Obama expands lead with 14 12 more delegates from Iowa and CA

UPDATED: Big day for Obama on the pledged delegate front. He picked up nine seven delegates at the Iowa county conventions while it looks like Clinton lost one. Also, in California, he got five additional delegates and Hillary got two more.

Washington Post has details:

Sen. Barack Obama picked up nine more pledged delegates in Iowa, his presidential campaign said late Saturday night, as thousands of Democrats took part in county conventions.

All but one of the delegates had been among the 14 won Jan. 3 by former senator John Edwards, who has since dropped out of the Democratic presidential race. Election-night projections showed Obama getting 16 delegates and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 15.

With the other six standing firm for Edwards at the county conventions, Obama's camp claimed 25 delegates from Iowa to 14 for Clinton.

"This is a very significant improvement for us," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters of the Iowa result. "We both fought as hard as we could here."

Plouffe said Obama's gains included blue-collar counties where he had finished third in the January caucuses.

If the Iowa numbers hold at the June 14 state convention, which sends delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August, Obama will have gained more than half of the state's delegates. On Jan. 3, he was backed by 39 percent of caucusgoers, compared with 30 percent for Edwards and 29 percent for Clinton.

The Associated Press reported late Saturday that, in final counts from California's Feb. 5 primary, Clinton picked up two more pledged delegates, and Obama added five. According to AP's count, the Iowa and California results give Obama a national lead of 119 delegates over Clinton.

Bottom line is that Hillary Clinton is still losing. Read the rest of this post...

Bush on economy: leave it alone and it will somehow work out

Make no mistake that we're in this situation because people like Bush and the McCain economic advisers wanted it this way. The problems are nowhere near the end and will continue to bleed but the Bush/GOP plan is to just throw money at the source of the problem. This is their plan for everything, throw cash and when your hands are empty, print more and throw that. Sheesh.

Why don't we "let the market decide" and watch the gamblers of Wall Street all collapse? Letting the market decide is what *they* wanted so why bail them out now? A dose of proper oversight could have limited the impact of the collapse and the run on the bank like at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, but no, that's not what they wanted. Why print more money and give it away when the bums can't even admit they have a problem? Read the rest of this post...

Obama answers Rezko questions in "uncommon detail." Waiting for full disclosure from Hillary Clinton. Can she meet Obama's "standard for candor"?

Anyone who reads reports of the Clinton campaign's endless stream of conference calls knows that one of their favorite topics is the relationship between Barack Obama and Tony Rezko. The media types (like purveyor of the conventional wisdom, Mark Halperin) who listen get on those calls dutifully and breathlessly report every question and allegation raised primarily by Mark Penn. It's hard to fathom how hypocritical it is for anyone associated with Hillary Clinton to demand more disclosure from another campaign. But, Obama set a very high bar for Clinton this week.

Yesterday, Obama sat down with the Chicago Tribune to discuss all the details of his relationship with Rezko. The Trib is the hometown paper of Obama and Rezko. The reporters and editors in that room actually know the Rezko story inside and out. So, Obama went into the lion's den -- and based on the report in the Tribune, it worked out well:

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama waited 16 months to attempt the exorcism. But when he finally sat down with the Tribune editorial board Friday, Obama offered a lengthy and, to us, plausible explanation for the presence of now-indicted businessman Tony Rezko in his personal and political lives.

The most remarkable facet of Obama's 92-minute discussion was that, at the outset, he pledged to answer every question the three dozen Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him. And he did.

After the meeting, the Tribune stood by its endorsement of Obama noting:

When we endorsed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination Jan. 27, we said we had formed our opinions of him during 12 years of scrutiny. We concluded that the professional judgment and personal decency with which he has managed himself and his ambition distinguish him.

Nothing Obama said in our editorial board room Friday diminishes that verdict.

The Tribune is right that Obama should have answered these questions already. But, he's done it now. And, Obama has now set the "standard for candor" for the other candidates in the race:

Obama should have had Friday's discussion 16 months ago. Asked why he didn't, he spoke of learning, uncomfortably, what it's like to live in a fishbowl. That made him perhaps too eager to protect personal information—too eager to "control the narrative."

Less protection, less control, would have meant less hassle for his campaign. That said, Barack Obama now has spoken about his ties to Tony Rezko in uncommon detail. That's a standard for candor by which other presidential candidates facing serious inquiries now can be judged.

Good point. Can anyone imagine Hillary Clinton sitting down with a pack of reporters and editors to answer questions about her scandals -- like her missing tax filings from 2001 to now, all Clinton's earmarks since 2001, the missing schedules from the White House years and the funding for the Clinton library, to name but a few. Quite a list -- sure seems like Hillary is hiding something.

The Rezko chapter is closed absent some new revelation and as the Tribune noted:

Obama's critics have waited 16 months for some new and cataclysmic Rezko moment to implicate and doom Obama. It hasn't happened.

So, all the questions that Mark Penn and his colleagues keep throwing out have been asked by the reporters from the paper who really know the backstory about Rezko. That's what the Clinton campaign wanted, right? Now, as we saw in today's conference call, Team Clinton tried to change the rules, again. But, the ball is in their court.

Let's do what the Chicago Tribune suggests and judge the other presidential candidates facing serious inquiries by the "standard for candor" set by Obama. Hillary, you're up. After all, the Clinton campaign sure likes to raise issue about disclosures from other campaigns. Now, it's her turn. Can Hillary Clinton meet Obama's standard for candor?

And for all those who think this is piling on, keep in mind that if Hillary somehow manages to get the nomination (as unlikely as that is), she will be forced to release info. during the general election. The Republicans probably already know the stuff she's hiding. So if she is able to steal the nomination, we'll all be forced to defend what she kept hidden from Democrats during the nomination process. Think about it -- if Hillary has nothing to hide, why is she being so secretive and evasive? Read the rest of this post...

British Lord hosting fundraiser for McCain in London. Seriously, a British Lord.

McCain is already on the verge of breaking U.S. campaign finance laws by busting the spending cap. He's been having trouble raising money in the U.S., too. But, this borders on the absurd:

Sen. John McCain plans at least one campaign event on his week-long congressional trip to Europe and the Middle East: a March 20 fundraiser in London. An invitation sent out by the campaign says the luncheon will be held at Spencer House, St. James's Place, "by kind permission of Lord Rothschild OM GBE and the Hon Nathaniel Rothschild." Tickets to the invitation-only event cost $1,000 to $2,300. Attire is listed as "lounge suits."

According to the McCain campaign, in keeping with U.S. law, only Americans can contribute. But, the damn thing is being hosted by a Brit. They are not Americans.

Just for one second imagine the outcry on Fox News and right wing talk radio if a Democrat had a fundraiser in London hosted by a British Lord or any foreigner. Read the rest of this post...

And we were worried about Obama's security

These are the metal detectors you need to go through to get into the huge bi-annual conference of Greece's largest opposition party (mind you, this is a country with a history of domestic terrorism, and hours after this video was taken the party leader was giving his big speech of the conference). In case you can't tell, the machines aren't even on, and no one is manning them anyway. (I love how at the very end of the video you actually see a security person waltzing through along with everyone else!)

Read the rest of this post...

Hillary urging donors to blackmail DNC into stealing the election for her

I'm really getting sick of Hillary's crap. Fighting tough is welcome. Fighting dirty is not. I liked Hillary. Joe and I reached out to her campaign to help them two years ago. Now, I'm starting to wonder if even a small portion of the past vilification of the Clintons wasn't justified. I mean, urging your donors, for all intents and purposes, to blackmail the Democratic party? In essence, telling your donors that if you can't be the nominee then the Democrats should lose the election? (And that's exactly what's happening. Hillary wants the DNC to seat the delegates from the non-election that happened in Florida after the state willfully violated DNC rules, knowing full well what would happen if they did. Now Hillary wants all those delegates seated, from the non-election, so she can steal the election from Obama). Is it any wonder that 25% of Hillary's supporters say they won't support Obama in the general election? Hillary is the one telling them that they shouldn't support Obama, that they shouldn't support their own party. Howard Dean should tell Hillary Lieberman stop her crap, now, or resign from the Democratic party. Contrary to Her Majesty's thinking, there are other Democrats worthy of leading our country. Read more about Hillary's latest attempt to steal the election, from the NYT. Read the rest of this post...

More from the PASOK conference in Athens

I had my first panel discussion this morning with a few other Greek Internet activists and a member of Parliament who is Internet-friendly. There is a real debate in the country about the value of the Internet and particularly blogs, and whether they should be treated as something to be feared and regulated. There was a heated discussion during our panel, started by a young journalist who said that blogs should be required to say who is writing them - i.e., no anonymity. Another member of the audience stood up and quoted Marx as saying something about anonymity of journalists being bad. I replied that I was sure Marx's brother Vladimir Putin would agree that the names of journalists should be public so that he could have them arrested and put to death. I also informed them that Turkey was taking the lead, regionally, in clamping down on the Internet - treating it as something to be feared - so they could decide for themselves if they wanted to follow the Turkish model for democracy. (Hey, not here to pull punches.)

I also got a chance to speak for a few minutes with George Papandreou (he's the one in the photo, above), the leader of the main opposition party, PASOK (it's the same party in which my uncle, Yiannis Haralambopoulos, served as foreign minister, defense minister, deputy prime minister, and UN ambassador). Papandreou is the son of a former prime minister, and has served as the Greek Foreign Minister as well. He also, oddly, went to my high school in the states. We talked briefly about the Internet - he's a huge advocate of the Net, having been brought up and studied abroad, and he's made cultivating bloggers, and the Net more generally, a priority for his party. There's a good, relatively short, article in yesterday's Guardian about Papandreou and the challenges he faces. (And for the record, I was better dressed, jacket and all, right before I got to meet Papandreou - they sprung the quick meet-up on me just as I changed back into my blogger clothes.)

Right now hanging out in Blogger Row, or more precisely, the smoke-filled blogger room, at the conference. Tomorrow morning I'm hosting another, less formal, discussion with bloggers, and anyone else who's interested, to talk more specifically about what kind of things we're doing with the Internet in the states (things like ActBlue, how we're using YouTube, etc.)

Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Check out the poem of the week, which is an excerpt of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Our poet, who includes a link to the whole poem, says "Many poets and critics think Prufrock is the great poem of the 20th Century." Who knew? I do find reading these poems every week is my own little version of Jon Stewart's "moment of zen" -- without the snark.

So six days til John McCain has to release his February FEC report, which is due by March 20th. Remember, McCain is in the public financing system. He pulled a scam to use the system to obtain a loan and secure an automatic place on the ballot in key states. If he breaks the FEC's public finance spending cap (approximately $54 million), McCain is breaking the law. In a moment of clarity, The Washington Post explained:

Knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.

Will the media that covers McCain cover that story? They're probably all afraid of McCain's volatile, irrational temper. And, if they ask hard questions, McCain might not let them ride on the bus with the cool kids.

Start threading... Read the rest of this post...

Where are all of the "free market" people now?

Now that the Fed has chopped interest rates (and will chop again, not that it's going to translate into lower rates for consumers) and they pumped $200 billion into Wall Street, I'd like to know where exactly the so-called free market/industry self-regulate people are. Where are they? They're all at the front of the bloody line calling for more handouts. When Democrats ask for money for SCHIP or food money for the poor or unemployment extensions, all we hear is about cost. What is the matter with Democrats? Is it so hard to scream and yell like the GOP? Why are they so silent on this bailout? Even the homeowner bailout is a pittance compared to the Wall Street bailout.

To show you what frauds the Republicans are, look at how we raised a $200 billion "loan" that uses the garbage subprime papers that nobody in their right mind wants anyway. Debate? Hell no. Just "poof" out of the blue sky, here's a bailout and a healthy loan to Wall Street, which won't be enough anyway. How is it that the "free market" crowd is suddenly nowhere to be found during this crisis? It's the McCain economic team that put all of this into place, so where is he now? Where's the outrage? And for the conspiracy theorists take note that the Spitzer story just happened to take the spotlight away from a very important event this week.

The banking system that is tumbling was designed and built together with the GOP. They can sit silent but they own this. McCain and his friends own this. This is what they wanted and there is no reason why US taxpayers ought to keep funding their mistakes. Shouldn't we treat Wall Street the way Wall Street and the GOP treat America's poor? Let them pick themselves up with their own bootstraps. Let them dig themselves out of the hole they dug form themselves. We can't afford a war plus a tanking economy plus a bailout for Wall Street. If that means the market will decided (as they always prefer) then so be it. Don't come crying and asking for cash now that the system they wanted is failing. Tough luck. Read the rest of this post...

Bush-FCC just like EPA, like FDA, like USDA, like SEC...

They've never missed an opportunity help out industry at the expense of consumers. Balance, anyone? Is that really asking for too much?

If the Federal Communications Commission were a cop on the beat, congressional watchdogs contend, it would have a lousy conviction record. They find that most of the government agency's investigations fail to result in any enforcement.

According to a report released on Thursday by the General Accountability Office, only about 9% of the completed investigations resulted in enforcement action, while 83% resulted in no enforcement.

Read the rest of this post...