OUTLYING PRECINCTS

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

Obama said he would pursue a vigorous antitrust policy and singled out the media industry as one area where government regulators would need to be watchful as consolidation increases. . . We're going to have an antitrust division in the Justice Department that actually believes in antitrust law. We haven't had that for the last seven, eight years," Obama said. - Reuters

There are two eminent domain issues on the ballot in California one would sweepingly bar "state and local governments from taking or damaging private property for private uses. It prohibits rent control and similar measures, eliminates deference to government in property rights cases, and changes condemnation rules. Fiscal impact includes increased costs to many governments due to the measure's restrictions." It is currently losing by four points in a PPI poll. The desirable alterative "bars the use of eminent domain to acquire an owner-occupied residence for conveyance to a private person or business entity. It creates exceptions for public works, public health and safety, and crime prevention." It is ahead by 25 points

Independent candidate for President Ralph Nader described the current government and economic system of the United States as "corporate fascism" at a campaign event held in Berkeley. "We're living in a country whose democracy is beyond the breaking point. The extent of corporate control has developed into corporate fascism," declared Nader. "We don't have a capitalist economic system - it's corporate fascism. Every major tenet of capitalism is violated by corporate power," said Nader. Only small businesses still practice capitalism, according to Nader. Nader explained that major corporations buy politicians and write the laws through their lobbyists, thus owning the Capitol. They receive billions in government subsidies and hand-outs, but 68 percent of corporations pay no federal income tax, according to Nader. - OpEd News

FIND THE REAL MCCAIN

UNDERVIEWS: OUR PRESIDENTIAL OBSESSION

RICHARD BELL In reading the never-ending conversation among progressives about choosing between an idealistic vote for president or a pragmatic, less-of-two-evils vote, I think we should clearly confront the enormous seduction of presidential politics.

On the one hand, the last office where insurgent political movements are likely to have an impact is the office of President. The playing field is vast, the amount of money involved is in the hundreds of millions, and party hacks have had decades to construct layer after layer of party rules, convention rules, and FEC regulations to minimize the impact of any threat to the underlying economics of the one-party corporate state.

Likewise, the probability of success increases as one moves down the ballot, where the candidates and the voters get closer and closer together.

Yet time and again, especially in presidential election years, we find that the vast majority of progressive energy and money winds up being sucked into the maw of presidential politics, leaving progressive down ballot candidates gasping for resources.

Take money. There is much breast-beating about the huge numbers of small online donors. And compared to having few small donors, the increase has to be welcomed. But one has to stop and ask, what is really going on here? Who's getting this online money? What are the expectations of these online donors? And what will their reactions be when the presidential candidates fail to meet their expectations by, say, not getting out of Iraq?

Look at these numbers from a May 13, 2008 report from the Campaign Finance Institute showing that Democratic House candidates have been outraising their Republican counterparts:

Significantly, these advantages have not been based on the small donor fundraising that has been so important in the first months of 2008 to the presidential campaigns of Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. From Jan. 1, 2007 through March 31, 2008, Obama raised $232 million, 45% of which came in contributions of $200 or less. Clinton raised $172 million over the same fifteen-month period, with 30% coming in amounts of $200 or less.

By way of contrast, the 1,001 House candidates registered so far with the Federal Election Commission raised a total of $447 million between Jan. 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008. Less than 10% of this total arrived in amounts of $200 or less. This is virtually unchanged from past years. At this time in the cycle, candidates had raised 10% of their money in amounts of $200 or less in, 11% in 2004, 12% in 2002 and 15% in 2000. There is little difference among Republicans and Democrats, but incumbents typically raise a lower percentage of their money from small donors than do challengers (10% versus 16% in the 2008 cycle so far).

Even so, challengers and open seat candidates typically bring in more money from self-financing than from small donors. In districts considered to be competitive by the leading political rating services, the best-funded challengers on average have raised the same amount (14%) from small donors and self-financing.

These numbers form a stunning portrait of the seductiveness of presidential politics for the progressive online community. For a movement whose members are constantly talking about change "from the bottom up," the pattern of donations could hardly be more old-school, top down.

I should make clear that I am personally familiar with the giant sucking sound of presidential politics (as Perot might put it), having been a staffer in John Kerry's 2004 run. I have seen the sausage factory up close, and that experience makes me even more leery of progressive strategies that start at the top.

SAM SMITH, SHADOWS OF HOPE, 1994 Much that is written [about national politics] stays comfortably within the two by three mile area in which one finds the White House and the Congress, the Supreme Court and the State Department, the Pentagon, the Watergate and the National Press Club. As typical pasture in the American west, this spread could support about 120 cows and their calves. The tendency to concentrate our view of politics and of our collective selves upon this tiny enclave has accelerated in recent decades in part because of a dramatic shift in power away from fifty "united states" towards an increasingly centralized and powerful federal government.

But it has also been encouraged by a conglomerated media that requires news topics as ubiquitous as its own expanding corporate structures yet which still can be distilled into a single face or story. Thus Congress has lost power relative to the White House not merely for various political reasons, but because 535 legislators are simply too many for the media to handle. TV, in particular, treats politics much as it does wide screen movies; it snips off the right and left sides until the frame fits comfortably within the more equilateral shape of its eye. The edges of our experience are lost and we find ourselves staring at a comfortable center -- which in the case of politics, means we find ourselves endlessly watching the President while much of the rest of American democracy passes unnoticed. This preoccupation with the presidency not only exaggerates the importance of the position, it distorts the constitutional division of political power, denigrates the significance of state and local government and creates pressures for presidential action when such action may be neither wise nor even lawful. We can not, even out of seemingly harmless celebrity worship, imbue our president with supra-constitutional virtues or powers without simultaneously damaging the Constitution and the democratic system it was established to protect. Besides, our presidential fetish badly skews our view of our country and the changes occurring within it -- not only elsewhere in government but beyond politics entirely. It trivializes our own collective and individual roles in creating social and political change. And, conversely, it can create the illusion of great change when far less is really happening.

TO MCCAIN, A CONFLICT OF INTEREST IS JUST A 'PERCEPTION PROBLEM'

WASH POST Tom Loeffler, the national finance co-chairman for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, resigned yesterday because of his lobbying ties, a campaign adviser said. He is the fifth person to sever ties with the campaign amid a growing concern over whether lobbyists have too great an influence over the Republican nominee. . . "The campaign over the last week or so obviously had a perception problem with regards with this whole business of lobbyists and their work," spokesman Brian Rogers said. "This is really all about setting a policy so that we can just get through that perception problem and the issues that come up with regards to lobbyists affiliated with the campaign and move on."

THE SOFTWARE MOST LIKELY TO STEAL ELECTIONS & REMAINS UNCHALLENGED

MICHAEL DEAN, BRAD BLOG The software most likely to steal elections is the ballot definition software loaded onto paper-based optical-scan and DRE (usually, touch-screen) voting machines in county elections offices across the U.S. just before the machines are sealed with security tape and transported to election polling locations.

And yet, the frightening reality is that there is little or no oversight of that software itself, nor of the people --- usually sub-contractors, who could be anyone from a non-U.S. citizen, to a criminal, to a political party operative --- who program that ballot definition software. Moreover, there is little or no testing of such software, despite the fact that it stores the ballot positions for all candidates and initiatives on every ballot, on every voting machine, and tallies the votes for all of them on election day.

For all of the concerns about election fraud, via the electronic voting systems in use across the nation today, and the eye on the source code for the software itself, few seem to have their eye on the ballot definition software, which can --- even on e-voting systems where the hardware, and main program software has been tested, certified, and audited --- succeed in flipping an election without detection, either by error, or on purpose.

Ballot definition software is constructed for each election and defines the ballot positions for each candidate and proposition for each voting precinct. Miami-Dade County in Florida, for example, has 750 voting precincts and usually requires several hundred unique ballot definitions for federal general elections.

Ballot definition software creates the ballot image that people see on the screens of every brand of DRE/touch-screen voting machine. DRE/touch-screen and paper-based optical scan machines use ballot position coordinates, also coded in the software, to determine how finger touches on the touch-screen, or marks on the paper ballot, are mapped to candidate positions on the ballot. The software tabulates finger touches and marks on paper ballots as candidate votes and then stores those tabulated vote counts in the machine’s “virtual ballot box”, the data memory card itself. Finally, ballot definition software then tallies final election results when the polls close on Election Day.

All DRE/touch-screen and paper-based op-scan manufacturers and vendors hold that all software, including the ballot definition software, is proprietary and confidential (a trade secret) and may not be inspected by county election officers, election judges, candidates or citizen election observers. Moreover, judges have accepted this proprietary and confidential argument. . .

The task of creating ballot definition and tallying software is so large and complex that many counties contract the work to voting machine vendors or consulting/programming companies. Most vendor and consulting companies themselves do not maintain a staff of programmers large enough to write all the ballot definition software for all the voting precincts of all their county elections office customers across the U.S. Therefore, the work is often assigned to yet another layer of temporary or sub-contracted programmers. These sub-contractors may, or may not, be U.S. citizens.

Who checks the credentials of all these contract programmers writing "last minute" ballot software? Who asks if contract programmers work for a foreign government, other foreign interest, political party or candidate up for election? Who asks if they have criminal records? Who checks to make sure they do not have connections to a Karl Rove-type political operative? Who performs detailed audits or certification testing of the ballot definition software they write?

The frightening answer to all questions is - no one!

THE LIST: The whitest states and how they voted

From Barackoblogger

Maine Obama

Vermont Obama

West Virginia Clinton

New Hampshire Clinton (Obama lost by 2.6%)

Iowa Obama

North Dakota Obama

Montana

Kentucky

Wyoming Obama

Idaho Obama

South Dakota

Minnesota Obama

Wisconsin Obama

Nebraska Obama

Indiana Hillary (Obama lost by 1.1% to 2%)

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

Memphis voters will be able to decide if there should be instant-runoff voting in municipal elections. Memphis Charter Commission members -- who also decided on the number of city court judges and discussed mayoral succession -- chose to include instant-runoff voting on an ever-increasing list of ballot measures voters will consider that would govern how city government operates for decades to come. With instant-runoff balloting, voters rank their candidates in order of preference. If one candidate gets a majority of first-place votes, that candidate wins outright. If not, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated and his or her ballots get redistributed among the remaining contenders based on the second-place votes. The process continues until a candidate gets a majority and is declared the winner. The current runoff system in some City Council districts results in low turnout and high costs, according to proponents of instant-runoff voting. -Memphis Commercial Appeal

Former Gov. Jesse Ventura said he "may" file the necessary papers to run for the U.S. Senate in the November election. If he doesn't, his former campaign manager will. Both are hinting at a run against Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and likely Democratic candidate Al Franken this fall. The only question seems to be: Will it be Ventura, or the man who helped him become governor? Ventura's former campaign manager, Dean Barkley, now works as a bus driver and gardens as a hobby. "Ear to the dirt, listening to the pulse of the people," he joked Thursday. But Barkley, who was appointed to the Senate for 62 days after Paul Wellstone died in 2002, said he is serious about going to Washington again. . . As for Ventura, he refused to answer questions Thursday from reporters who showed up for his public book signing at Mall of America. "Are you running for Senate?" a reporter asked. "You're the media," Ventura mouthed before taking a question from someone else. He eventually talked about his plans anyway. "Now you're asking me to stop my latest quest, which is surfing," he said when asked about running for office again. Ventura told the crowd that "none of the above" would be a better choice than Norm Coleman or Al Franken. "I may go down and file," he added. "I will be 'none of the above,' and if I win, I'll go to Washington." The Humphrey Institute's Larry Jacobs said the timing just might be right ... again. "If it's Ventura, all bets are off," he said. "Voters are angry. And they're not very happy with the parties and the candidates in front of them."

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee - who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain - joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman. "That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak," said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. "Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor." CNN

WHERE WILL LATINO VOTERS GO AFTER CLINTON?

DID HILLARY CLINTON OUTDRINK JOHN MCCAIN IN ESTONIA?

INTELLECTUAL CRIME WATCH: POST PARTISAN MYTH AT LARGE

One of the more absurd myths circulating in establishment circles is that that Democrats don't get along well enough with GOP right wingers, when, in fact, since Clinton, the Democratic Party has been often virtually indistinguishable from its supposed opposition. Having sensed Obama's willingness to move from handshake to hug with the right, the pressure is on to make this a major campaign theme.

DAVID IGNATIUS, WASH POST One of the most appealing but untested promises of Barack Obama's presidential campaign is that he would break down the partisan divisions in America and govern across party lines. He has a chance to make this gauzy idea of consensus politics concrete in his choice of running mate.

By reaching outside the Democratic Party for his vice presidential nominee -- tapping Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, say, or independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg from New York -- Obama would in an instant demonstrate that he truly means to change the divisive, lose-lose politics of Washington. It would offer a unity government for a country that seems to want one.

THE SWAMPOODLE REPORT

Sam Smith

THE LATEST Rasmussen Reports show a virtual tie between Obama and McCain. What happens when you add in Nader and Barr? - " In a four-way race, Obama earns 42% of the vote, McCain 38%, Bob Barr 6% and Ralph Nader 4%. Given those options, 11% were undecided. Barr picked up 7% of the Republican vote, 5% of the Democratic vote, and 5% of the unaffiliated vote. participants to choose between Barack Obama, John McCain and some other candidate. Nader got 1% of the Republican vote, 3% of the Democratic vote, and 8% support from those not affiliated with either major party."

In short, about 13% of the independent vote, 8% of the GOP and 8% of the Democrats are not happy with either candidate.

This is not surprising. After all, we are faced with a choice between two candidates, both of whom favor a continued major presence in Iraq (yes, Obama does), the proto-fascist Patriot Act and the abominable No Child Left Behind Law. To those who think Obama is inspiring, cute or the first black activist since Martin Luther King they wouldn't mind having in their house, such things are not supposed to matter. But to some they still do.

Here's how I put it when the race narrowed down to Obama vs. Clinton:

"Some will stay home on election day, others will support a Nader or a Green, likely Cynthia McKinney. The Democrats will be, as usual, furious that a certain number of voters still believe we live in a democracy and choose someone other than those assigned to them by the DNC. While Ralph Nader may make what seems to some the wrong political decision, it is a sign of the corrupt, cynical nature of our times to look into the face of moral integrity and dismiss it as an act of ego.

"Even from a tactical standpoint, it is no worse than a Democratic Party that has known for eight years that it was unraveling and failed to do anything for progressives and Greens except to insult them. These folks deserve to be treated at least as well as soccer moms or a hedge fund traders, but instead they are ridiculed and scolded and then the party wonders why they don't get their vote. It is absolutely inconceivable that one could have a party doing as poorly as the Democrats and not have a visible and active opposition.

"People, including many of my friends, will take markedly different approaches to the dilemma. Some will place priority on personal witness – i.e. the Nader or Green approach – and some will take a more pragmatic course. My own view is that politics is inherently more of a pragmatic than a moral matter and that, besides, even if you have the most righteous cause, espousing it in the middle lane of Route 95 at rush hour may not be the best way to go about it. I have long considered myself a backyard Green, believing that history clearly shows the strength of such parties is in their local organizing and not in those all too rare chances to make an impact in a national election."

In the end, there is no right answer. Vote for Nader and perhaps you help to elect McCain. Vote for Obama and you certainly help to elect Obama. And you lose either way.

The best solution - absent a decent major party candidate - is a movement strong enough to force a waffler like Obama in a progressive direction. As it stands, however, Obama will in the Oval Office talking compromise and everyone he'll be talking to will be right of center because progressives have been unable to come up with a clear, simple and unavoidable agenda with a constituency to back it. Notice that when Obama speaks of ending partisanship he only reaches out to the right and never the left.

Still, as Howard Zinn told Counterpunch, "Sometimes the difference between two candidates is an important one in the immediate sense, and then I believe trying to get somebody into office, who is a little better, who is less dangerous, is understandable. But never forgetting that no matter who gets into office, the crucial question is not who is in office, but what kind of social movement do you have. Because we have seen historically that if you have a powerful social movement, it doesn't matter who is in office. Whoever is in office, they could be Republican or Democrat, if you have a powerful social movement, the person in office will have to yield, will have to in some ways respect the power of social movements. . .

"When some people ask me about voting, they would say will you support this candidate or that candidate? I say: "I will support this candidate for one minute that I am in the voting booth. At that moment I will support A versus B, but before I am going to the voting booth, and after I leave the voting booth, I am going to concentrate on organizing people and not organizing an electoral campaign."

In the end, there will be good progressives supporting Obama, Nader or whomever the Greens nominate.

Living in DC, I can have it both ways: suggesting support for Obama in swing states while casting a ballot for Nader or McKinney in overwhelmingly Democratic DC. But whatever the choice, we should treat those of others of our ilk with respect and recognize that the origins of the problem is not in the person making the choice but in the miserable alternatives with which our society presents us.

BARR LIVENS UP THE LIBERTARIAN SCENE

WILLIAM R. HAWKINS ,FRONTPAGEMAGAZINE Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican congressman from 1995- 2003, formally announced his campaign for president on the Libertarian Party ticket on Monday, May 12. It was widely reported that his candidacy will take votes away from the GOP presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, similar to the way Ralph Nader's campaign will hurt the Democratic nominee. But while Barr was a conservative Congressman, he has moved rapidly to the left since breaking with the Republican Party two years ago. He has claimed that a McCain victory would be a "third term" for the Bush administration. On issues of national security and foreign policy, he now sounds more like Nader or Barack Obama. Instead of running to the right of McCain, Barr will be running well to his left - perhaps even further left than the Democratic nominee. Indeed, one of his best-known competitors for the nomination is far-leftist Mike Gravel.

In a video posted on the left-wing Huffington Post the day of his announcement, Barr says, "Only a fool would signal to whatever our adversaries are, whoever our adversaries are, exactly how and when we would be drawing down our troops. But I do believe that it is extremely important, and in the best interests of America's defenses and our security, and our relationship with our allies, that we do begin immediately setting in place a plan to draw down, dramatically decrease the military, the economic and the political footprint that we maintain in Iraq." Barr's vagueness about who the enemy is in Iraq, be it al-Qaeda or Iranian-backed militias, makes it easier for him to ignore the consequences of his proposed withdrawal of all tools of American influence from the region. Allies and those considering whether to align with the United States, are not going to be favorably impressed by a demonstration of American weakness; nor is crippling political divisions at home a persuasive argument for democracy. . .

He is opposed to defending the United States itself from terrorist attack. He joined with Bruce Fein, a notorious critic of the Bush administration who has called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, to form the "American Freedom Agenda." The most consistent theme running through left-wing opinion since September 11, 2001, has been concern for the well-being of the enemy, who must be protected from American counter measures. The Barr-Fein agenda thus calls for extending habeas corpus to alien enemy combatants and amending the Espionage Act to permit journalists to reveal classified national security information without fear of prosecution.

OUTRIGHT LIBERTARIANS We find that though he has shown some welcome evolution on the issues, he has a record that remains notably different from the other Libertarians in the race. Mr. Barr has not completed Outright's Candidate Survey, but is "on the record" regarding two issues key within the LGBT Libertarian community and the broader LGBT electoral base.

First, while we applaud the former Congressman's repudiation of the anti-gay military policy that he drafted for the Wall Street Journal, and the evolution that this represents for Mr. Barr, his opinion on this issue simply moved into the Libertarian mainstream-rather than pushing the debate forward.

On the Defense of Marriage Act-an odious law that Bob Barr co-sponsored as a Congressman-his evolution has been far slower. We have discussed the law with him a number of times, and recently he has telegraphed support for repealing the half of the law that creates a federal definition of marriage. However, he has not consistently campaigned on this point, and seems reluctant to speak of it.

In contrast, Democratic nomination candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has adopted a similar position, yet appears more willing to campaign upon it. Barack Obama has declared that he would repeal the law altogether.

MCCAIN GOT SWEETHEART DEAL FOR BIG BACKER

ARIZONA CENTRAL Sen. John McCain secured millions in federal funds for a land acquisition program that provided a windfall for an Arizona developer whose executives were major campaign donors, public records show. McCain, who has made fighting special-interest projects a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, inserted $14.3 million in a 2003 defense bill to buy land around Luke Air Force Base in a provision sought by SunCor Development, the largest of about 50 landowners near the base. SunCor representatives, upset with a state law that restricted development around Luke, met with McCain's staff to lobby for funding, according to John Ogden, SunCor's president at the time.

The Air Force later paid SunCor $3 million for 122 acres near the base. It was the highest single land transaction of the private lots purchased by the government - three times the county's assessed value and twice the military's estimated value. SunCor also donated another 122 acres. Alan Bunnell, a spokesman for SunCor's parent company, Pinnacle West Capital, said the donation was meant to minimize the company's tax bill and enhance the value of adjacent property it owns.. . .

McCain's campaigns have received $224,000 since 1998 from donors connected to Pinnacle West, including $104,100 for his current presidential run, according to a USA Today analysis of campaign-finance data compiled by the non-partisan CQ MoneyLine. Donors include employees of Pinnacle West and its subsidiaries, employees' spouses and the company's lobbyists and political committees.

Pinnacle West's Chief Executive Officer Bill Post, vice president and lobbyist Robert Aiken and former president Jack Davis, who retired in March, are fundraisers for McCain's current presidential campaign. SunCor President Steve Betts, who joined the company weeks after the military land deal, is a former campaign lawyer for McCain and has raised more than $100,000 for his current campaign.

GREAT THOUGHTS OF JOHN MCCAIN'S PREACHER PAL

BEN SMITH, POLITICO When Sen. John McCain was forced to distance himself from Pastor John Hagee earlier this year, he denounced the pastor's attacks on Catholicism. But asked why he wouldn't "repudiate" Hagee's endorsement of him, McCain found something to praise. "I'm grateful for his commitment to the support of the state of Israel, and I'm very grateful for many of his commitments around the world, including to the independence and freedom of the state of Israel," he told CNN's Campbell Brown on April 29. . .

Hagee, who leads the evangelical group Christians United for Israel, is a proponent of U.S. aid and support for Israel, and he is a major ally of Israeli conservatives who reject any "land for peace" formula in dealing with the Palestinians. But Hagee is viewed with distrust by some Jews and Israelis because his brand of Christian Zionism closely links support for Israel to the end of the world and the conversion of the Jews to Christianity.

Hagee's predictions are very clear. Armageddon, the final battle, could begin, he wrote in his 2007 book "Jerusalem Countdown," "before this book gets published." The Antichrist "will be the head of the European Union," he writes.

Using geographical calculations based on the Book of Revelation, he writes that Israel will be covered in "a sea of human blood" in the final battle. The Jews, however, will survive the battle, Hagee says, long enough to have "the opportunity to receive Messiah, who is a rabbi known to the world as Jesus of Nazareth."

"They will be blessed beyond their wildest imagination," he writes.

A spokesman for McCain, Brian Rogers, said, "John McCain's commitment to the state of Israel is clear, and he respects Pastor Hagee's commitment as well.

CLINTONS' PRIVATE EYE FOUND GUILTY

AP - A Hollywood private investigator was convicted of federal racketeering and other charges for digging up dirt for his well-heeled clients to use in lawsuits, divorces and business disputes against the rich and famous. Anthony Pellicano, 64, was accused of wiretapping stars such as Sylvester Stallone and running the names of others, such as Garry Shandling and Kevin Nealon, through law enforcement databases to help clients in legal and other disputes. Pellicano was found guilty of all but one of the 77 counts against him. He looked at the judge with his arms crossed and didn't react when verdicts were read.

JOSEPH FARRAH, WORLDNET DAILY, JULY 2005 - A significant portion of the [Clinton's] Shadow Team's operations were carried out by private investigators, among them: Terry Lenzner, founder and chairman of the powerful Washington, D.C., detective firm Investigative Group International; high-ticket San Francisco private eye Jack Palladino and his wife Sandra Sutherland; and Hollywood sleuth Anthony J. Pellicano. . .

Hillary's secret police tend to be a tight-lipped bunch, professionally skilled at keeping a low profile. However, we know more about Anthony "The Pelican" Pellicano than about most Hillary operatives, thanks to his boastfulness and taste for the limelight. Pellicano's violent career as a private investigator reveals much about the sorts of qualifications Hillary sought in her Shadow Team.

In the January 1992 issue of GQ magazine, Pellicano boasted of the dirty work he had performed for his clients, including blackmail and physical assault. He claimed to have beaten one of his client's enemies with a baseball bat. "I'm an expert with a knife," said Pellicano. "I can shred your face with a knife."

FBI agents raided Pellicano's West Hollywood office on Nov. 22, 2002, and arrested him on federal weapons charges. In his office, they found gold, jewelry, and about $200,000 in cash - most of it bundled in $10,000 wrappers - thousands of pages of transcripts of illegal wiretaps; two handguns; and various explosive devices stored in safes, including two live hand grenades and a pile of C4 plastic explosive, complete with blasting cap and detonation cord.

OBAMANATION: ALL BECAUSE YOU ASKED FOR IT

CALABASH One of the most exciting and progressive aspects of Senator Barack Obama's candidacy is the incredibly wide range of people he continues to energize and inspire. He has become a true world figure now. One way this can be seen is in the music Obama is inspiring globally. Here is a sampling of some of the tastiest worldbeat music currently being produced as tributes to the hope Barack Obama is bringing to people everywhere.

Track 1: Mighty Sparrow - 'Barack the Magnificent'

First up from Trinidad, is Mighty Sparrow, the Calypso King of the World, whose career spans over five decades and whose music spans the globe.

The respect of the world that we now lack, If you want it back, then vote Barack! Because this time we come out to vote!

Stop the war! Stop genocide in Darfur! No matter what, Get health care for who have not! The Foreign Relations Committee, Can attest to his tenacity, For homeland and job security.

He stood his ground When the war was a conception, Said it was wrong, So he didn't go along, Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton They said of Barack's opinion, "He's a man of resplendent vision! ...

Barack! Barack! On the Senate Affair Committee he's a giant! Barack! Dignifiedly resilient, And with rock star status he's Barack The Magnificent! ...

Barack! Barack! The first black President to lead this mighty nation! Barack! We'll regain worldwide respect with Obama's vision and excellent comprehension!

HOWARD ZINN TALKS ABOUT ANARCHY

COUNTERPUNCH - Ziga Vodovnik: One personal question. Do you go to the polls? Do you vote?

Howard Zinn: I do. Sometimes, not always. It depends. But I believe that it is preferable sometimes to have one candidate rather another candidate, while you understand that that is not the solution. Sometimes the lesser evil is not so lesser, so you want to ignore that, and you either do not vote or vote for third party as a protest against the party system. Sometimes the difference between two candidates is an important one in the immediate sense, and then I believe trying to get somebody into office, who is a little better, who is less dangerous, is understandable. But never forgetting that no matter who gets into office, the crucial question is not who is in office, but what kind of social movement do you have. Because we have seen historically that if you have a powerful social movement, it doesn't matter who is in office. Whoever is in office, they could be Republican or Democrat, if you have a powerful social movement, the person in office will have to yield, will have to in some ways respect the power of social movements. . .

When some people ask me about voting, they would say will you support this candidate or that candidate? I say: "I will support this candidate for one minute that I am in the voting booth. At that moment I will support A versus B, but before I am going to the voting booth, and after I leave the voting booth, I am going to concentrate on organizing people and not organizing electoral campaign."

Ziga Vodovnik: Thoreau once wrote that we have an obligation to act according to the dictates of our conscience, even if the latter goes against the majority opinion or the laws of the society. Do you agree with this?

Howard Zinn: Absolutely. Rousseau once said, if I am part of a group of 100 people, do 99 people have the right to sentence me to death, just because they are majority? No, majorities can be wrong, majorities can overrule rights of minorities. If majorities ruled, we could still have slavery. 80% of the population once enslaved 20% of the population. . . . Democracy has to take into account several things -- proportionate requirements of people, not just needs of the majority, but also needs of the minority. And also has to take into account that majority, especially in societies where the media manipulates public opinion, can be totally wrong and evil. So yes, people have to act according to conscience and not by majority vote.

Ziga Vodovnik: Where do you see the historical origins of anarchism in the United States?

Howard Zinn: One of the problems with dealing with anarchism is that there are many people whose ideas are anarchist, but who do not necessarily call themselves anarchists. The word was first used by Proudhon in the middle of the 19th century, but actually there were anarchist ideas that proceeded Proudhon, those in Europe and also in the United States. For instance, there are some ideas of Thomas Paine, who was not an anarchist, who would not call himself an anarchist, but he was suspicious of government. Also Henry David Thoreau. He does not know the word anarchism, and does not use the word anarchism, but Thoreau's ideas are very close to anarchism. He is very hostile to all forms of government. If we trace origins of anarchism in the United States, then probably Thoreau is the closest you can come to an early American anarchist. You do not really encounter anarchism until after the Civil War, when you have European anarchists, especially German anarchists, coming to the United States. They actually begin to organize. The first time that anarchism has an organized force and becomes publicly known in the United States is in Chicago at the time of Haymarket Affair

Ziga Vodovnik: Most of the creative energy for radical politics is nowadays coming from anarchism, but only few of the people involved in the movement actually call themselves "anarchists." Where do you see the main reason for this? Are activists ashamed to identify themselves with this intellectual tradition, or rather they are true to the commitment that real emancipation needs emancipation from any label?

Howard Zinn: The term anarchism has become associated with two phenomena with which real anarchists don't want to associate themselves with. One is violence, and the other is disorder or chaos. The popular conception of anarchism is on the one hand bomb-throwing and terrorism, and on the other hand no rules, no regulations, no discipline, everybody does what they want, confusion, etc. That is why there is a reluctance to use the term anarchism. But actually the ideas of anarchism are incorporated in the way the movements of the 1960s began to think.

I think that probably the best manifestation of that was in the civil rights movement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- SNCC. SNCC without knowing about anarchism as philosophy embodied the characteristics of anarchism. They were decentralized. Other civil rights organizations, for example Seven Christian Leadership Conference, were centralized organizations with a leader -- Martin Luther King. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were based in New York, and also had some kind of centralized organization. SNCC, on the other hand, was totally decentralized. It had what they called field secretaries, who worked in little towns all over the South, with great deal of autonomy. They had an office in Atlanta, Georgia, but the office was not a strong centralized authority. The people who were working out in the field -- in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi -- they were very much on their own. They were working together with local people, with grassroots people. And so there is no one leader for SNCC, and also great suspicion of government. . .

So SNCC was decentralized, anti-government, without leadership, but they did not have a vision of a future society like the anarchists. They were not thinking long term, they were not asking what kind of society shall we have in the future. They were really concentrated on immediate problem of racial segregation. But their attitude, the way they worked, the way they were organized, was along, you might say, anarchist lines. . .

Ziga Vodovnik: In your People's History of the United States you show us that our freedom, rights, environmental standards, etc., have never been given to us from the wealthy and influential few, but have always been fought out by ordinary people -- with civil disobedience. What should be in this respect our first steps toward another, better world?

Howard Zinn: I think our first step is to organize ourselves and protest against existing order -- against war, against economic and sexual exploitation, against racism, etc. But to organize ourselves in such a way that means correspond to the ends, and to organize ourselves in such a way as to create kind of human relationship that should exist in future society. That would mean to organize ourselves without centralized authority, without charismatic leader, in a way that represents in miniature the ideal of the future egalitarian society. So that even if you don't win some victory tomorrow or next year in the meantime you have created a model. You have acted out how future society should be and you created immediate satisfaction, even if you have not achieved your ultimate goal.

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

A 19-year-old freshman at the University of Oklahoma was elected mayor Tuesday of Muskogee, a city of 38,000 in the northeastern part of the state. With all precincts reporting, John Tyler Hammons won with 70 percent of the vote over former Mayor Hershel Ray McBride, said Muskogee County Election Board Secretary Bill Bull. "The public placing their trust in me is the greatest, humbling and most awesome experience I've ever had in my life," said Hammons, who is from Muskogee but attends the university in Norman. . . Hammons, who will be sworn in next week, said he plans to continue his college education but expects to transfer to a school closer to Muskogee.. . . Hammons said a key to his platform that resonated with voters was openness of government and keeping citizens better informed of city operations. Seattle Post Intelligencer

The Clinton campaign was caught unawares by the NARAL endorsement [of Obama] , which became public as Clinton advisers were holding a conference call with reporters. Asked by a reporter on the call for his response, Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson said, "'Surprised' would be my response" and that Clinton's leadership and advocacy on abortion rights had been "second to none." The endorsement drew angry reaction from Clinton supporters, including Ellen R. Malcolm, the president of Emily's List - a group that raises money to support feminist candidates. Recalling Clinton's long support for pro-choice issues, Malcolm decried NARAL's move as "tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton . . . to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process." Explaining her group's backing of Obama, Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement that she believes Obama is now certain to secure the nomination and that his differences with McCain on abortion rights and the selection of judicial nominees "will be a major reason many voters, especially pro-choice independent and Republican women, will cross party lines to support Sen. Obama in the fall." Mcclatchy

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday that, if elected, he would like to take a page from the British government and appear in question-and-answer sessions with lawmakers. "I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the prime minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons," McCain said in excerpts of a speech he is to deliver later in Columbus, Ohio. Reuters

Ralph Nader, who still uses a manual Underwood typewriter, showed up at Google headquarters where he took questions for about an hour and did a YouTube interview

Alan Keyes, who was recently beaten 3-to-1 for the Constitution Party nomination for President, has decided to continue his run for President as an independent. Keyes is trying to start a new party called America's Independent Party. He has groupings of supporters in Texas, California, Florida, New York and Missouri. In what was their first major ballot-access hurdle, the Keyes campaign has failed to get on the ballot in Texas-collecting only 10,000 signatures. Third Party News

Obama calls TV reporter 'sweetie,' but she gets back at him, An example of spin control spinning out of control: video has 60,000 hits in 24 hours

SO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT APPEASING HITLER?

GUARDIAN, UK, 2004 Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. . .

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman, acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.

Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and grew rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world wars. One of the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web, UBC, worked exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands. More tantalising are Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company, based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labour from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.

Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.

The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen.

The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized.

The third set of documents, also at the National Archives, are contained in the files on IG Farben, who was prosecuted for war crimes.

A report issued by the Office of Alien Property Custodian in 1942 stated of the companies that "since 1939, these (steel and mining) properties have been in possession of and have been operated by the German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable assistance to that country's war effort".

Prescott Bush, a 6ft 4in charmer with a rich singing voice, was the founder of the Bush political dynasty and was once considered a potential presidential candidate himself. . .

In 1924, his father-in-law, a well-known St Louis investment banker, helped set him up in business in New York with Averill Harriman, the wealthy son of railroad magnate E H Harriman in New York, who had gone into banking.

One of the first jobs Walker gave Bush was to manage UBC. Bush was a founding member of the bank and the incorporation documents, which list him as one of seven directors, show he owned one share in UBC worth $125.

The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush's father-in-law to provide a US bank for the Thyssens, Germany's most powerful industrial family.

August Thyssen, the founder of the dynasty had been a major contributor to Germany's first world war effort and in the 1920s, he and his sons Fritz and Heinrich established a network of overseas banks and companies so their assets and money could be whisked offshore if threatened again.

By the time Fritz Thyssen inherited the business empire in 1926, Germany's economic recovery was faltering. After hearing Adolf Hitler speak, Thyssen became mesmerised by the young firebrand. He joined the Nazi party in December 1931 and admits backing Hitler in his autobiography, I Paid Hitler, when the National Socialists were still a radical fringe party. He stepped in several times to bail out the struggling party: in 1928 Thyssen had bought the Barlow Palace on Briennerstrasse, in Munich, which Hitler converted into the Brown House, the headquarters of the Nazi party. The money came from another Thyssen overseas institution, the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvarrt in Rotterdam.

By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the world's largest private investment bank, and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler's build-up to war.

Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to $1m only on a few occasions.

In 1941, Thyssen fled Germany after falling out with Hitler but he was captured in France and detained for the remainder of the war.

There was nothing illegal in doing business with the Thyssens throughout the 1930s and many of America's best-known business names invested heavily in the German economic recovery. However, everything changed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Even then it could be argued that BBH was within its rights continuing business relations with the Thyssens until the end of 1941 as the US was still technically neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The trouble started on July 30 1942 when the New York Herald-Tribune ran an article entitled "Hitler's Angel Has $3m in US Bank". UBC's huge gold purchases had raised suspicions that the bank was in fact a "secret nest egg" hidden in New York for Thyssen and other Nazi bigwigs. The Alien Property Commission (APC) launched an investigation.

There is no dispute over the fact that the US government seized a string of assets controlled by BBH - including UBC and SAC - in the autumn of 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act. What is in dispute is if Harriman, Walker and Bush did more than own these companies on paper. MORE

THE SWAMPOODLE REPORT

Better one Wright wing-nut than a whole party full of right-wing nuts. - Sam Smith

HOW MEDIA USE OF NUMBERS PLAYS THE RACE CARD

Crispin Sartwell, LA Times - American "political analysis" has become obsessed with demographics.For example, pundits and pollsters held that the Democratic contests in Ohio and Pennsylvania between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama turned on the vote of "white working-class men," a constituency seemingly in thrall to Clinton. Those primaries supposedly showed Obama's problem for the general election. . .

This kind of analysis, though it comes in the form of numbers, is both fundamentally non-empirical and fundamentally non-explanatory. Take an election, for example, that finishes 54% to 46% in Clinton's favor. Now say that white working-class men constitute 12% of the vote, and 10 of every 12 of them (10% of the overall vote) go for Clinton. Obviously, white working-class men were the pivot on which the election turned. If Obama could have broken off half the vote that went to Clinton, he would have won: He would have increased his vote by 5% and reduced hers by 5%, and won 51% to 49%.

But notice that the vote of any like-sized segment is equally explanatory. If most "soccer moms" or most "people ages 35 to 44" or most people "with annual incomes between $50,000 and $70,000" or most "people in the southeast corner of the state" voted for Clinton, we can say that had they voted for Obama, he would have won.

So the assertion that the result turned on the votes of white working-class men is completely unsupported by the demographics. It no more turned on that group than on any other substantial group that supported Clinton. . .

The way that polling and demographics slice up the population is, ultimately, a matter of preference; it does not derive from, but is a presupposition of, the "science." Searching for segments of the electorate that vote as a bloc, demographers split the population up into groups they decide are important or salient. And their decisions don't necessarily reflect empirical results -- they are more an index of their own social attitudes, presumptions and prejudices.

It would be nearly as scientific to rig up any segment of the population and regard it as decisive: blue-collar women, black and white, under 35; black men plus Latino women; left-handed divorcees. . .

When you bring a set of racial or gender-based categories to the data, the divisions these attitudes represent will always be confirmed as the most important divisions in our society. That just reinforces the problematic divisions that infested the attitudes of the pollsters in the first place. And then, at the end of each election, our divisions of race, gender and class are, in our imaginations, stronger.

The right response to the notion that "scientific polling" shows that the election outcome turns on white men or black women or soccer moms is a shrug of the shoulders and the arch of an eyebrow.

Sam Smith - Pat Buchanan tried to explain to Chris Matthews that if white voters in West Virginia were voting on the basis of ethnicity, so were black voters in Philadelphia, but the former gets much greater media attention. Matthews didn't want to hear, perhaps because he may be planning to run for Senator in Pennsylvania and needs the black vote, but the point is correct. The media has no way of knowing from poll results whether choices have been made out of ethnic prejudice, ethnic loyalty or a totally unrelated issue. But it doesn't help ethnic relations to suggest that white voters who don't vote for a black candidate are prejudiced, while giving black voters voting for a black candidate a pass. There are, in fact, striking similarities between prejudice by whites against blacks and that of white liberals against poor whites. And it certainly doesn't help to call someone you've just dubbed a racist a "hillbilly."

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

Kinky Friedman describes Rev Wright's speech as "another instance of black on black crime."

Lots of talk of whites not voting for Obama, but the latest Zogby poll says antipathy towards all three candidates is pretty even. Asked which candidate they would never vote for, 49% said Clinton, 44% said Obama and 42% said McCain. One of Obama's really dangers is that the media will make more of ethnic differences that they deserve and help to propel them much as it did with the Rev. Wright business.

HOW MUCH PUBLIC OFFICE HAS ENRICHED THE CANDIDATES

· HILLARY CLINTON: $6 million a year

· JOHN MCCAIN: $2.5 million a year

· BARACK OBAMA: $250,000 a year

WHY POLITICIANS LIKE OBAMA ARE SCARED TO TALK ABOUT ISRAEL

OBAMA PLAYS THE FAITH CARD HARD

OBAMA ADDS FAITH TO HOPE & CHANGE

OBAMA REALITY CHECK: GLIMPSES OF A GOSSAMER

WARNING: THIS MAY NOT BE AN EXACT REPLICA
OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS PACKAGE

Now that the canonization of Barack Obama, aided by his media acolytes, has slowed a bit, it may be considered less than blasphemy to examine what this circus hath wrought. After all, at some point, even in a mythological age, reality raises its ugly head. What follows are glimpses of a gossamer with all the uncertainty that such an effort involves. After all, even with the best tools, it is hard to measure precisely a ghost.

THE COMPETITION

Obama would almost certainly be a better president than either Bush or his preferred heir apparent, John McCain.

He would also likely be a better president than Bill Clinton. The reasons for this are several. He is vastly more honest. This doesn't mean he is without guile - far from it - but it is, for him, apparently a fallback position rather than, as with Clinton, the first thing you exercise upon arising. Further, even though he comes from Chicago, the worst anyone has been able to hang on him is Tony Rezko. Obama has not been impeached, the governmental equivalent to a criminal indictment. And he has not proclaimed a deep concern for minorities and working class whites while simultaneously screwing them. Finally, Obama would probably bring to an end the 28 year Reagan - Bush - Clinton - Bush era that has been disastrous to America.

HONESTY & CONSISTENCY

Obama does mislead, and not unintentionally it would seem. For example, Obama repeatedly uses the politician's trick of providing desriptions of a problem as a substitute for a prescription. This allows him to delude voters into thinking he has sympathy with them without the need to offer solutions.

Has deceived the voters by not telling them that he would keep American troops in Iraq and he a tendency to shift on a number of issues, such as NAFTA and policy towards Iran, depending on the media tenor of the moment.

Misled on extent on lobbyist support

Wrote in his own book, "I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

ARROGANCE

Four years ago, Obama was an obscure state senator representing part of one of America's most corrupt and machine-run cities. He is now running as God's gift to America and clean government based on this past, plus what he would like have been a temp job in the U. S. Senate.

JUST WORDS

Obama's use of southern pulpit cadence and inflection gives him an unfounded reputation for eloquence. His actual words are often corny and trite. He relies on cliches such as hope and change that have far more common with ad agencies than with philosopher kings. He also loses his command of metaphor and meaning when he is removed from a teleprompter and asked some questions, a weakness reflected in his antipathy towards news conferences.

MINORITIES

Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has built his campaign around genetic identity rather than on political principles and issues.

Wouldn't have photo taken with San Francisco mayor because he was afraid it would seem that he supported gay marriage

BUSINESS INTERESTS

Has offered few good ideas about how to handle the current economic crisis.

Cass Sunstein, a constitutional advisor to Obama, told Jeffrey Rosen of the NY Times: "I would be stunned to find an anti-business [Supreme Court] appointee from either [Clinton or Obama]. There's not a strong interest on the part of Obama or Clinton in demonizing business, and you wouldn't expect to see that in their Supreme Court nominees."

Wrote that conservatives and Bill Clinton were right to destroy social welfare,

Supported making it harder to file class action suits in state courts

Voted for a business-friendly "tort reform" bill

Voted against a 30% interest rate cap on credit cards

Had the most number of foreign lobbyist contributors in the primaries

Is even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain

Was most popular of the candidates with K Street lobbyists

Voted against a 30% interest rate cap on credit cards

In 2003, rightwing Democratic Leadership Council named Obama as one of its "100 to Watch." After he was criticized in the black media, Obama disassociated himself with the DLC. But his major economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, is also chief economist of the conservative organization. Writes Doug Henwood, "Goolsbee has written gushingly about Milton Friedman and denounced the idea of a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures."

Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer: "Top hedge fund honcho Paul Tudor Jones threw a fundraiser for him at his Greenwich house last spring, 'The whole of Greenwich is backing Obama,' one source said of the posh headquarters of the hedge fund industry. They like him because they're socially liberal, up to a point, and probably eager for a little less war, and think he's the man to do their work. They're also confident he wouldn't undertake any renovations to the distribution of wealth."

NEW IDEAS

Has produced no interesting new ideas nor promised to fight for any important new programs

CITIES

Has no meaningful urban policy

BUSH REGIME

Has not dealt with the criminality of Bush's use of torture.

Aggressively opposed impeachment action against Bush.

RELIGION

Has run his campaign as though leading a cult rather than a political movement.

Has indicated a willingness to name rightwing Christians to his cabinet.

CONSERVATIVES

Went to Connecticut to support Joe Lieberman in the primary against Ned Lamont

Paul Street, Z Mag - Obama has lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and other Wall Street Democrats to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party. . . Obama was recently hailed as a Hamiltonian believer in limited government and free trade by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having "a mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS." . . .

Times, UK - Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar, leader of the Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee. Senior advisers confirmed that Hagel, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, was considered an ideal candidate for defence secretary.

Richard Lugar was rated 0% by SANE. . . rated 0% by AFL-CIO. . . rated 0% BY NARAL. . . rated 12% by American Public Health Association. . . rated 0% by Alliance for Retired Americans. . . rated 27% by the National Education Association. . . rated 5% by League of Conservation Voters. . . He voted no on implementing the 9/11 Commission report. . . Vote against providing habeas corpus for Gitmo prisoners. . .voted no on comprehensive test ban treaty. . .voted against same sex marriage. . . strongly anti-abortion. . . opposed to more federal funding for healthcare. . .voted for unconstitutional wiretapping. . .voted to increase penalties for drug violations

Chuck Hagel was rated 0% by NARAL. . . rated 11% by NAACP. . . rated 0% by Human Rights Coalition. . . rated 100% by Christian Coalition. . . rated 12% by American Public Health Association. . . rated 22% by Alliance for Retired Americans. . . rated 36% by the National Education Association. . . rated 0% by League of Conservation Voters. . . rated 8% by AFL-CIO. . . He is strongly anti-abortion. . .voted for anti-flag desecration amendment. . .voted to increase penalties for drug violations. . . favors privatizing Social Security

PROGRESSIVES

Dissed Nader for daring to run for president again

Called the late Paul Wellstone "something of a gadfly"

Progressive Punch ranks Obama 24th in the Senate.

FOREIGN POLICY

Has no clear plan to leave Iraq and Afghanistan.

His top Iraq advisor wrote that America should keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010. Obama, in his appearances, blurs the difference between combat soldiers and other troops and has given no indication that he would reduce the massive mercenary force in Iraq.

Has hawkish foreign policy advisors involved in past US misdeeds and failures

Would probably be good at international negotiations.

Would improve America's image abroad, at least until he did something stupid.

Supports Israeli aggression and apartheid. Obama has deserted previous support for two-state solution to Mid East situation

Has voted numerous times to continue funding the war

Favored cluster bomb ban in civilian areas

Promises not to sign a trade bill without environmental and labor protections.

Won't rule out first strike nuclear attack on Iran

Called Pakistan "the right battlefield ... in the war on terrorism." Threatened to invade Pakistan

AP - He would return the country to the more "traditional" foreign policy efforts of past presidents, such as George H.W. Bush, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. At a town hall event at a local high school gymnasium, Obama praised George H.W. Bush - father of the president - for the way he handled the Persian Gulf War: with a large coalition and carefully defined objectives. . . "The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush's father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan, and it is George Bush that's been naive and it's people like John McCain and, unfortunately, some Democrats that have facilitated him acting in these naive ways that have caused us so much damage in our reputation around the world," he said.

ECOLOGY

Voted for a nuclear energy bill that included money for bunker buster bombs and full funding for Yucca Mountain.

Comes in at 48th in the ranking of senators by the League of Conservation Voters

Won't oppose nuclear power

Supports federally funded ethanol

CIVIL LIBERTIES

Supports the war on drugs

Supports the crack-cocaine sentence disparity

Supports Real ID

Voted against immunity for telecoms' illegal spying on Americans

Supports the PATRIOT Act

Supports the death penalty

Opposes lowering the drinking age to 18

Helped fight for restoration of habeas corpus at Gitmo.

Refused to take a position on the anti-constitutional Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

PUBLIC EDUCATION

Supports No Child Left Behind

Supports charter schools

DEMOCRACY

Has inspired a lot of young and minority voters to get involved in politics

HEALTH

Opposes single payer healthcare

Supported restricting damage awards in medical malpractices suits

Favors healthcare individual mandates that would help insurance companies and banks but not citizens

Received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006

SOCIAL SECURITY

Says "everything is on the table" with Social Security. Clinton seems slightly more supportive of the classic Democratic program

PROSPECTS

At worst, Obama will be one more fox placed in the chicken coop of democracy by the corporations and their outsourced workers in the media and politics. At best, he will rebel against his upbringing and offer America something new and better. Most likely, however, is that he will serve as a deeply frustrating transition between what should never have happened and what needs to be done - stabilizing our national dysfunctions as they continue to await proper and necessary treatment.

DON'T CRY FOR ME, ARKANSAS

Nostalgic moments from the Clinton years. With almost perfect timing we come to the end of our tribute to the Clinton years even as Hillary Clinton seems to be coming to the end of her campaign.

DAILY MAIL, UK: Bill Clinton bid a reluctant farewell to the White House on Saturday, taking an unprecedented $200,000 worth of furnishings to remember it by. The items included works of art, chinaware and rugs - many of them gifts from the ex-president's supporters in Hollywood - amassed during his eight years in office.

DRUDGE REPORT: The Bush Administration has quietly launched an investigation into apparent acts of vandalism and destruction of federal property - after incoming Bush staffers discover widespread sabotage of White House office equipment and lewd messages left behind by previous tenants . . . The damage left by departing Clintonites goes "way beyond pranks, to vandalism", said a close Bush adviser . . . According to sources, so far Bush officials have found: Phone lines were cut . . . Voice mail messages were changed to obscene, scatological greetings . . . Many phone lines misdirected to other government offices . . . Desks found turned completely upside down and trash deliberately left everywhere . . . Computer printers that were filled with blank paper but interspersed with pornographic pictures and obscene slogans that would be revealed only as items were run off the computer . . . 'W' keys weren't just pried off more than 40 keyboards, some were glued on with Superglue; some were turned upside down and glued on . . . Filing cabinets glued shut . . . VP Office space in the Old Executive Office Building found in complete shambles. Mrs. Gore had to phone Mrs. Cheney to apologize . . . Lewd Magic Marker graffiti found on one office hallway.

DAVID WASTELL, LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Former President Clinton is offering to repay the cost of vandalism by his outgoing staff when they left their offices on Jan. 20, once he is given a complete list from the Bush White House of the damage reportedly done . . . President Bush has ordered that no action be taken against officials of Mr. Clinton and Al Gore, the former vice president, in effect granting his first presidential "pardon." Mr. Bush's order was an attempt to calm the massive uproar in the media over reported theft and damage in the White House that was beginning to overshadow the opening days of his administration and sour relations with his predecessor.

THE LAST WORD I feel sometimes defending President Clinton is like being in the Mafia - you just can't get out. You know, I'm like Michael Corleone. How do I get out of this business?" - James Carville on the Bill O'Reilly show

NY TIMES PUBLISHES WIERD ANTI-OBAMA PIECE

RICHARD SILVERSTEIN, TIKUN OLAM Edward Luttwak, one of Ronald Reagan's original cold warriors, has channeled Daniel Pipes in the N.Y. Times op-ed section today, claiming preposterously that a President Obama will be in danger because Islamists will view his as a Muslim apostate and try to kill him. . .

Of course, no Islamist has ever uttered a word about Obama's alleged apostasy let alone advocated killing him nor does Luttwak claim as such. In fact, the McCain campaign has pounced on an endorsement from a Hamas spokesperson (so much for Islamists wanting to kill Obama). . . .

Luttwak once again refers to Obama's so-called "Muslim heritage,"which is non-existent. The author's justification? No matter how Obama defines himself, Muslims define him as Muslim: As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood.

So "universally understood" in fact, that I have never heard a genuine Muslim advance this concept. Another distortion of Islam inherent in this statement is that there is a unitary "universal standard" of Muslim belief. Besides, this notion that Obama is Muslim despite the fact that he is a believing Christian flies in the face of a sacred American tradition-that in this land of freedom and self-expression we define our own identity and refuse to allow others to do this for us.

I find it ironic that those excellent imams Pipes and Luttwak (I wonder where they could've earned those advanced degrees in Islamic theology?) have been telling Americans how Muslims will view Obama, while no Muslim has ever advanced the views they espouse. Could it be that their knowledge of modern Islam is deficient or that in their need to smear both Islam and Obama they have gone off the deep end?