According to BBC News: a US court ruled that Google must release the viewing history of YouTube users to Viacom in order to comply with copyright infringement laws. Google’s legal counsel said: “We will ask Viacom to respect users’ privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs before producing them under the court’s order.”

Apparently, privacy experts find this ruling a tad, uh, frightening:  Read more 

Obama told reporters this week that he’s ruled out another debate before the next round of primaries, moderators or no moderators — saying “Rather than being in a studio, I want to make sure that we’re reaching out to folks where they live.”

From Shakespeare’s Sister:

Donate, everyone. Please. Whatever you can manage. And tell others.

From The Guardian: “Senior [Bush] officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods.”

America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners…  Read more 

Rasmussen shows us what we would have if we had a winner take all-based system in two scenarios.

1. Winner Take All (not including MI or FL):
Clinton: 1427
Obama: 1260

Still to come: 566 delegates.  Read more 

Elizabeth Drew is a sad testament to the fact that even the NYRB has succumbed to the Clinton Rules (check out the image of HRC devilishly laughing on their front page). The article is a mixture of projection, lies, and just plain asshatery. I could only shake my head as I read the following:  Read more 

CBS Poll: Gender Matters More than Race:

Voters are slightly more likely to say that a woman candidate faces more obstacles than a black candidate when it comes to presidential politics even as they see racism as a more serious problem for the nation overall, according to a new CBS News poll. Thirty nine percent of registered voters said a woman running for president faces more obstacles while 33 percent said a black candidate does.  Read more 

UPDATE: Obviously, news out of MI has already been discussed in a previous thread. My apologies for my inability to read. Now go back to being awed by the sheer genius of our DNC. I know I will.

Michigan do-over depends on Obama’s backing:

Legislation to set a second Democratic presidential primary for June 3 won’t be acted upon until and unless it wins the endorsement of the Barack Obama campaign, state Senate leaders said Tuesday morning.

snip  Read more 

Read it and weep:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Friday that it would be “harmful” to Democrats if superdelegates were to give the party’s presidential nomination to a candidate who is trailing in the delegates awarded in primaries and caucuses.

snip

“But what if one candidate has won the popular vote and the other candidate has won the delegates?” asked Stephanopoulos.

“But it’s a delegate race,” Pelosi replied. “The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee.”  Read more 

A must-read article from The Village Voice shows the universal pattern we’re all too aware of: right-wing media figures hyped Obama and demonized Clinton—exploited and distorted the highly explosive issue of racism—in order to game the race for the weaker Obama or, at least, cripple a Clinton candidacy. Only when Obama became the apparent nominee did they tip their hand.  Read more 

CBS News: Obama in MS (emphasis mine):

“When in the midst of a campaign you decide to throw the kitchen sink at your opponent because you’re behind,” he said, “and your campaign starts leaking photographs of me when I’m traveling overseas wearing the native clothes of those folks to make people afraid, and then you run an ad talking about who’s going to answer the phone at three in the morning, an ad straight out of the Republican playbook, that’s not real change.”  Read more