sent via Obama's Senate email at 5:30PM, June 19th

Dear Senator Obama -

 I have donated twice to your presidential campaign.  And you will be getting my vote in November.  But I am very disappointed that you have not spoken up forcefully about the ridiculous "compromise" currently in the House regarding FISA and telecom immunity.  As the party's standard-bearer, your voice telling Pelosi and Hoyer not to agree to gut the the amendment would absolutely make the difference.

 By the time this gets to the Senate, it is probably too late, since Rockefeller will support it.  You have almost unique power to stop this now.  If you do not speak out publicly, forcefully and unequivocally to sop it, I will still vote for you in Nov.  But you won't be getting any more money from me.  And I won't be making any phone calls or doing any local work for you.

More below the fold

I have a good friend who is at this point a far right winger.  He likes to think of himself as moderate, but even by today's standards, he isn't any more.  I love the man, regardless of his views, because he has a heart of gold.  He just doesn't get how his views are inconsistent with his heart.

The email recounted a speech about the eight ways to destroy America - some of you may have seen it before.  I found a copy of he speech online at:  

http://www.rumormillnews.com/...

More after the fold.

The BBC, which is has been one of the stronger media forces reporting the risks of climate change, has an article today entitled

No Sun Link to climate change

The gist of the article is summarized in the first paragraph:

Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.

More after the fold.

As most kossacks know, the Florida dems have proposed a revote that is a combination of vote by mail and regional voting.  They are currently asking for input on their plan before the end of the day today.  the link for feedback is at:

http://www.fladems.com/...

More after the fold

I have to be honest,  I was a bit surprised several days ago when word came out that Clinton opposed caucuses in FL and MI, with the reasoning that they'd already voted.  Sure, I understand that caucuses are not her thing, but at least she could have said she'd support something more like a primary.

Now it appears that Obama opposes revotes as well.  I find this even more difficult to believe.  Links and excerpts below the fold

With half the results in, I figured I'd do a quick look at what the Cd's look like at this point.  Most likely scenario I would say is 50-33 Obama, but it could go 2 or 3 delegates either way.  Follow me after the fold

UPDATE: I was asked to give a range of the highest and lowest delegates counts possible based on numbers available.  I would say that the best for Obama is 58-25 and the worst is 48-35.  53 or so is probably most likely.

Most of you have seen that the public editor of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt, wrote that he would not have hired Bill Kristol for the Op Ed pages.    He also stated that he didn't understand why the hiring of Kristol was such a big deal.  The article is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/...

I find myself partially in agreement with him, but I also think that his article was short on looking at what the criteria should be for an Op Ed columnist.  Kristol's issues, aside, that's the real question.  At what point does "opinion" become regurgitation of press releases or simply too far from reality to deserve space?  And how do we weigh the fact that his opinions are in line with the executive branch's opinions, even as some of hose opinions (like unprovoked invasion of Iran) enjoy barely double-digit support from Americans?  Is there even a well-known truly conservative commentator who hasn't been wrong for the past six years?  I can think of a few, but they aren't writing a lot of opinions any more.

My letter after the fold

I would like to see John Edwards as the next president.  I voted for him in 2004.  This is my first candidate diary but I have consistently in comments for the past 18 months indicated support for Edwards.  I have tried to be civil, never being more negative than saying I simply did not support something that Clinton or Obama said, did, or failed to do or say.  I even criticized Edwards once or twice (remember his somewhat hawkish speech in Israel?).  But I am an Edwards supporter and I will vote for him the non-scoring Florida primary.

However, I have a confession to make.  I actually like Barack Obama.

More after the fold

Every Kossack's favorite MSM opinion columnist is at it again.  At least this time he's not seeking to bash the positions 65% of the country, in the search for the mythical center.  At least this time, he's not buying into republican talking points about what it means to support the troops.  At least this time, he's not fellating the triangulaters.  No, this time, he's just an idiot.

Here's today's article (I'm linking to RealClearPolitics, since the original requires a subscription) where he argues that a New Hampshire win locks up the nomination for Obama:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/...

Obama may very will ride the momentum to victory, but the data to date is far less than sufficient to even approach Broder's conclusion.  more after the fold

Yes, the headline is slightly misleading, as you will see after the fold.  I haven't seen this posted yet, so I figured I would mention this piece of news.  Apparently even after caving on nearly everything of import, the defense authorization bill from Congress must be vetoed.

The Yahoo article on the topic is here:

http://news.yahoo.com/...

More after the fold:

Dear Senator Nelson,

I am writing to ask you to push for the version of the FISA bill that does not contain retroactive immunity for the telecom companies regarding warrantless spying - the Judiciary Committee version.  I understand how Majority leader Reid has made the intelligence committee bill the "base" bill and how - ultimately - the effect of this will likely be to require 60 votes to keep immunity out of it.  Yes, given the complexity of Senate rules, it may not pan out that way, but it probably will.

Haven't seen this posted yet.  Unable to get 60 votes  to stop a filibuster, the mos important provision of the already compromise bill - billions in clean energy credits and subsidies - was removed and the bill sailed through.  Here is the AP article about it:

http://news.yahoo.com/...

I haven't seen this posted yet, so this will be more of an informational diary than anything else.  If it turns out it has been posted, I will be happy to delete it.  In any case, the headline above is taken directly from the Yahoo news article, which is at:

AP Poll: Most see Iraq war as failure

The gist of the article is in this paragraph:

By 59 percent to 34 percent, more people said they believe history will judge the Iraq war a complete or partial failure than a success. Those calling it a failure included eight in 10 Democrats, three in 10 Republicans and about six in 10 independents, the poll showed — ominous numbers for a president who hopes to use a nationally televised address later this week to keep GOP lawmakers from joining Democratic calls for a withdrawal.

More after the fold

I haven't seen this diaried, so I'll give it a shot.  It's not hard to identify hypocrisy of all sorts in the government these days.  Gay men opposing gay rights.  Don't let the terrorists change our way of life but let's trash the Constitution because of them.  Let's be pro-life until birth and then we'll be pro-war and pro-capital punishment.  There are examples on the left too.

Well, here's another one.  For some reason the administration is all keen not to have the report on Iraqi benchmarks give the impression of a simple pass/fail, when some of them show partial progress.  But at the same time, they denounce the IAEA's claims of progress in Iranian transparency on nuclear issues by saying the Iranians must completely dismantle and renounce their programs or continue to face sanctions.

More after the fold

I don't write many diaries, but I rely on daily kos for a lot of my news (subject to corroboration of course, unlike say, mainstream reporters).  I haven't seen this posted on the site, so I'll do my part.  I apologize if I am duplicating efforts here, but I wanted to get the information posted.

Reuters has an article indicating that the main Sunni bloc of six cabinet ministers are now boycotting participation in the cabinet.  More after the fold

Been a while since I've written a diary.  Many of you have far more to say than I do, and most of it is said well.  But this latest zinger from General Pace compels me to speak.  I agree with the standard reasons for opposing "Don't ask, don't tell" - it is discriminatory, impossible to apply in any way representing a uniform manner, and it deprives us of thousands of desperately needed troops during a time of war.  But I want to expand on his statement, "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way."

It is perhaps a sensitive analogy to use, so many bullets in Iraq having found their mark on soldiers and civilians alike.  But our points of reference are a product of our environment, and we live in a society weaned on violent images.

A guy I worked with at a struggling company once said that what bothered him about management was not that we shot ourselves in the foot, it was how quickly we reloaded.  Extending this metaphor to Iraq, we've had the barrel aimed at our metatarsals and the trigger depressed on fully automatic for almost four years.

We took back the house and the senate.  We took back governorships and state legislatures.  The war is not over (figuratively or literally) but some dust has at least settled.  The question is, what can we expect now?  Many are lauding the benefits of democratic control and party-line voting, and we certainly should expect to stop the bleeding.  But can we really expect long-term change?