According to the Hotline, Hillary Clinton has scheduled a telephone conference call for 2pm EST today.  The Hotline suspects they'll be announcing her Q1 numbers, and their thinking is that the Clinton campaign wants to show off their historic fundraising numbers first in case Obama comes up close.

We'll see what happens soon enough.

Peter Daou says $4.2m was raised online, including $600,000 from their final push.

Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's campaign chair, says he "expects Sen Obama will have a comparative amount." If that is true, that would be huge news, given that Hillary was expected to far exceed everyone else. Of course, with such a statement coming from the Clinton campaign, it is most likely just setting expectations.

SECOND UPDATE: Ben Smith at the Politico (of "John Edwards is announcing he will suspend his campaign"-fame) is reporting that Edwards has raised $14m this quarter, with $1m of it for the general election.

THIRD UPDATE: Ben Smith was right this time! The AP, via The Myrtle Beach Sun News, reports Edwards raising over $14m.

"We're significantly above our budget for the year," said deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince. "We're on track to be highly competitive."

FOURTH UPDATE: The Hotline says they think Obama raised $21m or more.

I put my analysis below the fold.

Today is Howard Dean's 58th birthday.  We in the progressive movement have a lot to thank him for, and what better way to do so than by making a contribution to the DNC today, or better yet, getting yourself a Democracy Bond?

One-time donation
Democracy Bonds

Please join me in making some contribution, however small, to thank Howard Dean for his leadership at the DNC.  Also, it had been discussed over a few other diaries the past couple days about what the best way to send him a message would be, and the decision was to end your donation in $xx.50 to represent the 50-state strategy.

Join me below the fold for all the reasons we need to thank Howard Dean.  Feel free to contribute your own in the comments and I'll add them to the list!

I don't know if anyone has seen this yet,  but it is yet another example of ass-kissing John McCain.  On the front page of CNN.com is a DEVELOPING STORY that "Senators make 'breakthrough' on immigration."

Check out the text on the front page:

I'll give you a minute to stop laughing...

The fact that CNN decided to put that statement from McCain on the front-page summary indicates to me that McCain has made a pretty big deal about his Bush ass-kissing to the press.  What a loser.

The past couple months, there have been many accusations from people (including myself) of the DCCC recruiting giving support to Tammy Duckworth while ignoring Christine Cegelis.  The argument from many Duckworth supporters is that the DCCC was not getting involved, it was just individuals who happen to run the DCCC (like Rahm Emmanuel) who decided to jump in on their own.

I think today's online chat with DCCC Executive Director has cleared up that controversy.  In that brief chat, he took the opportunity to mention Duckworth's name specifically three times, in response to two different questions.  One of the questions was about veterans running for congress, so I'll let that one slide (even though he didn't make mention of the other 50 or so Fighting Dems), but the other question was specifically about Patrick Murphy in PA-08.

I hope this clears up any confusion of whether the DCCC is or is not supporting Tammy Duckworth.

Cross-posted at DailyKos

My Democracy for America group decided to take up a new project this semester: write, publish, print, and distribute a progressive newsletter.  The idea would be to let people know what the Republicans are screwing up, and how progressives would make it better.  The purpose of this newsletter is two-fold:

1. Recruit members into our DFA group
   
   
2. Spread progressive ideas to apathetics, the disenfranchised, and those who otherwise believe the Democrats "have no new ideas."

Go below the fold for more, and to see the first edition!

My local Generation DFA group is working on putting out a newsletter every other week.  The first edition (below the fold) is in the works right now, and will be printed and distributed in a week and a half.  I think this is something that people can do anywhere (you can even use/edit our newsletter) to make an impact in their local communities.

The newsletter itself will be pretty short: only one page front and back.  Each edition will have a particular topic, with the first being the Republican Culture of Curruption.  The key is that we will both talk about the Republican screwups on the issue, and the Democratic/progressive attempts to solve it.  The newsletter will be short, light-hearted, and easy to read, but it will also contain solid information.

We're targetting the newsletter to two separate groups at our college campus:
1) Apathetics/I-hate-politics/I-hate-politi cians type people
2) Democrats/progressives/liberals who could read it, nod their heads along the way, and reach the end where they see a call to action and an invitation to join our DFA meetings.

We may decide as time goes on to include a short blurb with a bit of local flavor, as well.  We'll also have a small section called the "Conservative humor corner," with funny "jokes" like Ann Coulter saying someone should poison a Supreme Court Justice, or blaming natural disasters on gays.  We have not written that part yet for the first edition.

Below the fold is the newsletter in its current form.  We are looking for some feedback and suggestions on a few things, so please read with this in mind:

1. The title - we want to be lighthearted, but we also don't want to be seen as the counter to the local Conservative rag that is full of indignant outrage.  Any suggestions for an alternative title/tagline would be greatly appreciated.
   
2. Does our newsletter successfully appeal to both audiences mentioned above?

Without further ado, I present to you The Liberal Media:

"Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." Archibald Cox

This is the second of three diaries planned to orchestrate a campaign to inundate D.C. with expressions of outrage about President Bush's illegal use of the NSA. It is a matter of the rule of law, no less. Bush ordered the NSA to conduct covert spying inside the U.S. without even seeking warrants, as required by law (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978). Fundamentally, he violated the Fourth Amendment. In his radio address on Saturday, he bragged of doing this and promised to continue the policy as long as he is President. Therefore Bush has flagrantly violated the Constitution, the latest instance in a "long Train of Abuses and Usurpations." It is not extreme to conclude that he has made himself an enemy of the Constitution and of the rule of law as such.

What we as a nation do in the next few days may help to determine the future of constitutionalism. To employ the NSA for domestic spying should terrify us.

This cannot stand. In ordering the NSA to spy secretly on America, George Bush has overturned United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18, which prohibits domestic spying by NSA; violated the federal act which created the FISA court to oversee covert domestic investigations; and trampled upon the Fourth Amendment guarantee against warrantless searches. It cannot stand for a day, much less a month while Congress is in recess.

Friday, when Sen. Specter said he'd make investigating the allegations a top priority in January, it was barely possible to pretend that they might be false. But by Saturday's radio address, when Bush defended his policy and insisted it would continue, we had entered a full-blown constitutional crisis. George Bush would love for Congress to back down from a fight next week, to go home grumbling "Wait until next year."

Operation Flabbergasted We cannot let that happen. We have to ensure that by Monday, all hell has broken loose in D.C.