Only in America could a convicted felon with an intemperate personality and disastrous hair like Don King work and scrimp and save...and through his own acumen and tenacity rise to the top and become an example of, quite unpredictably, the American Dream, as the promoter of one of our most revered and nationally unique sports.

Only in America could a modest middle-child from North Carolina who was unimpressive academically and (despite his attempts) athletically and who was deemed too short to play basketball and ultimately cut from the team his sophomore year rise to the challenge of mediocrity that was presented to him to show the world what the air up there was like and made them remember not only the name Michael Jordan, but acclaim it and forever associate it with yet another uniquely American sport.

Jerome Armstrong, like Harold Ickes, like Hillary Clinton is hell-bent on destroying Barack Obama's chances to win in November.

Simply because he doesn't want to be wrong or to lose. Some class there.

What follows is a fairly straightforward and perhaps all too simple cut and paste job from my own blog  Justice Addict  The original article is: Jerome Armstrong Is A Putz. If my etiquette in so eschewing cross-posting generalities is anywhere near as disorderly as the rambunctious harpies at the RBC meeting today, then let me know. For now, follow me across the jump for all the fun...

OK, so I support Obama and blah-blah-blah, grain of salt. Whatever.

But first of all I'm a progressive Democrat (Obama was my third choice) and what I just read is patently offensive.

Hillary Clinton has no path to the nomination but is still hanging on. Fine, Mike Huckabee did the same thing, but at least he was funny.

Cross-posted at Burnt Orange Report and Justice Addict and Open Left and Texans For Obama and on the fridge at your mom's.

Gonna do this one drive-by style and let the Dallas Morning News article speak for itself, by and large. This hasn't gotten out to the greater blogosphere yet, so here goes:

Hillary Clinton and her lawyers are trying to cast doubt on the precinct conventions.

Hillary Clinton and her lawyers are trying to deligitimize the concept of the convention itself.

Hillary Clinton and her lawyers are trying to drag out the delegate selection process for their benefit.

And ultimately, Hillary Clinton and her lawyers are probably trying to null and void as much of the convention/caucus aspect of Texas' delegate selection process as possible.

I've met Barack Obama. Shook his hand a couple times. Took a picture or two. He liked my pink tie.

And that's the quick and dirty reason why I support Barack Obama.

If you need more of a wallop then read on.

(Hint: it has to do with words, Rousseau and movement-building)

Howdy folks!

I'm gearing up to see President Carter tomorrow morning in beautiful Austin, Texas and trying to decide what to wear.

That means I've got time to kill, and if you're reading this, then you probably do too.

Ciro's victory last night was absolutely delectable, and it hit the right-wing pretty hard, but there's one last thing we can do to close out this year that will have the wingnuts bawling in their Viagra and hypocrisy cocktails:

Win the 2006 Weblog awards.

In a despicable turn of events, Israel has decided to once again flex its muscle by a relentless and indiscriminate air and ground invasion into Lebanon.

Their code name for this military operation is unsettlingly sarcastic and unconscionably sardonic: "Summer Rain."

You'll pardon the redundancy, outright murder invokes a bit of a stammer.

The fact is that there is as much chance of rain during the summer months in the region it will soon be leveling as there is chance of a black Republican senator in Congress.

Howdy folks!

My name is Colin Kalmbacher and I am a some-time poster, rare-times diarist (though I did have one big one--the Ann Coulter/Free Speech controversy) but 20-times daily reader.

I am running for City Council in Austin, Texas.

I am in a four-way race against a first-term incumbent, Brewster McCracken, who ran on a progressive platform and then decided to swing almost entirely to the right until about four months ago when folks started paying attention again.

Read below for some of his record that he isn't campaigning on...

Hello fellow Kossacks, my name is Colin Kalmbacher and I am a twenty-times daily reader of dailykos. I have only diaried a few times as I am a student at the University of Texas at Austin. On top of that I am involved in many issues related to social justice including work with Amnesty International, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Association for India's Development and others. I just recently finished running for Student Government on the only progressive ticket (I lost) and I have just started my quest for Austin City Council. (Another diary in the future? I think so.)

I am writing this diary however, not as a candidate for any position, but as a human being who is concerned for other human beings. Specifically related to an issue that has come to my attention via my involvement with the Palestine Solidarity Committee, which I co-Chair.

Gaza is starving. It is as simple as that. There is a food shortage and the US government refuses to apply the necessary pressure to Israel so that Gazans can eat. I am asking for your help, fellow Kossacks, to help the people in the Gaza Strip survive.

The blogosophere has been predictably ablaze since President Bush announced his nominee to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. That nominee is Harriet Miers.

Strangely enough, the fire and brimstone hasn't been coming from the Center-Left camp. The Democratic netroots -by and large- seem to be eyeing Bush's pick ever so cautiously, definitely not joyously, but with what I would term 'healthy skepticism.'

Senators Reid and Schumer have already voiced support for Miers, understanding that she is far more favorable than some of the other names that had been bandied about. Our own magninmous patron, Markos Moulitsas has offered his qualified support for Miers as well.

After the radical Christian cleric Pat Robertson made statements urging the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias there were two somewhat realistic lanes of just recourse that would have at least brought a meager amount of satisfaction to those appalled by Robertson's statements:

1. He (Robertson) could have issued an unconditional apology to Mr. Chavez coupled with the unequivocal admission that what he called for was morally reprehensible and un-Christian.

2. The United States government could have issued a blunt and no-nonsense repudiation of Robertson's comments.

Unfortunately those lanes just ain't gonna pan out in these United States, so what do we do? Find out after the flip...

This is a follow-up to a previous article that was written following the arrest of a protester at a speech given by Ann Coulter on March 3, 2005. The original piece was written in haste and omitted the details following the arrest. It also had a typo. The original piece can be found by visiting http://counterpunch.org/kalmbacher05042005.html

During the question and answer session that followed a speech by Ann Coulter at the University of Texas at Austin, Ajai Raj waited in line, and when his turn arose, he asked a question. In regard to Coulter's bizarre defense of the "sanctity of marriage," Raj asked, "How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but fuck his wife up the ass?"

I had arrived late to hear Ann Coulter speak, ironically, in the LBJ Auditorium at the University of Texas at Austin where I am currently enrolled as a journalism undergraduate. I was, however, right in time for the question and answer session which I knew was going to be interesting.

It's good to get angry every once in awhile, or so goes the adage. I have never read any of her books but I watch enough MSNBC and am familiar with her more horrendous quotes, so I figured I would be able to store up enough anger to last me for quite some time. Little did I know...