Readers have a lot to say tonight. Time for your own space where I won't intervene except for site violators. The floor is your's. All topics welcome.

Thanks to Big Tent Democrat for keeping us up to date on Florida and Michigan.

As for other news, check out the new ACLU blog. Lots of bloggers including Christy of Firedoglake, McJoan of Daily Kos, Marcy (Empty Wheel), Nicole of Crooks and Liars and Glenn Greenwald of Salon have posts up on torture.

My post is "The Unfriendly Skies of Ghost Air."

Colorado is under tornado watches and warnings today. A few have already hit down, the University of Northern Colorado is on lockdown. The city of Windsor so far has gotten hit the worst. At one school, they evacuated the kids and put them in the vault at the bank next door. Baseball size hail is expected. Denver right now is fine, but we're on a tornado watch too and severe thunderstorms with hail are coming. 40,000 are without power. The local tv stations have suspended regular programming to cover it.

More...

Tom Petty, 1991, I Won't Back Down

Hear that DNC?

This is an open thread.

Talk about Florida and Michigan. It is required of everyone. Not really, this is an Open Thread.

Comments closed

Here's the final thread tonight, and remember, TalkLeft may be down tomorrow from 9am ET for several hours -- there's a chance a backup will be in place which would mean only 10 minute outages per hour through the morning, but I'm not counting on it. This is a network wide issue, not a TL server issue.

Thanks to all for the congratulations on earlier threads to Nic, the TL kid who was sworn in today as a Colorado lawyer. The ceremony was led by all of the Justices of the Colorado Supreme Court, with a federal judge and others presenting remarks.

When it came time for the oath, they asked all the existing lawyers in the audience who were there with their kids being sworn in to stand with their kids and retake the oath. So the TL kid and I got to take the oath together.

Here's a photo of us right afterwards. [More...]

Just in from our network provider...Some kind of critical issue requires maintenance that will have TalkLeft (and not just us) down Wednesday morning starting around 9am ET and continuing for several hours.

Just got an e-mail from Mochila, where we get our news headlines. They are in New York and write:

Please be advised that our hosting provider will be performing critical maintenance on a power cable tomorrow morning EDT. In anticipation of that, we are required to temporarily shut down real-time content feeds into our marketplace as of 5AM EDT tomorrow, May 21st.

Undoubtedly, there will be a lot of sites down tomorrow.

So, get your comments in tonight. I'll keep the threads going for a while tonight.

This is an open thread. Updates below:

Kentucky demographics favor Hillary Clinton.

Obama has a slight chance in Louisville, an urban area, but very little elsewhere in the state.

Trade with China is important to KY since its farmers grow tobacco for China and sell them a lot of Maker's Mark and Wild Turkey bourbon. About $300 million a year's worth.

Kentucky, like other states, will set a record for voting tomorrow, but new registratons are lower there than we've ssen in other states.

A record 2.8 million Kentuckians are registered to vote in the primary election. Of those, 1.6 million are Democrats. And, despite the close presidential primary, the number of new registered voters hasn't skyrocketed. In the past six months, 16,000 people have registered, 13,000 of them as Democrats.

A map of Kentucky is below the fold.

Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice. Come on over to the Firedoglake Book Salon where I'm moderating a live chat with author Ethan Brown. Ethan is taking questions and we're discussing the book.

If you'd like to stay here, you can use this as an open thread.

Goodbye to You, Patty Smythe and Scandal.

Will she succed? Here's the male's point of view, Dwight Yoacam and "I Ain't That Lonely Yet."

Once there was a spider in my bed

I got caught up in her web

...but I survived,

....After what you put me through

Oh I ain't that lonely yet

This is another open thread for you late-nighters and early birds.

Comments now closed.

I've been away from the computer all day. The TL kid and I were car-shopping for him. After weeks of research online, we got to the dealership at noon. We left with his new Jeep at 7:00 pm. Buying your first new car with your own money is a big deal. We test drove a lot of them, then there's going back and forth over options and color ten times, then the financial (payment) decisions and bargaining. I'm exhausted, so I'm putting up an open thread.

• Big Tent Democrat sent me an email saying he's suspended himself until Monday for violating the site rules.

• I've also got work to do for hosting tomorrow's Book Salon for Firedoglake.

  

  Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice. Author Ethan Brown will be discussing his new book and answering questions (I'll be moderating), hope you will stop by and join us. It's at 5pm ET.

• The New York Times has an article on Barack Obama's books. It ends with [More...]:

A few points. The most important, we all are relieved that Ted Kennedy appears to be fine.

Next, Big Brown is a Super horse.

Third, when I criticize the delegate selection rules and the outcome of the pledged delegate process and the MI/FL fiasco I am in no way criticizing Barack Obama as he has done exactly what he was supposed to do. I tip my hat to him. He has behaved honorably throughout the process in that he is trying to win the nomination. My critique is of the process and the organization that organized the nomination process and made the disastrous and rule breaking decisions regarding FL/MI.

Finally, this is an Open Thread. Oh some foul mood music on the flip.

Pleasant thoughts to ponder as we enter the weekend:

President George W. Bush is "absolutely radioactive" and Republicans will suffer widespread election losses in November unless they distance themselves from him, said Representative Tom Davis, a former leader of the party's House campaign committee. ... Bush is the face of the party and congressional Republicans are "seen as just in lockstep with him on everything," Davis said.

Republicans would lose 20 to 25 House seats if the election were held today, Davis said. If Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is seen by voters as "Bush III" he will lose by 20 percentage points, said Davis, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee from 1998 to 2002.

Share your own pleasant thoughts in the comments.