The issue of revoking Kwame Kilpatrick's super-delegate credentials was diaried earlier.  This diary is intended to allay the fears the DNC may have about a backlash from Detroit voters this election.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick who faces ten felony charges in two separate cases and has twice violated the conditions of his release on bond has been granted permission from the court to attend the Democratic Convention in Denver next week.  In the first case, Kilpatrick is charged with perjury, misconduct and obstruction of justice in matters relating to an affair with a former staffer.  http://kdka.com/...

In the second, he faces two counts of resisting and obstructing police officers attempting to serve a subpoena on a friend of the mayor in the perjury case. http://www.cnn.com/...

I was working at an Obama field office in my city.  We had just finished a voter registration drive, where we registered 14 new voters, identified four potential volunteers and many other supporters who were going to stop in the office and get yard signs.  I thought that was pretty good since we were only out for 2 hours and we were in a republican area with good turnout usually.  We were all sitting around eating lunch, planning the Birthday Party we are having for Barack, when this wierdo walked in.

A big story in Michigan and Southern California over the past two months was the arrest of Susan LeFevre, 53, who had been on the run since 1976.  LeFevre has since been sent back to prison in Michigan, where she'd escaped in 1976, and was charged anew yesterday.

Who is Susan LeFevre?  A hardened criminal?  A terrorist?

Susan LeFevre was a young woman who was convicted under Michigan's draconian drug laws in 1975 for trying to deal a small amount of heroin to an undercover cop.  She was convicted and sent to minimum-security prison for ten-to-twenty years.  In 1976, she climbed the fence and escaped in her grandfather's waiting car.  Since then, she moved to the San Diego area, met a man, and got married.  She has three children, who are all model students, and she was active in the community, working for groups like Common Cause.

More...

Well, by now you've heard that Michigan's economy is like a giant black hole that nothing in any other part of the country can escape from it's gravitational pull, not even light.  And I am the first one out there to take a punch in the eye for my gal, the Honorable Jennifer Granholm, Governor.  She was handed a pile of John Engler poop and told to clean it up and sell it as compost.  But not even Jen could have forseen what George W. Bush's NAFTA abuses would do to our country.  

From Media Matters:

In a July 14 Washington Times article, staff writer Andrea Billups characterized the tone of a Michigan campaign event featuring Sen. Barack Obama's wife, Michelle Obama, as "as much estrogenfest as it was campaign rally" and later wrote: "Even Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm got in on the girlie show as they campaigned together." Describing the event with Obama and Granholm, Billups wrote: "[T]he economic bantering did not begin until after the two-term Democratic governor offered a gal-pal fashion compliment, telling the cheering crowd of mainly black women that while she and Mrs. Obama had something in common as Harvard Law School graduates, she would not bare her arms in public."

So when two women get on stage together, all of the sudden it's an "estrogenfest" and a "girly show"?

Yesterday my family joined the ever-growing group of Michigan families who now face an uncertain economic future due to lay-offs in the auto industry.

My dad's employer, once part of The Big Three, offered their employees age 50 and over a puny buyout package, with the hopes that 300-400 people take them up on it. Whispers around the office led most to believe that if the buyouts weren't taken, they'd still most likely be without a job, and the measly benefits. So as of August 1st, my dad will stay in Michigan, unemployed, with a mortgage, bills, and a very uncertain future. His job, like so many others, is heading to Mexico.

The news broke my heart and my spirit, just as it has for thousands others.

Here's what worries me most - like many other laid off auto workers, my dad's in his late fifties, with a bad back, arthritis starting to set in, and a minimal college education in auto repair, no thanks to the GI Bill. He can send me email, watch the funny YouTube videos I send him, but that's about as far as his computer skills go. With a crummy economy, how does my dad compete with all the hungry, tech-savvy college graduates that don't have families to support?

This is not the American Dream, this is the Auto Industry Nightmare.

Watching the Obama rally at Joe Louis Arena, some things really impressed me. The at-site GOTV teams were tenacious, the crowd was expectant. Even the usually dour ushers and working folks (who were indeed working that night) seemed upbeat. The unofficial T-shirt vendors were on the streets, and, yeah baby, this was like that big rock concert you've been to.

My impressions are my own. I think Jennifer Granholm needs to realize that she's not running for a Cabinet position, especially after hosing up the primary trying to bolster HRC. Probably following in her buddy Jim Blanchard's footsteps as a possible ambassador to Canada. But when she mentioned supporting Hillary there were noticeable boos.

And Barack called the crowd on that.

Are we still in Primary mode? What's the booing all about? Is this just plain hatred or immaturity?

Cross-posted at Democrashield

Now, there are a lot of Hillary supporters out there calling the exclusion of Florida and Michigan from the Democratic primary "disenfranchisement."  These Hillary supporters are saying they won’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s disenfranchising millions of voters.  They say their opposition has nothing to do with what’s best for Hillary Clinton, that they're taking a principled stand against voter disenfranchisement.  

Alright, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.  Let’s say you are taking a principled stand against voter disenfranchisement.  Let’s say this has nothing to do with your support for Hillary.  Then I have some questions for you, like...

Just heard that Jennifer Granholm has gone into emergency surgery for some kind of blockage!

In the never-ending saga of the Michigan primary, another twist has surfaced here.

This 11th-hour proposal is being championed by Govs. (and Clinton supporters) Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. Corzine and Rendell say that a handful of rich Clinton donors (including baseball team owner Peter Angelos, investment banker Roger Altman, supermarket magnate John Catsimatides, attorney Calvin Fayard Jr., and philanthropist Brooke Neidich; see Page 2) are willing to put up $12 million to cover the cost of a new state primary.

 With all of the talk to redo the primaries in Michigan and Florida and (I feel that it will happen) Obama needs to seriously focus on Michigan becuse the Democratic party is very much like Ohio.  Here is what he needs to do...  

The timing of this could not be more perfect.  On the day after the night before, when John McCain sewed up the Republican nomination, and afer allowing sufficent time for him to collect the official kiss on the cheek from his new benefactor--and former adversary--George Bush, another unlikely tag-team act has formed to promote the candidacy of the one candidate that truly unites half the Democratic Party with that portion of the GOP that voted Hillary Clinton "Most Likely to Lose to John McCain."

In a joint statement signed by Michigan governor, Jennifer Granholm, and Florida governor, Charlie Crist, the two parties have been petitioned to seat their respective states' delegations to the national conventions.

In full, the governors have written:

Yesterday, Michigan Governor and Hillary Clinton-endorser Jennifer Granholm addressed the people of Michigan and Michigan Democrats in the following email:

Tomorrow, Michigan will play a critical role in choosing the next President of the United States if you are a Republican, though it barely means jack-shit if you're a Democrat.

The decision to move our primary to January 15th has put us in the national spotlight and, made us the laughing stock of the country. All eyes are on Michigan as we cast votes for our presidential nominees on the Republican side, on the Democratic side we're just "voting" in a strawpoll since all our delegates have been stripped, but watchout, on Tuesday night I'll claim this was a big vitory for Hillary Clinton.

By now, we all know Markos has come up with this Michigan Democrats for Mitt idea.  It's here and here too.  

The main problem with Kos' scheme is that we Michigan Democrats need to worry about picking our own nominee, rather than attempt to have some small impact on their nominee. It's more imperative that we Michigan Democrats do our little part so that we do not end up with Hillary, our weakest candidate and least progressive potential president.

Every vote for Romney is also a vote for the headline "Hillary Wins Michigan, Controls Race."

So, think before you follow a bunch of out-of-staters trying to get you to vote for a Republican and instead

The Detroit Free Press today released a revealing story concerning an inadvertent release of a secret EPA memorandum on how Dow Chemical delayed cleanup of highly toxic chlorinated dibenzo-dioxin/furan contamination of Michigan's Tittabawassee  River and Saginaw River watersheds from Dow's Midland, MI facility.

    Debbie Dingell, GM executive and John Dingell's wife, recently said that she wanted the now-overruled 1/15/08 Michigan primary to "blow up New Hampshire and Iowa"! see the Detroit Free Press. This is a true macaca moment, or Osama moment maybe.
    See also Jack Lessenberry in the Traverse City Record-Eagle, noting that Debbie

    said that "extraordinary efforts" to repair and save the primary would be undertaken.
    It was vital to still try to hold the primary Jan. 15, she told a reporter, because that would "blow up New Hampshire and Iowa."
    One has to wonder what ammunition dump she has been guarding. ...

    That's sad, yo. (Action recommended below; read on!)

Although this is coming out of Michigan, it will help any state that has a high number of workers displaced by outsourcing- if that is your area, you should get in on this, too.

Do you have your Congresscritter on speed dial yet? You probably should! 202-225-3121. Program that in.

TTA stands for Trade Adjustment Assistance, the program that is training displaced workers here in Michigan for new careers after their jobs have been outsourced. The vote is coming this week, and it's critical that we get the federal money to fund this operation, or it goes bye-bye.

From Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Rep. Sander Levin-