From Jerome Armstrong's diary, 'Hillary's race to lose':

In Obama latest, he sent me an email titled, "What a movement looks like?" His campaign probably didn't notice the slip, but it's an obvious truth--that adding that "?" in the title. Maybe, he thinks, he's in one... maybe not... who can tell?

If a different e-mail went out, I didn't get it. But it leads me to believe that Armstrong's anecdote of the Obama camp's foul-up is imagined. Reading the e-mail itself refutes the main point of his post: "completely [dismissing] the notion that there's a movement behind Obama."

In the e-mail, Obama relays some information on a recent day of action in which his field campaign organized more than 1,000 events in all fifty states, got more than 10,000 volunteers to go door to door in their neighborhoods to contact more than 500,000 people. Armstrong says Obama's campaign has hyped a movement that doesn't exist. But given some recent reports of volunteer intiative and enthusiasm in my state of New Jersey and elsewhere, I'd say that if they're not a movement, they're doing OK.

Even in a campaign of hype, it's hard to fake this kind of excitement. Armstrong admits that maybe Obama does have a movement, albeit on that has "nothing to do with the fighting partisan netroots; so there's no way I would grasp it, much less feel a part of it..." I don't have a horse in this race either, and I agree that it is, in fact, Hillary's race to lose. But I am continually impressed with the intensity of Obama's door-to-door volunteers. His netroots campaign could be another story.

Still, there's no denying Obama's campaign has tapped something that is pumping people up and getting them to hit pavement for him. Call it a movement, call it whatever you want, but it's something we're not seeing from the other campaigns.

People for the American Way has obtained a strategy memo from the Alliance For Marriage (AFM), a rightwing organization intent on cultivating a "fifty state strategy" against marriage equality.  AFM says they're fighting an "historic struggle" to beat back the "acceleration" of marriage equality on the state level by promoting "a non-binding Marriage Protection Resolution; a joint resolution passed by state legislatures calling upon the state's congressional delegation and congressional leadership in Washington, to send the federal Marriage Protection Amendment to state legislators for ratification."

In the memo, AFM President Matt Daniels writes, "It is safe to predict that the trend in the courts will continue in the direction of Massachusetts and New Jersey" -- which ignores the fact that the NJ state legislature passed civil unions and will hopefully advance to marriage equality in the next two years.

But the more remarkable part of the memo is this:

I met former UN Weapons Inspector and marine Scott Ritter four years ago, as a college freshman. It was two or three months before the invasion of Iraq, and I was naive enough to think that the Bush administration hadn't already made its mind up. On campus, I had started a discussion group to help other students better understand all the information swirling around in the news. Ritter had come to town to answer questions -- mostly about Iraq's weapons capabilities, which he said were nil. But he also said, "I hope I'm wrong and they're right."

But one thing really stuck out in my mind then, and now. He said that in our culture, if you live in Maryland but get a job in Florida, you pick up and move. Not so for Iraqis, where moving is viewed through a tribal lens and is generally not accepted. Ritter told me that the matter could be a factor in the invasion.

Now, well into the tumultuous occupation, too many Iraqis have no other choice but to leave their homes.

Over at Blue Jersey, we revisit the story of a Kearny high school teacher, David Paszkiewicz, who told his students that 'that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's ark,' and "you belong in hell" if you "reject" Christianity. He also singled out a Muslim student to tell her that she is definitely going to hell.

Kearny school officials have certainly taken their time in handling the incident, which occurred at the start of the school year and became public in November.

In December, the Kearny school board continued to obfuscate who was at fault, silently implicating the young student who had secretly taped Paszkiewicz's classroom sermons for fear officials wouldn't believe him. In January, the teacher published a rambling letter in the local paper, explaining why the Constitution allows him to tell his students they are going to hell. He even insinuated the student who taped him was a part of a broader conspiracy:

It is my firm conviction that there is an effort afoot to undermine the very underpinnings of our freedoms.

Cross-posted from Blue Jersey

Voters in New Jersey's 11th congressional district need to read up on the person representing them in Washington. Rodney Frelinghuysen, someone who touts his moderate credentials, has gone off the deep end.

The New Jersey Herald quotes Rep. Frelinghuysen on the College Student Relief Act of 2007.

"Colleges and universities must do more to contain their costs, including those related to health care, insurance, and administrative and academic salaries," Frelinghuysen said. "Clearly, more must be done to address the cost crisis for those students entering college now and in the years to come."

This week, the media is widely speculating about the factor of race in presidential politics, though not how you'd usually think. Here they're not talking about the general election, and whether white people will vote for a minority candidate; they're talking about whether black voters will support Barack Obama.

Here again, they're not talking about the general election. About 90% of African Americans voted for the Democrat in 2004, and barring some cataclysmic event, that's not changing in 2008. Instead, the pundits are asking how Obama will perform with African Americans in the Democratic primaries.

Cross-posted at Blue Jersey

Following up on a previous post, we've received word that Rush Holt will be reappointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The appointment has not been finalized yet, and that may be why the New York Times omitted it. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

Cross-posted from Blue Jersey