A page for randomness

Republican presidential candidate John McCain cashes his monthly Social Security checks despite calling the federal program “a disgrace,” the Associated Press reports.

“I’m receiving benefits,” McCain told campaign reporters, but added, “the system is broken.”

In 2007, he received benefits of $23,157 from Social Security, approximately $1,930 a month. The maximum monthly benefit under Social Security is $2,185. Social Security benefits are determined by age at retirement.

McCain, who is 71, has received benefits since he was 65.

Last week, McCain told observers at a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, Ohio, “Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers … and that’s a disgrace.”

B.J. Jarrett from the Social Security Administration said that individuals can refuse retirement benefits.

In 2006, McCain’s wife Cindy earned $6 million, and has a net worth of approximately $100 million.

Source: McCain gets $1,930 a month from ‘broken’ Social Security system - San Francisco Business Times:

Of all the constitutionally threatening and extremist powers the Bush administration has asserted over the last seven years, the most radical — and the most dangerous — has been its claim that the President has the power to arrest U.S. citizens and legal residents inside the U.S., and imprison them indefinitely in a military prison, without charging them with any crime, based on his assertion that the imprisoned individual is an “enemy combatant.” Beginning with U.S. citizen Yasser Esam Hamdi (detained in Afghanistan), followed by U.S. citizen Jose Padilla (detained at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport), followed by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri (in the U.S. on a student visa and detained at his home in Peoria, Illinois), the Bush administration has not only claimed that power in theory but has aggressively exercised and defended it in practice.

The Bush administration’s strategy of imprisoning these “enemy combatants” in a South Carolina military brig has (by design) ensured that subsequent legal challenges are heard by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most right-wing judicial circuit in the country. In September, 2005, a three-judge panel from that circuit issued a ruling in the Jose Padilla case (.pdf) that actually upheld the President’s power to arrest and indefinitely detain even U.S. citizens arrested on U.S. soil without charging them with any crime — a decision which the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review (because the Bush administration, after 3 1/2 years of lawless imprisonment, avoided that review by finally charging Padilla with a crime), thus leaving that Padilla decision as still-valid law in this country.

Read more: Al-Marri and the power to imprison U.S. citizens without charges - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr. McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.”

The analysis, by Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, focused on a 1937 law that has been largely overlooked in the debate over Mr. McCain’s eligibility to be president. The law conferred citizenship on children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904, and it made John McCain a citizen just before his first birthday. But the law came too late, Professor Chin argued, to make Mr. McCain a natural-born citizen.

“It’s preposterous that a technicality like this can make a difference in an advanced democracy,” Professor Chin said. “But this is the constitutional text that we have.”

Read more: A Citizen, but ‘Natural Born’? McCain’s Eligibility to Be President Is Disputed by Professor - NYTimes.com

President Bush’s signature had barely dried on the FISA Amendments Act, which the Senate approved Wednesday, when the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it would mount a constitutional challenge to the new law, claiming that it violates the First and Fourth Amendments. The group also filed a motion with the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, requesting that proceedings and rulings on the constitutionality of the FAA be made public.

On a conference call with reporters Thursday afternoon, ACLU lawyers said they had filed suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of an array of plaintiffs. This included a panoply of human rights organizations, prominent defense attorneys, and journalists like Chris Hedges and Naomi Klein of The Nation.

One of the most difficult aspects of challenging secret surveillance law is proving standing to sue, as the National Security Agency does not make a habit of notifying targets that they are being wiretapped. The ACLU therefore hopes to demonstrate that its plaintiffs are harmed, and their First Amendment activities chilled, by the very existence of a law whose “effect and… main purpose,” in the words of attorney Jameel Jaffer, “is to give the government unfettered access to the international communications of US citizens and residents.”

Read more: ACLU, others greet Bush FISA bill signing with new lawsuit

Let’s say I received a subpoena from the Justice Department today telling me I had to testify about matters it considered vital to national security.

Let’s say I told them, “I could give a rat’s ass about your subpoena, blow me.”

What do you think would happen?

I would be in Guantanamo dining on that “cockmeat sandwich” that Harold and Kumar avoided.

So why is Karl Rove walking around free today? Because the Democrats talk a good game but when it comes to taking action, they fail time and time again.

It’s simple. Congress tells you that you have to testify? You testify. It’s the law. Period.

Read more: Tom D’Antoni: It’s Outrageous That Rove Is Walking Free - Politics on The Huffington Post

The following interview was banned in the United States:

The interview with Coleman should go down on record as definitive proof of Bush’s utter incompetence, a priceless picture of a madman who had no business occupying the highest office of the land.

Read more: Bush’s Banned Interview: An Insight Into Insanity

The Senate passed a revamped version of FISA legislation on Wednesday. But that conclusion was never in doubt. The real intrigue surrounded which Democrats would buck the compromise, which included immunity for telecommunications companies, and what side Sen. Hillary Clinton would come down on.

Late this afternoon, Clinton voted against the bill, putting her at odds with the party’s presumptive nominee, Barack Obama. In a statement put out by her Internet guru, Peter Daou, the New York Democrat struck a similar chord as her Illinois counterpart, describing the compromise as legislation that will “strengthen oversight of the administration’s surveillance activities over previous drafts.” She also, like Obama, pinpointed shortcomings in oversight, immunity, and other aspects of the compromise. But, in the end, she, unlike Obama, was persuaded to vote no.

Read more: Clinton: Why I Voted No On FISA - Politics on The Huffington Post

What an interesting week: I came back from vacation to find the two presumptive presidential nominees running away from their bases. Suddenly John McCain is evading, not embracing, the media, limiting access and getting testy with the very people whose formerly friendly coverage made him a popular “maverick.” Meanwhile, Barack Obama is complaining that his “friends on the left” just don’t understand him — he’s not moving to the center, he is “no doubt” a progressive, just one who now supports the scandalous FISA “compromise” and Antonin Scalia’s views on gun rights and the death penalty, no longer plans to accept public campaign funding, and wants to make sure women aren’t feigning mental distress to get a “partial-birth” abortion (the right’s despicable term of choice; the correct phrase is either late-term or third-trimester abortion).

I actually have some sympathy for Obama. He was never the great progressive savior that his fans either thought he was, or peddled to their readers. While Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas and Tom Hayden were hyping him as the progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton, Obama was getting away with backing a healthcare bill less progressive than Clinton’s, adopting GOP talking points on the Social Security “crisis” and double-talking on NAFTA. So why shouldn’t he think his “friends on the left” will put up with his abandoning other progressive causes?

I’ve admired Obama, but I never confused him with a genuine progressive leader. Today I don’t admire him at all. His collapse on FISA is unforgivable. The only thing Obama has going for him this week is that McCain is matching him misstep for misstep. While we’re railing about Obama’s craven vote on FISA — rightfully; Glenn Greenwald is a hero for his work on this topic — McCain was outdoing Dick Cheney with neocon crazy talk, warning that Iran’s test of nine old missiles we already knew they had increases the chances of a “second Holocaust.” Every time I wonder whether I can ultimately vote for Obama in November, given all of his political cave-ins, McCain does something new to make sure I have to.

…

“This Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand. When I am president, there will be no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens; no more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime; no more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. Our Constitution works, and so does the FISA court.”

Too bad Obama doesn’t believe that anymore.

Read more: Betrayed by Obama - Joan Walsh - Salon.com

As the Senate voted to endorse a Bush-administration backed plan to expand its surveillance authority and grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated warrantless wiretapping, the American Civil Liberties Union unveiled plans to challenge the new law in court.

“This fight is not over. We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President Bush signs it into law,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, in a statement provided to RAW STORY as the Senate was voting. “The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international telephone and email communications. It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment.”

Read more: The Raw Story | ACLU, EFF will challenge FISA update in court

Like many Christians, he said grace before dinner and read the Bible before bed. Four years ago when he was deployed to Iraq, he packed his Bible so he would feel closer to God.

He served two tours of duty in Iraq and has a near perfect record. But somewhere between the tours, something changed. Hall, now 23, said he no longer believes in God, fate, luck or anything supernatural.

Hall said he met some atheists who suggested he read the Bible again. After doing so, he said he had so many unanswered questions that he decided to become an atheist.

His sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.

In March, Hall filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others. In the suit, Hall claims his rights to religious freedom under the First Amendment were violated and suggests that the United States military has become a Christian organization.

“I think it’s utterly and totally wrong. Unconstitutional,” Hall said.

Hall said there is a pattern of discrimination against non-Christians in the military.

Read more: Atheist soldier sues Army for ‘unconstitutional’ discrimination - CNN.com

Well of course my answer is “Yes”, but from the article:

We are less than a decade removed from impeaching a president and nearly relieving him of office because of a lie in a civil deposition about blowjobs. Yet when congressman Dennis Kucinich recently attempted to impeach Bush over torture, extraordinary rendition and other grotesque constitutional abuses, Kucinich’s embarrassed fellow Democrats couldn’t kill the measure quickly enough.

Why? Top Democrats are so complicit in what has happened since 9/11 that my guess is they dare not travel down that road. From voting in favor of the war in Iraq to holding the telecommunications companies guiltless for their role in spying on Americans (Barack Obama infuriated much of his progressive base by voting for immunity), the Democrats have often acted more as enablers than as a true opposition party. From their point of view, no doubt it’s best to move on.

Read more: Should Bush be tried for war crimes? - guardian.co.uk

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is sticking to his drive to impeach President Bush.

Few in the House of Representatives have any intention of doing anything with the last 35 articles of impeachment Kucinich set before them last month, so the former presidential candidate appears to be lightening the load. Kucinich sent a letter to colleagues Tuesday asking them to support a single article of impeachment, to be introduced Thursday, which accuses President Bush of leading the country to war based on lies.

“There can be no greater offense of a Commander in Chief than to misrepresent a cause of war and to send our brave men and women into harm’s way based on those misrepresentations,” Kucinich wrote in the “Dear Colleague” letter.

Read more: The Raw Story | Kucinich to bring single article of impeachment for misleading US into war

Early next week the U.S. Senate will vote on an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with a few small amendments intended to immunize telecommunications corporations that assisted our government in the warrantless and illegal wiretapping it has grown to love.

That such a gutting of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution even made it out of committee is yet another stain on the gutless and seemingly powerless Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

That a majority on both sides of the aisle — not least of them the presumptive nominees for president of both political parties — intend to vote for such a violation of Americans’ right to privacy and of the sanctity of their personal communications is a stunning surrender to those who want us to live in fear forever.

We are living in a time when the right of habeas corpus — which simply put is your right to be brought before a proper court of law where the government is made to prove that there is good and legal reason to detain you — recently survived by a margin of only one vote at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now these bad actors are prepared to set aside your right to privacy — written into the Constitution as a key part of our Bill of Rights — with hardly a nod in the direction of the true patriots who rebelled against an English king and his army to guarantee those rights.

That they will do this while the last empty phrases of the political windbags at the Fourth of July celebrations are still echoing across a thousand city parks and the bright red, white and blue bunting and blizzard of American flags still flap in the breeze is little short of breath-taking.

How dare they?

Read more: Joe Galloway: How Dare They Rip The Fourth Amendment? - Politics on The Huffington Post

This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn’t have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush’s abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That’s why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.

But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any president or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court. In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited. As I’ve said many times, an independent monitor must watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people. This compromise law assures that the FISA court has that responsibility.

The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues.

Read more: Barack Obama: My Position On FISA - Politics on The Huffington Post

The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company’s board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University’s National Security Archive as an “illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country’s most notorious civilian massacres.”

Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita’s payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.

Read more: McCain Backer’s Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia - Politics on The Huffington Post

Breaking months of acrimonious deadlock, House and Senate leaders from both parties have agreed to a bill that gives the nation’s spy agencies the power to turn a wide swath of domestic communication companies into intelligence-gathering operations, and that puts an end to court challenges to telecoms such as AT&T that aided the government’s secret, five-year warrantless wiretapping program.

Civil liberties proponents quickly blasted the deal.

“The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation,” said Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, the only senator who voted against the Patriot Act in 2001. “The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President’s illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home.”

The deal marks a huge, though belated, victory for a lame-duck White House, which fought a pitched, hyperbolic battle to expand its legal wiretapping powers after being busted targeting Americans without warrants.

Read more: Dems Agree to Expand Domestic Spying, Grant Telecoms Amnesty | Threat Level from Wired.com

Sun-Sentinel Editorial

Impeachment not worth another minute of anybody’s time
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board

June 12, 2008

ISSUE: Some in Congress want an impeachment.

The nation does have a few pressing issues pending that could use some attention from our federal lawmakers.

Let’s see. There are a couple of wars going on, unemployment is on the rise as the value of a house continues to fall, millions of Americans have no health insurance, and did we mention that gas prices are expected to hit $5 a gallon? You get the idea. And still, some in Congress feel the nation is just itching for another presidential impeachment.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who has made a career out of eye-rolling  issues like these, said this week he wants the House to consider a resolution to impeach President Bush. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, who is smarter than this, supported the Articles of Impeachment, which won’t go anywhere and thankfully have been buried in a committee not likely to hold hearings before Bush leaves office.

Last year, Kucinich led the misguided charge to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, and Wexler supported that. In the case of Bush, Wexler called it a “sworn duty” of Congress to act.

Actually, it’s nobody’s sworn duty to take up any time to go after a badly battered president with only a few months left in office. This is a president so unpopular, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain won’t make many public appearances with him. This is a president who is such a non-entity, peace activists didn’t even
bother to protest his appearance in Berlin this week.

Nor should Congress bother with the ridiculous idea of impeachment,  which Kucinich contends is warranted because Bush deceived the nation into war.

There’s plenty of evidence to fuel Kucinich’s ire, but not his choice of remedy. If Congress needs more things than impeachment to keep lawmakers busy, it has myriad options.

BOTTOM LINE: Get on with REAL issues.

Copyright (c) 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The Wexler Response:

The Sun-Sentinel recently ran an editorial criticizing my support for  the articles of impeachment against President Bush opining that Congress should instead “get on with REAL issues” such as the Iraq war.  In fact, it is this very war — entered into following an unprecedented campaign of lies and manipulated intelligence by the Bush Administration — that necessitates impeachment hearings.  This war has cost us the lives of 4,090 US soldiers, injuries to over 30,000, and more than a trillion taxpayer dollars when it is all said and done.

It is a dark day when the Sun-Sentinel has the gall to tell the parents of the soldiers who have died in Iraq that pursuing
consequences for those that prosecuted this war of choice based on outright deception is not a “REAL” issue that Congress should address.

Sadly, the war is only the beginning. We now know that this Administration illegally ordered the torture of prisoners, obstructed justice by lying about the outing of a covert CIA agent and authorizing warrantless spying on American citizens.

No one can deny that if proven these allegations amount to High Crimes. Our failure to act sets an awful precedent and enables future Presidents to break the law and violate our Constitution without sanctions from Congress.

The Sentinel says impeachment is the wrong “remedy” for this litany of crimes.  What then is the proper remedy? A harsh lecture? A strongly worded editorial? Or how about doing absolutely nothing in the face of these outrageous abuses of power?

Impeachment hearings need not distract us from other important priorities such as the economy, gas prices and bringing the troops home from Iraq.  Congress can and should address all important issues - including safeguarding our constitutional rights and obligations.

Source: Congressman Robert Wexler

As if implicating her as one half of a “terrorist fist jab” wasn’t enough, Fox News has gone on to label Michelle Obama “Obama’s baby mama.”

Salon’s Alex Koppelman writes:

An alert reader wrote in just a little while ago to let us know about something he’d spotted on Fox News Wednesday afternoon. During a segment discussing conservative attacks against Michelle Obama, the wife of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, the network described the former as “Obama’s baby mama.”

I checked, and sure enough, as you can see below, our e-mailer was right. In fact, that description was displayed on screen several times during the segment, which featured anchor Megyn Kelly and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, an FNC contributor.

Read more: Fox News Calls Michelle “Obama’s Baby Mama”… FOX: Producer Used Poor Judgment - Media on The Huffington Post

No doubt, there are some Clinton supporters who currently find it difficult to contemplate supporting Obama, but most of these women are highly engaged, progressive Democratic voters; it is difficult to imagine them ultimately supporting McCain, who has a career-long, anti-woman record.

In fact, Obama is actually doing better than John Kerry with women voters; Kerry won them by 3 points, and according to polling from Democracy Corps research, Obama is currently winning them by 6 points. Obama’s improvement over Kerry comes among college educated and younger women — the most progressive voters in the electorate.

Obama’s real struggle is with white blue collar women voters — the same group that challenged Kerry. Currently, Obama trails McCain among white women without a college education by 19 points, 37 to 56 percent; according to Democracy Corps, Kerry lost these women by the exact same margin, 40 to 59 percent. Some argue that Clinton solved this problem because of her performance with white older women in the Democratic Party. But not only is it a mistake to extrapolate from primary results to the general election, Clinton would also likely lose to McCain among white women without a college education, albeit by a smaller margin.

Read more: Anna Greenberg: Angry White Women - Politics on The Huffington Post

For those of you who were understandably busy following the last round of the Democratic Nomination Ultimate Fighting Championship this past week (I won’t give away the ending for those who have it TiVo’d), I’d like to call your attention to a major story you may have missed: the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 200-page “Phase II” report on how the Bush administration used — and abused — pre-war intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

The Committee’s conclusion: the president and his top officials deliberately misrepresented secret intelligence to make the case to invade Iraq. No surprise there.

But it’s vitally important that we continue to reiterate and document the truth of what happened and who was responsible for perpetrating this fraud on the American public. And here’s why: the war is still going on (and American soldiers continue to die as a result of the deception); the same people responsible for this debacle still have their hands on the wheel; desperate to cover their tracks, they continue to lie about how we got into this mess; and they are currently hitting all the same notes in agitating for war in Iran.

The report is a direct rebuke to the administration’s continued claims that it was the intelligence that was faulty, and that Bush and co. were simply presenting what the C.I.A. had given them.

A statement released by committee chairman Jay Rockefeller makes it clear that the administration “on numerous occasions, misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq…in making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.”

The report doesn’t use the word, but we all know what it’s called when someone presents something as fact that’s directly contradicted by the evidence. A lie. Not a mistake. A lie.

Read more: Arianna Huffington: The Big Story You May Have Missed During the Obama v. Clinton Finale - Politics on The Huffington Post

More than five years after the initial invasion of Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee has finally gone on the record: the Bush administration misused, and in some cases disregarded, intelligence which led the nation into war. The two final sections of a long-delayed and much anticipated “Phase II” report on the Bush administration’s use of prewar intelligence, released on Thursday morning, accuse senior White House officials of repeatedly misrepresenting the threat posed by Iraq.

In addition, the report on Iraq war intelligence harshly criticizes a Pentagon office for executing “inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities” without the proper knowledge of the State Department and other agencies.

In addition to judgments that could prove troublesome for the White House and make waves in the presidential race, the report also contains some stinging minority reports from Republican committee members who allege that Democrats turned the intelligence review process into a “partisan exercise.”

However, when the GOP controlled the intelligence committee and steered its “Phase I” reporting on the use of Iraq war intelligence, critics complained that tough questions about the Bush administration’s actions had been kicked down the road, and thus required a second round of fact finding — dubbed “Phase II.” The committee’s delay in producing that full report to the public was seen by Democrats as evidence of a stonewalling campaign executed by President Bush’s Republican Senate allies.

Read more: Senate Report: Bush Used Iraq Intel He Knew Was False - Politics on The Huffington Post

I support Barack Obama for president. It’s OK that you have supported Hillary Clinton. I get it, I really do. What I don’t get, can’t get, is seeing some of you riled up Clinton supporters threatening to vote for McCain.

Let me get this straight; you consider yourself a Democrat and a feminist. Yet rather than vote for a man who supports a woman’s right to choose, children’s healthcare, and an end to the war in Iraq, you would vote for a man who voted against all of these things.

You would vote for a man who is promising to nominate far-right activists for the Supreme Court, a man who votes consistently against choice, affirmative action, and workers’ rights.

You would vote for a man who supports President Bush on most major issues vs. a man whose positions are quite similar to Clinton’s.

Read more: Feminists, the choice is obvious - The Boston Globe

It took just a few months after the United States’ invasion of Iraq for the world to find out that Saddam Hussein had long abandoned his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. He was not training terrorists or colluding with Al Qaeda. The only real threat he posed was to his own countrymen.

It has taken five years to finally come to a reckoning over how much the Bush administration knowingly twisted and hyped intelligence to justify that invasion. On Thursday — after years of Republican stonewalling — a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee gave us as good a set of answers as we’re likely to get.

The report shows clearly that President Bush should have known that important claims he made about Iraq did not conform with intelligence reports. In other cases, he could have learned the truth if he had asked better questions or encouraged more honest answers.

Read more: Editorial - Editorial - The Truth About the Iraq War - Editorial - NYTimes.com

Clinton backers note with sadness and frustration that the candidate seemed to find her most effective voice too late.

When her humanity, her passion — and, yes, even her femininity, her unique status as the first viable female candidate for president — shone through, Clinton became an electoral force, winning contests long over the race was deemed to be over.

Saturday’s speech was another strong, memorable performance. She did more than recognize Obama’s victory — she enthusiastically embraced his vision for the country, which, for Obama to be successful this fall, must be more than the sum of its policy parts.

“I am standing with Senator Obama to say, ‘Yes we can,’ ” Clinton said.

Read more: ABC News: Delayed But Gracious Exit Leaves Split Party

Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination because of the roughly two million activists who supported his campaign. These were the donors, the volunteers, the caucus goers and the rally attendees who, in several key ways pushed him over the top. Here is how:

1. Media: Starting early in the campaign, much of Obama’s mystique was built on the huge crowds he drew at rallies. Massive groups of 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 20,000 people who attended his rallies back in the first half of 2007 gave him a rock start persona that no other candidate could match.

2. Money: Obama’s entire monetary advantage over Hillary Clinton came from small donors who gave $200 or less to his campaign. His $57M advantage over Clinton in this area of fundraising accounts for all of Obama’s financial advantage during the nomination campaign. Outside of the $200 or smaller donors, Clinton’s $10M transfer from her Senate campaign and $11.4M loan from personal funds draw her even with Obama in overall fundraising. As such, the extra money Obama had for paid media and staff came entirely from his small donor corps.

3. Iowa: Obama had to win Iowa in order to have any chance at the nomination. His Iowa victory was the legitimizing force that helped push the vast majority of African-Americans into his camp. Also, his victory knocked out all other contenders, setting up a one on one campaign against Clinton. The Iowa caucuses, like all caucuses, are fundamentally an exertion of raw activist power, and Obama’s victory among Democratic Iowa activists was one of the main keys to his victory.

4. Caucuses: As I already noted, caucuses are a hothouse for activists. With odd and narrow voting windows, with a public vote, and with extremely low turnout, a candidate can only win caucuses if s/he commands the support of the most dedicated Democrats and Democratic leaners. Without his consistent, dominating victories in caucuses, Obama would not have led in pledged delegates. Without his pledged delegate lead, superdelegates would not have flocked to Obama. And without a lead in both pledged delegates and superdelegates, Barack Obama would not be the nominee tonight. Caucuses, and the dedicated activists who attend them, put him over the top.

Read more: Open Left:: Obama’s Activist Victory

Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates, becoming the first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House.

Campaigning on an insistent call for change, Obama outlasted former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a historic race that sparked record turnout in primary after primary, yet exposed deep racial divisions within the party.

The AP tally was based on public commitments from delegates as well as more than a dozen private commitments. It also included a minimum number of delegates Obama was guaranteed even if he lost the final two primaries in South Dakota and Montana later in the day.

The 46-year-old first-term senator will face Sen. John McCain of Arizona in the fall campaign to become the 44th president.

Clinton was ready to concede that her rival had amassed the delegates needed to triumph, according to officials in her campaign. These officials said the New York senator did not intend to suspend or end her candidacy in a speech Tuesday night in New York. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to divulge her plans.

Obama’s triumph was fashioned on prodigious fundraising, meticulous organizing and his theme of change aimed at an electorate opposed to the Iraq war and worried about the economy—all harnessed to his own innate gifts as a campaigner.

Clinton campaigned for months as the candidate of experience, a former first lady and second-term senator ready, she said, to take over on Day One.

Read more: AP tally: Obama effectively clinches nomination

It’s Barack Obama’s party now. He beat the ultimate insider at the insider’s game. And he’s already turned his full-bore attention to the general election contest against Republican John McCain.

During a weekend in which Hillary Rodham Clinton mounted a likely last hurrah in Puerto Rico and national Democrats resolved the sticky issue of seating Florida and Michigan delegates under a formula favorable to Obama, the Illinois senator took a series of bold steps to signal his focus was riveted on the fall campaign:

_ He severed all remaining ties with his Chicago church and politically meddlesome pastors who have preached from its pulpit.

_ His campaign announced he would go to the lion’s den, the site of this summer’s GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn., for a rally this Tuesday marking the end of the primary season.

_ He stepped up his criticism of McCain, pummeling him on Iraq, Iran and veterans matters.

Former Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle, Obama’s top supporter here in South Dakota and leader of the effort to round up superdelegates, on Sunday predicted the floodgates would open this week as remaining superdelegates jump on the Obama bandwagon.

“I think we’re going to have a nominee before the end of this week,” Daschle said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The primary season ends Tuesday, with contests here and in Montana. Obama was spending Sunday, and all of Saturday, campaigning here.

Obama’s complete break with Trinity United Church of Christ will provide a degree of cover for superdelegates poised to endorse him but possibly still uncomfortable about some of his entanglements.

And the same things that make it easier for Obama to cement his victory among superdelegates will help him coax independents to swing his way in the fall.

Read more: “Barack Obama’s Party Now”: AP - Politics on The Huffington Post

This is exactly the wrong sentiment to be spreading for the national news media to grab onto.

Regardless of your support for either of the Democratic candidates, it is unhelpful for the Democrats’ changes in November to be repeating the wounded “I’ll take my toys and go home” canard that if someone can’t have their candidate nominated, they’ll go vote for the other party.

I have seen this sentiment echoed on sites like MyDD.com for months. And now, a bunch of Clinton supporters demonstrating outside the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting are continuing and heightening the threat:

“We are all a nation together, there are 50 states, not 48,” said Constanta Nour-Hinkle, 35, who traveled by train from Reading, Pa. today to attend the rally. “I felt I needed to make my voice hear and I wanted to show solidarity with the 2.3 million voters [in Florida and Michigan] whose voices were not heard.”

Mrs. Nour-Hinkle said she would rather vote for Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, than for Mrs. Clinton’s rival, Sen. Barack Obama — echoing the sentiments of many protesters.

“It would be the first time in my life I would vote Republican for president,” said Mrs. Nour-Hinkle, 35. “I think Obama is an empty shirt, the same as [President] George W. Bush but only a Democrat.”

John Overton, who shouted pro-Clinton slogans outside the hotel, said he would leave the party if Obama receives the Democratic nomination for president.

“I can’t stand for the Democratic Party if they don’t stand for voters’ rights,” said Mr. Overton, who traveled from his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., to attend the rally. The party “would no longer exist to me as a party.”

“I don’t scream like this normally, I’m a rational guy, but I’ve never felt like this before,” he added. “This had been a travesty of democracy.”

Look, I know a lot of bad things have been said and done by supporters of both candidates in this campaign.

But, the simple fact is that Clinton OR Obama would do a LOT more for progressive issues, like ending the war in Iraq, universal health care and reversing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, than John McCain and the Republican Party ever would.

We really need to stop this madness. The race will be decided soon, the RBC will make their decision, and the last primaries will be held. We will have a nominee and we need to focus on unity, not childish threats.

Source: Clinton Demonstrators Threaten to Vote for McCain - Eyes On Obama

During a live interview, FOX Contributor Liz Trotta jokingly wished for the assassination of Sen. Barack Obama.

This latest incident from FOX News continues the trend in violent rhetoric about Sen. Obama from pundits, politicians, and entertainers.

Grinning While Joking About Killing A Candidate
The incident happen in an exchange with the FOX News anchor. When asked her opinion of the recent scandal surrounding some comments made by Sen. Hillary Clinton, which Trotta described by saying that, “some are reading [it] as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama.” Hemmer quickly corrected Trotta, having noticed that she had said “Osama” when she meant “Obama.” At this point, Trotta said, “Obama. Well…both if we could!” Trotta then laughed gleefully.

What prompted Trotta to joke about the assassination of Sen. Obama was her apparent inability to differentiate between Sen. Obama and the terrorist leader responsible for the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001.

Since Sen. Obama first declared his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for president, right-wing pundits on FOX News and a variety of other broadcast outlets have regularly called the Sen. Obama by the name “Osama” in a systematic propaganda campaign to convince the American public that a sitting member of their government has secret ties to terrorists.

As if she were providing a punchline to that long-running propaganda campaign, Trotta made known that the conclusions the public should draw were (1) that Sen. Obama and Osama bin Laden are equivalent, and (2) they both deserve to be assassinated.

Read more: Jeffrey Feldman: FOX Pundit Wishes for Obama Assassination, Laughs - Media on The Huffington Post