Both MSNBC and Sam Stein, of The Huffington Post report that Senator McCain slammed Obama and proposed sanctions against Iran as an example of his innovative thinking.   But, it turns out that Obama proposed similar sanctions a year ago, that McCain opposed.  Plus, it is now reported that Charley Black worked as a lobbyist for Iran during that period.

McCain's Top Strategist  Lobbied For Iran-Linked Firm

In the summer of 2005, John McCain's chief strategist Charlie Black, working for his firm Black, Kelly, Scruggs & Healey, was paid $60,000 to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of the Chinese oil conglomerate CNOOC. At the time, CNOOC was mounting an aggressive bid to buy Unocal, a California-based oil giant, and Black was tasked with churning up congressional support. But the bid ultimately fell through, in part because of objections over the China oil industry's ties to Iran, a country in which it had already invested tens of millions of dollars.

Senator’s Ted Kennedy’s outstanding services to our country are so numerous, and cover such a long period, it is beyond my abilities to even start a list of them.   But, I would like to extend my appreciation, once again, for Kennedy’s heroic and lonely defense of our constitutional government against the Bush-Cheney administration's many transgressions.

And in particular, for his call on Feb 09, 2006, for President Bush to keep his promise to hold Dick Cheney and others accountable, for leaking classified intelligence about Valerie Plame as part of their broader deception to sell the Iraq War to the American people of false pretenses.  

Senator Ted Kennedy Calls For Bush To Clean House If Cheney Involved In NIE Leak

It may not seem like much, especially as his call was largely ignored, but it meant a lot to me.  It was a dark and lonely time for those of us hoping to hold the executive branch accountable.  It seems like so long ago, it is too easy to forget that Senator Kennedy was among just a handful of our leaders such as Congressmen Hinchey, Waxmen, Conyers, who kept up the call for accountability for Bush, and in defense of our constitution.    

While not formally endorsing, Jimmy Carter appears to give us some  strong clues about who he might support.  In an interview with Tony Handen of the Daily Telegraph  Carter said Obama could "transform America’s image in the eyes of the world," outlined a  possible Obama inaugural speech, and said that he saw no reason for the contest to go beyond June 3, and that super delegates should endorse "whomever" is ahead in the elected delegates, which will almost certainly be Obama.

"I don’t see any reason at all to continue after June 3rd when we know who got the most [pledged] delegates, who got the most popular votes, who won the most states and so forth," said Mr Carter, 83.

CNN is reporting that Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist for Senator Clinton's Campiagn.  The announcement was made by Clinton's campaign manager Maggie Smith.

Penn's controversial role was highlighted ealier this week, when it became known that he met with representatives from Columbia to advocate their support for NAFTA, at the same time he has been articulating Senator Clinton's opposition to NAFTA.

Penn's role was reported to be the key advocate for pursueing a more agressive or "negative" campaign against Obama after the surprising losses of first Super Tuesday primaries.

Penn is notorious for his use of polling to recognize "micro-trends" that can be exploited with targeted marketing campaigns has been used mostly by corporations.  But efforts to oppose unions introduced a political element during this campaign.

The imaginary SNL skit I think of everytime I see these "3:00 AM and your kids are sleeping ads" is one a few years from now, and President HRC is sleeping and the red phone rings four times like in the commercials. And then Bill storms in with a bottle of Vodka screaming "will someone answer the G^#& D@^* phone?"

After pausing for the audience laughter, the way Jackie Gleason would, Bill picks up the phone, and we hear urgent screaming through the receiver.

Bill's says' "Oh, Vladimir, how's it going...."

Now is the time for all good superdelegates to come to the aid of our party.

Up to now, our primary competition has been highly beneficial to our candidates, our issues, and our party, despite the occassional sparks.  Now, that HRC has chosen to go highly negative in an implausible, pull-all-the-stops, desperation bid, the damage to herself and the party is too great to be allowed to continue.

We need our party leadership to intervene to protect Hillary from herself, and from further damage to our party.  We risk losing greater numbers of embittered HRC supporters, who are moving past the point of no return in their animosity towards our all-but-certain nominee.  And some Obama supporters are making things worse with lack of grace and embittered counter-attacks.  This escalation is getting worse each day, and may soon explode. HRC has crossed the line from running a tough campaign on the issues, to giving aid and comfort to the enemy, by producing the lines of attack, and even the commericials the GOP will run in the fall.

The longer this uncertainty goes on, the greater the damage, and the more difficult it will be to heal the wounds and unite against John McCain.  

Today SurveyUSA announced that Senator Clinton's net favorability has fallen to it's lowest level ever in her home state of New York.  Also, Senator Obama now outpolls her in her homestate head to heads against Senator McCain by a substantial margin (21%, to 11%)

Could this be a reason she seems to have pulled back from her expected attack against Obama in tonight's debate?  While Clinton tested the edge of negativity, she seemed to back off after getting bood for her "change you can Xerox" comment.  She then ended on an unexpectedly gracious note, saying it was an honor to be on stage with Obama. Survey USA reported today that:

Senator Clinton has a 56% approval rating and a 42% disapproval rating. Subtracting disapproval from approval yields a Net Job Approval of Plus 14 — higher, to be sure, than that of many other U.S. Senators tracked regularly by SurveyUSA, and right in line with New York’s senior Senator, Chuck Schumer, who is at Plus 15 today — but still the lowest we’ve seen for Senator Clinton, who was at Plus 22 last month, and at Plus 37 in October.

According the latest Real Clear Politics Delegate Count update, Barack Obama now has 1120 total delegates compared to 1123 for Hillary Clinton.  And this is before any delegates from Maine have been counted.

While Clinton leads the super delegate count 213 to 139, Obama's surprisingly high margins in yesterday's primaries has contributed sufficient advances to the number of elected delegates to pull him to within 3 in the total delegate count.  

Obama appears to be only 3 delegates away from being able to claim leadership in not only elected delegates, and total delegates, but also number of states won, and total vote cast - perhaps a tipping point in the stories about this amazing emergence of momentum on the long road to the nomination.

CNN is reporting Rush Limbaugh's lame attempt to apologize and backpedal out of the incredible blunder of his mean spirited and down right nasty and shameful attack on Fox.

Michael J. Fox's ad is powerful and moving.

And the mean spirited attacks from Limbaugh reveals how small minded, and desperate the hard core of the GOP really are.

       

Photo Credit: AP

As I saw the half page photo of Joe Lieberman on Huffington Post with a headline exclaiming "I am not Bush!" A loud voice in my head exclaimed back, "The hell you aren't!"   I suddenly got what this primary election is really all about.  In politics, strident denials are the strongest clues that your opponents are striking at the truth.  

Bingo, I think we've got the right frame on this contest. Joe Lieberman has chosen to make himself a referendum on support for the George Bush administration.  I've been annoyed at pundits, the DLC, and Lieberman suggesting this is a single issue litmus test about the Iraq War. Even Donna Brazil has written an editorial warning Democrats of "fragmenting" before the November elections.

RawStory is reporting that

Dean calls New York ruling on gay marriage 'bigoted, outdated.' Earlier, Parrothead reported details of this disappointed NY Supreme Court ruling in this diary NY Supreme Court Cops Out. Now Howard Dean speaks out as is reported in Raw Story:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called the rationale used in a decision by the New York appeals court reaffirming a ban on gay marriage "bigoted and outdated,"

In a release issue today, Dean characterized the decision as inconsistent with Democratic values. "As Democrats, we believe that every American has a right to equal protection under the law and to live in dignity. And we must respect the right of every family to live in dignity with equal rights, responsibilities and protections under the law," the former Vermont Governor wrote.

Hurray and thanks for DNC Chairman Howard Dean. I call on all supportors of the GLBT communities to get our checkbooks out and say thank you for this strong support.

NightprowlKitty, wrote a great diary tonight To Those Who Are Not Recommended encouraging newbees and those receiving only a few comments and recs, to keep plugging away which I recommend. The idea that most folks here only get a few if any comments or recs, is more than I can bear.  

I know the feeling.  My first diary here about 9 months ago received 3 comments and no recs. It was heartbreaking. I was almost totally ingnored here, until I learned Secret Trick #1, which by itself got me on the Big Board (Rec List) within 2 months.
So, I've decided to share with you Secret Trick #1 From my private briefing docmument, How To Triple Your DailyKos Recommendations and Comments In 30 Days In Seven Easy Steps.  

1. Use you diary to bring the DailyKos community the gift of an interesting article, summary and link.

My first biggest misconception holding me back here, was the assumption that I could walk in off the streets and 70,000 Daily Kos users would want to know my opinions of the issues of the day.

I call your attention to an excellent editorial today in the New York Times that sums up my feelings about the Hamdan decision yesterday better than anything I could write.    

A Victory for the Rule of Law

The Supreme Court's decision striking down the military tribunals set up to try the detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay is far more than a narrow ruling on the issue of military courts. It is an important and welcome reaffirmation that even in times of war, the law is what the Constitution, the statute books and the Geneva Conventions say it is -- not what the president wants it to be.

What a relief!  So many here, including myself, I've been holding up the themes of the rule of law, and adherence to the constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter and other domestic and global law, that I was becoming concerned we might seem shrill.  But look at the power of the same simple declarations coming from the Supreme Court.

In another tragic consequence of President Bush's short attention span and lack of strategic follow through, we are now hearing alarming reports from Afghanistan indicating that a new reorganized and more viscous generation of the Taliban is making a resurgence -- The Taliban 2.0 -- fueled with loads of cash from opium sales, rearmed, and re-staffed with international recruits.

Now nearly five years after the post 9/11 invasion, we are seeing the net consequence of President Bush's diversion of resources and attention to Iraq. Gretchen Peters, of Raw Story writes that a new more viscous Taliban 2.0 is back and nastier than ever.  They're Back: A New, Vicious Taliban Take Shape in Afghanistan: Opium Drug Trade Funding New Type of Taliban Army

KABUL, Afghanistan June 27, 2006 -- - Coalition forces battling the Taliban across southern Afghanistan aren't fighting the same bearded extremists they toppled in October 2001. It's as if the sequel to a horror film is being replayed across southern Afghanistan this summer. Call it "Taliban II." They're back, reloaded, and more ruthless than ever.

 

Finally, Democrats appear to be standing up to GOP stonewalling of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Phase 2 investigations of Bush administration's political manipulation of pre-Iraq war intelligence, reports Raw Story in  Former Bush Assistant Secretary of State says don't 'accept the crap we give you'

Appearing before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl Ford called upon policy makers to accept part of the blame for intelligence failures, telling them to "not accept the crap we give you."

The proceedings, chaired by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), heard testimony regarding pre-war intelligence in Iraq. The Democrats held their own hearings out of frustration with a lack of scrutiny of Iraq intelligence by the Republican-led Senate.

The jig is up folks!

There's no point in trying to deny it any longer!

That clever Brooks fellow and the MSM finally nailed the truth.

And the truth can't be suppressed.  Now that they have figured out that we are not just rabid sheep, and killer rabbits,  but also full fledged KosZombies, it's pointless to deny this wicked alien conspiracy any longer. The world needs to know, that Markos is really an alien Zombie here to take over the earth.  

 
Dick Morris, of The Hill News, writes Tennessee may give Dems sixth senator they need.    Morris believes Democrats have good chances of beating Rick Santorum (R-PA), Mike DeWine (R-OH), Conrad Burns (R-MT),  and with a little help from trends, also, Jim Telent, (R-MO), and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI).  Meaning to Morris that they key swing state battle looks like Tennessee where Democrats Harold Ford is running neck and neck with the three Republican contestants eager to replace outgoing Senator Bill Frist (R-TN).  

For months I have wondered which would be the sixth seat the Democrats could win to capture the Senate.  Five prime Democratic targets have been obvious for some time. According to the latest Rasmussen polls, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) belongs on the endangered-species list, trailing Bob Casey Jr., his Democratic challenger, by 56-33. Also behind, although by lesser margins, are Sens. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), who trails Rep. Sherrod Brown by 44-41, and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), losing to Jon Tester by 48-44.

Our super sweetheart of the White House Press corp Helen Thomas, is heckling poor Tony Snow by asking him tough questions and not letting him evade the answers by changing the subject.  But Snow has had enough and is fighting back reports  Raw Story White House press secretary asks Helen Thomas to 'stop heckling'

Press secretary Tony Snow asked journalist Helen Thomas to "stop heckling" at Friday's White House press briefing, as she asked questions about news reports that the federal government is tapping a large international database to search financial records of thousands of Americans in order to find terror ties.

"Helen, will you stop heckling and let me conduct the press conference?" Snow said to the sound of laughter.

"Well no, I'm making an argument and you're pestering the teacher," Snow added.