OpenLeft, Chris Bowers:

Obama has won North Carolina’s pledged delegates 63-52, according to Green Papers. Their estimates are usually accurate to within one delegate either way, so I trust them. Obama also appears to have won the North Carolina popular vote by 226,500 or so, which is almost identical to Clinton’s margin in Pennsylvania and Indiana combined.

The delegate count in Indiana is murkier, largely because the votes are coming in slower. In the extremes we have Democratic Convention Watch, which currently projects Clinton 35-33 Obama with four undecided, and CBS, which projects Clinton 38-29 Obama with five undecided. While these are not incompatible projections I am strongly prone to lean toward the DIY independent site, since such sites have shown, time and time again, to be way ahead of established news sites in delegate counts. In terms of the popular vote, Clinton is currently ahead by 20,000 and dropping with 92% reporting. I don’t regret declaring her the popular vote winner at all, since I’ll still be proven correct and since only one delegate is decided by the popular vote. I’ve been wrong about individual delegates before, and really that is all that is at stake in the popular vote.

Still, a very, very big night for Obama. The media has been giving him stupid rules to follow (pierce your nipples with flag pins or we will run Rev. Wright 24 / 7!), and he beat those rules tonight. I don’t like those rules, but Obama played them, and won. The narrative will reward him as a result.

Raw Story:

The White House does not have archival copies of e-mails exchanged between administration officials during the weeks leading up to President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq nor for the first two months of the war there, according to a just-released filing concerning millions of e-mails alleged to have gone missing or been deleted.

“A White House declaration filed late last night … makes the stunning admission that the White House failed to preserve ANY backup tapes for the period March 1, 2003 through May 22, 2003, a period of time during which the U.S. went to war in Iraq,” says a release from Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a watchdog group suing for public records concerning the disappearance of internal White House e-mails.

Without computer backup tapes from this critical pre-Iraq war period, future researchers may be deprived a vital resource as the delve into the inner workings of the Bush administration as it decided to invade a country that had not attacked the United States and possessed no weapons of mass destruction.

“The harm is that we’ve lost a huge piece of history,” says Anne Weismann, a lawyer for CREW.

Weismann estimated the total number of missing White House e-mails at “10 million-plus.”

Investigations into the missing White House e-mails already have shown that e-mails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office were not archived on critical dates during the Justice Department’s investigation of the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. The White House already has said it also does not have backup tapes for those dates, Sept. 30, 2003, through Oct. 6, 2003.

“I’m sure there are other holes,” Weismann told RAW STORY Tuesday. “We just can’t get in to have the kind of forensic review that needs to be done” of what the White House has.

E-mails were missing from internal servers on a total of 473 days, according to documents released by the House Oversight Committee, including dates around when Saddam Hussein was captured and during a court battle surrounding Cheney’s energy task force.

CREW is joined by the National Security Archive, an open-government group at in its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the White House Office of Administration, which maintains internal computer systems and archives.

The White House filing revealed it had 483 backup tapes from May 23, 2003 to Sept. 29, 2003. CREW has posted the court documents here.

Think Progress:

Today, Sister Julie McGuire had to turn away 12 fellow Indiana nuns — all in their 80s or 90s — from a polling place because they lacked a state or federal photo ID, as mandated by the recent Supreme Court decision. AP reports:

“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, ‘I don’t want to go do that,’” Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren’t given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. “You have to remember that some of these ladies don’t walk well. They’re in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts.”

Sister McGuire also underscored the difficulty in obtaining IDs for these women: “We’re going to take from now until November to get them out and get this done. You can’t do this like school kids on a bus. I wish we could.” More on the ID Divide here.

Think Progress:

This morning, the House Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena David Addington, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, to compel him to testify about the administration’s interrogation programs. He has said he will agree to testify if subpoenaed. The AP also reports that John Yoo, author of legal memos that sanctioned torture, has reversed course and agreed last night to testify before the committee as well, along with Douglas Feith and former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Former CIA Director George Tenet “is still in negotiations with the committee, according to House Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Melanie Roussell.”

The Bush-McCain Challenge

Take this challenge and see if you can tell the difference between these two War Mongers!

Think Progress:

Speaking in Cleveland earlier today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) defended President Bush, saying he should not be held responsible for the “Mission Accomplished” banner that was visible aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln when Bush declared that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” on May 1, 2003:

“Do I blame him for that specific banner? I can’t,” McCain said. “But I do say that statements are made, ‘a few dead-enders,’ ‘last throes,’ those are, as opposed to the banner, direct statements which were contradicted by the facts on the ground.”

McCain then said of the banner: “I thought it was wrong at the time.” But while the White House has actually acknowledged making an error, McCain himself used the term “mission accomplished” when talking about the Iraq war on at least two occasions in 2003:

– “Their morale could not be higher. This is a mission accomplished. They know how much influence Saddam Hussein had on the Iraqi people, how much more difficult it made to get their cooperation.” [This Week, ABC, 12/14/03]

– During an appearance on Fox News, host Neil Cavuto said, “many argue the conflict isn’t over.” McCain answered, “Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier? Look, the — I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict — the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished.” [FOX, Your World With Neil Cavuto, 6/11/03]

Watch it:

Because McCain is running for president while an unpopular war –- which he supports — is raging in Iraq, it seems he must both defend Bush on “mission accomplished” and, at same time, distance himself from it. But despite McCain’s similar rhetoric on the war “at the time,” Washington Post reporter Michael Abramowitz seemed happy to help McCain in his effort during a “Post Politics Hour” web chat today on washingtonpost.com:

ABRAMOWITZ: I think McCain will certainly be attacked over the war during the campaign but I doubt that he will be blamed for “Mission Accomplished” because he was always more sober than than the White House about progress in Iraq.

Here are some of McCain’s past assessments of the Iraq war that, according to Abramowitz, have been “more sober” than Bush’s:

– “I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short.” [NBC, 3/30/03]

–- “It’s clear that the end is very much in sight.” [ABC, 4/9/03]

–- “I think the situation on the ground is going to improve,” he says. “I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren’t making progress, I’d be despondent.” [The Hill, 12/8/05]

Someday the media will realize that a McCain presidency will actually be a “third Bush term.”

The Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — The White House said Wednesday that President Bush has paid a price for the “Mission Accomplished” banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.

Thursday is the fifth anniversary of Bush’s dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.

“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Bush said at the time. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on.” The “Mission Accomplished” banner was prominently displayed above him _ a move the White House came to regret as the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.

After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the “Mission Accomplished” phrase referred to the carrier’s crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq. Bush, in October 2003, disavowed any connection with the “Mission Accomplished” message. He said the White House had nothing to do with the banner; a spokesman later said the ship’s crew asked for the sign and the White House staff had it made by a private vendor.

“President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished’ for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. “And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year.”

She said what is important now is “how the president would describe the fight today. It’s been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy.”

At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.

Now in its sixth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of at least 4,061 members of the U.S. military. Only the Vietnam War (August 1964 to January 1973), the war in Afghanistan (October 2001 to present) and the Revolutionary War (July 1776 to April 1783) have engaged America longer.

Bush, in a speech earlier this month, said that “while this war is difficult, it is not endless.”

Machine malfunctions, long lines, registration probs reported across Keystone State..

BRAD BLOG ALERT
April 22, 2008

Pennsylvania Primary: Polling Place, E-Voting Problem Wire…

Problem reports from polling places in PA, including voting machine malfunctions, long lines, registration problems and more having been coming in all across the state (particularly in and around Philly), all morning.

We’ve been doing our best to keep up, with a running wire of notable reports, which we continue to update throughout the day.

See our report yesterday detailing concerns about e-voting equipment (though not from officials, who weren’t concerned at all) and whether there would be enough machines to go around (presuming they work at all) across Pennsylvania…

For up to the minute news: ELECTION PROBLEM WIRE

If you missed it yesterday, we tried to warn you…
The Pennsylvania Primary: Democracy of the Gods
Tuesday’s Election Will be ‘Unrecountable, Unverifiable, and Unauditable’…
FULL STORY

By Greg Palast

Psst! George Bush has a secret.

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.

You’re not supposed to know that – for two reasons:

First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics. Well, it is a monument to Bush’s leadership: The city still looks like Dresden 1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or wandering lost and broke in America.

The second reason Bush has kept this major summit a virtual secret is its real agenda. More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible: The North American Competitiveness Council.

Never heard of The Council? Well, maybe you’ve heard of the counselors: the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27 other multinational masters of the corporate universe.

And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a three-nation pajama party? Their term is “harmonization.”

Harmonization has nothing to do with singing in fifths like Simon and Garfunkel. Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in all three countries. Or, more specifically, watering down rules – on health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on - in other words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their profits.

Take for example, pesticides. Wal-Mart and agri-business don’t want to reduce the legal amount of poison allowed in what you eat. Solution: “harmonize” US and Canadian pesticide standards to Mexico’s.

Can they do that? Can Bush just say, “Eat your peas – even if they’re radioactive?” Under NAFTA, at least the way George Bush reads it (or has it read to him), he can. At any rate, he does.
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Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Addington, Haynes, Feith, Bybee, Yoo Behind Widespread Use of Torture

By Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian:

Update: Audio|Philippe Sands Interview

The US’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques for terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian can reveal.

The development led to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture. (doh!)

The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington - who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date - is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts from which will be published in tomorrow’s Guardian.

In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, a professor of law at University College London, reveals:

Senior figures in the Bush administration pushed through previously outlawed measures with the help of unqualified and inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.

Myers believes he was a victim of “intrigue” by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of the vice president, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld’s defence department.

Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army’s field manual.

The lawyers who pushed through the interrogation techniques - all of them political appointees - were Alberto Gonzales, David Addingon and William Haynes.

Others involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld’s undersecretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

The revelations have already sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book.

They are determined to establish accountability for the way the Bush administration violated international and domestic law by sanctioning prisoner abuse and torture.

The Bush administration has tried to explain away the ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo and the Abu Ghraib prison, in Baghdad, by blaming junior officials.

Sands establishes that pressure for the aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the very top and was sanctioned by the most senior lawyers.

Myers, the most senior military officer of the most powerful country in the world, was one top official who did not understand the implications of what was being done.

Sands, who spent three hours with the former general, describes him as being “confused” about the decisions that were taken.

Myers did not realise that fundamental safeguards provided by the Geneva conventions and elsewhere were being abandoned by his own junior officers as well as political appointees in the administration, the author says.

He believed new techniques recommended by Haynes and authorised for use by the military at Guantánamo by Rumsfeld in December 2002 had been taken from the US army field manual.

However, none of the severe interrogation techniques came from the manual, and all breached established US military guidelines and rules.
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