Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice as well as misconduct in office for lying about a romantic relationship with his former Chief of Staff, Christine Beatty. The pair were caught by text messages.

Both had denied the relationship under oath in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by Detroit police officers. The case was later settled for almost $9 million.

[DA Kim] Worthy began her investigation the day after the Free Press published excerpts of the embarrassing text messages in late January. The messages called into question testimony Kilpatrick and Beatty gave in a lawsuit filed by two police officers who alleged they were fired for investigating claims that the mayor used his security unit to cover up extramarital affairs.

In court, Kilpatrick and Beatty denied having an intimate relationship, but the text messages reveal that they carried on a flirty, sometimes sexually explicit dialogue about where to meet and how to conceal their trysts. Kilpatrick is married with three children. Beatty was married at the time and has two children.

...Documents released last month showed Kilpatrick agreed to the settlement in an effort to keep the text messages from becoming public.

The lawsuit alleged the officers were fired after investigating whether the Mayor's security unit had been used to cover up the affair. Mayor Kilpatrick today said he expects to be exonerated. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Chris Bowers writes:

Basically, after fourteen months of hashing out the differences between the candidates on virtually every other metric, with four weeks until the Pennsylvania primary, with no revotes in Florida and Michigan, and with less than 20% of the voting actually remaining, it seems that all we have left is a long argument about electability. That is a problem because, let's face it, long arguments about electability are really boring because they are ultimately unprovable and go nowhere.

I would go further. Whether Obama is the inevitable nominee is also unprovable now. We must wait for the voters (be they the voters in the upcoming primaries or the delegates) to decide. All we can do is bloviate about it. Thus, while I agree with Chris that:

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Like my previous endorsement of Tweety's Matthews FL/MI proposal (Obama and Clinton agree to revote them and bot agree that the winner of the total popular vote is the nominee), this endorsement of Bill Richardson's statement on ending the Dem contest is founded on the need for our nominee to be the choice of the people:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, fresh off his endorsement of Barack Obama this week, suggested Sunday that Hillary Rodham Clinton should consider dropping out of the race if she trails in the delegate count and popular vote at the end of the primary process.

(Emphasis supplied.) If Hillary Clinton trails in the delegate count AND the popular vote at the END OF THE PRIMARY PROCESS, the people will have spoken. The problem here is Michigan and Florida of course. How to count their votes. Barack Obama has made his path to legitimacy as the nominee very difficult by blocking Florida and Michigan revotes. If Obama does not hold a 500,000 vote lead in the popular vote (excluding Florida and Michigan) at the end of the process, his claim to a popular vote win will be severely tainted.

More . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

The electability argument rages on. Former Bush pollster Matthew Dowd writes:

[T]here seems to be a concerted effort by the Clinton campaign to point out weakness in the Obama effort related to November electability. . . . One argument being made is that there is a relationship between primary win in states and ability to win those states in the Fall. For example, the Clinton campaign likes to point out they won Ohio and Obama lost it, and that this bodes badly for his chances of winning that state in the Fall. The Obama campaign points out wins in red states in the primary process trying to prove their strength.

To put it bluntly, there is no relationship between primary success in any given state and November success in those states.

Dowd says it so it must be so. Um no. Dowd is wrong and he misdescribes the argument as one expects a politician or political operative to do. More . . .

Barack Obama frequently cites his impressive record as an Illinois state legislator as an indicator of his experience in running for President.

Turns out, according to former Chicago reporter Todd Spivak, all of his legislative accomplishments were in his final 7th year and were handed to him by his mentor, Ill. State Senate President Emil Jones.

The Illinois legislature was dominated by Republicans for 26 years. These included Obam's first 6 years in the state Senate. Not surprisingly, says Spivak, he had no legislative achievements during these years.

Jones was instrumental in changing the legislative makeup, and after he did, he became Senate President. Here's the rest of the story: [More...]

First there was Tony Rezko. Then Jeremiah Wright. Now get ready for Emil Jones, President of the Illinois Senate who was so instrumental in Obama's legislative career he referred to himself as "Obama's godfather." The TimesOnLine (UK) has the details.

Their close relationship began in 2003 when Obama sought Jones' support to run for U.S. Senate.

“You have the power to elect a US senator,” Obama told Emil Jones, Democratic leader of the Illinois state senate. Jones looked at the ambitious young man smiling before him and asked, teasingly: “Do you know anybody I could make a US senator?”

According to Jones, Obama replied: “Me.” It was his first, audacious step in a spectacular rise from the murky political backwaters of Springfield, the Illinois capital.

Obama has frequently described his closeness to Jones: [More...]

Jason Leopold has more on the affidavit filed by the White House in a federal court case this week in which the White House claims it had the hard drives of computer workstations destroyed when it replaced them and that it would be too expensive to search those that remain for e-mails. The period at issue is 2003 - 2005.

The White House also claims:

...there is simply no evidence to back up allegations made in a lawsuit filed by two government watchdog groups that claim the White House has lost as many as 10 million emails—some of which are said to coincide with dates involving the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson as well as the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. [White House Chief Information Officer Theresa]Payton said that since the watchdog groups’ claims are unsupported the White House should not be forced to undertake a “draconian” process of having to search for emails.

In other words, it's just a coincidence that, as Jason writes,

By Big Tent Democrat

Newly minted "huge Obama endorser" Bill Richardson criticized the Obama campaign for its attack on Bill Clinton:

Prominent supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama on Sunday both faulted Obama's campaign for allowing a retired general and backer of the Illinois senator to equate comments by Clinton's husband to McCarthyism.

"I don't believe President Clinton was implying that," said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former presidential candidate who endorsed Obama last week. "But the point here ... is that the campaign has gotten too negative — too many personal attacks, too much negativity that is not resounding with the public."

Asked whether Obama's campaign was being too negative in accusing former President Clinton of McCarthyism, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, said, "Of course ... the Obama campaign tries to have it both ways," he said.

More . . .

Arguments in Inmates vs. Nutraloaf (not the real case name but the court's website is down and I can't find the real one)will be heard tomorrow by the Vermont Supreme Court. It's a class action case brought by inmates to halt the practice of feeding nutraloaf as punishment to prisoners who misbehave.

When shooting suspect Christopher Williams acted up in prison, he was given nutraloaf — a mixture of cubed whole wheat bread, nondairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, seedless raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes. Prison officials call it a complete meal. Inmates say it's so awful they'd rather go hungry.

Here's a recipe for Nutraloaf: [more]

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Via John Cole, Steve Benen makes a sound point but then avoids an obvious one. First the sound point:

[F]or the Clinton campaign to argue that Obama wants to “disenfranchise voters” in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, Kentucky, South Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, and Indiana is pretty ridiculous. Obama wants the nomination fight to end, Clinton doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean he wants to “disenfranchise” voters in the remaining states. That’s just how things go for states at the end of the nominating calendar. Indeed, the states know that, and have a choice about moving their contests up.

(Emphasis supplied.) Steve's last line is extremely ironic since it was Florida and Michigan's initial attempt to "move their contests up" which has led to their being disenfranchised - first by the DNC's unequal and improper application of its rules and later because Obama deliberately stymied revotes in Florida and Michigan.

Thus, when Steve writes:

Is anyone online today? If so, and you've got something you want to talk about, here's the place. Some things in the news that caught my eye:

Hillary and Obama are resting up for the long haul. The Chicago Tribune says in the latest Rasmussen poll, there's something for everyone.

The Rezko trial is in recess until March 31, but Rezko is facing a new lawsuit over a house.

Former business partner and son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad is accusing Rezko of taking ownership of Muhammad's house without his consent.

The lawsuit by Jabir Muhammad accuses Rezko of persuading Muhammad and his wife to put their home into trust with Rezko. The suit goes on to say that Rezko then took legal control of the home, which is in the Kenwood neighborhood.

I also found interesting this Boston Globe profile (pdf)of Barack Obama from January, 1990 when he was made Editor of the Harvard Law Review. A reader mentioned it in comments yesterday.

Rep. Barney Frank says we should decriminalize marijuana. As Instapundit says, don't count on support any time soon from Obama, Hillary or McCain. As I wrote last week, Obama is a serious flip-flopper on the issue.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Via Bob Somerby, the "progressive" writer Barbara Ehrenreich writes:

She has displayed a “tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and now Hillary Clinton.”

Wow. Just wow. You gotta love the "progressives" we have these days.