There are two links I want to bring to your attention this morning. The first is the Washington Post story about Sen. Obama's victories in Maryland, Virginia and DC in yesterday's primaries. If you read almost the whole way through the article, you'll get to the part where it discusses the demographic breakdowns of the voters--- specifically, that Sen Obama did not just win by carrying large majorities of young voters or minority voters, but that he won in nearly every demographic subgroup. Young or old, black or white, liberal or moderate-- all turning out to vote in record numbers to put Sen. Obama in the White House and bring real change to our country.

The second link is also about the campaign, and that is The Nation's endorsement of Sen. Obama as "the best chance to forge a new progressive majority." For those of you who read this blog and may still be sitting on the fence, I highly recommend reading it.

What an exciting day Super Tuesday was. First I went on the airwaves to talk about Obama's campaign for change and what's at stake in the upcoming election.  I spoke on the radio with Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, and Warren Ballentine in the morning.  

Then in the afternoon, I went to Baltimore for the opening of that city's Obama campaign headquarters.  Our next block of primaries are scheduled for Tuesday in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia so the Illinois Senator is focused on a strong showing in a week.  

But everyone was focused about the Super Tuesday primaries Tuesday at the Baltimore opening in what was a big media event.  My colleague Congressman Elijah Cummings came as well as the Maryland Comptroller, Baltimore's mayor, city council president, and other local elected officials.

Here are some pictures from the event on my Flickr.com site. 

After Obama's big performance on Tuesday we are very much looking forward to the Maryland, Virginia and DC primaries.  Since these states are close to the Capitol, I plan to campaign for Obama.  Maybe I'll see you on the trail.

I only have a minute, because I've got to catch a plane to Hartford,
Connecticut, but I just wanted to share with all of you the excitement
I sense out on campaign trail for Barack Obama.  I spent the day in
Delaware yesterday, talking with members of the Delaware Legislative
Black Caucus, attorneys in Wilmington and Longshoremen at the local
union hall.  I met so many people who, like me, are ready for a real
change in the White House-- not just a change of party, but a new
vision for what is possible in America if we work together.  I will
write more from Connecticut, and hopefully post some photos, too.

Last night we heard President George Bush give his final address to Congress on the State of the Union and really, we didn't hear much. Sure, we heard the usual platitudes about Iraq and the same empty call for bipartisan cooperation that he has repeated for the last seven years. We heart the President ask that his tax cuts for the wealthy be made permanent and for Congress to jam through FISA legislation in the next four days, a move that would almost surely result in immunity for telecom companies.

But what we did not hear from President Bush was anything about the state of the Americans whose lives are affected most by his failed policies. He offered nothing to those who have been hit by the subprime mortgage crisis, or families with two parents each working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. We did not hear about the 47 million Americans without health insurance, or the 10 million children who would have insurance through S-CHIP if the President didn't repeatedly veto the legislation.

Near the end of his speech, the President asked us to "trust the people," and promised that as long as we do so, "our Nation will prosper, our liberty will be secure, and the State of our Union will remain strong." There's a great post on DailyKos about that passage, showing a series of statistics of how many Americans disagree with the President on Iraq, warrantless surveillance and torture. I am also certain that if you asked the millions of Americans in danger of foreclosure, or bankruptcy due to medical bills, or parents with children in failing schools, they would have a very different take on the state of our union than the President. So in that last section of the address, I found a ray of hope--a year from now, we will be addressed by a new President, and I trust that the people will reflect on the hardships and disappointments brought on by the Bush Administration, and that they will elect someone ready to lead the country in a new direction.

There was a big health care conference in Washington DC yesterday and I used this opportunity to speak out in favor of single payer universal health care. My bill, HR 676, has gained 88 cosponsors and continues to attract support. The national UAW and SEIU have endorsed the bill along with leading health care organizations and thousands of doctors and nurses.

I recorded a number of interviews at the event and here is video of a feature I did with Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News.

Yesterday I introduced legislation to criminalize the practice known as caging, by which mail is sent to a voter's registered address and if it is returned as undeliverable, that voter is added to a list of registrations that may be challenged at the polls.  It is a tactic used to suppress and intimidate voters--often in minority communities, on college campuses and among members of the armed forces serving overseas. 

The Caging Prohibition Act of 2008 would make it illegal to use the lists created by campaigns and private organizations' caging efforts as a tool for challenging voters' rights.  As of right now, the bill has nine co-sponsors and I certainly hope that more Members of Congress will join us in the fight to bar this egregious practice of large-scale, methodical voter suppression.  I will keep you updated as the bill moves forward, but for now, if you want more information, The Raw Story has a post about it.

We're hitting the ground running at the Judiciary Committee this first week back in session. As the AP reported yesterday, I was joined by 18 other Committee Democrats on a letter to the Attorney General requesting that he appoint a special counsel to investigate the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes. An independent investigator is critical to a fair and thorough handling of this case.

From reading the comments on this blog, I know that many of you have been paying close attention to the conflict between NBC and Rep. Dennis Kucinich's campaign over his inclusion in tonight's debate in Nevada.  I just want to chime in on that and say that I agree that it is unfair and undemocratic of NBC to attempt to exclude Rep. Kucinich from the debate.  (For the moment, it looks like he will be included thanks to a District Court judge's ruling yesterday, though NBC is currently appealing the decision.)

Although I have endorsed Sen. Obama and hope to see him as our nominee, I hope that NBC will reconsider its position and allow Rep. Kucinich to debate.  The primary election process is one of the most important ways in which our party can examine the matters most important to us, especially those issues on which we find difference of opinion.  Rep. Kucinich brings a perspective to the debates that is important for all of us to hear, including his fellow presidential candidates.

This past Sunday, the New York Times Magazine had a pretty jarring image on its cover--a voting booth with an explosion coming out of it and a warning label, "WARNING: Your vote may be lost, destroyed, miscounted, wrongly attributed or hacked." The accompanying story discussed the problems of touch-screen voting at length.

I highly recommend taking the time to read the whole article, but I just want to highlight a section that I found particularly compelling. On top of all of the technical problems that electronic voting machines have, and the near-impossibility of verifying their accuracy, there is also a fundamental issue of the privatization of our elections: "Vendors do not merely sell machines to elections departments. In many cases they are also paid to train poll workers, design ballots and repair broken machines, for years on end." The author also makes an excellent point by comparing this problem to the out-sourcing of military responsibilities in Iraq to private contractors. By handing over the core functions of our government to private companies--whether Blackwater in Iraq or Diebold in Cuyahoga County, OH--we are ceding part of our democracy.

I should also point out that while I was glad to see the New York Times cover this issue last weekend, and I hope that they will continue to do so as the 2008 election heats up, none of the issues with electronic voting that they discuss are particularly new. Bloggers have been covering these problems for years, especially folks like Brad Friedman, and I would encourage you to pay a visit to his analysis of the article as well.

There is an incredibly compelling article in today's New York Times about a financial crisis that threatens to close Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, GA. As Atlanta's only public hospital, Grady serves the majority of the region's uninsured and underinsured.

The article gives a snapshot of what the quality of health care is like for those who do not have adequate insurance and sadly, it is a picture that could be taken anywhere in America. The need for serious reform of our health care system grows greater by the minute.