The Primaries

Hillary Clinton won the Indiana primary 51% – 49% by 22,400 votes. Barack Obama won the north Carolina Primary 56% – 42% by 232,775 votes. This has to be considered a major win for Obama, because the margin of victory in Indiana was less than anticipated for Clinton, while in North Carolina, it was greater than anticipated for Obama.

The Delegates

Since I last reported, Clinton has added 82 delegates, and Obama 100, giving Obama a net lead of 179 pledged and 155 total delegates. With only 217 pledged delegates left to be elected, Clinton will need 193 or 88.9% of the remaining pledged delegates to catch Obama in Pledged delegates. That will not happen. I may have to adjust these figures, but the differences will be small.

The Demographics

Indiana

North Carolina

Looking Forward

The only way Clinton can win the nomination is for the super delegates to overrule the voters. Next Tuesday is the West Virginia primary. Clinton holds a commanding 56% – 27% lead according to Rasmussen, but the state has only 39 pledged delegates at stake.

The Repuglicans

All articles cross-posted from Politics Plus

In an address at Wake Forest University, McCain pledged to nominate jurists who believe “there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power” and who are “faithful in all things to the Constitution of the United States.”

McCain added that he would choose nominees with “a proven record of excellence in the law, and a proven commitment to judicial restraint.”

By way of example, McCain said he would look for people in the cast of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., and his friend the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. He called them “jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference.”

Some Democratic leaders immediately denounced McCain’s speech. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, accused McCain of pandering to the far right. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement that McCain voted for every one of President Bush’s activist judges and said McCain “promises hundreds more just like them.”

Inserted from <LA Times>

Roberts, Alito and Rehnquist do not represent judicial restraint.  They are ideologue rightists.  Rehnquist was so aligned with right wing bigotry that he signed compacts on two separate properties that he once owned promising not to sell them to a person of color.  At other times, McConJob has held up Scalia and Thomas as role models for judges.  If he gets the opportunity to appoint one more ideologue to SCOTUS, we can kiss the Constitution goodbye forever.

Not only is McConJob a threat to the Constitution, but also he showed further signs of dementia.

During his speech on judicial philosophy today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) appeared to have what Fox News’s Brit Hume would likely describe as a “senior moment.” In his prepared remarks, McCain intended to thank “the students and faculty of Wake Forest University” for their hospitality. But as the AP reports, when he delivered the speech, “he appeared confused about where he was for a moment“:

He appeared confused about where he was for a moment Tuesday, saying, “I appreciate the hospitality of the students and faculty of West Virginia,” then correcting himself to say Wake Forest as the audience laughed.

Wake Forest University is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Inserted from <Think Progress>

I can’t speak for anyone else, but don’t you want a President who at least knows where he or she is?

Australia will immediately give three million dollars (2.82 million US) in aid for victims of the devastating cyclone that ravaged Myanmar

The announcement by Smith, who is visiting South Korea, came as Australian aid groups joined their global agencies in scrambling to provide relief despite visa restrictions imposed by the country’s military.

“This is a massive tragedy for the people of Burma,” he told reporters in Seoul, using the country’s former name.

One million dollars of the Australian government relief will go to Australian aid agencies operating in Myanmar such as CARE, World Vision and Caritas.

Another one million will be allocated to the UN World Food Program, while one million dollars will go to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF.
The aid package is structured to ensure that “very quickly, we can assist in remedial efforts on the ground,” Smith said… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Channel News Asia>

I’m pleased that someone is offering substantial help to these poor people.  By contrast, the compassionate conservative Crawford Caligula urged Myanmar to accept a meager $250,000.  Lackluster Laura also showed her compassion by using the Myanmar news conference as an occasion to discuss the details of Jenna’s upcoming wedding.

“Our nation’s immigration system is broken. And without comprehensive immigration reform, our nation’s security will remain vulnerable. That is why we must act.”

No, this is all wrong, 2007 John McCain said. What we really need is to forget about “comprehensive” reform and focus our energies on securing the border.

John McCain spent months earlier this year arguing that the United States must combine border security efforts with a temporary worker program and an eventual path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants.

Now, the Republican presidential candidate emphasizes securing the borders first. The rest, he says, is still needed but will have to come later.

“I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift,” McCain told reporters Saturday after voters questioned him on his position during back-to-back appearances in this early voting state. “I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people’s priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders.”

Au contraire, says 2008 John McCain. What we really need is a comprehensive approach to immigration reform

“We get in this kind of a circular firing squad on immigration reform in the Congress of the United States, and the lesson I learned from it is we’ve got to have comprehensive immigration reform.”

Maybe we could get all the various John McCains together in a room, let them debate one another on the various issues on which they’re diametrically opposed, and the Republicans can get back to us once they’ve figured out a policy platform. [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Carpetbagger Report>

The author’s final comment is so dead on that I have nothing more to add.

F.B.I. agents on Tuesday raided and temporarily shut down the offices of a small federal watchdog agency that is charged with protecting the rights of government whistle-blowers but has been accused of retaliating against whistle-blowers in its own ranks

The raid on the downtown Washington headquarters of the agency, the Office of Special Counsel, and another at the home of its director, Scott J. Bloch, followed accusations that Mr. Bloch had destroyed evidence on government computers that might demonstrate wrongdoing.

Mr. Bloch, who has held the post of special counsel since January 2004, has denied intentionally destroying evidence from his agency’s computers, though he has acknowledged paying $1,000 of public money to a technology company, Geeks on Call, to scrub his own government computer in 2006. He has said he was trying to rid the computer of software viruses, an assertion challenged by members of Congress and by lawyers representing current and former employees of the office… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Bloch has a long history or religious right activism and abuse of office, especially against the GLBT community.  I’m just geeky enough myself to know that a standard deep format, a task that can be accomplished by anyone with rudimentary computer skills, will rid the computer of viruses and will cost no more than $100 – $150.  A $1,000 wipe overwrites existing data so many times that the original data can never be recovered.

Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith’s recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

Feith’s account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country’s top military leaders.

Feith’s book, ‘War and Decision’, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W. Bush on Sep. 30, 2001 calling for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing ‘new regimes’ in a series of states by ‘aiding local peoples to rid themselves of terrorists and to free themselves of regimes that support terrorism.’

In quoting from that document, Feith deletes the names of all of the states to be targeted except Afghanistan, inserting the phrase ‘some other states’ in brackets. In a facsimile of a page from a related Pentagon ‘campaign plan’ document, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes are listed as ‘state regimes’ against which ‘plans and operations’ might be mounted, but the names of four other states are blacked out ‘for security reasons’.

Gen. Wesley Clark, who commanded the NATO bombing campaign in the Kosovo War, recalls in his 2003 book ‘Winning Modern Wars’ being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia.

Clark writes that the list also included Lebanon. Feith reveals that Rumsfeld’s paper called for getting ‘Syria out of Lebanon’ as a major goal of U.S. policy.

When this writer asked Feith after a recent public appearance which countries’ names were deleted from the documents, he cited security reasons for the deletion. But when he was asked which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he replied, ‘All of them.’… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <IPS>

This is confirmation of a story I posted here in March, 2007. That story was the video of a statement by Gen. Clark, which I am reposting here:

Despite Hagee’s radical and bigoted beliefs, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) sought and received Hagee’s endorsement for president — one McCain said he was “very honored” to have. Since then, Hagee’s views have garnered more attention, sparking wider questions as to why McCain would accept such an endorsement.

In a recent article on the McCain/Hagee saga, Newsweek reports that McCain aides attribute the courting of Hagee’s support to “poor vetting.” But some from McCain’s own party wonder how his views could have “slipped through the cracks”:

McCain’s aides attribute the Hagee controversy to poor vetting. But even some Republicans (not affiliated with the campaign) privately wonder how the pastor’s extreme views slipped through without notice. McCain personally wooed Hagee for more than a year.

Indeed, “some Republicans” weren’t the only ones greeting this explanation with confusion. The New York Times’s Frank Rich noted yesterday that “[a]ny 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops”:

Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views? This particular YouTube video — far from the only one — was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops…

…Newsweek noted that McCain “likes to think of himself as a straight-shooter” but when asked about Hagee’s endorsement, McCain starts “bobbing and weaving” — which is exactly what happened last month during an interview on ABC’s This Week. McCain agreed that the endorsement was “a mistake,” but 30 seconds later said he is “glad to have it.”

In seeking Hagee’s support, perhaps McCain and his staff did not “properly” vet the controversial pastor because they were taking advice from McCain’s buddy Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who just last year compared Hagee to Moses… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

The notion that McBigot did not know Hagee’s views is patently absurd.  I first reported on Hagee’s extremism in November, 2006, less than three weeks after I relocated my blog to Blogger.  Since, I have done so on ten other occasions.  If I have thoroughly vetted Hagee, it’s inconceivable that, with all their resources, the McConJob campaign did not.  Not only did he McFlipFlop within the space of 30 seconds, but also this goes beyond a mere flip-flop.  McLiar is McFullOfIt!

After a meeting Monday evening of House Democratic leaders, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she hoped to bring a $178 billion measure to the floor this week. What could be a contentious debate on the matter is likely to be held on Thursday, aides said.

Ms. Pelosi, of California, did not disclose details of the proposed bill, which will be presented to rank-and-file Democrats at a closed party session on Tuesday. But Democratic officials, who did not want to be identified since the bill was still being put into final form, said the legislative package would include provisions requiring a significant withdrawal of troops from Iraq by December 2009 and measures that would force Iraq to share more costs of its reconstruction.

Democrats also intend to make veterans eligible for new educational assistance if they have served from three months to three years or more on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001. The aid would be equivalent to a four-year scholarship at a public university for those with three years or more service, with payments prorated for those with less time.

Mr. Bush has steadily insisted he would not approve any legislation that exceeds his spending request for the war, sets any withdrawal deadlines or adds domestic money he opposes like the unemployment benefits. And House Republicans, angry that the measure is not going through formal committee consideration, began on Monday to open procedural attacks on the House floor in protest, forcing extra votes on noncontroversial measures.

“The Democrat leaders of the House and Senate are attempting to jam a 200-plus-billion-dollar spending bill through the Congress with absolutely no oversight or scrutiny by a vast majority of members, senators or their constituents,” Representative Jerry Lewis of California, the senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement on Monday. “Never in my 30 years in Congress has there been such an abuse of the processes and rules of the House.”

Democrats said privately that they expected the provisions setting a withdrawal deadline and putting other conditions on the war money to be eliminated by the Senate before a final House vote later this spring… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Of course there is no way this bill can ever get through the automatic GOP filibuster in the Senate.  Nevertheless it’s still a good idea, because it gives GOP Senators a choice to actually do something for America or come down solidly against the unemployed and veterans in the height of election season.

Representative Jerry Lewis needs help for his comedy routine from his side-kick, Dean Martin.  Throughout the GOP dominated 109th, no bill made it to committee without having first been approved by a majority of the House Repuglicans.

Think how much better it would have been if the Democratic majority in the House had wasted time with impeachment hearings instead of with posturing!

Gordon Smith has become a vending machine for votes. Special interests insert money and Gordon Smith produces any vote they want.

Following earlier protests in Eugene and Medford, Oregonians in Pendleton, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith’s (R-OR) hometown, demanded that Smith stand up to his corporate donors and stop opposing important climate change legislation.

“Oregon cannot afford to have a senator whose special interest contributors have bought his opposition to fixing climate change,” said Ben Talley, Pendleton area organizer for the Stop Gordon Smith Campaign. “We can’t let Gordon Smith get away with serving the corporate interests rather than the people’s interests.”

“Why doesn’t Gordon Smith think Climate Change is a problem? Because he’s paid to ignore this crisis,” Talley said. “Smith has taken millions from Big Oil and other special interests who control his votes. In return, Smith has voted twice to keep $5 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil and oppose important climate change legislation.”

Smith’s donors have bought his opposition to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. Oregon’s other U.S. Senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, is a co-sponsor of the bill to combat climate change and the bill has bi-partisan support.

But Smith won’t support this important legislation. Smith has taken millions of dollars from the special interests who oppose this legislation, including hundreds of thousands from Big Oil…

…The bill would be an important step in combating climate change. It would cap greenhouse emissions and make appliances and buildings more energy efficient, according to The Register-Guard.

(The Register-Guard Editorial, 2-28-08)

The Eugene, Medford and Pendleton protests were held outside Smith’s offices. They were organized by the Stop Gordon Smith Campaign.

Goose-stepping Gordon does NOT represent Oregon!  Whether Novick, whom I support, or Merkely wins the Democratic nomination for Senator from Oregon, Gordon’s got to go!

Cinco de Mayo is a date of great importance for the Mexican and Chicano communities. It marks the

victory of the Mexican Army over the French at the Battle of Puebla. Althought the Mexican army was eventually defeated, the “Batalla de Puebla” came to represent a symbol of Mexican unity and patriotism. With this victory, Mexico demonstrated to the world that Mexico and all of Latin America were willing to defend themselves of any foreign intervention. Especially those from imperialist states bent on world conquest…

…In the United States, the “Batalla de Puebla” came to be known as simply “5 de Mayo” and unfortunately, many people wrongly equate it with Mexican Independence which was on September 16, 1810, nearly a fifty year difference. Over, the years Cinco de Mayo has become very commercialized and many people see this holiday as a time for fun and dance. Oddly enough, Cinco de Mayo has become more of Chicano holiday than a Mexican one. Cinco de Mayo is celebrated on a much larger scale here in the United States than it is in Mexico. People of Mexican descent in the United States celebrate this significant day by having parades, mariachi music, folklorico dancing and other types of festive activities.

Inserted from <UCLA>

I think it important that we recognize and embrace others’ cultures.

All articles cross-posted from Politics Plus