Unfuckingbelievable.

Three out of five of you are willing to sacrifice your beliefs to elect a politician.

Another one of you is willing to accept a politician for what he is.

What else are you willing to sacrifice? Your career? Your family? Your Constitutional rights?

What else are you willing to accept?

This is going to be a short, short diary, because I'm so outraged words just don't cut it.

Democrats, Democrats want to give the Executive branch the authority to spy on Americans without reproach, and hold those who help them above the law. Rather than allow pending litigation to run its course, or to reject the Bush-Cheney power grab, they are turning our system of government on its head.

Barack Obama is supporting one of those Democrats.  By association, he is supporting the destruction of the Constitution.

If we don't have a Constitution, if all we have is a piece of paper, what's it all for?

I've empathized with people who have told these stories here, and now I sit wondering if I'm a victim, too:

Lake County results may be hours away

...

The tallying of machine votes was also slowed by one missing cartridge in a precinct from Hammond’s Robertsdale neighborhood (District 1, Precinct 9), and two cartridges from Gary precincts.

I vote in District 1, Precinct 9. They told me this morning they only expected 150 votes for the whole day; my vote and my wife's vote were two of those.

And I suppose 150 votes in the grand scheme of things isn't much, but it is a hollow, sucky feeling to know that your vote is missing and might not be counted.

UPDATE: All missing cartridges are in and votes being counted, with the exception of Hammond 01-09.

On the surface, it is an innocent, almost feel-good story:

Gary officials said they were busing in hundreds of high schools students to vote in advance of the May 6 primary as a learning experience.

The Times of Northwest Indiana reported today that Gary high school students are culminating a unit of civics education by participating in early voting in Lake County, Indiana.

But thanks to the comments of Mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr. of Hammond, Indiana about the experience -- a  mayor who was re-elected in a city of 100,000 with only 4,500 votes last November -- the story takes an ugly, seemingly racist twist.

--formerly titled, "McCain Campaign Debt: Media Travel Refunds?"

With the media and blogs all over the campaign debt issue, I thought I'd look at John McCain's debt to get an idea of where he's at.

So, he's got the same "Schedule D, Line 12" debts and obligations that both Clinton's and Obama's respective campaigns have.

McCain's Line 12 debts and obligations total $1,342,360.12, which puts him at about twice that of Obama, and about 1/6th of that of Clinton.

However, it's McCain's Schedule D, Line 11 debts and obligations that I want to know about.

The leak came from the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs, which consists of the following sublevels (source of chart):

Initial Google searches make me think Stanley Associates of Arlington, Virginia could be the contractor in question (also found this source), but I'd really like to nail it down and find out who is responsible, because the press is not reporting this information yet (and I'm wondering if the State Department won't be as forthcoming as we'd like them to be).

UPDATE: MSNBC confirms that it was indeed Stanley Associates.

It's worth mentioning that in October 2007, only 7% separated Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the dKos reader straw poll. By the end of January, that gap had grown to 65%.

Is that because the Clinton supporters left in droves? No.

Oh my God I'm writing a campaign diary.

It has been widely reported that John Edwards is having endorsement talks

"He's torn," the aide said "He has reservations about Hillary, which are pretty apparent."

On Obama, the aide says, Edwards worries "whether he's tough enough to be President of the United States."

with both Democratic presidential campaigns.

... the Clinton camp confirmed that Mrs. Clinton had met privately on Thursday with former Senator John Edwards in North Carolina. Mr. Edwards, who has dropped out of the race, has not made an endorsement. But Mr. Obama is scheduled to meet with him too, on Monday night, Obama allies say, and is also flying to Mr. Edwards’s home in North Carolina.

Will he make an endorsement soon?

For some reason unbeknownst to me, my curiosity has gotten the best of me this morning and I am posting this silly little survey diary.

For all of you who who attended/are attending college or university out there: did you belong to a fraternity or sorority, or did you go the independent route?

I can't even tell you why this question popped into my head. I know the results will be totally unscientific but come on and play along, just for fun. We could all use a little fun, couldn't we?

Talking Points Memo makes a point of talking about an AP report in the New York Times indicating that the Senate Judiciary Committee is insisting on input into the selection of a "mutually trusted computer forensic expert."

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), the senior GOP member of the committee, made the following statement:

"Such a process would help to restore the public's confidence in the White House's desire to comply with the Presidential Records Act," the senators said.

Memo to Sens. Leahy and Specter: find a balanced team of government forensic experts who are career civil servants.

Just discovered that the guy who registered UHP Productions in 2005, Joseph M. Santaniello, is the Chairman and CEO of Disney Educational Publishing, Inc.

Via info at duckau.com, an anti-Disney site (will look to verify this in other places but from what I've found so far I believe it):

Disney Educational Publishing, Inc. [Foreign Business Corporation] County: New York. Jurisdiction: California. Initial DOS Filing Date: 19 June 1996. DOS Process: Kenneth E. Newman, 77 W. 66th St., 15th Floor. New York NY 10023. Chairman or CEO: Joseph M. Santaniello, 500 s. Buena Vista St., Burbank CA 91521. Principal Executive Office: Disney Educational Publishing Inc., 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank CA 91521. Registered Agent: Kenneth E. Newman. 77 W. 66th St., 15th Floor, New York NY 10023.

Don't know if there's a website or email address, but this is the division of Disney that this piece of propaganda eminated from.

I was going to post a roundup at ePluribus Media Community of posts from sites in our media/citizen journalism blogrolls . . . but this email from Tim Tagaris and the Ned Lamont campaign popped into my inbox, just as I set out to write.

It is the best campaign email I have ever received:

Hans von Spakovsky, a Georgia lawyer and member of the right-wing Federalist Society, worked with the Voting Integrity Project in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election. Mr. von Spakovsky was one of those guys responsible for the purging of voter rolls to cut down the number of Democrats voting.

In 2002, former Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft hired this Federalist purger of voter rolls, von Spakovsky, to work in the voting rights section of the USDOJ's Civil Rights office - presumably, for his fine work with the Voting Integrity Project that helped Bush/Cheney come to power. While there, he played a key role in the Georgia VoterID battle, where he overruled staff advice to reject the plan.

And in January of this year, George W. Bush made a slew of recess appointments, bypassing the advice and consent of the Senate. One of those appointments was Hans von Spakovsky to Commissioner, Federal Elections Commission.

What's he up to these days at the FEC?

Because people forget, and because he never spoke this way about George W. Bush; from the Congressional Record, page S9923, Vol. 144, No. 115, 9/3/1998:

Mr. President, I rise today to make the most difficult and distasteful statement, for me probably the most difficult statement I have made on this floor in the 10 years I have been a Member of the U.S. Senate.

On August 17, President Clinton testified before a grand jury convened by the independent counsel and then talked to the American people about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern. He told us that the relationship was "not appropriate,'' that it was "wrong,'' and that it was "a critical lapse of judgment and a personal failure'' on his part. In addition, after 7 months of denying that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, the President admitted that his "public comments about this matter gave a false impression.'' He said, "I misled people.''

I don't know how many of you were paying attention, but there were a couple of actions in the U.S. Senate yesterday that just might affect the future of that agency we have known as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

Senate Amendment 4563 to HR 5441, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007, sought to remove FEMA from DHS and re-establish it as a separate, autonomous agency.

That amendment, introduced by Sen. Hillary Clinton, was defeated on a 32-66 vote (2 not voting).

But you've gotta love how the Senate works (and I use that term lightly). The vote on S. Amdt. 4563 came after they passed Senate Amendment 4560, which re-invents FEMA as the United States Emergency Management Authority, on an 87-11 vote.

Thank Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins for that.

Imagine if you had read this lede on the Saturday following the first Tuesday in November 2004:

WASHINGTON DC - Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry made it clear Saturday he won't go down without a fight, calling on a gathered multitude to join him in nationwide protests as he tries to prove to the courts that he was defrauded in last Sunday's election.

Speaking before hundreds of thousands of party supporters, Kerry, with his running mate John Edwards at his side, told his supporters across the nation to join him in launching a National March for Democracy beginning Wednesday and vowed to prove he was the winner in the photo-finish balloting.

That's what many of us wanted to read, but didn't.

Flash forward to Mexico, 2006.

ePluribus Media is an exhibitor at YearlyKos, and our contingent - standingup, Susie Dow, ilona, DEFord, Kay Shepherd, Timroff, LeftyLimblog, JeninRI, BarbinMD, HeyThereItsEric, Cedwyn, and InquisitiveRaven - has filed a few reports with photos and two podcasts at the ePluribus Media Community site. If you're interested in catching a few more of the sights and sounds of YearlyKos, links to the reports are below the fold.

Kay Shepherd and Dania Audax podcasting from the ePluribus Media exhibit at YearlyKos

Have you heard? Tuesday is now the suckiest day of the week.

Or so said fast-food giant McDonald's, in an ad campaign promoting its new Premium Roast coffee. The promo is airing in the Chicago market (and possibly elsewhere - chime in if you've seen it). At least, it was.