The last ten minutes of Rev. Wright's speech. The theme of the speech: "A change is going to come. We can do it if we try."

He is a powerful speaker, no doubt about it.

You can watch Parts One, Two and Three here.

Update: Comments now closed, new thread on Rev. Wright is here.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright attacks the coporate media today in a speech to the NAACP. The audience of 10,000 gave him a standing ovation.

You can watch the entire speech here.

Update: Comments closing, a new thread on the speech is here.

Politico reports on a new Republican attack ad on Obama that is airing on television in Mississippi.

A television ad from Southaven Mayor Greg Davis tells viewers that his Democratic rival, Travis Childers, a realtor and Prentiss County official, has accepted the endorsement of "liberal Barack Obama." Then, with Childers' face beside footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it says, "When Obama's pastor cursed America, blaming us for 9/11, Childers said nothing."

Then: "When Obama ridiculed rural folks for clinging to guns and religion, Childers said nothing." "He took Obama's endorsement over our conservative values. Conservatives just can't trust Travis Childers," the ad concludes.

Politico says:

The ads are a mark of how difficult, with the nomination apparently within his grasp, Obama will find it to stay above or outside the traditional, bitter partisan divisions he so often deplores. [More...]

"60 Minutes" featured Justice Anton Scalia tonight.

He's a very personable fellow. Among the highlights and lowlights so far:

• torture is not punishment when you are trying to get information out of someone

• Fetuses are not persons within the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause. Persons means people who can walk around. Pregnant women shouldn't be counted twice.

• He has 9 kids and 28 grandkids. He was an only child. Why? They practiced their version of "Vatican Roulette."

If you saw it, let us know what you thought.

When I discuss the Left Blogs' reaction to everything Barack Obama, I am past the point of pointing what I perceive as aspects of his political style that I find lacking. I am no longer pointing out Obama's feet of clay. I am pointing to the feet of clay of the Left blogs. Now Matt Stoller writes about Obama on Fox:

I think lost in all this nonsense is just how weakened we [the Left blogs] have become in all this. When we accept lies from our leaders and openly dismissive knocks from them, it destroys our core argument that Democrats need to have integrity and to stand up for themselves. No they don't. We don't stand up for ourselves and we let them lie to us without consequence.

Indeed.

I am watching a C-Span broadcast about the broken, undemocratic, and corrupt nomination process. Elaine Kamarck of the DNC Rule and Bylaws Committee is going through the history and droning on about this and that. And it hit me. The solution to the problem is simple - we should change the Presidential nomination process to a pure popular vote system. This would end all the silly calendar nonsense. You want to go first? Be my guest. That is not going to change the fact that California has the most people.

This would also let states decide if they wanted to pay for a real election (a primary) or wanted instead to hold a phony election (a caucus). It gets rid of superdelegates. Heck, it gets rid of DELEGATES period. It gets rid of every unDemocratic feature in the process (no overweighting rural districts or urban districts or any district.)

Finally, it eliminates the importance of incompetents like Donna Brazile. So there you have it. My proposed reform for the nomination process.

One stop voter registration and voting is already underway in North Carolina which holds its primary May 6.

Here are the latest voter registration stats for the state. They are broken down by county, but here are the totals as of April 26:

• Total Voters 5,791,221
• Democrats 2,616,995
• Republicans 1,933,929
• Unaffiliated 1,240,297
• White 4,368,780
• African Amer. 1,192,950
• Hispanic 49,835
• American Indian 44,170
• Women 3,163,294
• Men 2,603,775

Since people can register and vote on the same day during one stop voting which doesn't end until May 3, these won't be the final numbers.

Here's what the numbers were at the start of 2008. The number of registered Dems has increased by about 105,000 since January. The number of African American voters for both parties and unaffiliated has increased about 65,000, from 1,128,082 to 1,192,950 (the 4/26 numbers aren't broken down by party.) [More...]

Barack Obama's new politics may not be exactly the same as his old politics. The LA Times reports he wrote a letter for a donor and client requesting and obtaining a $50,000 grant for a ping pong ball venture.

After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.

After receiving his last paycheck from EKI:

Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

More...

David White Jr., in a Boston Globe op-ed, asks "what is it about our priorities that has us spending more on incarceration than higher education?"

Incarceration rates increased dramatically when the "War on Drugs" was launched in the 1980s. In Massachusetts and elsewhere, strict mandatory minimum sentences were enacted for drug dealing. One of those sentences, for selling any type or quantity of drug within 1,000 feet of a school, annually sends more than 300 people to jail for a mandatory minimum of two years.

What a waste. So is the "zero tolerance" attitude that makes a big deal out of petty crimes.

At the front end of the trial process, the courts are cluttered with the smallest of crimes, such as disturbing the peace or passing a bad check. Because these crimes carry the threat of incarceration, if the defendant is indigent the court must appoint a lawyer at taxpayer expense. If treated instead as civil infractions, with only the risk of fines, the dockets could be cleared, and the legal help could be reserved for more serious matters.

White proposes additional sensible solutions to the mess our criminal justice system has become: (more...)

I frequently write about the need to be smarter, rather than just tough on crime. That means funding prison programs that rehabilitate prisoners and reduce the chance of recidivism.

Here's a success story. On May 26, among those wearing a cap and gown to receive degrees at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs will be Alex Matheson.

Matheson, a twice-convicted felon, has earned degrees in English and Philosophy. Now 26, Matheson's first crime stint landed him in Colorado's youth correctional facility. He escaped, and ended up at the Crowley Correctional Facility.

More...

Vast Left at Corrente: Obama's smart and charismatic and he voted against the war. Right?

Let's talk about the reasons to like him -- and more importantly, reasons he should be the Democratic nominee for President. Or not.

Update: (different topic) Check out Elizabeth Edwards op-ed in today's New York Times: Bowling 1, Health Care 0. It's about the media's shallow coverage of the presidential race.

AdamB is living in the past. In 2006, Barack Obama may have been the fresh face for Claire McCaskill in Missouri. But things change:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds John McCain leading Hillary Clinton by nine percentage points, 50% to 41%. He leads Barack Obama by an even larger margin, 53% to 38%.

Survey USA:

* John McCain 50%
* Barack Obama 42%

* John McCain 46%
* Hillary Clinton 47%

Time for Obama supporters to give a realistic argument for Obama's electability and downticket strength, not reprise bromides from 2006. That was then. This is now.