Hillary Clinton has taken a 44-42% lead in North Carolina, at least according to the latest Southern Political Report.

That’s a massive shift from a mid-April poll by Insider Advantage/SPP, in which the Glacier had a double-digit deficit. The shift is, unsurprisingly, mainly amongst white voters.

In an effort to “help fund struggling hospitals”, New Jersey lawmakers are reportedly considering the implementation of a “sin” tax on fast food. No matter how many times you read this story, it never sounds less ridiculous than the first.

Yes, the idea of marking up your favorite fast food burger or pack of fries is actually being tossed around, and it’s not settling well with many residents.

“They’re taxing everything. Now you’re gonna tax fast food? That’s crazy,” said Newark resident Miriam Robertson…

The thought of taxing a Big Mac or a Wendy’s burger came up at a New Jersey Hospital Association meeting where Gov. Jon S. Corzine was asked if it could be an option to help fund struggling hospitals. At the meeting, he reportedly called it a “constructive suggestion.”

A spokesman for Governor Corzine, probably best known for problems with seat belts, says many options are being considered. However, says the spokesman, there’s currently no plan to tax fast food. The very fact is was considered, however, is pathetic.

Just ignore the fact that he associated with an America-hating, conspiracy theorist for 20 years. Don’t let it become a long-term “distraction”.

“What we want to do now, though, is to make sure that this doesn’t continue to be a perpetual distraction,” he said.

“It is true that part of the job when you’re running for president is that anybody who is tangentially, you know, even remotely, associated with you is somehow fair game. And that’s unfortunate because most of us in our lives, you know, we meet people, we know people, some people we work with or we sit on a board with. We don’t really go vet them and find out all the terrible things they might have done because, you know, we don’t know, or what they said to see if it’s politically correct. Look, the truth is when you are running for president, that’s part of the deal. And I accept that because I think it’s important for the American people to know who I am and what my values are and what I stand for.”

Obama was more than “remotely” associated with Wright, as has been documented in the blogosphere for weeks. This is a man he chose to listen to for 20 years, baptize his children, marry him and his wife, and advise his presidential campaign. Wright was even responsible for the title of one of Obama’s best-selling books, The Audacity of Hope.

Obama suggested the Wright controversy and others are getting in the way of solving problems.

“Unfortunately, I think, over the last couple of months, instead of focusing on how do we can make everybody’s lives better, and how do we make sure that everybody can make their kids achieve the American dream, there’s been a lot of distractions and negative attacks,” he said. “We want to get back to talking about you. This campaign is not about me. It’s not about John McCain. It’s not about Hillary Clinton. It’s about you.”

The campaign is very much about you, Barry. We’re choosing our next president, and we need to examine his positions, judgment, and honesty. You have no experience, instead running your campaign solely on your “judgment”, which is apparently bad considering your long-term, willful association with Wright, Ayers, etc.. Simply calling any questioning of your past judgment a “distraction” isn’t acceptable.

Appearing at his side, Michelle Obama also stressed that her husband should not be judged by the words or actions of others.

“Don’t judge Barack by anything other than what he does and says. Just measure it by the choices he’s made in his life,” she said. “If anybody looks over the course of this year, you won’t have a question about who Barack is. He has been very consistent, not just this year, but throughout his entire life.”

He is being judged by the “choices he’s made”. He’s chosen to associate with an  America-hating, conspiracy theorizing, hate monger. He’s chosen to associate with an unrepentant domestic terrorist.

The Obamas seem to demand you judge Barack by the “choices he’s made”, but once you bring up the litany of bad choices, you’re only bringing up “distractions”.

The question is: Will this man actually succeed in pulling the wool over the eyes of the American electorate?

The lady who brought you “This is the first time I’ve been proud of my country” will sit down with Anderson Cooper tonight. The two will discuss Obama’s pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Commerce Department announced Wednesday that the U.S. economy grew by just .6% in the first quarter of ‘08. While that number is dismal in ways of growth, it does not meet the accepted definition of a “recession”, which is classified as a retraction of the economy.

Many analysts were predicting that the gross domestic product (GDP) would weaken a bit more—to a pace of just 0.5 percent—in the first quarter. Earlier this year, some economists thought the economy would actually lurch into reverse during the opening quarter. Now, they say they believe that will likely happen during the current April-to-June period.

“The economy is weak but not collapsing,” said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America’s Investment Strategies Group. “A recession can’t be ruled out, although the stars are not lined up at this point to definitively say one way or the other.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is expected to lower a key interest rate by an additional 1/4 percent Wednesday, lowering it to just 2%.

You have got to be kidding me. Michael Pfleger? Michael Pfleger? Did Obama fall out of a stupid tree, hitting every stupid branch on the way down, only to fall on a pile of stupid sticks?

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports Obama felt betrayed and Wright felt sand-bagged. Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church said he has been speaking to both men as the events of the past 24 hours unfolded.

He counseled Obama Tuesday morning, and while CBS 2 talked to him Tuesday evening, Rev. Wright called his cell phone.

Who else comes to Obama’s defense?

Mayor Richard M. Daley called the current flap a dangerous distraction.

Because you know what Obama needed right about now? His name associated with “Mayor Daley”.

Via Michelle Malkin.

According to a (supposedly) well-placed source for The New York Post, Rev. Jeremiah Wright is attempting to get even with Obama for essentially disavowing him.

“After 20 years of loving Barack like he was a member of his own family, for Jeremiah to see Barack saying over and over that he didn’t know about Jeremiah’s views during those years, that he wasn’t familiar with what Jeremiah had said, that he may have missed church on this day or that and didn’t hear what Jeremiah said, this is seen by Jeremiah as nonsense and betrayal,” said the source, who has deep roots in Wright’s Chicago community and is familiar with his thinking on the matter…

The source noted that the roots of Wright’s disillusionment with Obama began last year after the Illinois senator unexpectedly yanked him from participating in the public announcement of his presidential campaign.

“That’s why Jeremiah revealed … that he had actually been at the [announcement] hotel and prayed privately with the Obama family before the official declaration,” the source told The Post…

The source added, “After 20 years of loving Barack like he is one of their own, after he was embraced by this congregation as a brother in Christ, after his pastor was a father figure to him and gave him credibility in a city he had not grown up in and in a black community that was suspect of someone from Hawaii and Harvard, he thanks him by not allowing him to speak publicly at his announcement last year?

“A lot of people in the church believe they were there for this man when no one else was, and a lot of people don’t believe it any more when Obama claims he loves the man who did so much for him,” the source added.

So now, the source claims, Wright is seeking his revenge. Allahpundit notes that Wright’s disenchantment over not getting invited to the launch of Obama’s campaign is well-documented.

I hypothesized that Wright may not be overly concerned with Obama winning, considering it wouldn’t be great for business. It’s difficult to sell theories of a white supremacist America that intentionally kills black people when the President of the United States is, himself, black. In fact, it may simply be a case of Wright seeking revenge.

At a time when Obama is attempting to distance himself from his pastor of 20 years, this doesn’t seem like such a great idea.

On Monday of this week — timed, purposely or coincidentally, within mere hours of Rev. Wright’s speech to the National Press Club — the Obama campaign sent an email to supporters in which they offered, in exchange for a small donation, a “limited-edition DVD and print” of Mr. Obama’s March speech (entitled “A More Perfect Union”) addressing Rev. Wright, Trinity Church, and race in America.

In that speech, Mr. Obama refused to throw his longtime friend and counselor under the proverbial bus, instead claiming that the white majority in this country couldn’t understand Wright’s anger and hate-filled comments because they weren’t black, and lacked the formative experiences that made men like Wright what they were.

That would be the same speech where Obama refused to condemn Wright, instead saying:

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”

All of a sudden he starts tumbling in the polls, and he miraculously finds a way to do it. Amazing.

The Democratic National Committee plans to spend a lot of money attacking McCain this year, including using claims that are nothing short of lies. Thus far its most infamous lie is the “100 year war” meme. FactCheck.org, a non-partisan website that fact checks the claims of politicians and political groups, again corrects Dean & Co. on that lie.

It’s one thing to argue, as Dean does, that McCain’s position is a recipe for continued violence and bloodshed, whatever his stated intent. But it is another thing to misrepresent that intent. The ad twists the sense of McCain’s words by showing images of war, when he was really talking about a peaceful troop presence. Imagine how different the ad would seem if it showed images of, say, American troops walking the streets of Tokyo or Seoul and had included what McCain said about “Americans … not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”

Anyone who didn’t already know the fuller version of McCain’s answer could easily be fooled into thinking that McCain would be perfectly happy to see the war continue. McCain has said quite clearly that he considers Democratic proposals for a quick withdrawal from Iraq to be “surrender,” and so deadly fighting could well continue longer under a President McCain than under either a President Hillary Clinton or a President Obama. But what the DNC ad conveys is the opposite of what McCain said.

Don’t expect that to stop the DNC from using the false meme again and again. Now FactCheck attacks another DNC lie, this time on the economy.

Nevertheless, two of the DNC’s factual claims are untrue. … While McCain says “a lot of jobs have been created,” the ad shows a graphic that states, “1.8 million jobs lost.” McCain is correct and the ad is wrong. Total nonfarm employment was nearly 5.4 million higher last month than it was when President Bush took office in January 2001, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the standard measure of jobs, and it means 5.4 million have been created.

The DNC defends its claim of “jobs lost” by pointing to the total number of persons who were without jobs in March. That figure is 1.8 million higher than it was when Bush was sworn in. But it doesn’t mean that many jobs were lost, it means that the job gain didn’t keep pace with the number of persons who are seeking work. The ad would have been correct to say that there are “1.8 million more unemployed.” That stark statistic doesn’t contradict McCain’s statement that lots of jobs were created, however. It means not enough were created to satisfy the need.

Ed Morrissey notes hypocrisy on the “unemployment” front.

They also complain that unemployment is “up”. Unemployment has risen to 5.1%, but that hardly qualifies as high. It beats the average American unemployment since 1948, which is 5.6%. Coincidentally, that was the same unemployment level in the US in 1996, when Democrats described it as “low” during Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign.

Apparently the DNC intends to lie itself to the White House.

The S&P has lowered its rating of New York Times stock to “BBB-” — one level above “junk bond”.

Credit-ratings agency Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on Tuesday cut its long-term rating on newspaper publisher The New York Times Co., as its advertising revenue continues to fall.

S&P cut its corporate credit rating and senior unsecured debt rating to “BBB-” from “BBB.”

“BBB-” is one notch above “junk bond” status. The ratings were removed from CreditWatch, but the outlook is negative, meaning another downgrade could occur.

Shares fell 35 cents to $19.96. Ouch.