Last week, Atrios predicted that "by November a substantial portion of wingnuttia will assert that Obama is, actually, a terrorist. Not just a terrorist sympathizer, a supporter of terrorists, or looks like a terrorist, but is an actual capital 'T' terrorist."

Looks like November is early this year.  Today on the website of the Columbia,SC news daily "The State", cartoonist Roger Rob Ariail depicts "Suicide Obama": Obama wearing a suicide bomber vest composed of his quotes.

There's no "truce".  There's no "cease-fire".  I almost feel like noticing it will jinx it.  But there's no active fighting going on between Israel and Gaza at the moment.  Apparently there are talks, which is the best development I've heard in many months.

Is there anything the US could do now to nudge things in the right direction?

The Democratic National Committee has to deal with this Florida/Michigan situation.  And with all due respect to Kos and his analysis, I think his solution isn't helpful.

Neither Obama nor Hillary is likely to have the delegates necessary to claim the nomination after the primaries that are scheduled now.  Having the super-delegates decide things smacks of back-room politics of a bygone era.

To me, there's only one acceptable solution - Florida and Michigan must vote.

Many in my Jewish community, no matter whom they support for President, have been disturbed at the various whisper campaigns that have been (and still are) directed at Barack Obama, intending to paint him as a closet Muslim and enemy of Israel.  Here's an excerpt from an editorial that ran January 24th in NY Jewish Week, and distributed at my synagogue:

Just got a robo-call from our senior senator Ted Kennedy:

"Tuesday is the date
"Massachusetts is the state
"and Barack Obama is the candidate."

followed by a statement of Ted's endorsement of Obama.

Well, according to Merrill Lynch, the US has entered "full-blown economic recession".

Now, leaving aside the fact that Merrill Lynch didn't recognize 2001-2 as a recession, and leaving aside the fact that for a lot of us that recession hasn't really ended, I'd like to know

Does this make W the first two-recession president?

In the past 5 election cycles, 3 Democrats from Massachusetts have competed for the presidential nomination (Dukakis 88, Tsongas 92, and Kerry 04).  In each case, the press set the expectation that a win in the NH primary was assumed.

This year, Mitt Romney doem Massachusetts is running from the Republican side, but the media's expectations seem different.

Jamie Eldridge, representative to the Great and General Court of Massachusetts from Acton, has formally endorsed Barack Obama for President, and has issued a call for his supporters to campaign for Obama in New Hampshire.

I am somewhat surprised at his choice.  Eldridge was the True Progressive candidate for the Democratic nomination for the MA-05 US congressional seat eventually won by Niki Tsongas.  As such, I would have expected him to come out for Edwards.  Perhaps it was Jamie's strong affinity for Mass. governor Deval Patrick that led him to follow Patrick's support for Obama.

Eldridge's call to support Obama, including event schedules, after the flip...

This just in from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick - Deval is endorsing Barack Obama for President in 2008 and will rally with him in Boston on October 23.

Rank-and-file Democrats might be feeling bad about their Congresscritters' capitulation on the Iraq War funding bill (as well they should on this darkest of Memorial Day weekends), but this report from the Pew Research group is the best news for liberals I've seen in a long while:

Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved the political landscape for the Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets underway.

I especially like this graph - Thank You, President Bush!