cross posted from The Dream Antilles

The Chinese Government is very afraid of these two women.

Seventy-nine-year-old Wu Dianyuan, on the right, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77, followed the law.  They applied for a protest permit.  They wanted to protest inadequate compensation for the taking of their homes in preparation of the Olympics.  They asked for the permit five times.  They didn't get it.  They ended up instead being sentenced to a year of "re-education through labor."

Join me in Beijing.

Hey, Kossacks.

Things are a little tense around here lately, so in an effort to alleviate some tension, I decided to do a "just for fun" style diary to distract us from all the important work there is to do -- should you choose to participate.

Because, hey, we could all use a breather now and then.

When, years from now, hindsight-benefited historians look back on the primary elections of 2008, especially during the weeks in April and early May, one thing will appear crystal clear: flag lapel pins didn’t matter.

Nor did bowling scores, nor renegade reverends, nor harsh adjectives used to describe the mood of small-town Americans harshly abandoned by big corporations, and the big government that served them.

No, flag lapel pins did not matter to voters, who agreed with and voted for the man who was not afraid to campaign in the patriotic nude, the man who eschewed the venerable American flag pin in favor of letting his words and deeds demonstrate his patriotism, rather than a two-cent chunk of recycled Chinese metal with a fresh paint job.

Last night was an historic evening in which (I believe) Barack Obama secured his position as the nominee of the Democratic party. There is virtually no doubt that this will transpire after the results from last evening and I'm thrilled at the prospect of seeing him in the general election.

He gave a great speech that at times seemed to move into general election territory with an attack on McCain and great rhetoric about not being distracted at this critical moment in our nation's history. He admits that he is not perfect, but that he trusts the American people to make the right decision even if the message is coming from an imperfect messenger.

I really liked the speech and thought I'd share it with everyone who didn't get a chance to see it... or would like to re-live the moment.

Is this yet another headache for Obama?  

Remember, Obama has called William Ayers a "mainstream Liberal Chicago Politician" and said that Ayers bombing days are far behind him.  

Well, now we see that in 2001, the exact same year Obama took a campaign donation from Ayers and served with him on the Woods foundation, Ayers was doing pictorials of himself stomping on the American Flag.  

It is being aired on MSNBC right now.....

More than a month on from giving in Philadelphia his powerful and frank speech on religion and race in America – a speech in which Mr. Obama invited Americans of all hues to look up from the stale rhetoric that calcifies the nation’s coded conversations about race, and set their sights higher – the rhetorical highlight of his speech remains unrealized in the nation’s collective mind, and in the minds of many of his supporters.

"Not this time", he urged us to think, remember, say. Not this time will Americans of every color be distracted from working together to address our collective and color-blind problems. Not this time in a time of wars, economic crises, and looming environmental catastrophes will we allow ourselves to be mesmerized by trivial scandals masquerading as news.

"Not this time." This was the highlight. This was the whole point. This was Obama reasserting what his candidacy is all about: that it’s past time we look beyond our own personal interests and grievances to see our common problems, and create a common future worthy of the ideals upon which this country was founded.

Obama was on point, focused, calm and direct in his interview with Chris Wallace on Fox today (transcript here). He placed Hillary's four-for-six streak in the broad perspective of his steady march to the nomination. He took responsibility for any failure to win over any bloc of voters.  He refused to suggest (or insinuate, as Hillary in a similar position might have done) that Bill Clinton was playing any race card.  

While the interview began, like the infamous ABC debate, with a string of non-policy questions (electability, race and electability, connecting with working class voters, Wright, Ayers, ability to work with Repubicans), the tone was different. Wallace pressed Obama, hard at times, but he pressed for more information - there were no 'gotcha' questions, or absurd phrasings like "Do you think that Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?"

I am a dutiful audience for Keith Olbermann and saw a very interesting clip from a speech by Hillary Clinton out in the past couple of days in which she addressed the arguments for how voters should vote.  'You can vote for or against any candidate, and for any reason,' she began, 'You can vote for the one who has, say, the best hairstyle, if that's what you want to do' and then went on to make her normal stump speech argument, 'to treat it like it is a job interview.'

But as usual, when there is a good soundbyte, like 'typical white person' or 'Damn America' or 'they become bitter and cling to guns', the context becomes lost, and that is where we enter the zone of Silly Season.

more after the jump

Last night on comedy central was like an all-star lineup of Democratic candidates in Philadelphia. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appeared on The Colbert Report seeking the infamous "Colbert Bump". After all, he is a King-Maker in his own mind.

Hillary stops by to help solve some technical difficulty and Obama makes a surprise appearance to put "Distractions" ON NOTICE. John Edwards reads the nights "Word".

Also, both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert mocked the disgraceful ABC debate that didn't reach one substantive issue until 53 minutes in. Check out the footage of these below:

PS: Some of these videos have already been published as Youtube clips in a previous diary which I did not see and can be found at:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Just finished reading this diary.

Realized I needed to post the story below as a response.

I'm going to bed.  Enjoy.

Who here is tired of this David Shuster thing? It feels like 2004 and the Cheney daughter "they called her a lesbian" lost week. LOOK LOOK at the shiny object over there. Don't notice that my campaign is taking on water!

Consider this scenario.... Now that Republicans have visited the White House and "laid it on the line" what's next? Looks like they need a BIG distraction here. (Call guy Gannon or outing a CIA operative won't work this time.)

This one is particularly biting against the MSM and mirrors much of what we have all been saying for years, if not decades. It's high time someone made an effective satire of it, and Jib Jab's latest video hits the mark, dead center.

Embed below the fold.

Just a short diary, But I hadn't seen anyone comment extensively on the sudden uptick in US soldiers dying in Iraq from a variety of means. I traveled over to http://icasualties.org/... and it was like taking a beating.
Thirteen in three days in October and a large uptick in the last part of Sept.  

I haven't seen anything in any of the media with Foley on 24 x 7 . I did see the Diary on the two Battle groups headed to Iran and now I'm wondering if there is a connection here.

I was always lousy at math but thirst for power- sex scandals with box could = loss of power. I'm wondering if this Foley thing will push us into war with Iran as that arrival date is on the 21st.

Anyone think these guys aren't  going to go into "lets try anything" mode?

Every single time there is a crisis that looks as if it might seriously impair Republican power or even make the Republicans look real bad to the American public, there always seems to be an event or further 'new' crisis that manages to change the subject in the MSM.  This, of course, is what Olbermann pointed out in his show that he rebroadcast several times, showing the 'coincidences' between major scandals and ramping up the terror alerts, etc.

Heck, as horribly disgusting as Foleygate/pedopheliagate is, it conveniently changed the subject of public discourse from the torture bill and our loss of habeas corpus, to pedophelia, a sleazy housemember, and "naughty e-mails" (damn Tony Snow--what a sleazebag shyster.)

So, I was just sitting here thinking about all the other nasty Republican stuff I have been fretting over for the past week and began to think:  well, the standard Rove move is to find something big enough to change the topic of discourse in the MSM in order to distract the American people.

make the jump

I can't help feeling that we have been drawn into sensationalism and away from the debacle that took place last week on Capital Hill. Sure, Foley,  is a repugnant Republican, but in the past three days his e-mail games with young male pages has begun to dominate the recommended list and generated 239 stories on the subject.  A three day search on "torture" generated 402 results , but only 59 in the past 24  hours. In the same 24 hour period, "Foley" produced 134 stories .  Do you recognize the trend?

The Foley story is important, BUT let's not lose sight of the fact it is not as important as what happened in Congress last week.

was there really any question that the media needed something to distract from the fact that the 'terror threat' had been so wildly exaggerated and just as the facts were starting to spill, came this bogus story