By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

In my humble opinion, Hillary Clinton makes a grave mistake wading into the Wright waters:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor made. "He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

Previously Clinton has steadfastly avoided discussing the Wright issue. Rightly in my view. Of course it was no doubt frustrating to her campaign that she did not receive any credit for taking the high road here, but it is still is a grave mistake to now discuss the issue. I am disappointed that she chose to discuss it. Bad show Hillary.

Update (TL): Comments now closed, there's a new thread on Wright up.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Does anyone believe this is a persuasive argument about the Florida/Michigan situation?

[T]he main obstacle to a satisfactory resolution of the Florida/Michigan situation is that Clinton continues to be in the race. . . . Only the fact that Hillary Clinton is trying to use the seating of the improperly selected delegates to actually overturn the results of the legitimate nominating process is creating a crisis situation that threatens Democratic prospects in the fall.

(Emphasis supplied.) Yet again an elitist blogger tells us that the problem is that Florida and Michigan Dems just do not understand what he understands. In the process he labels enfranchising the voters of Michigan and Florida as "overturning the results of the legitimate nominating process." Whoa. I can tell you from my personal encounters with Florida Dems (I am in Florida a good deal now) that they would deeply resent what they would perceive as ignorance from this elitist blogger. I urge Obama supporters to steer clear of this argument. Adopting this argument would be digging the hole even deeper.

Law Prof Paul Caron has examined the tax returns released by Barack Obama today for the years 2000 to 2006. You can read the returns over at his blog.

What is surprising, given the recent controversy over Obama's membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, is how little the Obamas apparently gave to charity -- well short of the biblical 10% tithe for all seven years. In two of the years, the Obamas gave far less than 1% of their income to charity; in three of the years, they gave around 1% of their income to charity. Only in the last two years have they given substantially more as their income skyrocketed -- 4.7% in 2005 and 6.1% in 2006. (Of course, it is possible that the Obamas may have made gifts to other worthy causes that were not deductible for federal income tax purposes.)

An online petition drive by Florida and Michigan voters to have their delegates seated so their votes count has generated 8,500 signatures so far. The goal is 10,000. The petition will be delivered to Howard Dean and the DNC.

2.2 million voted in Florida and Michigan. The petition argues: [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Kos responds:

[I]f the supers overturn the popular will by siding with Clinton, they will spur civil war ("up in arms", as Armando says) -- not because they broke a rule in pulling off their coup, but because they will have subverted the will of the party electorate.

Here Markos and I agree. If Obama is the pledged delegate leader and the popular vote leader (as me, Kos and a cast of a thousand bloggers, NBC, etc, expect), then any action by the super delegates to subvert such a result would be outrageous and wrong, imo of course. But as Kos acknowledges, NOT against the rules. It won't happen. More . . .

I'm not seeing a lot of news to write about yet today, so here's an open thread for those of you who do. Just remember, you can't call anyone, including public figures, "liars" on this site. I have routinely deleted comments calling both candidates that name, or characterizing their statements as "lies." It's okay to refer to statements as "inaccurate" when there is adequate support for it.

The best way to stop an open thread from becoming dominated by those who want to harp on a story few TL readers are interested in is to ignore their comments. Talk about what interests you, not them.

Does anyone not hate flying anymore? Remember the plight of the passengers stranded for hours on runways due to weather who were not be allowed to deplane?

Those experiences were part of what led to the New York's passage of the Passenger's Bill of Rights Law. Today, the Second Circuit ruled the law invalid:

A federal appeals court has rejected a law requiring airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers trapped in a plane delayed on the ground.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that New York's new state law interferes with federal law governing the price, route or service of an air carrier. It was the first law in the nation of its kind.

The Court held only the feds have the power to make these kind of rules. The case is Air Transport Association v. Cuomo, 07-5771, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan).

New polls from Rasmussen are out today.

Nationally, Hillary maintains her recent and slight (and subject to the margin of error) lead over Obama. Today it's Hillary 46, Obama 43.

In the McCain contest (one I truly believe doesn't matter until we actually get a candidate): McCain beats Obama by 9 and Hillary by 5.

As to favorability,

Clinton is currently viewed favorably by 74% of Democrats nationwide, Obama by 67%.

As to the electoral college math,

Democrats l[are]leading in states with 200 Electoral College Votes. Republicans are favored in states with 189 Votes. When “leaners” are added to the total, the Democrats lead with 247 Electoral Votes to 229 for the GOP. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House. Leaners are states that narrowly lean to one party or the other at this time but remain competitive.

[More...]

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters on the shameful press reaction to the release of Hillary Clinton's white house schedules:

How dreadful was the news coverage last week surrounding the official release of Hillary Clinton's public White House schedule from her eight years as first lady? So bad that I found myself in rare (unprecedented?) agreement with at least two prominent conservative bloggers who noticed the same thing I did: The Beltway press corps is, at times, a national embarrassment.

...Surveying the news coverage, conservative blogger Rick Moran posed the same question I had last week, "Do we really need to know where Hillary was when Monica Lewinsky was with her husband? Or where she was when Vince Foster committed suicide? ... And does it deserve this feeding frenzy from the media?"

More...

Notice to new readers and commenters at TalkLeft.

You may not chatter here or try to dominate the discussion. I will be calling out offenders by name. If they don't stop, they will be banned and every comment they have ever left on the site will be erased.

Mark L posted 91 comments today. Captain Howdy 65. Flyerhawk posted 51. Exeter 41. Digdugboy 26. JGarza 22. Many more were deleted.

Tomorrow these posters are limited to ten comments in 24 hours total. All in excess will be deleted.

I do not have time to monitor comments all day. I also pay for the bandwidth here. Commenting is a privilege, not a right.

I don't care what the practice is at other blogs. This one is mine, I make the rules, and commenters will follow them or have to post elsewhere.

Our comment rules are here.

They are summarized below the fold:

Update: I hear Rush is criticizing what I said on his radio show today, apparently confusing "posting online" with e-mails, as if I suggested the Government search e-mails for evidence of voter fraud. I never mentioned e-mails. What someone posts on a public blog or message board is hardly private. After all the times I stuck up for Rush, my feelings are hurt. (/sarcasm.)

Above is a 40 second clip of my answer to Dan Abrams on his show tonight on whether Rush Limbaugh could be liable as an aider and abettor to voter fraud for telling his listeners to register as Dems to vote for Hillary Clinton to give John McCain a better chance in November. (MSNBC has full segment here.)Backstory here, and from Wired and Alternet.

After Ohio, Rush moved on to induce Republicans in PA to register as Dems and vote for Hillary. [More...]

How refreshing to hear a politician, in this case David Paterson, the new Governor of New York, acknowledge using drugs in their youth and rather than apologize for it or calling it a mistake, point out:

"More Americans have tried a lot more during that period of time and gone on to lead responsible lives and hopefully have lived their lives to their fullest," he said.

Here's what Obama said about his drug use:

"I was a confused kid and was making a bunch of negative choices based on stereotypes of what I thought a tough young man should be," he said of the period depicted in that section of the book. "Those choices were misguided, a serious mistake.

I'll take more like Paterson please.

Update: The New York Times has a list of politicians and their comments on past drug use.