I want to make a plea for people of conscience to support a federal lawsuit by 12 prominent conservation groups to challenge the federal governments delisting of gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act. These groups need our financial support to succeed at this lawsuit and prevent the slaughter of hundreds of wolves this year alone.  See the end of this diary for links you can follow to make contributions that will help stop this slaughter.

Many of you may know already, but the Bush administration delisted the gray wolf from the endangered species status that had facilitated it's partial recovery from catastrophic population decline.

This decision leaves the fate of the wolves in the northern Rockies in the hands of myopic and irresponsible state agencies in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.  These state agencies are all but owned by wealthy incredibly influential hunting and ranching lobbies who could not care less about the fate of wolves, except to see to it that they are persecuted right back into near extinction.  This year alone the Idaho Fish and Game agency has agreed to allow 428 wolves to be killed, most by hunting.

Hillary Clinton has been an incredible challenger.  She has fought a very tough race, and she deserves to be congratulated for her win in Indiana last night.  Fair is fair, a win is a win.  She has indicated her campaign will continue to due all it can to secure the nomination.  I am impressed, and look forward to the coming contests.  I wish her the best.

Barack Obama exceeded all expectations yesterday.  In the face of intense competition from HRC, reincarnation of stale "scandals"  that have already been intensely overplayed by the media, and what was supposed to be a strong current of momentum for HRC after PA, Obama rose above it all.

He has shown once again, as he has many times before, that he is the  toughest candidate, he can weather all challenges thrown at him by not one but two challengers, he can out due anyone in history with fund raising, he leads in every metric, and I believe he is going to win the nomination and the presidency.

Campaign manager David Plouffe sent out the following memo to superdelegates, making clear how Obama views the race at this point.

I know many here will disagree with just about every part of it. You have that right.  Flames are cheerfully ignored.

There was a great ruling for environmentalists today.  A federal judge ruled  that the US government can not stall any longer on ruling whether polar bears are an endangered species.

The full story from the BBC is here

This is a great step towards starting to undue some of the damage the Bush administartion has done to the environment, and it could very well be a critical step for many future battles surrounding ANWR, global warming and other important issues.

I learned today from Kos that in 2004 Terry McAuliffe threatened Michigan with not seating at least half their delegates if they moved their primary date without DNC consent.

What follows is taken directly from McAuliffe's own book describing a meeting with Michigan Senator Carl Levin regarding the matter.

I do not see another diary on this, so thought I would throw up a quick one. If someone else beat me to it and this is a repeat, I apologize.

The North Carolina Republican party is running an attack ad against  Senator Obama and two North Carolina candidates for governor, Bev Purdue and Richard Moore.

The ad can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXxkctYRA ZQ

See what Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have to say about this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJqvxntuF B0

Senator McCain has denounced the ad.  The National Republican Party has denounced the ad.  

So Why hasn't Senator Clinton denounced the ad?  It is inexcusable and very telling.