For the first time in over three decades of polling on the issue of same-sex marriage laws, The Field Poll finds more California voters approving than disapproving of allowing same-sex couples the right to marry and having regular marriage laws apply to them. In a survey completed May 17-26 among a random sample of 1,052 registered voters the idea of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry is now approved by a 51% to 42% margin statewide.

To prepare for that eventuality, the Obama campaign has, for the first time, really, begun to bank delegates. Sources close to the campaign estimate that as many as three dozen Democratic superdelegates have privately pledged to announce their support for Obama on June 4 or 5. The campaign is determined that Obama not end the first week in June without securing the support of delegates numbering 2026 -- or 2210, as the case may be.

The people who really run America don't send the likes of George Bush and Dick Cheney to the White House to cook up boat-rocking, maniacal world-domination plans and commit massive criminal conspiracies on live national television; they send them there to repeal PUCHA and dole out funds for the F-22 and pass energy bills with $14 billion tax breaks and slash fuel efficiency standards and do all the other shit that never makes the papers but keeps Wall Street and the country's corporate boardrooms happy. You don't elect politicians to commit crimes; you elect politicians to make your crimes legal. That is the whole purpose of the racket of government. Another other use of it would be a terrible investment, and the financial class in this country didn't get to where it is by betting on the ability of a president whose lips move when he reads to blow up two Manhattan skyscrapers in broad daylight without getting caught.

[S]omeone really ought to point out to the Clinton campaign that the presidential campaign of 1968 was not a two- or three-year long process. The New Hampshire primary, the first in the nation, wasn't until March 12. Kennedy didn't even get into the running until March 16, 1968. By June 4, 1968, the date of the California primary that Kennedy won, a date that's four months later than this year's California primary, there had only been 13 primaries. Indeed, running until the convention was the only choice, especially after Kennedy was killed on June 5. By June 5 this year, every state will have had its primaries or caucuses. It's not that people were any more patient in 1968. They just didn't have a choice but to wait and see.

So, like, even leaving out the morbid fucktardery of the statement Clinton made and dealing with it on its alleged merits, it's deceptive and idiotic and out of context.

To Clinton's campaign and its supporters, who have been holding out for some gaffe by Obama that would take him down: How's that working out for ya?

On cross-examination, [R. Kelly's attorney ] Adam Jr. repeatedly confirms that Jamison relied exclusively on her best friend's face and hair to identify the girl and time-stamp the video. "You can't tell by looking at a person's vagina how old they are, can you?" he asks, then takes a stab at answering his own question: "I don't think you can."

Once it's well-established that Jamison didn't pay much attention to the alleged victim's crotch and torso, Adam Jr. asks whether Jamison has seen a "Waymon Brothers" movie called Little Man. "They took the head of Marlon Waymons and put it on a midget, and it looked real, didn't it?" Adam Jr. exclaims, emphasizing the last two words for maximum "gotcha" effect. Jamison looks at him like he's a lunatic or, at least, an astoundingly bad film critic. "Not reeeally," she says, her voice lilting in disbelief as the courtroom breaks up. Congratulations to the Waymon Brothers: This is the first time Little Man has generated laughter.

Amazingly, Adam Jr. is not kidding about any of this. Just as special effects turned Marlon Wayans (I know your last name, my friend!) into a little person, he suggests, so might the sex tape we saw on Tuesday be some sort of digital collage of faces and bodies. He asks Jamison whether she can tell if the video has been tampered with. Judge Gaughan doesn't allow the question: "Just because she's seen the Waymons' movies doesn't make her an expert on morphing."

Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty reports:

What will Clinton’s terms of surrender turn out to be? Her husband, for one, seems to have a pretty clear idea what he thinks she should get as a consolation prize. In Bill Clinton’s view, she has earned nothing short of an offer to be Obama’s running mate, according to some who are close to the former President. Bill “is pushing real hard for this to happen,” says a friend.

The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said “no.” Obama is going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process.

Adhering to [Mark] Penn’s fatal calculus, Clinton has endeavored to re-segregate the Democratic Party electorate into demographic segments and then pitted them against each other. The Clinton campaign has intentionally inflamed these simmering antagonisms: black versus Hispanic, black versus white, black versus older women, white collar versus blue collar, young versus old, under-educated versus college grad.

Back in the 1980s, Lee Atwater constructed an illusory Big Tent for Republicans, welcoming inside the Reagan Democrats—if only to soon betray their core interests. This was called the politics of expansion. In contrast, Clinton and Penn are cynically attempting to contract the Democratic base by provoking an internal Hobbesian free-for-all—total warfare of the factions.

the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, Legal Services, the War on Poverty, environmental legislation, OSHA, bringing down Richard Nixon on the Watergate investigations, ending the Vietnam War, stopping military aid to the Contras in Central America, the Martin Luther King holiday, stopping Robert Bork, the increases in the minimum wage, Family and Medical Leave, National Service, Motor Voter Act, S-CHIP. His fingerprints are on all of that legislation, and more. And even where he failed, on universal health care and labor law reform and stopping the Iraq war and other battles, he fought the good fight with passion and heart and courage.

On May 6th, Newt Gingrich posted a message, “My Plea to Republicans: It’s Time for Real Change to Avoid Real Disaster,” on the Web site of the conservative magazine Human Events. The former House Speaker warned, “The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti-Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins) anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail.” Gingrich offered nine suggestions for restoring the Republican “brand”—among them “Overhaul the census and cut its budget radically” and “Implement a space-based, G.P.S.-style air-traffic control system”—which read like a wonkish parody of the Contract with America. By the next morning, the post had received almost three hundred comments, almost all predicting a long Republican winter.

Leaders of the Republican Study Committee intend to use a closed-door party meeting on Tuesday to present a seven-point proposal calling for a constitutional limit on federal spending, a new simplified income tax alternative and a proposal to require recipients of food stamps or housing aid to meet work requirements.

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

I think that Edwards knows that the Obama ship is going down... and his endorsement is in exchange for Obama's support for the nomination when SDs start deserting Obama, and rather than face ignomineous defeat, bows out "for the good of the party" and endorses edwards ...

Obama is indefensible. I am sick. ...

Why, why? Clinton is the one who would get done the things Edwards supposedly believes in.

Is this really all about woman hating? I do not understand it. Have they all been bought? It looks like it. ...

My sense is that party insiders are truly panicking because Obama will always hold the small pledged delegate lead, but has been unable to pull away from Hillary in any other convincing way. Now they're ramming this nomination down the party's throat in an effort to have immediate closure and to try to silence Senator Clinton. Again, I say this is further wedging the party apart and is cementing ill will. With even NARAL stepping into the primary season, I'm feeling like one thrown-under-the-bus Democrat. It's a travesty that we've reduced a truly historic race to a virtual gang rape. ...

Why is he endorsing Obama? It's really just awful to see every single party leader or important Dem just stomp all over her. ...

Elizabeth is not with him according to what I read. The Democratic Men's Party may have to win this one without me. ...

I can say without qualification that I have never been in the Edwards camp. And this move is so typical of him. Clearly Obama is worried and JE has waited for just such a moment so he could leverage a deal. Hillary must have turned him down. Possibly the huge multi-million dollar house and $400 haircuts were just too much hypocrisy for her to stomach. And I will never forget the nasty piece of back-stabbing Edwards indulged himself with when Wes Clark was running. However, Edwards was a leading promoter and co-sponsor of the Iraq War Resolution, so this should take some of the bite out of Obama's "SHE authorized the war" propaganda. ...

Some U.S. Christians are not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regard the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as "God's candidate" for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course. ...

Nevertheless, the word is that some evangelicals dispute Huckabee's support [for McCain]. One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not let his name be used told me that Huckabee, in personal conversation with him, had embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible's prophecy.

Barack Obama has beaten Hillary Clinton in the only metric that matters—delegates—but [also] in every other major fuzzy metric that some people clam (sic) is important: popular vote, number of states won, he generally polls better than her against McCain, and he's raised more money. He's so much stronger than her that he can beat her, and still be in a position to help defray some of the costs of her campaign.

And she's trying to convince the superdelegates that she's the stronger candidate?

As it stands at this moment, unless Sen. Hillary Clinton continues her campaign for the Democratic nomination until the Party's convention, there is no presently visible chance that the U.S. will come out of the presently skyrocketting hyperinflationary crisis in any form easily recognized as being, still, our Constitutional republic. The attempt by the powerful, and also predatory financier groups which have sought to crush Senator Clinton, as they had attempted to destroy the nomination of President Franklin Roosevelt in Hoover's favor in 1932, has the smell of a serious attempt at fascist dictatorship all over it. ...

Those who are attempting to shut down the Clinton campaign and control this Presidential election have no allegiance to Democratic Party, or to the United States. They are acting as agents of a dangerous foreign influence. If they were to succeed, the U.S.A. will have lost its sovereignty, and there would be very little hope for the continuation of civilized life on this planet.

The Kingwood teenager's story of decapitating a corpse and using the head to smoke marijuana was so outlandish that at first Houston Police Department senior police officer Jim Adkins did not believe it.

Yet, Kevin Wade Jones Jr., 17, appeared almost indifferent as he relayed the bizarre description of his and two friends' activities at an Humble area graveyard, Adkins said.


"I just doubted it because it's very morbid, and I couldn't see anybody doing something like this," Adkins said Thursday.

Not until police went to the home of another Kingwood 17-year-old, Matthew Richard Gonzalez, did the officer believe the tale.
"He regurgitated in his plate of food when I asked him about it," Adkins said. "So I knew there was some truth to the story." ...

Jones claimed he and his friends used shovels to dig up the body and removed the corpse's head with a garden tool, Adkins said. Jones also revealed he and the other two boys took the severed head to the juvenile's home, where they used the skull as a "bong" to smoke marijuana, the officer said.

This race now is no longer a race, but a hostage crisis. Hillary is surrounded, and she can see the super-delegates through the windows of the bank lobby and she knows they are armed to the teeth, wearing their kevlar vests, weapons sighted, aimed, and with the safeties off. In her heart of hearts she knows it is over, but still she keeps the pistol cocked at the head of the party. Maybe, just maybe, something will happen and she can make it to the fueled plane she demanded be taken to the airport and then she can go away to her big payday. She has come this far, she can’t quit now. Miracles happen.

But it won’t happen. It never does. Not even in the movies, at least not the good ones.

The only thing left to be resolved is how many hostages she kills.

It's September 12, 2001. You're sitting in front of a TV, watching footage of the World Trade Center collapse over and over and over again.

All of a sudden, someone from seven years in the future walks out of a tiny temporal vortex, and tells you: George W. Bush is going to fuck this up so badly that in 2008, the United States of America will likely elect as president a black man whose middle name is Hussein and whose father was Muslim. Oh, and he also admits he's used cocaine.

I think it would have been easier to convince me of the reality of time travel. "No, no, I believe you really are from the future. But the other stuff, that's CRAZY."

It's disappointing, to say the least, to see the first viable female contender for the presidency participate in attacks on her black opponent's patriotism, which exploit an anxious climate around national security that gives white men an edge both over women and people of color--who tend to be viewed, respectively, as weak and potentially traitorous. Says Paula Giddings, "This idea of nationalism and patriotism pulling at everyone has demanded hypermasculine men, more like McCain than the feline Obama, and demanded women whose role is to be maternal more than anything else."

As Hullabaloo contributor dday notes here, the fact Cazayoux won despite a well financed attack from the Right linking him to Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama should make people realize that the bark of the vaunted Republican attack machine is far worse than its bite.

But I’d go a step further: Cazayoux ran as a very conservative Democrat—in part because he had to if he wanted to get elected in this district, and in part because I think that’s true to who he is as a politician: a social conservative with a dash of economic populism. But his ads were so concerned with establishing his family values bona fides—a lot of them were about Protecting Our Kids from Predators—that it really began to seem barely worth the effort turn out to vote, given the apparent similarities between the candidates. (This is not an uncommon feeling for a liberal in Louisiana.) In a perverse way, and even though at least one of them was factually inaccurate, the attack ads actually appealed to liberal voters indirectly in a way that Cazayoux could not afford to directly; they spread the message about Cazayoux’s liberal-moderate voting record and persuaded me that he was someone worth supporting. Because of my limited sample size (1) I am hesitant to make any sweeping pronouncements about whether or not this phenomenon was widespread, but I will say that there are worse things right now than being linked to the national Democratic party—like, say, being linked to the national Republican party—and that we may realize soon enough that low voter turnout is the only thing keeping the Red Stick a red district.

Why doesn’t she just change her name to Huey Long? Seriously, though -- when did this happen? I remember when Hillary was the detached policy wonk, who coldly and coolly analyzed problems, and now she has morphed into some unsophisticated bubba who hates the man, hates ideas, and hates everything but joe six-pack and his shotgun and coon hound. I fully expect her to show up to her next rally in the General Lee.

“I don’t believe it’s going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991.” 9.15.02

“We made serious mistakes right after the initial successes by not having enough troops there on the ground.” 9.20.04

“This conflict is going to be relatively short.” 3.23.02

“I’ve always said this is long and hard and tough.” 4.6.08

“There’s no doubt in my mind that once these people are gone that we will be welcomed as liberators.” 3.24.03

“It’s clear that the end is very much in sight.” 4.9.03

“There’s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shias. So I think they can probably get along.” 4.23.03

“Democrats are trying to do some kind of attack against this magnificent victory.” 7.23.03


“I would argue that the next three to six months will be critical.” 9.10.03

“Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war.” 8.04

“We’ve seen a number of signs of progress, including that of the capabilities of the Iraqi military, agreement with the Sunnis as framing the constitution, a decrease in suicide bombers from Iraqis and more and more coming in from the outside. … there is a legitimacy to the Iraqi government that, frankly, the government of South Vietnam never had.” 6.28.05

“We will probably see significant progress in the next six months to a year.” 12.4.05

“We are making progress. The formation of a government is helpful. We are training the Iraqi troops. There are parts of Iraq that are well under control and very peaceful.” 5.24.06

“Things are better and there are encouraging signs. I have been here many years—many times over the years. Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today.” 4.1.07, wearing body armor, accompanied by 100 U.S. soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships


“The next six months are going to be critical.” 9.12.07

“Iraq is now the central front in the war against al-Qaeda.” 9.16.07

“Anybody who believes the surge has not succeeded, militarily, politically, and in most other ways, frankly, does not know the facts on the ground.” 2.08

“We’ve go to get American’s off the frontlines, have the Iraqis as part of the strategy, take over more and more of the responsibilities, and then I don’t think Americans are concerned if we’re there for one hundred years or a thousand years or ten thousand years.” 1.6.08

“If we do set a date for withdrawal, Al Qaida will then win. … We’re all over the world. One of the obligations, unfortunately, of being a great superpower is that we have to take care of the world’s security.” 2.3.08