As you probably know, Obama gave an interview to “Relevant,” a Christian magazine in which he said that prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain an exception for the health of the mother, but that:

[He didn’t] think that ’mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.

Given that the current law governing late term abortions includes mental distress as one of the health exceptions, this would be a significant narrowing of abortion rights.  Read more 

How is the Democratic Convention like the Super Bowl, you can get those all access box seats if you’re willing to pay enough money. From the NYT:

Elected Democratic officials have been calling on corporations — meeting with Wall Street executives and flying to San Diego, Philadelphia and Las Vegas — to raise the $40 million the party has budgeted for the convention, in August. In return, these Democratic officials are promising corporate donors “sponsor benefits packages” that include private sessions with federal officeholders and other influential party leaders.  Read more 

Hillary Rosen, alleged Hillary Clinton supporter, has an amazing post up on the Huffington Post. It’s not amazing because of what it says about the primary. Instead, it’s an amazing look inside the Village mindset.  Read more 

As Paul and Bringiton have documented, exit polls and voting results since March have shown that Obama has lost support among a wide array of demographic blocs. Despite the talk of Unity, Obama has done little to reach out to women and working class whites, two core groups of Clinton’s supporters.*  Read more 

At least now we know why NARAL endorsed Obama. From The Politico (emphasis mine):

In an interview with Politico, NARAL President Nancy Keenan said the group’s nine-member political action committee chose Obama after extensive deliberation that included studying the two Democratic candidates’ delegate counts (both pledged and superdelegates), their viability in a matchup against the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, and their cash on hand.  Read more 

If Obama becomes the party nominee, as seems likely, those of us who are not Obama supporters will get an earful on why we have to vote for him in November. Some of these reasons will be fairly good ones. One of them, IMO, is not. That one is that of course we all have to support Obama, think of the Supreme Court. This one is often aimed at those of us who are women with the implied threat that if we don’t fall in line and be good girls, we’ll lose our rights under Roe v. Wade.

I call bullshit on this argument. I will not have my body held hostage by the Democratic - or any - political party.  Read more 

As you may have read, earlier today the FBI executed search warrants at the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC). The OSC is “an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency. Our basic authorities come from three federal statutes, the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, and the Hatch Act.” You can see why the OSC could be a problem for this Administration.

Fortunately, the Bush Administration came up with a solution, putting Scott Bloch in charge of the office. Putting a Bush appointee in charge of the office that’s designed to protect the career civil service against being politicized is like putting a lion in charge of protecting baby gazelles.  Read more 

We’re in the middle of a war. No, make that two wars. We have military personnel being sent back to Iraq and Afghanistan on multiple tours of duty with less than the recommended amount of rest. We have stop/loss. There is no end in sight.

If you were the United States Government, what would you do with a medic who was perfectly willing to go out on combat missions in Afghanistan and won a Silver Star for repeatedly risking life and limb to save comrades? If you said, remove her from duty because she lacks a penis, then you are ready to lead this great nation into battle, my friend.  Read more 

Via Taylor Marsh, here’s the part of Clinton’s interview that aired tonight. I don’t know if I would say she takes Fox on, since she doesn’t attack the network, but she does a good job (for the most part) of defending herself and her policies from O’Reilly. I’m not sure, but I think she got O’Reilly to admit that he’d be willing to pay more in taxes and subsidize at least some uninsured people. She did have an obvious advantage, she’s smarter than he is (and it showed). Judge for yourselves:

Clinton is on Bill O’Reilly tonight and tomorrow. I can’t say I approve (although she’ll get some points from me if her spokesman defends it by pointing out she went on Olbermann, heh). Any predictions about what she’ll say? Will she:

a) Praise Republican ideas repeatedly,

b) Throw her most ardent supporters under the bus,

c) Take Fox on like that Obama guy did,

d) Apologize for having sent Howard Wolfson on to defend YearlyKos,

E) All of the above, or

F) None of the above.

We already know what she’ll say about Wright, via Talk Left:  Read more 

Via Talk Left, Obama has filed a complaint with the FEC over a 527 ad airing in Indiana. Here’s the ad:

Now it might be a bit unfair, but illegal? C’mon. All it accuses him of is not having specifics in his economic plans. That’s hardly some sort of swiftboating. I’ve seen harder ads than this for insurance commissioner. And does this mean he thinks McCain was right to complain to the FEC about the DNC ad?  Read more 

There has been quite a bit of movement among automatic delegates in the last two days. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton picked up Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and Governor Easley of North Carolina. Obama picked up Richard Machacek of Iowa and Ben Chandler of Kentucky. Then this morning, Clinton announced the head of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, Obama announced Hill of Indiana and another Iowa representative (Braley). Then, Clinton announced a PR delegate (Chelsea picked up Cabanas on her visit to there). That was followed by Obama announcing Lois Capps of California endorsing him. (You can get the rundown from Marc Ambinder’s blog.)  Read more 

To the surprise of probably no one, the Bush Administration has been interfering with the career scientists at the EPA.

More than half the Environmental Protection Agency scientists who responded to an independent survey made public yesterday said that they had witnessed political interference in scientific decisions at the agency during the past five years.  Read more 

Scary smart Anglachel, again:

In short, Obama, taken here as an exemplar of the liberal elite, is simply wrong in his estimation of the core Democratic constituency. They did not want what he was offering because they did not see themselves as the ones who needed to be changed, and they have consistently given their votes to the person who has focused on their explicit economic needs and their desire to be safe in an unsettled world while being respectful of them as people.  Read more 

Via Talk Left, Bob Somerby on Keith Olbermann and Countdown:

But then, Countdown has almost surely become the most propagandized show in cable “news” history. Yes, you can still find pure crap in the mainstream press. But pure crap abounds now on Countdown.

When we started this site, the mainstream press corps took the cake (see item above). Now, our “liberal” cable show does—and that has our analysts bollixed.

How silly does it get on Countdown? Just watch any part of the show, any night! The propaganda flow starts right away, and it rarely stops.

But wait, there’s more! The emphasis is mine.  Read more 

After reading VL’s post, I got to thinking about something Chris Bowers wrote awhile ago about how if the Democrats lost this election, it would be a failure of the party and the entire party leadership should resign. I think this may be how we could achieve party unity - by holding party officials accountable for the failures of the party. The rewards for success will flow from winning and should take care of themselves. Although if the Democratic candidate wins in November, credit should be given where credit is due and that extends beyond the individual candidate.  Read more 

Jeff Fecke with a thoughtful, timely reminder on the need to stay vigilant to our own blindness.

Of course, vastleft is the final judge since it’s his contest, and I hope you don’t mind me being presumptuous and proposing a winner, VL, but for your consideration in the post-Pennsylvania spin contest, I humbly submit the winners are anyone who guessed a cross between A (too little, too late) and D (WWTSBQ) with a hint of B (new evidence of the Clintons’ racism) thrown in for good measure.

Ladies and Gentlemen, via Talk Left, I give you Jim Clyburn:  Read more 

Paul Krugman in his latest column:

The question Democrats, both inside and outside the Obama campaign, should be asking themselves is this: now that the magic has dissipated, what is the campaign about? More generally, what are the Democrats for in this election?

That should be an easy question to answer. Democrats can justly portray themselves as the party of economic security, the party that created Social Security and Medicare and defended those programs against Republican attacks — and the party that can bring assured health coverage to all Americans.

They can also portray themselves as the party of prosperity: the contrast between the Clinton economy and the Bush economy is the best free advertisement that Democrats have had since Herbert Hoover.  Read more 

Melissa McEwan posts her Hillary Sexism Watch: Part 83, starring the Frat Boys of MSNBC.

Orrin Hatch has written a song for McCain. It’s shallow and vapid, you can read the lyrics and barf here. But what’s really priceless is Tweety’s reaction after playing a snippet on Hardball:

I will be singing it on the pillow tonight.

I bet he will.

Obama may send a thrill up their legs (although that’s more about beating Clinton), but at night it’s McCain they dream about.

h/t Avedon

Just in time for Equal Pay Day tomorrow, John McCain - along with other Republicans - block the Ledbetter Equal Pay legislation. It seems the good Senator believes that while equal pay is great and all, mandating such things is interfering too much in private enterprise:

I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what’s being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems,” the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. “This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system.”

Today is not the first time the New York Times has urged elites to step in and stop people from destroying the country by voting. From the 1915 New York Times Editorial on the proposal to give women the vote:  Read more 

And she seems super cool, gay bar hopping in Philly and elsewhere. And to think the Bushes - and much of the Village - look down on the people who raised this person as their social inferiors.