacrosanct [...] I will also carry with me an unshakable commitment to the security of
Israel and the friendship between the United States and Israel.” – New York Sun, 2/25/2008

There are so many reasons why Hillary Clinton will never be Vice-President that the GOP has made us all a favor and put them all together on the first official 2008 Presidential Election attack ad against Barack Obama.

Thanks Hillary and Bill Clinton and idiotic Democrats, y'all super!

The News Hour with Jim Lehrer twitter alerts are a must for anybody who wants to have the immediate scoop on what's happening with the elections. They just dropped this number : 27 superdelegagtes in one day.

Baratunde rounded up that nugget by twittering that Obama needs only 10 more delegates to reach the "magic number" of 2,118 delegates.

Town Hall is saying that John McCain is calling it for Obama by effectively scheduling a speech tonight. I think Red State beat McCain to it by first, real "Obama is a radical" kind of post.

By the way : I hear, but have not confirmed, that Hillary Clinton only picked up one superdelegate today.

The Rules and Bylaws Committees rules!

Harold Ickes proved to be a douchebag when he made the threat the Clinton campaign would take their fight all the way to the convention.

With the new decision the candidates need 2118 to get the nomination. With the new numbers CNN is saying that all Obama needs between 20 and 24 more superdelegates to win after the 3 remaining contests.

That's it.

If the Clintons take this to the credentials committee this would prove that they're waging a scorch earth strategy and wouldn't have a problem doing the Republicans job of making Barack Obama lose in November.

And by the way, the despicable screaming mimis in the room were chanting, "McCain, McCain, McCain".

The Clintonites know how to keep it classy.

Can you believe that after Hillary Clinton's assassination remark, her campaign spinned the comment as an attempt by Barack to make her look bad? Yes, Hillary Clinton and all her boot lickers blamed Barack for the words she herself uttered on her own accord not once, not twice but now four times during the course of the campaign.

They blamed him for blowing the thing out of proportion and yet, as I've told many, many people since this happened HOW DARE YOU TELL US THIS IS NOT A BID DEAL! How dare you tell us that putting the words ASSASSINATION and BARACK on the same page is not cause for concern?

Well, the Huffington Post has an amazing chronicle of one of Michelle Obama's campaign stops. This is what happened :

She called on another supporter, whose voice quivered and broke with barely contained emotion as she explained how important it is to her, personally, that our country change course. She explained that she had just returned from Oregon where she campaigned for Obama and attended the 75,000-person rally by the river. She had noticed, she said, that the Secret Service had increased security dramatically for Barack Obama's rallies since the Phoenix rally in January.

The room collectively gasped and murmured, some aghast that these fears were being spoken aloud directly to Barack Obama's wife. Some nodded, concern and fear on their faces. Others shifted on their feet, displaying a range of emotions -- concern, discomfort with the topic, indignation.

This is not a pundit spewing or a campaign boot licker spinning. This was a common woman, who has volunteered to get the man she believes will bring change to this country. This is not a political expert lost in a moment of bobble-head theatrics but a real woman shaken by Hillary Clinton's words.

And yet, with the poise and class that Hillary nor Bill Clinton have, Michelle Obama told this shaken woman and the rest of the audience this :