The LA Times' Blog reports that the woman next to Wright at the press conference, who organized the event, is a hard core supporter of Clinton who has long-denigrated Obama.

Rutland, Vermont doesn't look like "Vermont." It's a run-down downtown, with business moved to ugly strip malls. Factory closings in recent years have produced an economic climate like Ohio's. The local paper has featured hysteria for a couple of months about black kids who come up from Brooklyn to sell pot and coke - and sometimes shoot each other. These are about the only black people Rutland sees. Its newspaper, when not fanning the flames of drug hysteria, steers a carefully centrist editorial course. And today it reprinted Obama's speech in full, accompanied by an editorial about why Wright's anger is justifiable.

Our work must continue to be the transformation of American politics - as it has always been in the Kos forum, in this part of our overlapping communities. It has been the consensus here from the beginning that the DLC's way of doing politics - incidentally the Clintons' way - falls far short of the desired transformation.

"Power will be given to the White Horse to rebuke the nations afar off, and you obey it, for the laws go forth from Zion," the prophecy says.

The White Horse Prophecy, widely shared among Mormons but not official doctrine:

"You will see the Constitution of the United States almost destroyed," the diary entry quotes [Prophet Joseph] Smith as saying. "It will hang like a thread as fine as a silk fiber."

Not only will the Mormons save the Constitution, under the prediction, but the prophecy goes further, insinuating that Mormons will control the government.

Does this mean that Mormons believe in saving our Constitution? Not according to Mitt Romney's dad. Follow me "below the fold."

At holiday dinner my inlaw's inlaw in law, a New Jersey state prosecutor, told us that prosecutors now ask all potential jurors if we ever read "progressive blogs," and reject us from juries if the answer is "Yes." Meanwhile, if a perp has been, say, involved in an assault which nearly removed the nose from the victim's face, prosecutors are working closely with armed services recruiters to offer him the chance to avoid trial and punishment by accepting recruitment.

What if: The Democrats promptly hold hearings on all the ways our Constitution has been demeaned, diminished, and flat-out violated by Bush's bandits. Then an act is crafted, and promptly passed, a "Constitution Restoration Act" which counters each and every one of these injuries - from habeas corpus to freedom from unlawful search to an utter ban on torture to....

[It would make a great Kos project to enumerate each injury that should be redressed.]

Then the Republicans have as choices:

- To filibuster restoration of the Constitution
- To veto restoration of the Constitution
- To go on record as being opposed to specific Constitutional rights

or

- To acquiesce to the restoration of our sacred Constitution.

A study out of Boston University shows that approximately:

* 17% of children of authoritarian women become fat
* 10% of children of permissive or neglectful women become fat
* 4% of children of women who mix rules with freedom become fat

As George Lakoff has shown, the family is the metaphor by which we understand government, with the Republicans' goal that of being the authoritarian parent (when not neglectful) and the Democrats' to be nurturing (rules with freedom - although in Republican eyes permissive).

Accepting for argument that being fat corresponds with a greater degree of ill health, the authoritarian family/government style literally makes us sick.

Want to be part of the reality-based community? As a rule of thumb, consult expert opinion if the sciences are involved (e.g., evolution, climate change, stem cells); doubt expert opinion if politics is involved (e.g., MSM, DLC). What about voting machines? Are they science, where we should consult the experts, or politics, where we should run from them? Just below: a simple, Web-search, reality-check challenge to all would-be inhabitants of Reality Base.

(Apologies if this has been posted. The search function isn't working just now.)

From MarginalRevolution.com:

Lt. General William Odom (Ret.), former Director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, shocked the crowd yesterday when he called for unilateral withdrawal from Iraq.... Odom was then seconded by Lawrence Korb, former Vice President and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and also Assistant Secretary of Defense under Reagan.

Withdrawal may seem like a radical suggestion, but this time around the push for withdrawal isn't coming from radicals but from seasoned, well-respected, establishment figures.

During the event Odom and others referred to Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the lessons we should have learned from that war.  It was really stunning, therefore, when during question period a man stood up to praise Odom for speaking out in a way that no figure of his stature had done during the Vietnam war.  The speaker was Daniel Ellsberg.

Nothing to add to this. Just that it's newsworthy.

In the NSA, Ambramoff and Alito coverage on the TV, a consistent meme issues from all the comentators: Every statement by Democrats, the correspondents suggest cynically, is merely "playing politics," while every statement by Republicans, even when obviously political, is likely "the execution of a strategy" which the correspondents suggest with a wink and a nod "may well work to win over the American people."

According to Reuters, the refugees are all eligible for two weeks in a hotel at government expense. But they are not being informed of this. The dignity and privacy of a hotel room could be a crucial benefit for families and individuals trying to pull themselves together from the shock of loss and relocation -- much better than a group shelter.

Does someone reading this have an inventive way to get word on this to some of the thousands of refugees?

Over on Slashdot, there's a learned gentleman opining that only fools would live where it floods. Made me wonder if he also believes only fools will ever live in space.

My full response below the fold....

Many public figures who usually sing in the Republican choir have been openly contemptuous of the tragedy of the administration's failed response to Katrina. There may be an opportunity now for the Democratic Party to help enough Senators and Members of Congress switch party to, without waiting for 2006 or 2008 elections, replace our dangerously failed government.

In economic politics the story that most Democrats won't touch: Between 1967 and 2003, real GDP per person doubled in America. Yet real wages stopped rising in the early 70s, declined under Reagan and Bush I, and only rose a bit again under Clinton - to a level still below the Carter years. The amount of wealth produced in America, per person, doubled; but the pay, per average worker, stayed the same. If the proportions had stayed constant, and the pie sliced the same, typical wages would be twice what they are today.

Echoing moves made by the news and entertainment divisions of ABC and NBC to "connect" with their image of red-state America by producing a lot of fluff whose effect is to promote the right-wing evangelical movement, the New York Times today is releasing the report of its committee to improve circulation. According to Editor & Publisher:

So, will the Times be critiquing the rise of the theocratic movement as it provides more coverage of the religious culture and lifestyle of rural areas? Or will it be flattering the theocratic movement, as ABC and NBC are already doing, in its attempt to expand circulation? Isn't the answer obvious? Isn't the end-result dangerous?

They hate the freedom that guaranteed social security gives our seniors.

They hate the freedom that the right to choose gives  our women.

They hate the freedom that smoking pot gives to hippies.

They hate the freedom that abundant jobs offerring a living wage gives to workers.

I'm torn between the statistical arguments for vote-count manipulation and an explanation of the exit poll discrepancies I'll call "the evil voter hypothesis." Perhaps instead I should call it "the preference for an obviously evil candidate hypothesis." It goes like this:

Most voters were not blind to the lies and worse practiced by Bush and his crew. They knew he was a somewhat-evil guy - and that Kerry, morally and ethically, was the better man. But, just as in dating, often the known-evil character can for some reason or another be more attractive. Even so, it's considered rebellious to say, "I like a bit of evil in a (wo)man." It's more normal to present the social pretense of preferring the obviously more virtuous (wo)man rather than the cheat and the snake.

The Institute for Women's Policy Research has released their biannual study of The Status of Women in the States. The best and worst map will be familiar to us. The worst states for women's wellbeing are at the core of Bush's reality-denying support: