NE-Sen: We did it!

Yay!!! We did it! Everyone rejoice in having the nagging over with. For  now.

Excellent work making our monetary goal. But I still want to get us over the 450 donations hump. We need 450 donations--one for every $1,000 of his own money Raimondo has put into this race.

Now part of this is personal. See, Tony Raimondo, Scott's DINO (and I really mean DINO--he changed his party registration specifically to run in this primary) is on the board of trustees for the National Association of Manufacturers. This organization, for no immediately apparent reason, has been committed to making sure AT&T and the other telcos get amnesty for their lawbreaking.

And the NAM has this blog that they call the "Shop Floor." (Stay with me here.) So on this blog, in support of the lawbreaking telcos, they've said some not so nice things about the bloggers (specifically me) working on the side of the Constitution. I admit it, I'm not above seeking revenge.

Reject the NAM, reject the corporate hijacking of our public policy. Do it with $5 or $10 to Scott. Show them what people power can do.

On the Web:
Kleeb for Senate
Daily Kos for Scott Kleeb ActBlue page

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Obama/Clinton Would Be Good For Downticket
Democrats

Hillary Clinton's latest pitch to superdelegates comes in the form of a Power Point presentation (h/t TPM) the Clinton campaign has sent to all Democratic members of the House to make the case that she, not Senator Obama, would be the candidate with the[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mydd/~3/287059934/8671

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Reuters reported McCain attack on Obama on
campaign finance, did not mention that McCain may be breaking campaign finance laws

In a May 9 Reuters article, staff writerAndy Sullivan reported that Sen. John McCain's campaign "is preparing to take $84million in public funding after the Republican Party convention in Septemberand he is challenging [Sen. Barack] Obama to stick by last year's pledge to use public moneyand its accompanying spending limits." Sullivan also quoted McCainspokesman Tucker Bounds' assertion that "[i]t would be unfortunate for theDemocratic nominee, particularly if it was Barack Obama, to go back on[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.mediamatters.org/~r/mediamatters/latest/~3/287058790/200805090007

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Living In The Past

In arguing against a Unity ticket, Mark Schmitt writes:

[Clinton] still suffers under the reputation, developed during the 1990s, that she is some sort of quasi-socialist. That's the worst possible combination: perceived as more liberal than she actually is, while being demonstrably more conservative only on less popular points.

That simply is no longer the case. Schmitt wants to continue to believe that Obama is still seen as some moderate unifying figure and Clinton as some liberal demon. The reverse is fast becoming the perception. Obama supporters do not realize the danger zone Obama is in now. They continue to play ostrich. Time to wake up. We're not in Iowa anymore.

As for his other arguments on the Unity Ticket idea, I find them very weak. A surprisingly poor effort from the usually sharp Mark Schmitt.

By Big Tent Democrat

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Feds Unlikely to Charge Blackwater for Baghdad
Shootings

From the AP:

Blackwater Worldwide, the security contractor blamed by an angry Iraqi government for the shooting deaths of 17 civilians, is not expected to face criminal charges -- all but ensuring the company will keep its multimillion-dollar contract to protect U.S. diplomats.

Instead, the seven-month-old Justice Department investigation is focused on as few as three or four Blackwater guards who could be indicted in the Sept. 16 shootings, according to interviews with a half-dozen people close to the investigation.

So what does this mean? Well, for one thing, it would certainly seriously damage the company's prospects for government business -- especially its contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- if Blackwater were indicted. It also certainly wouldn't help the search for investors. But if a few bad apples get put to justice, well, prospects improve. Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell tells the AP, "If it is determined that there are any individuals who need to be held accountable, we support that."

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Clock Ticking for Vito

WNBC reports:Several top New York Republicans said that Congressman Vito Fossella's resignation will come within the next 72 hours -- if not late Friday then certainly by Monday.There was political concern about how best to preserve the seat for the[...]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/287087179/194268.php

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Midday Open Thread

• Convicted New Hampshire phone jammer has high hopes of selling his story to Hollywood.  - SusanG
• We've got hope. What do they have? Corruption and more of the McSame.  

  PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].

  On Sunday, BarbinMD will be taking a comprehensive look at McCain's record in the Senate of pushing highly profitable deals for his biggest campaign donors and lobbyists pals.

• Dick Cheney continues to live in his own fantasy world.  

  In Northeast Philadelphia Thursday morning, Vice President Dick Cheney said that America's economy "remains the envy of the world," and that a recent economic "slowdown" could have been much worse without President Bush's economic policies.

  Cheney said that because of those policies, particularly tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, "the slowdown that did come was a fairly mild one."

  "For the better part of six years now, this nation's economy grew without pause," Cheney said.

• A Fox News Assistant was fired for stopping John McCain on the red carpet at the Time 100 Gala and blurting out - on camera - I voted for you in the primary, you're going to win.

  Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, "I voted for you in the primary, you're going to win."

  McCain was overheard saying to her, "You're not supposed to reveal that." Locke apparently continued to explain that she is the daughter of Vietnam veteran.

  Insiders who were at the event were surprised and shocked to hear the disclosure, which was recorded on videotape. A Fox News insider called it "journalistically unacceptable." An FNC spokesperson would not comment on the personnel matter but did confirm Locke is no longer with the company, where she'd worked for a couple of years.

  Too bad a 24 year old assistant gets fired while their blatantly biased reporting continues unabated.

• Nelson Mandella has discovered that he is on the US terrorist watch list. To her credit, Condoleezza Rice called the situation, "embarrassing."
• The number of soldiers kept in uniform involuntarily by the Army's stop-loss program has nearly doubled in the last year since the Pentagon extended combat tours. - smintheus
• Once again, after denouncing Iran for being behind smuggling of arms into Iraq, the Pentagon has quietly backed off the charge and produced no weapons made in Iran. On Wednesday a briefing by M. Gen. Kevin Bergner about hundreds of weapons seized in Basra and Karbala didn't even try to link any of them to Iran. The Pentagon's policy has been to accuse Iran first, look for actual evidence second.

  A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran...When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.

  - smintheus

• The Arizona Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill prohibiting the state from implementing Real ID. The AZ House has passed a weaker version of the bill, so the pressure is now on Gov. Janet Napolitano to sign the measure into law. It would make Arizona the 9th state to join the anti-Real-ID rebellion. - smintheus
• Send your mom a Mothers' Day card from you and John McCain (so she can know that John McCain thinks she doesn't have a right to fair pay) -DHinMI
• China is so determined to suppress opposition to its rule in Tibet that it has instituted a law regulating reincarnation. It's now illegal for Tibetan lamas to be reincarnated without first having applied for and received authorization from the Chinese government. - smintheus

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Zombie Attack: Those Right-Wing Obama Lies Will
Not Die

The YouTube at left is the original CNN attempt at "debunking" the idiotic Obama e-mail smears -- my favorite part is Howie Kurtz saying that the way the media works these days is to run with unsourced internet smear rumors, and then backtrack to[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/09/kudos-for-mcclatchy-for-practicing-journalism/

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Anti-Pork McCain Speaks At New Jersey Museum
Funded By Nearly $1 Million In Earmarks

One of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) signature campaign pledges is to “do away” with the “pork-barrel-laden bills” from the past few years. Today, McCain held an event at Liberty Science Center, the “most visited museum in New Jersey and one of the most intensively used in the country,” to discuss his environmental agenda.

But McCain?s event at Liberty Science Center conflicts with his promise to abolish earmarks from the federal budget. The museum, in fact, has been the beneficiary of multiple federal earmarks. For example, the Office of Management and Budget reported that in FY2005, the museum received $500,000 from a NASA earmark request:

An increase of $500,000 to the Liberty Science Center, Jersey City, New Jersey for the Hudson Harbor and Estuary Ecological Learning Center.

In FY2006, Liberty received another earmark, this time at $250,000, according to Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).

Several of McCain’s campaign events have been set at places funded by “pork.” Last month, on the same day he called earmarks “an egregious process,” McCain spoke at a Florida air field that had received almost $10 million in earmarked funds between 2001 and 2005. He also rode on the ferry in Gee?s Bend, AL, a project funded by a federal earmark in the 2005 Transportation/Treasury Appropriations Act.

On May 1, McCain held a health care event at the Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, PA. There, he met a woman with ovarian cancer who was treated “in a $80 million clinical trial program funded by an earmark.” McCain then backtracked from his anti-earmark crusade, simply stating, “It?s the process I object to.”

But that excuse doesn’t hold up for the Liberty Science Center. CAGW reported that in 2006, NASA “added $273 million in earmarks, in conference, without a budget request from the agency.” These regular appearances at earmark-funded projects reflect the lack of thought in McCain’s plan to wholly abolish federal earmarking.

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Iraq Papers Sat: Turning Militias Into a State

According to Az-Zaman, a new two-year plan is envisaged by the Iraqi government to ban all private militias and achieve a monopoly of violence for the Iraqi state.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/5802

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