Are you IN for Friday's $$$-Drive for Edwards?

A few days ago on Daily Kos, KingOneEye proposed that Edwards supporters everywhere try to beat Ron Paul's impressive $6 million dollar in one day grassroots fundraising effort. The theory here is that a big fundraising push would not only help the Edwards campaign financially, but help him break through the mainstream media blackout on Edwards news.

Perhaps you have noticed the deafening silence from the media on John Edwards, even though he is in a very close race with Clinton and Obama in terms of the number of pledged delegates, after having come in 2nd in Iowa and 3rd in New Hampshire. The delegate total is really the only number that matters, so they should by all rights be giving him equal time.

The goal is for grassroots supporters to raise $7 million for Edwards in one day on Friday, January 18th

It may seem like an impossible task to end poverty, but that's what skeptics have always said about the great struggles we have faced. If we can put a man on the moon, cure polio, and put a library on a little chip, then we can end poverty.
--John Edwards

I propose a great national goal, because Americans believe in achieving great things. Like JFK challenging America to land a man on the moon, a national goal of eradicating poverty will sharpen our focus, marshal our resources and at the end of the day, bring out our best.
--John Edwards

Via Daily Kos, by Rob in Vermont:

Our candidate has set a goal and proposed pragmatic policies to reduce poverty in America by 1/3 over 10 years, to end it over 30 years, and to seriously combat severe poverty overseas. Our candidate has proposed a plan that will afford every American the opportunity to get a college education. Our candidate led the pack in proposing a viable plan to ensure healthcare coverage for every American, and our candidate proposed exactly how a strong president can use the bully pulpit to jumpstart this legislation. Our candidate also has led the pack in proposing ambitious but critically necessary policies to combat global warming.

CONTRIBUTE HERE

Edwards Campaign Goes On

The campaign goes on

John Edwards said Thursday that his wife is now battling an incurable reappearance of cancer but vowed to continue his second bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly," Edwards told reporters, his wife by his side.

The recurrence of the cancer -- this time on Elizabeth Edwards' bone -- presents a setback for the couple, both personally and politically. But both said the cancer was treatable and that they would stick with their plans to campaign vigorously for the nomination.

"From our perspective, there was no reason to stop," Edwards said. "I don't think we seriously thought about it." [...]

The couple, married 30 years, have a grown daughter, Cate, and two young children, Emma Claire and Jack. Their teenage son, Wade, died in 1996 when high winds swept his Jeep off a North Carolina highway.

"We've been confronted with these kind of traumas and struggles already in our life," Edwards said. "When this happens you have a choice -- you can go and cower in the corner or you can go out there and be tough."

Elizabeth Edwards added: "We're always going to look for the silver lining -- it's who we are as people."

On stage 4 breast cancer...

Bone cancer outlook:

The bone is one of the most common places where breast cancer spreads, and once it does so it is not considered curable.

But it is treatable, and how long women survive depends on how widespread the cancer is in the bone. Many women survive for years. The longer it takes for cancer to spread after the initial tumor, the better the prognosis. Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed in 2004.

Chemotherapy and radiation are standard treatments, along with use of drugs that specifically target the bones called bisphosphonates. Other treatments include hormone therapy if the cancer is responsive to estrogen.

"I will have what will be a less debilitating kind of chemotherapy ... for the rest of my life," Elizabeth Edwards said.

Dr. Lisa Carey, Edwards’ physician, said that initial tests showed some very small suspicious spots elsewhere, but that the therapy focus would be on the bone. Asked where else, she said "possibly involving the lung."

Edwards to Suspend Campaign

John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico.

"At a minimum he's going to suspend" the campaign, the source said. "Nobody knows precisely how serious her recurrence is. It’ll be another couple of days before there’s complete clarity." "For him right now he has one priority which is her health and the security of the two young children," said the friend.

As for the campaign, "You don't shut this machine off completely, but everything will go on hold."

Politico blogs

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting It Wrong

A single, confident source close to John Edwards told me this morning that Edwards was "suspending his campaign," and I posted it to the blog at 11:06 this morning.

My source, and I, were wrong.

The source, whose anonymity I agreed to respect, spoke of the kind of grim prognosis Elizabeth Edwards herself just described hearing before a second round of tests came back. I trusted the source, somebody I've known for several years, and who has always been reliable.

And with less than an hour before Edwards was to announce, I unwisely wrote the item without getting a second source.

When the campaign pushed back harder than I'd expected, I added that information to the original item, but that doesn't undo the damage.

My apologies to our readers for passing on bad information.

Politico blogs

A lot of the reason I really like John Edwards as to do with this. While the Republicans are out preaching family values, the likes of Newt Gingrich trying to divorce his wife while she was in the hospital going through cancer, Mr. Edwards is living family values by stepping to the plate and doing the right thing, putting politics to the side and being with his wife during this time. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Edwards family, Mrs. Edwards, John and the kids.

Hypocrite Christo-Fascists

UPDATED

Even though Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan have resigned from their positions with the John Edwards campaign, the problems and attacks from the fascist radical lunatics have not stopped.

Daily Kos says: As predicted, right wing activists have detected in the sheepish silence of the other Democratic presidential campaigns an opportunity to separate yet more top contenders from the herd, and turn Democrats against Democrats. [snip]

The self-proclaimed "Catholic-based advocacy group" Fidelis has sent essentially identical letters to Clinton (PDF) and Obama (PDF), demanding that they:

"...publicly condemn the anti-Catholic and anti-Christian blog posts by Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan..."

Frameshop says that Donohue's smears and demands that Edwards fire Amanda Marcotte as Blogmaster and Melissa McEwan as the Netroots Coordinator may violate tax laws:

The IRS document Organizational Test – IRC 501(c)(3) (link opens PDF file) states explicitly that an organization with this tax exempt status cannot intervene in a political campaign.

Despite the legal restrictions on his organization, Donohue appears to be using the Catholic League to campaign against John Edwards bid for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President, in particular the IRS strict prohibition for 501(c)(3)'s on "issue advocacy" as a form of political intervention.

And Huffington Post reports: The ramifications of Bill Donohue and the Catholic League's reckless rhetoric has materialized in the form of death threats to bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan. This is what happens when the ultra-right wing is given the megaphone of mainstream media. It is also a complete break down in the responsibility that the media has in vetting those who are given a platform to spread a message.

This is also evidence that ultra-right wing organizations that create messages based on hate and fear find sympathetic audiences with people who think more like citizen-militia than the loyal Catholics that Bill Donohue claims to represent. It is no wonder that there has been no mainstream Roman Catholic group, nor the Church itself, to step forward to support Donohue in his illegal, unethical scalp-seeking tirade against Senator Edwards' bloggers.

Bill Donohue must immediately rescind his hateful comments against these two young women and call on the hate-mongers, which he is responsible for inciting, to cease their threats against Amanda, Melissa, and their families. Call him at 212-371-3191 and demand this.

I'm Spartacus

John Edwards is not being Silent

From Sen. Edward's speech at the DNC Winter Meeting:

We are here because somewhere in America a mother wipes her hand on a dishcloth to go answer a knock on her door ... and opens it to find an army chaplain and an officer standing there with solemn faces and her boy's name - her patriotic son who enlisted after September 11 - on their lips. It doesn't have to be that way.

We are here because somewhere in the world, a 5-year old boy in a refugee camp is bending under the weight of his 2-year old sister. His family massacred, he carries his remaining sister everywhere, and sleeps with his arms wrapped tightly around her, knowing that tomorrow he will have to do the same thing, and again the next day and the day after that because she is all the family he has now. It doesn't have to be that way.

They are why we are here. Because everywhere in America, people are counting on us to stand up for them.

And so I ask you,

Will you stand up for America?

Because if we don't stand up, who will?

Video here: http://www.vsocial.com/video/?d=68265

***Standing with Fist Raised***

NBF