Major polling firm will no longer track Hillary
because "the race is over"

Via Daily Kos:

Rasmussen Reports has been tracking the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination daily for nineteen months...

However, while Senator Clinton has remained close and competitive in every meaningful measure, she is a close second and the race is over. It has become clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. [...]

With this in mind, Rasmussen Reports will soon end our daily tracking of the Democratic race and focus exclusively on the general election competition between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.

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Who Are the Most Influential Republicans

Richt Wing News has polled a bunch of conservative bloggers to bring you a list of the most influential Republicans out there. I assume some of the respondents are listing who influences them, while others are listing those who are most influential in the conservative “movement.” I guess that’s neither here nor there, as the results of the poll show just how bankrupt Tepublicans are for leadership. At least four out of the top five of their selections barely qualify as human. Number 1, Rush Limbaugh, is a recovered (maybe) drug abuser whose principles are about as deeply held as as his convictions, which are only about money. Here’s the list, from Right Wing News. There are tie votes, so don’t let them confuse you.

#25: Mark Levin: 6
#21) Hugh Hewitt: 7
#21) George Will: 7
#21) John Roberts: 7
#21) Ronald Reagan: 7
#20) Victor David Hanson: 8
#19) Antonin Scalia: 9
#18) John McCain: 10
#14) Glenn Beck: 11
#14) George W. Bush: 11
#14) Glenn Reynolds: 11
#14) Matt Drudge: 11
#13) Bill Kristol: 12
#10) Charles Krauthammer: 13
#10) Thomas Sowell: 13
#10) Laura Ingraham: 13
#9) Karl Rove: 14
#8) Jonah Goldberg: 15
#7) Bill O’Reilly: 17
#5) Newt Gingrich: 21
#5) Ann Coulter: 21
#3) Mark Steyn: 23
#3) Sean Hannity: 23
#2) Michelle Malkin: 24
#1) Rush Limbaugh: 49

One more comment from me before you folks have at it. How pathetic is it that Ronald Reagan dominated the Republican Primary debates, yet is ranked so low. And how pathetic is it that he’s been dead so long and still ranks at all? Dubya and McCain are pretty low on the list as well. I suppose this says something about the strength of the Republican Party, and also about the aspirations and dreams of those pathetic bloggers on the right who voted in this contest.

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Obama in Oregon today; I’ll be doing some
video

He’ll be appearing in Albany (3:30; tickets sold out), at the U of O in Eugene (get there early), and he heads to Bend for a Sturday appearance (tickets at campaign HQ there today). I guess it’s time to break out the videocam so I can catch him in Eugene and get some YouTubes up [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/archives/2008/05/09/obama-in-oregon-today-ill-be-d
oing-some-video/

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Mr. Super Endorses Barack Obama

He kept it a really good secret but today Ed Espinoza (aka Mr. Super) endorsed Barack Obama. We tried many times to pry the information out of him but not even kryptonite would make him tell.

Only a day after revealing his true identity Espinoza become Barack Obama's 264th superdelegate vote by our count.

Obama is now 5.5 superdelegates vote behind Clinton.

Today, California DNC Member and superdelegate Ed Espinoza endorsed Barack Obama, citing his judgment, character, and ability to unite our country for change.

Espinoza is the 268th superdelegate to endorse Barack Obama. Obama is 163 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination.

Espinoza said, ?I am endorsing Barack Obama today because throughout this process I have seen him show a judgment and character that we need in our next president. From day one he opposed the Iraq war and has a plan to end the war in a responsible way and bring our sons and daughters home. He has shown he has the character to lead our great nation, from his choice to spend his career serving people in the poorest communities in Chicago to his commitment to speaking truth to the American people, even when it isn?t politically convenient to do so. To unify the country at this time in our history we need a president who has these qualities, and that is why I am proud to endorse him today. My good friend Bill Richardson, who backed Obama some weeks ago, knows what it takes to lead and I trust his judgment in this decision as well. I look forward to working with this great movement to bring victory in November.? - Obama Press Release

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MS-01 Dick Cheney to campaign in "South Memphis"

On the Paul Gallow show today the Vice President gave an interview concerning the MS-01 congressional race. He spends half of the interview praising the Bush tax cuts and calling for more tax cuts. He must not have read the news that the Bush, Cheney economic policy has been an abysmal failure. According to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Greg Davis, that's just what this country needs more of. Never mind the deficit soaring out of control that have to be paid off by our children. Our debt now closes in on $10,000,000,000,000, or more than $30,000 per American citizen.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, there are. The way I like to explain it, Paul, is to talk about the '03 tax cut. You may remember the President and I inherited a recession, the front end of a recession, and then after 9/11, we lost a million jobs. And what turned the economy around and got us started on a 52-month expansion was the tax package that we passed in the Spring of '03. And that tax package passed the Senate by one vote -- happened to be my vote; I had to cast the tie-breaking vote that time as Vice President. But I don't deserve any great credit for it. I knew what I was supposed to do that day; it wasn't like I had options when I went up there.

Q: Monday you are going to be here -- on Monday -- in the state of Mississippi, and Greg Davis will be there, and you'll be in Senatobia, Hernando, and that area?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think we are going to be. I'm not sure exactly. It's going to be someplace in the First District. I'm not sure exactly what part of it. South Memphis or --

Q: Don't worry about it.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Southaven, in Southaven.

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Updated - Burma's Military Junta Deports Aid
Workers

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar said Friday it was not ready to let in foreign aid workers, rejecting international pressure to allow experts into the isolated nation where disease and starvation are stalking cyclone survivors.One week after the devastating storm[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Docudharma/~3/286893311/showDiary.do

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Who Would Obama Pick for Attorney General

According to Matt Stoller and The Washingtonian, Barack Obama is likely to pick Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama for Attorney General. Checking Davis' website, I found this:

From 1994 to 1998, Congressman Davis established a 98 percent conviction rate as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama fighting white-collar criminals and the scourge of drugs and violence on our streets and in our neighborhoods. From 1998 until his election to Congress, Congressman Davis worked as a litigator in private practice.

On issues, in 2006, NORML rated him -20,indicating a "hard-on-drugs" stance. The National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) rated him at 88 for being tough on crime.

Great, just what we need, another drug warrior. Politically, he's a centrist. His website notes:

He is the co-chair of the centrist New Democrat Caucus.

He voted for the bankruptcy reform bill. This article in The Black Commentator makes him out to be a corporate shill.

More...

He also voted for class action reform (as did Obama, by the way, breaking with progressive Democrats), the Real ID act, the marriage amendment and the bill banning partial-birth abortions. And he voted yes on removing the need for a FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad. He voted yes on continuing military recruitment on college campuses.

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David Segals PartyWay Too Crowded

I got an internet invitation to a fundraiser for David Segal. I vaguely remembered that he had once belonged to the Green Party. I have to say that any politician who tries to get my vote by naming his party after me gets an ?A? for effort. Too bad I didn?t live in his district.

But it sounded like a good excuse to check out Nick-A-Nees bar, and the What Cheer Brigade was promised to be there. I?ve wanted to see them again ever since they showed up for the massive pro-immigration rally at the statehouse two years ago.

I have to say that the party was less than a success. It was hard to find a place to stand, the bar was so crowded. And I kept being distracted by running into people I knew. This kept me from getting to the boxes of Fellini?s pizza in time to get a slice.

Going out onto the patio, to get a breath of air in the unseasonably mild, gentle dusk as the neon lights flashed up and down the street and seagulls wheeled above the electric plant, I was again bothered by encountering old friends who wanted to hug and talk. Then the What Cheer brigade started doing stuff that was distracting, because it?s hard to talk when you are laughing that hard. When they started to play, my date embarrassed us by dancing, and?I blame the band?I danced too. This made my legs tired.

We planned to get something to eat, but ended up somehow staying far longer than we had planned. It was all those people wanting to talk, and that music I guess.

So unless you want to get into a crowd of people you know in a cool bar with amazing music on the sweetest night in May so far don?t ever go to one of David Segal?s fundraisers.

(PS from Kiersten: Here’s a fun video of the What Cheer Brigade performing.)

video details and more

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ThinkFast: May 9, 2008

As gas and crude oil costs jumped to record highs yesterday, USA Today has released a survey showing that these increasing costs are pushing “Americans to drive less for the first time in nearly three decades, squeezing family budgets and causing major shifts in driving habits.” Seventy-one percent say gas prices are a “financial hardship,” up from 47 percent in March 2004.

The American Petroleum Institute, Big Oil’s main lobbying group, “has embarked on a multiyear, multimedia, multimillion-dollar campaign” to convince voters that “rising energy prices are not the producers’ fault and that government efforts to punish the industry, especially with higher taxes, would only make pricing problems worse.”

The Senate Democrats unveiled the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008, a bill to address the root causes of high gas prices. Major oil companies “are getting away with murder” and “gouging” consumers as the price of oil continues to soar, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said.

Two months after “the Pentagon announced in March that Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan,” the military “has quietly canceled the assignment. General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran, “was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

?Hezbollah fighters seized control of rival pro-government strongholds in Beirut on Friday as gunbattles rocked the Lebanese capital for a third day, propelling the nation dangerously close to all-out civil war.? Hezbollah has also forced the shutdown of all media forced the shutdown of all media belonging to the family of parliamentary leader Saad Hariri.

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HEAVY HANDED DCCC POLICIES COULD BITE THEM IN THE
ASS-- IN LOUISIANA

I closely watched the votes rolling in last Saturday in Louisiana's special election. All night Woody KKK-pecker was ahead. It looked like there was little chance Don Cazayoux will be able to overcome his formidable lead in the mostly white suburbs. Finally there was nothing left but the East Baton Rouge precincts-- many of them solidly working class and mostly African-American. Cazayoux hadn't done well in these precincts in the primary. They were all taken by state Rep. Michael Jackson, a respected and admired African-American lawmaker with deep ties to the community. But once those precincts started rolling in late in the evening, Woody KKK-pecker and his friends had no choice but to pour the Pabst back into the cans and save it for another day. The race started tightening, then Cazayoux took the lead and them-- POW!-- KKK-pecker was roadkill. The final vote was 49,702 (49.2%) to 46,741 (46.3%). And Don Cazayoux was in the House voting for Barney Frank's and Maxine Waters' housing reform bills that-- if they get by McConnell's planned filibuster in the Senate and Bush's threatened veto-- will start to help thousands and thousands of American families whose homes are in jeopardy after being victimized by predatory lenders licensed for economic mayhem by Bush-McCain anti-regulatory ideological mania. My guess is that the voters of East Baton Rouge are happy that turned out in big enough numbers to help pass this legislation.

It might not happen again. The election was to fill out the rest of corrupt lobbyist Richard Baker's unexpired term. In November Cazayoux will have to stand for re-election. The Republicans have promised to go beyond the Klan to find a candidate this time and will look for a mainstream conservative instead of a modern day night-rider. But as a genial and hard-working moderate-to-conservative incumbent, Cazayoux shouldn't have that hard of a time holding on to the seat. He's on the correct side of every issue that means anything this year, especially the economic ones that mean the most. The problem isn't the Republican. It's the voters in East Baton Rouge, his winning margin.

Michael Jackson says that the Louisiana state Democratic Party and the DCCC goons in Washington backed Cazayoux in the primary and hampered his ability to raise campaign funds. That's standard operating procedure for the Inside the Beltway party petty tyrants when they want to knock off a progressive or grassroots candidate. Jackson says he's thinking of running as an independent, which would doom Cazayoux's re-election shot. And Jackson isn't the only African-American Democratic lawmaker in Louisiana not feeling the love from the Democratic insiders club. State Senators Don Cravins, Jr. and Lydia Jackson agree. Cravins: "For many, many years, the African-American community has been very supportive of Democrats, and many of us feel that has not been reciprocated." Cravins in pondering a run as an independent against Republican Charles Boustany and Lydia Jackson may decide to run as an independent for the seat being vacated by Republican closet queen Jim McCrery.

Louisiana has only one black member of Congress: U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, a Democrat who represents a majority black district.

...Though he said the Democratic Party supports him as a state senator in a majority black district, Cravins said he worries that financial and organizational help would evaporate once he ventures into a congressional district that is majority white.

"When an African-American candidate runs in a majority white district, race is always an issue," said Cravins.

Cravins' father-- Opelousas Mayor Don Cravins Sr.-- ran for Congress in 2004 and lost, and at the time, Cravins Sr. criticized members of the Democratic Party for not providing enough support for his candidacy.

...Sen. Lydia Jackson, D-Shreveport, also said she is weighing a run as an independent for the 4th U.S. Congressional District seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Rep. James McCrery, R-Shreveport. She said she has some problems with the way the party has been recruiting and supporting candidates.

"Looking at the demographics for the 4th, it just makes sense to consider the independent route," she said.

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