UPDATE:  The rumors below were started by Larry Johnson a.k.a. LC Johnson who has been banned from dKos.  One of the many posts about Mr. Johnson goes into some detail here.

Rest of diary left intact to see the background.  Yes, even though I've been around dKos for a long time I didn't know who Larry/LC Johnson was.

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Overheard at a family gathering today:  Michelle Obama once spoke at Jeremiah Wright's church and railed against "whitey."  And, of course, there's video.  But the person with the video is holding it back until at least August so that it can be used for maximum effect to destroy Obama's candidacy.

It was so out there that I didn't know what to say.  The guy circulating the rumor works in the TV biz but I think he got this from the internet.  I did a little research below.

I did not make it to the Clinton rally last night at Washington-Lee high school here in Northern Virginia but I did hear some of it on the radio.  Washington-Lee's gym seats 2200 - the gym was full and some were turned away.  

One of the cool things - per this article 1200 of the 2200 attendees were high-school students.  One thing that we need our candidate to do is reach out to the youth and engage.  I think Obama does it better but at least Hillary is doing it some.

Bloomberg story

By the time the last primary is held June 7, Obama's advisers project he will have 1,806 delegates to 1,789 for New York Senator Hillary Clinton, according to a document outlining the scenario that was inadvertently attached to a release on delegate counts from yesterday's Super Tuesday primaries.

Inadvertently attached?  Showing that they forecast a very close win in pledged delegates but not enough to clinch the nomination?  More below...

I think just about everyone is familiar with mydd's google bomb project (latest status update is here).  If you're not, then the general gist is that we are using our knowledge about how Google ranks the sites for a search term to help get the news out about some of our Republican opponents.  Google looks at the text in a hyperlink (the words that you click on) and looks at the web page you the document links too.  If you put Michael Steele as the text in a hyperlink, odds are the story you are linking too talks about him.  Ditto Jean Schmidt or George Allen.

In the last two weeks before an election, people just tuning in may use google to learn about the candidates.  By making sure the negative stuff shows up for Republicans, that can hurt them.

But what about trying to help our friends?  

This isn't technically a push poll but I am wondering if anyone else in Virginia has received it.  

Caller ID said this came from "S2006" at 703-961-9120.  First the robo voice identified itself as conducting a public survey and asked me if I had time for a 45 second poll on issues of the day.  It then proceeded to ask me the following very slanted questions (all Yes/No).

1.  Do you consider yourself pro-life?

[more continued]

I posted this on an open thread last night because I didn't have the energy to diary it then, but I ran across this Jerusalem Post article yesterday evening.  It is a 3-page op-ed piece entitled "The Ethical Dilemmas of the Jewish State at war."

I post this as a counter to those who assume that the Israeli people are totally insensitive to the body counts or the war.  More below the flip.

The August 7, 2006 issue of Barron's has an article on page 17 entitled "The Corn Conundrum."  The article is an analysis of the ethanol market from the perspective of stock market investors.  It looks at several companies that produce ethanol and talks about the values of their stocks.  But if you look at the article you will see clear proof that our ethanol strategy is badly flawed.  Quotes from the article below the flip.

Several diaries have been written here and elsewhere on how well our fundraising is doing.  Friday there was a front page diary on the 50 most competitive House races and how 40 are Republican-held.  Last Tuesday at MyDD a diary mentioned that 51 of the 61 most competitive House seats are held by Republicans.  Great for us.  However, I don't think that we all fully appreciate the power of incumbency - it totally eliminates any fundraising advantage that a challenger may have.

Jews tend to vote overwhelming for Democratic candidates.  In fact, 77% of Jews voted for John Kerry in 2004.  Since this is a website dedicated to electing Democrats, and Jews tend to work to elect Democrats, I figure there are several Jews lurking out there.  Just wanted to give you guys a quick welcome to Daily Kos, and explain to you and others how it feels to be a Jew who follows dKos closely.

I spend most of my "news gathering" time here on dKos, reading external sources linked from here.  I got tired of the Right-Wing Corporate Media ages ago, although sometimes I'll go to news.google.com to see what is going on in the world, if I'm bored at work.  So for some reason, given the opinion polls on dKos showing an 80-20 preference for Webb over Miller, Webb's credentials on the war, and his electability due to being Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, I figured that Webb would stand a good chance to win the primary today.  Then I went on vacation and talked to my dad.  Bad move.  Unfortunately I just got back today and couldn't diary until now.  My dad and I have had exactly two political arguments in the last 4-5 years.  First: I say Mark Warner is more electable than Hillary Clinton, he says Warner has no chance at any race outside the state of Virginia.  Second:  My dad says that Harris Miller is the better candidate.  More info on why this worries me below.

The Virginia Democratic primary is June 13th, and the other day I realized that my family and I would be on vacation that day and unable to vote.  Fairfax County has in-person absentee voting up until the Saturday before election day (and they are open 10-6 on Saturday to vote) so we decided we would go today - this way we could take the kids as we always do and let them vote with us.

My wife and I were talking about it this morning and she asked who she should vote for and I said Andrew Hurst over Ken Longmyer for congress and of course Jim Webb over Harris Miller for Senate.  I thought all was well and good until my wife said "I don't think I can vote for Jim Webb."

Stunned, I calmly decided to be rational, I opened up both candidates' websites so I could compare the two side by side in their own words.  But let's reflect on why my wife had this view.

WVEC TV in Virginia Beach taped a 20 minute debate between Jim Webb and Harris Miller today.  It will likely be the only televised debate between the two candidates.  Video link here

Much of the debate was very humdrum - the two candidates each answered questions much as a generic Democrat/Progressive would.  Harris Miller kept hammering "George Bush and George Allen" at every opportunity.  This was the first time I'd heard Miller talk and I think he looked ok.  

There were some sparks though about 10 minutes in...

this story in tomorrow's wapo gives me the shivers.

If you recall, in the name of "national security" we got the patriot act, something that gave the government unprecedented powers to spy on and detain citizens of the united states.  Meanwhile, nothing was actually done as far as improving security at our nuke plants, chemical plants, cargo terminals, railways, etc., and the feds won't reveal what information they have gathered even in statistical aggregate, even to the Congress which is supposed to provide oversight.

Now, the government, in the name of "fighting epidemics" wants to track the comings and goings of every single US citizen traveling....  more below the break.

Update: Changed the title - while 100% of the vote is counted including absentees, the official official totals won't be officially made official for another couple weeks. After that point, Deeds has 10 days to ask for a recount, which the state will pay for since it is less than 0.5% difference. Also not every jurisdiction in Virginia uses touch screens.

Source: Va State board of elections.

With 100% of precincts reporting, and all votes counted, Bob McDonnell has 969,971 votes (49.98%), Creigh Deeds has 969,024 votes (49.93%) and McDonnell is the victor.

There will be a recount - it won't matter - it's all machine tallies that will just spit out the same sums.  No paper trails in Virginia.

A bit of commentary below.

This may sound like a halloween diary but it is not.  The Hylton high school marching band has been banned from playing the 1979 Charlie Daniels Band hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" because of a complaint about the separation of church and state.

The irony is in the nature of who complained...  More below.

I would hope that Rep. Conyers would take the time to respond to this press report in the Washington Post.

The latest Tom DeLay trick is to undermine Supreme Court decisions by denying funding to agencies that are responsible for implementing them.  The motivation for this is to try to circumvent Supreme Court rulings and ignore that the rule of law is the foundation of our system, and that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the law.  

This time, conservatives are unhappy with the Kelo decision on eminent domain.  However, rather than abide by the law, Tom DeLay has announced that the Federal Govt will withhold funding from any city or county that uses eminent domain in the manner permitted by Kelo.

What's odd in this case - John Conyers is backing the Republican leadership on this - not our own.

More below

Very nice editorial today in the Washington Post written by E. J. Dionne about Rep. David Obey (D-WI) and his battles in congress for religious freedom.  

The closing paragraph really struck me:



My thoughts below.

Many of us, myself included, were at least somewhat proud of Sen. Warner, one of most senior Rep. Senators, for standing up to their leadership and leading the "gang of 7 Republicans" who supported the great "compromise."

However, we have all now seen that the "compromise" really was just a laying down of arms by the Dems, and that we have royally been screwed.  There were rumors that one of the 3 "most extreme" nominees - would not be confirmed by the entire Senate.  That maybe some "no" votes from the Reps signing the compromise was an unwritten part of the deal.  That turned out not to be the case, as all 3 were confirmed easily.

Prior to the "compromise" I wrote and called Senator Warner, asking him to oppose the nuclear option.  Today, I received his form letter response to all constituents who contacted him.  In it, he flat-out lies to Virginians, and gives a definition of "extreme circumstances." Basically, according to Sen. Warner, the Democratic party has officially given up its right to filibuster any judicial nominee, period.  

More below.