I gave John Edwards more money than I've given to any candidate in my life, and I'm glad I did. He raised critical issues about America's economic divides, and got them on the Democratic agenda. He was the first major candidate to stake out strong comprehensive platforms on global warming and health care. He hammered away on the Iraq war, even using scarce campaign resources to run ads during recent key Senate votes. He'd have made a powerful nominee—and president.

I've been going through my mourning for a while for his campaign not getting more traction, so his withdrawal announcement didn't shock me. But sad as I am about his departure, I feel good about being able to switch my support to Barack Obama, and will do all I can to help him win.

Hillary Is blaming the Iraqis. I flip on the debate and that's the first thing I have to hear. Sheesh.

Then she says they'll stop Bush's abuses by... passing more legislation. Sheesh.

Now she's explaining that she voted to let Bush go to war because she trusted him not to. Sheesh.

Now CNN is pushing Obama to admit that Petraeus is making progress in Iraq, and Obama is buying it. But then he says that's setting the bar way too low. (APPLAUSE- Hey, there's an audience!)

Now he's saying he was smart enough to oppose it from the start (up until he voted to throw some half a trillion dollars into it). He says Clinton would have a very hard time debating the Republicans because she voted for the thing. (APPLAUSE!)

Wolf BSer asked Clinton yet again to admit that her vote was a "mistake." She's now rambling on about nothing and avoiding the question. The audience has gone back to sleep. Now she's saying she would have kept our focus on killing Afghanis.

My god, will she ever shut up? It's been about 20 minutes.

Now Wolf BSer is calling her naive. (APPLAUSE, and BOOS.)

Manassas, Virginia - Richard A. Viguerie, issued the following statement regarding President Bush’s policy announced in the State of the Union address regarding earmarks in appropriations bills:

Instead of killing the earmarks in last year’s huge omnibus appropriations bill, President Bush will leave in place all of the 11,735 earmarks, totaling $16.9 billion.

And instead of saying that he would veto any bill containing earmarks, Bush said he would veto legislation that did not reduce the earmarks by 50 percent.

Whoop-de-doo.

President Reagan vetoed the Highway Bill in 1987 because it contained 121 earmarks. But President Bush has given the go-ahead to 5,867 earmarks--half the current number. Obviously, the Republican team in the White House and Congress has abandoned all pretense of governing as fiscal conservatives.

President Bush came into office sounding like a conservative Republican. He is leaving sounding like a liberal Democrat. Bush seems disinterested in the future of the GOP, as it drifts without leadership and is in danger of imploding.

Testimony to the Public Utilities Commission of the Ohio House, January 30, 2008

Thank you for allowing me to testify today.

I am a resident of central Ohio and author, or co-author, of a dozen books, including four on energy. My most recent is SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, which is graced by an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and has been captured in song by Pete Seeger.

My message today is simple: any state that allows the construction of new nuclear power plants in the face of today’s global industrial competition and financial turmoil will be committing economic suicide.

Any energy legislation that allows any kind of incentive to build such reactors dooms itself to the failures of the last century, not the successes of the new one. Thus the 12.5% of future electric production that is left open to nuclear power and coal in this new energy bill should be transformed and devoted entirely to renewables and efficiency.

There is nothing “advanced” about atomic energy.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today held an oversight hearing on reforming the state secrets evidentiary privilege.  The state secrets privilege allows the government to prevent public disclosure of testimony and materials in litigation if their disclosure would reveal information damaging to national security.

“When used properly, the state secrets privilege protects vital national security interests,” said Rep. Nadler.  “However, in recent years, the state secrets privilege has been expanded to not only produce arguably unfair results by preventing disclosure of specific items of evidence but also has been used to block litigation altogether and prevent any examination of challenged government activity.  We need to consider how we can reform the system to ensure that only truly sensitive information is kept secret.”