At the end of tonight, even if the DNC decides to seat the entire Florida & Michigan delegations without any changes , Obama will have a majority of pledged delegates.

The Math (source)

Total Pledged Delegates:		3,556(3,253 +185FL+128MI)
50%		1,783
Current (Obama Pledged)		1,612.5
+ Obama FL Pledged		74
+ Edwards FL Declared		2
+ MI Non-Clinton "Uncommitted"		55
Total		1,743.5

Minimum Obama delegates from tonight:

Oregon (50/50)		26
Kentucky (70/30)		14
Total Obama Pledged		1783.5

So why did Bill Clinton reply the way he did in the NY Times?

While it is easy to believe that Bush/Cheney really wants interrogation/torture methods that have been rejected by the Pentagon AND that they want to have tribunal provisions that they clearly knew would be resisted by congressional Republicans, perhaps this is just a well orchestrated political move.

(NOTE - This is not meant as a suggestion for the Republicans and I hope this is not what is happening. This is just a warning that we need to watch our optimism in the coming elections)

If I were Karl Rove and I wanted to make sure that the legacy of the Bush Administration is Republican domination of all branches of government perhaps I would propose the following:

The following is cross-posted from the Direct Change blog. Direct Change is a new non-profit designed to use social networking to help African children through supporting the programs of small, efficient, local grassroots organizations.  There are many "gates to crash"!

Conventional marketing wisdom is to start with a positive message. However, after reading marketing guru Seth Godin's post the other night on "the intuition vs. analysis conundrum" and then reading yesterday's story in the New York Times  on the tremendous mismanagement of funds raised for Tsunami reconstruction I decided to just dive in and get this blog going.   Time to stop planning and just do it, so here it goes.

Yesterday's NYT's covered a report from the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, that includes examples of how aid agencies "displayed 'arrogance and ignorance' and were often staffed by 'incompetent workers' who came and went quickly."

The unprofessionalism of the WaPo, pointed out earlier by Armando, appears to be not just a question of a single incident but something that has become ingrained in the culture of the Washington Post.

This morning's paper had a notice in the obituary section that showed the cold unprofesionalism in their production department:

The death notices are paid advertising! The difference is that unlike regular advertisers people only die once. Families who paid to put a death notice in the well read Sunday paper so that friends, family and the WaPo readership know about their lives and their passing were sidelined so the Post could collect more revenues.

SHAME!

What do Gannon, Microsoft, the Catholic Church and Karl Rove all have in common?  They all have been at the receiving end of the wrath of John Aravosis at AmericaBlog.  

John has been picked as one of the finalists on PoliticsOnline's contest on who is having the most impact on the way the Internet and political life intersect.

While most progressive bloggers go after one pillar of power (republicans, corporations, right wing media, etc.), John attacks power wherever it resides to advance a progressive agenda.  He outed Jeff Gannon as a male prostitute; he uncovered Microsoft's secret deal with Ralph Reed;  he has been one of the leaders in the fight to keep the pressure on Karl Rove; and he has exposing the hypocrisy of the religious right.

Go Vote for John.

"The winners, those top 10 nominees who receive the most votes, will be announced at the 6th annual Worldwide Forum on Electronic Democracy -- September 28-29, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, (Paris, France)."

As a father of an adopted African-American son, I was startled to see the picture this morning of President Bush using a white baby that was produced was embryo adoption as a prop to stop stem cell research that can save lives.

These children that were exploited as props for yesterday's event were produced by "The Snowflakes Program" a program of "Nightlight Christian Adoptions."

To put a white face that is.

The Religious right and President Bush have chosen to ignore not only those who suffer from diseases that might be cured by stem cell research, but also the millions of living children without families or homes.

OOPS - They were talking about Newsweek not themselves, I forgot the government should not have to be held to a standard as high as the free press.

There is a great piece about October 2000 polling on the main dkos page - check out where things were on the Friday before the election -

"News Story: Bush 46, Gore 39 (Released Friday)"

This is from what was Voter.com using the WayBackMachine. This is a great tool for pulling old web pages.

The following image from the KSTP site and video clearly shows an orange label marked "1.1 D"

While the label does not show it is RDX (the type of explsoves that are missing) that is one of the types that would have this classification (see ->http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZSI450Y1994.html)

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Full Story at USAToday.

Jerome makes a great point today

"Too bad the Democrats don't see a winning issue, supporting this ban and putting the Republicans on the defensive over taxes, when it's sitting right in front of them."

Well it's not to late! Tell your Democratic Senators to support the ban.

About an hour ago I went outside (my office is in downtown DC) to grab some lunch and went into a little bit of panic when I noticed a low flying plane being clossely escorted by 2 fighter jets.

Being in DC on 9/11 I still look into the sky a little too often so I started waiting for the explosion, starting looking for the sirens and thinking of my exit plan - do I go back to the office or run home and find my wife and child - all the scenerios that those of us in DC and NYC continue to think about.

I then started checking the news sites to see if there was an airplane that crossed into the wrong airspace and I found a picture on the front page of the Wash Post website of the incident with the following description -

The U.S. Air Force staged a photo shoot of airplanes escorted by F-16 fighter pilots along National Airport and the Mall today.

What moron thought that staging a photo shoot in DC on a bright sunny day when the US governement has launched new offensives in Iraq?

Progressives like Marcos and Randi Rhodes are missing the point and not helping Kerry in wanting to just yell at Nader.

The point is not Nader, but his supporters.

Clinton understood this, Gore did not and hopefully Kerry will.

Attacking Nader will just make him more determined and will get his supporters to rally behind him. Embracing his agenda is the best way to eliminate potential Kerry supporters from voting with Nader.

All Kerry needs to do is to continue to address the issues that Nader is raising and say he will implement them and Nader's numbers will go down (from the left at least).

In regard to Nader and why he is doing this, I do have a little insight as the person who managed the first Nader Campaign (started as a Draft campaign) in 1992.

He has no interest in being President and no interest in being in the government at all.

The theory that Rhodes advocated that Ralph will drop out and "give" his supporters to Kerry in exchange for a position in a Kerry administration shows her lack of understanding of what motivates Ralph.

In 1992, we were running a Draft movement without Nader's participation because he did not believe that elections could be used to move issues. After much pressure he agreed to come to New Hampshire, speak at some events and try to raise some issues. The crowds were huge at a time when Clinton, Kerry, Harkin, Brown and Tsongas could hardly get a handful of people to listen. By the second event, representatives of the other campaigns stood at the back of the room taking notes and within days Nader's agenda was being addressed by Brown and Clinton.

Then Nader was hooked - issues that the Democrats were ignoring were being adressed and while he was being co-opted he did not care.

The crowds got smaller as Clinton and Brown's crowds grew as they addressed the issues and positioning that Nader was using to draw crowds - the need to reform Washington with an outsider.

Clinton co-opted Nader's message and took many of his supporters by the primary election. Clinton went as far as to hire Michael Waldman who was one of the informal advisors of the Draft Nader campaign. Waldman went on to be a speech writer in the Clinton administration.

Gore and his campaign missed an easy opportunity to capture the Nader voters - he ran away from his past environmental record with the idea that he could somehow convince the "center" that even though he wrote the book on global warming he no longer believed it. He so pissed off his natural supporters that they (we) voted for Nader and he was so unbelievable to the "center" that his waffling did not get him any votes.

So far, Kerry seems to get it and his "bring it on" attitude of defending his progressive credentials and willing to advance them is brining in most of the Nader and Dean supporters. If he keeps it up, then the progressive Nader supporters will vote for him - if he shifts away from his base then they will not.

There is no talking Nader out of his run - it is up to Kerry to capture those votes. He already has got mine and much of the old Nader supporters.

Check out Mass Rep Bill Straus's blog posting on this issue.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has launched a campaign to stop the hate amendment and has a great tool to allow individuals or groups raise money for this campaign.

I set up a page to track contributions from bloggers.

Let's show them the power of the blogsphere and contribute to the campaign.

Donate Now!

I am finding it very odd that there has not been more pick up of yesterday's NYT piece "Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War"