Our likely nominee Barack Obama now leads John McCain by 2.7% in the RCP Average - an astonishing achievement given the month-long Corporate Media sh*tstorm over Rev. Wright.

This is fantastic news for Democrats because the endless primary has been fairly negative, although not nearly as negative as many pundits and bloggers have claimed.

Exit polls in NC and IN showed a lot of Clinton supporters are angry at Obama, and this is depressing Obama's polls. When Clinton eventually drops out and endorses Obama, that will give Obama's polls a significant boost - possibly adding 5% to his lead.

And then Obama will be able to raise and spend huge amounts of money to go after McCain, while McCain scrounges for pennies.

By Dave Lindorff

The results in Tuesday’s twin primaries—Barack Obama by 14 percent in North Carolina and Hillary Clinton by 2 percent in Indiana—confirmed that Clinton is finished as a contender. Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate for president this fall.

Clinton, the private-schooled, Wellesley and Yale-educated millionaire lawyer from Chicago, who first tried to present herself as a White House veteran, and then, in recent weeks, as a NASCAR mom on Food Stamps, and who in Pennsylvania resorted to cheap race-baiting and red-baiting in an effort to derail her opponent, has failed. Barack Obama, another private-schooled Harvard and Yale-educated lawyer, but one who actually did have to work his way up the economic ladder, won decisively in North Carolina, even drawing a significant number of working-class white voters in a state where white voters have not traditionally voted for candidates with dark skin.

This week, Tim Russert told Don Imus the Corporate Media wasn't covering John McCain's outrageous rightwing pastors like John Hagee and Rod Pastor because he didn't have video.

There’s been a lot of chatter on that, you know, about Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson’s comments after September 11th. If there was video of Hagee, it makes all the difference in the world.

Well Tim, here is some devastating video of Rev. Rod Parsley, courtesy of Brave New Films and Mother Jones. So Tim, what's your excuse now?

This week Newt Gingrich challenged House Republicans to do something dramatic to avoid oblivion. So what did the Republicans decide to do? Form a committee!

Boehner's GOP fix: A new committee
By: Patrick O'Connor

Faced with dire predictions of an electoral bloodbath in November, House Republican leader John A. Boehner responded Wednesday by creating a committee to advise the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), who will serve on the committee, said its existence will show that Boehner and NRCC Chairman Tom Cole “understand” that they need to work closely together.

Critics likened the plan to placing a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.

Speaker Pelosi's plan to ram $163B in Iraq occupation funding through the House Thursday hit a speed bump, and the vote will be next Wednesday at the earliest. 

Sadly, the objections came not from antiwar Democrats outraged by Pelosi's sellout, but instead from prowar BushDogs who are outraged at the idea of giving Iraq veterans who survive a decent education!

Vote on war funding delayed
Moderate Demos, GOP protest $195 billion measure
By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press

By David Swanson

Tonight, Wednesday, May 7, from 8-9 p.m. ET, I'll have the pleasure of interviewing, with your help, the single most serious, dedicated, and inspiring journalist focused on the integrity of our elections in the United States today, Brad Friedman, the creator of http://www.BradBlog.com

Go to: http://thepeoplespeakradio.net to learn more. Go to http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live to listen live. You'll find instructions there to enter a paltalk chat room where you can post questions. You can also phone in and ask Brad your questions on the air. Call in tollfree from anywhere in the United States or Canada at 888-228-4494 or anywhere else in the world at 877-489-6350. Following the show, the audio file will be posted at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/audio/2008 and you can find there now the recordings of numerous shows with amazing guests.

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in North Carolina by a decisive 56%-42% margin, exceeding expectations and extending his lead among pledged delegates. Obama also won the popular vote by over 230,000, some 20,000 more than Clinton's margin in Pennsylvania, a key issue for wavering superdelegates.

Here's Obama's victory speech in North Carolina:

I've never seen Republicans so desperate in my life:

GOP leaders warn of election disaster

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.

The Democrat-hating Corporate Media keeps hammering the idea that Democrats are bitterly divided. Today's exit poll show roughly half of Clinton's supporters say they wouldn't vote for Obama in November, while roughly one-third of Obama's supporters say they wouldn't vote for Clinton.

As Congress considers President Bush's request for another $100 billion for Iraq, 68% of Americans want Bush to bring U.S. troops home within 6 months, according to a Democrats.com telephone poll of 628 adults conducted from May 1-4, 2008 by ICR.

The poll marks a 14% increase from 54% in September. Most of that increase (11%) came from those who want Congress to require Bush to use existing funds to bring our troops safely home, bringing that total to 51% - a majority of Americans.

Broken down by party, 85% of Democrats want our troops home within 6 months, as do 78% of Independents. By contrast, only 32% of Republicans want our troops home soon.

Democratic support grew by 15% since September, and Independent support grew by 20%. By contrast, Republican support was unchanged.

Despite his courting of religious right leaders like John Hagee, John McCain is famously unwilling to talk about his faith. Even when pressed, he refuses to go beyond his "well-worn tale of the [kind Christian] guard he met when he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam."

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy played its "ace in the hole" against Obama - Rev. Jeremiah Wright - and it failed miserably, because Americans are sick and tired of Karl Rove's politics of personal destruction.

So now what are they going to do to keep the White House? It looks like we're back to "wag the dog." Cue up McCain's old Beach Boys song: "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."

That's the question Obama asked at North Carolina Jefferson Jackson dinner Saturday night. And it's a fantastic question, because we know George Bush's Republican Party has done everything in its power to steal the next generation's future.

Oh dear. What is Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) doing in this photo, courtesy of BlogActive?

The woman in question appears to be conservative Republican activist Jackie Sullens, who happens to live with a woman. Perhaps that's the woman who makes up this lovely threesome?

As BlogActive notes, "What does your gaydar reading say?"

According to BlogActive,