Gawd, I just LOVE Rahm Emanuel. He was the last member of Illinois' congressional delegation to elect Senator Barack Obama. He was a Clinton bulldog in the 1990's. And now, he absolutely OWNS George W. Bush in a new Huffington Post article, calling on him to take a farewell tour of the United States. What does Rahm Emanuel use for his argument that Bush is a shithead? Facts. And Bush's own words.

h/t to HuffPost, and, of course, Rahm himself.

h/t to Americablog

The GOP, and specifically the Texas GOP, have sunk to a whole new level. The last two weeks have been the calm before the storm. We all know the GOP is going to slime Obama, with racist smears and Willie Horton-esque ads. But as long as McCain can set himself apart from these tired tactics, he won't be held responsible. I'm calling on John McCain to REJECT AND DENOUNCE the Texas GOP, who thought it'd be mighty funny to have a pin that says: "If Obama is President... will we still call it The White House?"

I must admit, I love MoveOn.org. I love it because it epitomizes grassroots organization. I love it because it encapsulates how the Democrats have moved from a Clinton dynasty to an Obama-powered organization (evidenced by the fact that MoveOn owes its existence to a few people who got together to tell Congress to censure Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky scandal and "move on", but is now a powerful grassroots organization that has officially endorsed Obama).

But I love it even more because of videos like these, below the fold.

At a recent town hall meeting, John McCain indicated that he felt it was "tough" sometimes to be proud of our country. He said that we needed to be "more humble, more inclusive."

I will not stand for this anti-American rhetoric. We cannot have a President who feels that it is sometimes tough to be proud of America. For all I know, he's just a secret Muslim terrorist. I want a President who LOVES our country, and who is ALWAYS proud of our country, and never realizes that it has any faults... because it never does! More after the jump.

h/t to HuffPo on this one.

We knew it'd come sooner or later. The man has a funny name. He was personally related to several Muslims. He spent time in a Muslim country. But why, dare I ask, one week into the general election, do you release the ad seen below? You'd have to ask Floyd Brown, the same guy that brought us the Willie Horton commercial.

I don't like posting a rebuttal to this story/smear. It was never a story in the first place. Posting it almost feels like I'm giving McBush some credit. In April, McCain sent out a letter explaining the connections between Obama and Hamas. These are scurrilous, ridiculous, and false, but it's worth noting that the Republicans are going to use this attack line, a racist and religious smear. You can't teach a bear to not shit in the woods.

Hat tip to Sam Stein at the Huffington Post for catching this doozy. John McCain, like Hillary Clinton before her, has started blatantly stealing Obama's logo, his slogan, and his message. When "Experience" doesn't work, co-opt your rivals' more appealing message! John McCain has recently unveiled his new slogan (on a blindingly ugly green bilboard): A Leader We Can Believe In. Obviously, my first problem with this slogan is the grammatical error. It should be "A Leader In Which We Can Believe." NEVER end a sentence in a preposition! But I should let that alone, because "Change We Can Believe In" violates that same rule.... and I guess that's the point. They're the same slogan. McCain has also basically posted Obama's now infamous logo straight to his website.

I'd like to say, first of all, it's been fun being here for the primary season. I think I made my account right around Super Tuesday, so my entire Daily Kos life has been through the eyes of an Obama partisan and someone who mistrusts Clinton. But now, I hope to see this all change. I hope to see people attack McCain (which is what will be forthcoming). I hope to see real policy discussions, real debates about real issues. No more anti-Clinton slime after tonight.

EDIT: Rec This Up! This is a big story, as per the comments. I COMMAND YOU! REC THIS! YOU HAVE NO CHOICE! CONGRESS CAN DO NOTHING!

Update 2:

During a fund-raiser in Denver, Obama — a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School — was asked what he hoped to accomplish during his first 100 days in office.
"I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution," said Obama.

By "Inaction Diary", I mean an action diary that involves not doing something: as in, no longer buying your coffee from Dunkin Donuts for reinforcing anti-Arabic xenophobia. If you watched Keith Olbermann last night, you'd find out that Michelle Malkin, after boycotting Starbucks for being so liberal, (see: quality products, nice atmosphere) was upset at Dunkin Donuts for putting out a commercial featuring Rachel Ray wearing a scarf that was... get this... TOO ARABIC. Ew. Arabic. I mean, when I think Arabic, I definitely don't think: Coffee But Dunkin Donuts, in response, HAS PULLED THE COMMERCIAL!

Sorry if this has already been diaried. I didn't see it. I haven't diaried lately due to my travels, and also due to the fact that this race is over and I haven't felt the need to fight on anymore when there's no fight to be had. Hillary Clinton can search out all the windmills she wants, but I don't think that's our role right now.

So anyhow, Barack Obama pretty much slaughtered Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh Thursday night at a fundraiser in Florida over their harsh anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic rhetoric. Comments are below.

Former Clinton bulldog and current Illinois representative Rahm Emanuel today said that Barack Obama is now the Democratic Party's nominee for the 2008 Presidential race. Emanuel has thus far not endorsed either candidate, the only superdelegate in the Illinois congressional delegation to not do so. We can discuss what, exactly, "presumptive" means. I've thought Barack was our "presumptive" nominee since the 12 contests in a row. Maybe not. This is an important step, however: Emanuel was seen as a strict Clinton loyalist.

Mark Penn, Clinton pollster, ignoramus, greedy hypocrite, union-breaker, and fat piece of lard, reportedly does not have the quality of "intelligence" to counterbalance these aforementioned traits, according to a report by Karen Tumulty. I was going on the assumption that he was just a greedy moron. I figured, this guy MUST be brilliant, he has awful people skills! But no. Apparently, not only did he drive Clinton's campaign into the ground, he did it with very little knowledge of the campaign: so little knowledge, in fact, that he THOUGHT DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES WERE WINNER TAKE ALL.

In an exclusive blog post by Lawrence O'Donnell at the Huffington Post, Lawrence tells us that a senior campaign official and Clinton "confidante" informed him that Hillary Clinton will drop out by June 15th.

For months, Joseph C. Wilson, former diplomat of the Clinton administration and husband of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, has written negative articles about Barack Obama, without so much as a passing glance from the mainstream media. The attacks are so vitriolic, so ridiculous, and so outside of the realm of his expertise, that I have been responding to his attacks on The Huffington Post. My responses have yet to find their way through the censors.

Today, Howard Dean joined fellow Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton by appearing on Fox News, the oft right wing network that employs Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and other right-wing smear merchants. He used his appearance to try to justify the boycott of the network and its debates by calling their coverage "shockingly biased."

Here's the petition

Hillary Clinton recently fell in line with John McCain's Herbert Hoover-like plan to save our economy: a half a tank of gas for everyone! In a plan which I call the "Let them eat cake" plan, many project that we'd lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, 9 BILLION dollars, and, most of all, the gas companies would benefit the most. It's simple economics. The price of gas goes down. Demand goes up. Prices go up with it. Hillary Clinton wants to give gas companies the money that was going to go to hundreds of thousands of municipal workers, many of whom work in North Carolina and Indiana.

For weeks, the American people have been inundated with stories about Barack Obama, and how he's different than us (black) and doesn't share our values (dances too well, plays basketball). We saw stories about Obama's choice of orange juice over coffee. We saw stories about how he turned down chocolate, and this was effete, and because of this, he isn't one of us, because he wears clean underpants and he knows how to speak gooder 'n us. Because the media cannot create a firestorm over something substantive (policies, actual relations with trade deals and shady international figures, idiotic and hypocritical comments, and WHO IS ACTUALLY WINNING THIS RACE.)

Yeah. Me neither. Many of us were (I believe rightfully) upset with Barack Obama for agreeing to appear on Faux News. That "news station" doesn't need a watchdog, it needs to be summarily laughed off the air. And when our candidates give it credence....... it doesn't sit well with me. I know, I know, Barack needs to reach out... I understand that part. But Hillary agreeing to appear on The O'Reilly Factor... the bain of my existence... the most right-wing blowhard of all right-wing blowhards...