I just read John Dean's latest column, Barack Obama and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments: In Pledging to Work to Remove Retroactive Immunity for FISA Violations, What Kind of Action Is Obama Contemplating?. As the title implies, much of the column is devoted to questions about what Obama can, should, and will do, both now and as president.

However, I found this paragraph interesting:

Apologies for the short diary, but I want to post this while Left Coast folks are getting home and logging on.

I realized everyone's tapped out supporting Presidential nominees and state and local races. Add to that the monstrous weather-related tragedies happening across the country. Between supporting our friends who've lost homes to tornadoes and helping our friends who are being flooded out of their homes now, we're feeling "donation fatigue."

However, the DNC is facing significant shortfalls for the convention. You can read the details at Raw Story. If you can, please help.

Apologies if this was diaried earlier today. I just saw this and want to share it with other late nighters.

This morning, the Minnesota Post published a story titled "Clinton supporters wowed with warm reception at Obama rally." It describes a scene that exemplifies the hope for the future that Barack Obama inspires in me.

Update: Apologies for the choppiness of the quotes but I've had to excise quite a bit because of copyright infringement laws.

Some of the people mentioned in the article were Buck Humphrey, a former head of Hillary Clinton's Minnesota campaign; Jackie Stevenson, a feminist Clinton superdelegate; Chris Coleman, mayor of St. Paul; Rick Stafford, another Clinton superdelegate; Joan Growe, former Secretary of State; Barbara Johnson, Minneapolis City Council President; and a couple of dozen other people who were active in Clinton's Minnesota campaign. You can read the full article using the link above.

Memorial Day isn't the day I usually reflect on my father's death. I usually do so on the anniversary of his death. This year feels different to me for two main reasons.

This year will be the 50th anniversary of his death.

This year, the emergence of Obama as a Presidential candidate imbues my father's sacrifice with a bit more meaning for me.

Please allow me a few minutes of personal reflection on the passage of time and the passing of a good man who I don't remember, but whose sacrifice in some manner resonates with the Obama candidacy.

I'm sure this has been diaried before but it's not on the front page anymore, so I thought I'd bring this to the attention of my fellow West-coasters.

The Charleston Gazette, the newspaper of West Virginia's largest city, announced its support for Barack Obama!

In an editorial titled "Obama: Right person, right time," they list their reasons, emphasizing the treatment of military personnel returning from the war (emph. mine):

Having digested "Corzine wants to disenfranchise 13 states for Clinton," it occurred to me that one of the justifications the Clinton campaign uses for continuing the race is "Why not wait until all states have voted? Don't you think that voters in Michigan, Florida, or {name of state that hasn't held its primary yet} deserve a say in this? Why are you being so undemocratic?"

To bolster their argument, they asked voters in Indiana whether they wanted their chance to "be heard." Of course Indiana voters want a chance to cast their votes so that Indiana "matters." Similarly, voters in North Carolina, Oregon, Kentucky, etc. want their votes to count. Pandering to these voters is as simple as asking "Wouldn't it be great if {Indiana/Oregon/Puerto Rico, etc.} selected the Democratic nominee?"

It's a specious argument, of course. If you get right down to it, wouldn't all voters in all states prefer to have equal say in selecting the party's nominee? The scheduling of the primaries is inherently "undemocratic" to voters in all states not named Iowa or New Hampshire.

UPDATE: Please send this diary, or a link to Parry's article, to everyone you know. Let's debunk this lie!

I suppose I'll get my wrist slapped for copying something I just put in the Comments and making a diary about it, but I think this is a critical distinction that I haven't seen addressed anywhere else. Ayers didn't make the ‘I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough’ comment on 9/11. He made it on 9/10. And Clinton and Stephanopoulos knew it.

Did someone diary this and I somehow missed it? al Maliki said he thinks we should leave? Bush previously said that if they asked us to leave, we'd leave? We can start bringing the troops home now???

I first found out about this on Think Progress, although they linked to the wrong AP story (corrected link over the flip):

A lot of hostility has been directed toward Air America Radio because they'd suspended Randi Rhodes for comments she made at an event presented by an Air America affiliate. The displeasure deepened today with the announcement that Randi quit AAR and has signed on with NovaM. I've read comments like "I've had it with AAR and refuse to listen to them anymore."

I've also read many negative comments about David Gregory's show Race to the White House on MSNBC. Objections range from the Brady Bunch-like positioning of the panel members in boxes around the host to the rapid-fire way Gregory goes "around the room," sometimes cutting off someone who was speaking. And of course, there are some who will never cut someone who performed "MC Rove" at the White House correspondents' dinner any slack whatsoever.

On the bright side, Rachel Maddow seems to have a growing fanbase here. People seem to really enjoy her work on her radio show and on a variety of MSNBC shows, particularly Countdown with Keith Olbermann. In fact, I've read many pleas for MSNBC to add Rachel as a regular, have her sit in when Keith has the day off, or even give her her own show.

Now, to the news...

Not a candidate diary!

I listen to a lot of progressive talk radio and am outraged by the number of calls like the one I heard recently. A woman who described herself as well-informed about the issues and the candidates' positions on them said, "I've been having a hard time deciding between Hillary and Obama. I was starting to lean towards Obama but the media has been dumping on Hillary so much that now I'm starting to lean towards her."

To which I yelled, "Why don't you make up your own flippin' mind?!?"

Well, that wasn't all I said...

What's the most important issue in this election? The climate crisis? The economic crisis? The foreign relations crisis? How about "None of the above"? How about "Is this even the first question we should be asking ourselves"? What's more important? Please allow me to explain further...

NewsFlash!  Seems as though it's not just us "radical lefties" who think the "Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" is a bad idea.  As many diarists have pointed out since the crimethink bill passed the House on Oct. 23, it's one of the scariest pieces of legislation flying under the MSM radar recently:

House Passes Thought Crimes Bill and No One Notices?

Now, even the John Birch Society has issued an action alert to oppose this heinous bill!

Never thought I'd say this - good for them!

Q: What do some very prestigious, high-ranking, highly visible, powerful, desirable government posts have in common? A list appears below the fold.

I'm sure many of you read a gnostic's diary "NASA study says climate 'tipping point' near" of May 30 of this year. This post was on the announcement by NASA of the James Hansen et. al paper in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, titled "Dangerous human-made interference with climate: a GISS modelE study." This year's Nobel Peace Prize award, shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore, announced today, makes this subject highly topical, and I'd like to add links to the actual paper (which is available publicly on the GISS site) that was the subject of the NASA announcement, and some analysis for your consideration.

Whether you think that Al Gore should run or not, the real scientific facts on the ground are important to understand the implications of global warming. Those facts, hidden in cold, clinical analysis of the climate situation, when properly understood are the most frightening challenge facing the human race today. Al Gore has understood the implications of these papers, and acted on them, and you should too.

File this under "You can't make this $h|t up," "Your tax dollars at work," and "WTF?!?"

I've been wondering about "electability" - what does it mean and why does it matter?