And cheers to them for that:

In a move that will up the pressure on Hillary and Barack Obama to stand firm against the Senate telecom immunity FISA bill, MoveOn and a dozen top progressive blogs will launch an all-out campaign tomorrow to pressure the two Senators into publicly declaring their support for Chris Dodd's threat to place a hold on and filibuster the bill, Election Central has learned. . . . If Hillary and Obama don't comply, Green added, "it would send an unfortunate signal to Democratic voters about whether they're willing to stand up to George Bush. The idea is to get Democrats to stand on principle and exercise the powers of their office to stop Bush from covering up how far he went in illegally spying on the private emails and phone calls of innocent Americans."

Well done Move On.

Live chat hosted by Jane Hamsher here:

During the Republican debate last night, after attacking Hillary, contender Mike Huckabee had this to say:

"We don't have a health care system. We have a health care maze. And we don't have a health care crisis. We have a health crisis. Eighty percent of the $2 trillion we spend on health care in this country is spent on chronic disease. If we don't change the health of this nation by focusing on prevention, we're never going to catch up with the costs no matter what plan we have. ... And we've got a situation with 10,000 baby boomers a day signing up for Social Security, going into the Medicare system. And I just want to remind everybody when all the old hippies find out that they get free drugs, just wait until what that's going to cost out there."

What drug is he on?

Frankly, this is a very bizarre reaction from Obama:

About 6:40 pm today, the Obama campaign issued a written statement from the candidate saying that he "strongly disagree(s)" with McClurkin's views. Still, a spokesman said McClurkin would remain part of the concert line-up.

(Emphasis supplied.) This was a baby that could not be divided. Obama's reaction simply does not work.

All year I have stated that Obama's political team is awful. This is confirmation of my judgment.

I'll be honest. I never heard of Donny McClurkin before reading this:

From the NYT:

As religious conservatives gather in Washington this weekend for the “Values Voters Summit,” Senator Barack Obama’s campaign announced its latest effort to attract people of faith to the campaign: a gospel concert tour.

All three of the dates of the “Embrace the Change” tour are in South Carolina, where Mr. Obama is locked in battle with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for black voters.

Gospel acts including Mary Mary, Donnie McClurkin and Hezekiah Walker, Byron Cage and the Mighty Clouds of Joy are scheduled to appear.

“This is another example of how Barack Obama is defying conventional wisdom about how politics is done and giving new meaning to meeting people at the grassroots level,” Joshua DuBois, the campaign’s religious affairs director, said in a release.

Yes, sucking up to anti-gay bigots and joining them on stage - no, giving them a stage - is certainly defying conventional wisdom as to how a Democrat becomes president. Oh, and McClurkin also believes that gays can, and need to, be "cured."

It seems unlikely to me that the Obama campaign was aware of this:

Lynn Cheney told NBC's Norah O'Donnell today that Dick Cheney's geneology shows he and Barack Obama are 8th cousins, related through a relative from France in the 1700's.

Why was she telling this? She was "admitting" it to acknowledge any perceived bias on her part against Hillary.

Tom Tancredo didn't do too well in the fundraising department this quarter. His contributions totaled 764,188.87. His operating expenses were 1,192,933.01. In his home state of Colorado, he raised only 47,274.00.

Maybe that's why he's getting this desperate:

Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo wants foreigners seeking visas to join relatives in the U.S. to provide DNA samples to prove their family ties.

The Colorado congressman introduced a bill Tuesday in the House to require the tests, saying documents provided by immigrants to show they are related to U.S. citizens or permanent residents are sometimes sketchy and unreliable.

I thought Republicans were supposed to be the party offering less bureaucracy. I guess not if it makes a good soundbite or you're losing.

Rudy Giuliani is taking his (or Judy's) expensive tastes to the campaign trail.

Whether it was $2,010 at the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, $4,034 at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., or $5,370 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, the former mayor found himself top-notch lodging.

He also doesn't like to fly commercial. In addition to $800,000 for charter jets,

He also spent more than $565,000 reimbursing various corporate supporters for private jet travel.

Check out whose jets he's using:

The biggest chunk of those flights came via Elliott Asset Management, a New York hedge fund known by some as a "vulture fund," so-named because they buy debt cheaply from cash-starved countries, and then sue them for the full repayment. The head of the firm, Paul Singer, is in charge of Northeastern fundraising for Giuliani.

Rudy Giuliani, who's running for President primarily on his record as Mayor of New York City during the 9/11 attacks, takes another hit today from The Real Rudy and Brave New Films.

Watch the new video. The firefighters on 9/11 were carrying the same piss-poor radios that malfunctioned during the 1993 WTC attacks. That's why the firefighters didn't get the call to get out of the buildings. More than 100 firefighters died. As Digby explains:

Giuliani came into office in 1994, shortly after the first WTC attack. He knew then that the radios didn't work properly and yet it took him seven years to deal with the problem. And when he finally got around to it, he gave Motorola a sweetheart, no-bid contract for radios that were never tested in advance. When the NYFD got them, they didn't work and they had to be reissued the same radios that had proved inadequate in 1993.

That's why, on September 11th, the firefighters didn't hear the warnings to get out of the buildings. The cops heard them. They mostly got out. Their radios could get the right frequency. The firefighters' old radios couldn't.

Rudy's history as a Mayor who failed to provide adequate emergency preparedness needs investigation. It also needs exposure. Who needs a leader of the United States who couldn't even provide for his city's first responders as Mayor?

More...

Why does Hillary Clinton need to disavow the support of Michael O'Hanlon? Why does his support or non-support matter in the scheme of things? Because of the Iraq Debacle. Because of Hillary's vote in support of granting President Bush the power to go to war against Iraq in 2002. Because Michael O'Hanlon was a cheerleader for the Iraq Debacle. Because O'Hanlon was a cheerleader for the Surge. Because O'Hanlon will fiercely criticize anyone who disagrees with the current Bush Administration policy in Iraq:

Michael E. O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, criticized General Sanchez for implying in his speech that the current military strategy of relying on additional troops and on protecting the Iraqi people is little different than the strategy employed when he was in command.

Because if Michael O'Hanlon were an honest man, and he is not, he should not be supporting Hillary Clinton at all. He should be fiercely criticizing her. The support of Michael O'Hanlon, supporter of the Bush policy on Iraq, must be disavowed by the Clinton campaign. She has not earned our trust on Iraq. She can not expect that her acceptance of O'Hanlon's support would not be troubling to any one who cares about ending the Iraq Debacle.

Sully has it big time. Here he is insulting civil rights movement hero John Lewis:

Fading memory has helped some to forget about the Clintons, their political machine and their ruthlessness. A rising black politician in the Democratic party is a threat to them and their power over blacks. So they are doing what they can to crush him, and punish any Democrat who associates with him. . . . I don't know what prompted Lewis to back Clinton; he marched between Obama and Clinton in Selma, but worshipped with Obama afterwards. . . . Again: the way in which Hillary uses her marriage to advance her own power is striking. No real feminist would do this; only someone who postures as a feminist while using her husband as a tool.

(Emphasis supplied.) Um, is he serious? Sully can't even hold a consistent thought in his head. If the threat is Hillary winning, how could Bill be the reason behind Lewis' alleged (no evidence whasoever to support this BTW) "conversion?" Coupled with his nasty attack on Ezra Klein, it seems clear that Sully has gone unhinged, again.

Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani "offered his strongest defense yet" of Bernie Kerik.

"I mean the reality is, if we just look at Bernard Kerik's service as police commissioner, he was an excellent police commissioner," Giuliani said at a campaign stop in this key early primary state.

...."He was there on Sept. 11," Giuliani said. "He was heroic on Sept. 11."

He continues to admit his recommendation of Kerik for Homeland Security Secretary was his fault and a mistake.

Can Rudy overcome the problems with his personal life, his past positions on social issues conservatives find troubling and his lack of judgment in personnel decisions? Digby says Kerik is a disqualifying mistake for Rudy.