All night long, a bunch of whiny, lazy, unemployed little thugs have been coming to my door, insisting that I give up my property. They're threatening dirty tricks if I don't comply.

This must be what life is going to be like under an Obama administration. Now I understand! OMG! Can I take my vote back?

The Michigan GOP is back to its old tricks of challenging voters on election day, only this year, there's a new twist. They're compiling their caging lists based on foreclosure records.

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. 

Vile. Simply vile.

First, they deregulate their shriveled little hearts out, contributing to this entire mortgage mess, and then they attempt to disenfranchise the people most screwed by the economy they created.

Enough!

Proving that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, Kristol predicted the Palin pick back in June:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNr_LZpMHqA

Of course, he also predicted the pick would cause gas prices to plummet. Anybody want to hold your breath waiting for that to happen?

Proving that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, Kristol predicted the Palin pick back in June:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNr_LZpMHqA

Of course, he also predicted the pick would cause gas prices to plummet. Anybody want to hold your breath waiting for that to happen?

I want to speak to anyone who is still on the fence about Obama. You don't have to like him. That's fine. But if you believe in the principles of the Democratic party, if you believe in the Constitution, if you believe in peace and justice, if you believe in the value of life, you must work for his election.

If McCain is elected, there will be more war. He wants to stay in Iraq. He wants to go after Iran. He wants to play war games with Russia. He's all about continuing the macho swagger of the Bush administration and not about the smart diplomacy.

So if McCain is elected, we will have more soldiers in harm's way for unnecessary wars. We will drop more bombs on more villages in more remote places in the world. We will destroy families. We will kill and maim children. That's what war does.

If McCain is elected, he will continue the Bush administrations policies on veterans, so those soldiers he will send off into hell will come back damaged, physically and mentally, and they will not receive the care they need. Many of them will commit suicide, as thousands upon thousands of other veterans have done in the last few years.

If McCain is elected, we will not get meaningful healthcare reform. We will get something that will cater to the insurance companies so people with chronic illnesses or histories of serious diseases will still be denied coverage or priced out of the market. We will have more people uninsured or underinsured, and some of these people will not get needed medical care, and some of them will go bankrupt trying to pay medical bills, and some of them will die from treatable and preventable diseases.

If McCain is elected, he will continue the Bush administration war on reproductive rights. He will appoint Supreme Court justices who will eventually overturn Roe vs. Wade. He will continue policies that make it more difficult to get contraception or even give our teenagers accurate information about the sexuality. The end result will be more unplanned pregnancies and ultimately more illegal abortions. Women - possibly your daughters, sisters, friends or lovers - will die from botched abortions.

These are the stakes. People will die because of a McCain presidency. If you know people are going to die, and you have the ability to prevent it, then you have a moral obligation to act to prevent it. So act. Prevent John McCain from becoming president.

I just saw yet another Hillary delegate being interviewed, and while she wasn't a PUMA, she hemmed and hawed about whether she would vote for McCain. She really wanted to be able to cast her vote for Hillary, and she just doesn't know what she'll do if the roll call is cut short.

She said she was doing this out of "respect for Hillary."

Bullshit.

If respect for Hillary were her primary motivation, then she would be listening to Hillary and doing what Hillary repeatedly asks her to do, which is to support Barack Obama wholeheartedly.

What she's doing has nothing to do with respect for Hillary. It has to do with her own feelings and her own reasons. They may be perfectly valid feelings and reasons, but they are NOT respect for Hillary.

I would have a lot more respect for these people if they would actually own their responses. But trying to push it off on Hillary, claiming they're only doing this out of respect for Hillary, is bullshit.

If they respected her, they would listen to her. This song and dance is disrespectful in the extreme.

I just watched McCain's song and dance with Katie Couric after she asked him about his inability to remember how many homes he owns.

In addition to talking about his POW experience, he brings up his late father-in-law, Jim Hensley and his wealth:

"I am proud and grateful for that, and I think he (Hensley) is a role model to many young Americans who serve in the military and come back and succeed."

Does McCain really want to go there? Offering up Hensley as a role model?

Hensley's start in Arizona's liquor business included being convicted of a felony in 1948 for falsifying liquor records. He received a one year suspended sentence. In 1953, he was charged again, but was acquitted, after being defended by lawyer William Rehnquist - yes, that William Rehnquist.

Now I don't think McCain should be held responsible for his father-in-law's shaky legal path and unsavory connections, and I would be fine with never mentioning it if McCain doesn't bring him up. But if McCain is going to be holding him up as role model?! That's just absurd, and it needs to be explored.

Ralph Nader's latest "white guilt" comments pushed me over the edge. I'm officially sick of old people.

Now, I'm not exactly young (my driver's license says 42, but I don't believe it because I have absolutely no answers to life, the universe, and everything). I was born after the Boomers, but early enough that I don't necessarily really relate to the Gen Xers. I do, however, stand with Generation X on one thing: white guilt is a stupid and absurd concept in presidential politics.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone under 40 even use the phrase white guilt. Mostly, you hear it from Baby Boomers and older, mostly from people who are just too stuck in some old reality to fathom a legitimate reason people might support a black candidate for office.

I'm not going to say that the younger generation is post-racial or has moved beyond identity politics or anything grand and sweeping like that. There's still work to do, and I don't expect we'll reach any promised land beyond identity politics anytime soon. I do think, however, the younger generation is light years ahead of the Baby Boomers on this issue.

And I do hope, ever so fervently, that old farts will shut their mouths occasionally and listen to their children and grand-children on the issue of race.

With Obama's statement on the FISA bill, there is much panic, stomping of feet, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments etc.

Can we please cool the doomsday talk long enough to actually look at what's being said and done and how it relates to Obama?

Obama hasn't voted on this thing yet. He's said he's willing to vote for the compromise, but wants to strip out the immunity. This is crucial. If he were successful in stripping the immunity, then it's a good thing, and all the handwringing and gnashing and whatnot will have been for naught.

Now, I don't know what's actually going to happen in the Senate next week. Neither do you. Maybe there'll just be some theater. Maybe there'll be some real changes. Maybe Obama will really fight hard for stripping immunity. Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll vote for the bill with immunity included, and maybe he won't. If he does, I'll join the outrage club.

But until then, panic is premature. I've been surprised before. I've also been disappointed before. We'll see what happens.

What we do know is the House passed the bill with the immunity included, and outrage is a perfectly acceptable response to that. Heap scorn upon Nancy Pelosi and the Blue Dogs and whoever else voted for this POS. It's too late to change their votes, but not to late to send the message that we're seriously unhappy.

More importantly, do your part to try to prevent a repeat in the Senate. Write and call your senators and Obama and Harry Reid and whoever else might be willing to listen. We need to make our voices heard.

Now, it might not work. There's no guarantee that activism will work on any given bill. But there is an iron-clad guarantee that doing nothing will get us screwed.

That was an excellent speech Clinton just gave. I was impressed and pleased.

I've been a strong critic of Clinton throughout this campaign, so I feel an obligation to give credit where it's due. So, good job. Thank you for your message, and thank you for all you have done for women in politics.

Keep this up, and hell, even I might get converted to the Hillary as Veep camp.

For the past month, everybody except Hillary Clinton seems to have known that Barack Obama was the presumptive nominee.

Because of this, Obama has not really been campaigning against her. The last truly contested elections were Indiana and North Carolina. He didn't really contest Kentucky and West Virginia. Sure, he ran a good number of ads, but that was as much about introducing himself for the general as anything else. He knew the odds favored Clinton, and he basically gave her the states. He didn't attack Clinton or do any aggressive campaigning.

I suspect he dialed back any attacks as part of a strategy to not antagonize her supporters and as a way to work toward unity. This would be a perfectly rational strategy if he were dealing with a different kind of opponent. I'm not sure it was wise with Clinton.

The last month of no opposition has given Clinton free reign and gives a false impression of her strength. Instead of using this time to promote unity or work toward a graceful exit, Clinton has used this time to increase her sense of aggrievedness and further rile her hardcore supporters' emotions. She's used this time to further promote the theme that she's been the victim of sexism, that she's behind because "they" wouldn't allow a woman to be president. Ironically, she's also used this time to encourage the racial divide, pushing the notion that whites won't vote for Obama, while simultaneously arguing that Obama is only the nominee because of his race.

If Obama had continued an aggressive campaign against Clinton, she wouldn't have these inflated numbers. She wouldn't be getting away with her bogus popular vote numbers. But he chose to be gracious. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. The result of his backing off is this endless will-she or won't-she game and the increasing of tensions between the most hardcore of the two candidates supporters.

Of course, the superdelegates have the power to stop this, but they're mostly spineless twits. Hopefully, this will all end cleanly tonight, and we can actually start working toward the general election. But I'm not counting on a clean break. I think Clinton will keep this going until the very last breath. The more he gives her, the more she will take.

Personally, I don't think he should trust her one tiny bit, and I don't think she deserves any more leeway. She's been given every opportunity to be gracious and honorable, and every single time, she takes the low road. We can't keep rewarding bad behavior.

If she actually concedes tonight and signs a contract in blood saying she won't try for a floor fight at the convention, I'll take all this back. But if she simply suspends her campaign and then continues to undermine Obama, she gets absolutely no slack at all.

Clinton supporters have marched out their last gasp argument, and it's called electability. Clinton argues that because certain polls are in her favor now, five months before the general election, she's the more electable candidate.

But, in truth, the only argument for electability is the ability to run a campaign and actually win elections. The history of Clinton's campaign belies the entire argument.

Five months ago today, Clinton's average polling on RealClearPolitics.com was 44.2 percent, and Obama's was 23 percent. This was down from her peak average of 48.5 back in October. By the middle of February, Obama had passed her in the polling, and she's been running behind ever since. Currently, the average is 51-42 for Obama. He hasn't dropped below 45 percent since February. She hasn't been able to get above 46 percent during that same time.

This is what running a campaign does. It changes the numbers. Clinton has not been able to significantly increase her numbers in any state. There are no states where she dramatically changed the dynamic in her favor, and thus, there is no reason to assume she would be able to move her numbers against McCain.

Obama, on the other hand, knows how to move numbers. In race after race, he's shown he can run a campaign. Wherever he has concentrated his efforts, his poll numbers have increased.

He now has five months to focus on McCain. He's got ground forces out in every state working to increase turnout. He had a plan to win the Democratic nomination and now he's got a plan to win the presidency. He is an extraordinary campaigner. The Republicans are going to be stunned.

Electability is the ability to change the dynamic. The states Clinton has won are states where she was always poised to win, states where she held huge advantages a year ago. Almost every state that Obama has won, excepting Illinois, has been a state where he worked for the votes and came from behind.

Right now, with no campaign against McCain being run in earnest, both Clinton and Obama run slightly ahead of him, but not in statistically significant or comfortable numbers. These numbers will change by fall, but how will they change? My money is on the guy who has a lot of experience with creating an upward sloping trend line. I'll stay away the flatliner.

Just as soon as she stops doing things that piss me off anew!

Now Bill Clinton is out there in Puerto Rico trying to delegitimize the caucus states, arguing that we shouldn't count.

Is there any reason in the world it *shouldn't* make me angry to see a former president of the United States personally denigrating my vote? I live in Colorado. We caucused. It was awesome. We packed into a high school cafeteria, sat at tables with our neighbors and discussed politics and platforms. It's the essence of democracy.

But a former president of the United States - a person of great stature who with tremendous potential for doing good in the world - is out there playing politics and saying my voice shouldn't count. He puts his desire for a political win for his wife above all principles.

I want to stop being angry with the Clintons. Honest, I do. But I can't stop being angry at someone who is working so hard to destroy my party and silence my voice.

In politics, people pick sides. Sometimes they pick the side you like, and sometimes they pick the other side. It's how the system works. Part of the point of a primary is to convince more people to come over to your side.  Voters, delegates, and organizations all pick sides. It's to be expected.

Yet, to Clintonites, picking the other guy is betrayal.

On NARAL:

“This action by NARAL is a betrayal. If they can dump Hillary they can dump any of us,” said Rep. Jane Harman , D-Calif. “This is really personal.”

On Bill Richardson:

"An act of betrayal," said James Carville. "Mr. Richardson's endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."

Maria Pappas, Head of New York NOW, On Ted Kennedy:

“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard."

Is there anything comparable on the Obama side? Has the campaign ever responded to any of Clinton's endorsements with more than a shrug and "we're disappointed"?

This is politics. You make your case, and you either get the support or you don't. If you don't, then you either make a better case, or you move on. But to attack people like this? It's crazy.

Election Central so far today has posted:
From Camp Clinton:
- Clinton's plan to put forth her gas tax holiday legislation.
- The full text of a letter from former DNC chairs supporting Clinton
- The full text of Clinton's remarks on her gas tax gimmick.
- Comments from Clinton about Tuesday being a game changer.
- Clinton's endorsement by an Indianapolis newspaper.

From Camp Obama:
- Response ad to the gas tax proposal.

Everything else was poll results or related to other races.

TPM has not posted anything about the press conference Obama held this morning.

TPM has not posted anything relating to the Kantor video (which admittedly might not be legitimate, but will still echo across the campaign this weekend and potentially damage Clinton).

Now, I'm not big on claiming bias, but guys, look at what you're reporting and NOT reporting.