REM in South Africa:

This is an open thread.

Digby wrote this on Saturday:

I have written before that I don't believe Obama's win is attributed to [sexism], carrying a heavy historical burden of his own. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Acknowledging that doesn't create a "toxic legacy" and neither is it just the sad lament of "lonely people" (translation: lonely old women.) But I'm sure those memes will catch on and we'll all be told that we imagined it all. (Youtube is our new best friend.)

Clinton's campaign ripped open a hole in our culture and forced us to look inside. And what we found was a simmering cauldron of crude, sophomoric sexism and ugly misogyny that a lot of us knew existed but didn't realize was still so socially acceptable that it could be broadcast on national television and garner nary a complaint from anybody but a few internet scolds like me. It was eye-opening, to say the least.

As a card carrying internet scold, I will not be shut up about this, or anything else, including Keith Olbermann's unprofessionalism.

Speaking for me only

What do Barack Obama and the Democrats have to offer young evangelicals and Catholics? We'll soon find out. Obama is launching the Joshua Generation Project to bring more of them on board with his campaign.

The name is based on the biblical story of how Joshua's generation led the Israelites into the Promised Land. A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File the following:

"The Joshua Generation project will be the Obama campaign's outreach to young people of faith. There's unprecedented energy and excitement for Obama among young evangelicals and Catholics. The Joshua Generation project will tap into that excitement and provide young people of faith opportunities to stand up for their values and move the campaign forward."

Why would evangelicals and Catholics support a pro-choice candidate? Is he planning on modifying his position? Are his campaign speeches going to incorporate religion even more than they have in the past?

Where is this headed? [More...]

Percy Levar Walton was scheduled for execution tomorrow. Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine today commuted his sentence to life without parole.

Walton has a history of mental isslness that has gotten progressively worse while in prison. Kaine determined Walton is mentally incompetent, not fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it. While Kaine issued temporary stays for Walton in the past, today he issued his final decision and commuted the sentence.

Gov. Kaine's statement is here.

"After reviewing the information, I was compelled to conclude that Walton was seriously mentally impaired and that he met the Supreme Court's definition of mental incompetence. Because one could not reasonably conclude that Walton was fully aware of the punishment he was about to suffer and why he was to suffer it, I decided that his execution could not proceed at that time.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on June 20th about the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.

He will be asked about Dick Cheney's role.

President Bush's former spokesman, Scott McClellan, will testify before a House committee next week about whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered him to make misleading public statements about the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

In his new book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," McClellan said he was misled by others, possibly including Cheney, about the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the leak. McClellan has said publicly that Bush and Cheney "directed me to go out there and exonerate Scooter Libby."

McClellan is represented by Michael Tigar and his wife, Jane Tigar. Doesn't get much better than that. (Update: Jason Leopold has more on McClellan at the Public Record.)

Poor judgment and unnecessary violence on the part of a police officer in Seattle will cost local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Here's what happened:

[Romelle] Bradford was a 20-year-old volunteer at the Rainier Vista Boys & Girls Club in 2006 and was chaperoning a dance when rival groups began to make trouble. Police were called, and Bradford, according to testimony and court records, was wearing a red staff T-shirt and identification when a rookie police officer, Jacob Briskey, ordered him to stop running toward the altercation.

Bradford, who testified he did not know the officer was speaking to him, continued on when the then-24-year-old officer knocked him hard to the ground and threatened to "knock him the [expletive] out" if he tried to get back up. Bradford was arrested and spent a night in jail.

A federal jury awarded Bradford $269,000. The city hired a private law firm that has billed more than $138,000 to defend the case and the court will probably order the city to pay Bradford's attorneys' fees (although likely less than the $271,000 they're requesting). If the city loses a planned appeal, thousands more will be paid to the attorneys on both sides of the case. All because a police officer roughed up and arrested a young man who was just trying to do his job.

Erin Rosa at Colorado Independent reports that the prison guards union sent out a questionnaire to the candidates asking what they would do to address the critical underfunding and understaffing of federal prisons.

The federal Bureau of Prisons is facing a budget crisis, and correctional officers working in the nation's prisons are concerned that understaffing is jeopardizing the safety of inmates and employees. But despite these issues, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain's campaign has so far declined to answer a questionnaire about bureau funding and staffing woes, according to a government employees union.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents approximately 15,000 federal correctional officers in Colorado and across the nation, recently sent out a three-question survey to McCain and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama asking for their views on understaffing and funding of prisons.

More...

Kevin Drum writes:

OBAMA vs. McCAIN....Gallup's latest Obama-McCain tracking poll shows exactly what you'd expect: now that Obama is firmly the Democratic candidate, he's making up considerable ground. There will be more ups and downs, especially around the conventions, but I'll bet that Obama never has much less than a five point lead for the rest of the campaign.

(Emphasis supplied.) I'll take that bet - IF Obama does not pick Hillary Clinton as his VP. I would expect an Obama drop the day, if it comes, Obama does not choose Hillary Clinton as his VP.

See, for those who do not get it, I am not arguing that Hillary Clinton is entitled to be VP, I am arguing that it is in Obama's best interest to choose her as it will insure his victory in November.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Greg Sargent notes this from Barack Obama:

By the way, I'm going to be partnering with Elizabeth Edwards, we're going to be figuring all this out."

As Greg writes:

The key political context here, of course, is that back in April, Elizabeth revealed that Obama's health care plan wasn't her favorite [she expressly preferred Hillary Clinton's plan]. Enlisting her as a public voice on health care could obviously help with the Obama camp's outreach to women and help win over skeptics in general.

I have no opinion on the merits of the respective health care plans, but it is an interesting move to the LEFT by Obama (now in GE mode) and to a unified position on health care in the Democratic Party. Very interesting.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only.

Legal Schnauzer asks a smart question about the Justice Department's prosecution of Don Siegelman: if what Siegelman did (acting in support of a campaign contributor) is illegal, why isn't the Justice Department prosecuting his Republican successor for doing much the same thing?

Now, let's consider the case of current Alabama Governor Bob Riley, a Republican. Riley took a sizable campaign contribution from supporters of a biotechnology center in Huntsville and helped steer millions of state dollars to the project. ... Has Riley gotten in trouble with federal prosecutors for what appears to be a "quid pro quo" very much like the one Siegelman allegedly arranged? Heck, no. ...

(more ...)

The old John McCain abhorred intolerance:

In 2000, when he was running against Mr. Bush for the Republican nomination, Mr. McCain castigated Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance.”

The new John McCain embraces intolerance:

The campaign has been peppering over 600 socially conservative grass-roots and national leaders with regular e-mail messages — highlighting, for example, Mr. McCain’s statement criticizing a May 15 decision by the California Supreme Court overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, or his recent speech on his judicial philosophy. ... Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s senior advisers, recently sat down with a dozen prominent evangelical leaders in Washington, where he emphasized, among other things, Mr. McCain’s consistent anti-abortion voting record.

Who says McCain is against change? He changes all the time. John McCain: the candidate who wants to return America to the 19th Century.

First wife issues are nothing new. Lots of politicians have them. But John McCain, who will face some trouble from a segment of voters over his current wife Cindy's past prescription drug troubles, cannot be pleased today to see his first wife and mother of his three oldest children in the news.

Surprisingly, Carol McCain is defending him, even though he left her after his return from Vietnam and re-emergence as a war hero. Carol charitably says he was having a sort of "midlife crisis." Many others say it was because she had been horribly disfigured in a car accident and gained a lot of weight. [More...]