Mark A. Kilmer's Political Annotation

Yassin is Offed!

Remnants of Yassin's blood-soaked wheel-chair were seen outside the mosque. Worshippers said he had been killed in the strike and his body had been evacuated to a different location. Israel has said it would step up operations to track and kill Islamic militants after a suicide bombing at a strategic port last week.

Dick Clarke, Rand Beers, and Joe Wilson

All of this wrangling is sure to provide fodder for the presidential campaign. Clarke is perhaps not the most neutral source. Last year Clarke's best friend, Rand Beers, quit as the White House's counterterrorism chief after complaining—over glasses of wine on Clarke's front porch—about the wrong-headedness of Bush's plan to invade Iraq. Beers is now a principal foreign-policy adviser to Kerry.

The close collaborator with Richard Clarke -- going back to Bush I at NSC was Rand Beers -- who quit last summer in disgust, and walked down the street and volunteered his services to Kerry, where he has been ever since. Beers eventually drew Joe Wilson into the Kerry camp.

Gabba, Gabba, Hey!

He was a rebel in a rebel's world, though. Johnny Ramone [vocalist of The Ramones] was a fiercely Republican-voting, NRA-supporting musician in a milieu that is remarkable for its embrace of all things left.

Johnny went worldwide public with his partisanship in 2002, when the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the microphone to give props to the people who made it all possible, he offered his own version of a Michael Moore moment.

"God bless President Bush, and God bless America," he said, clad in his trademark T-shirt, ripped blue jeans and leather jacket.

Like so many other right-wingers. who are fed up with the media establishment, Johnny tunes in to the radio every day for some roiling rhetoric and to the Web for some news that doesn't seem to make the local newspaper.

"Hey," he says, perusing Newsmax.com as he speaks on the phone, "what's going on with these illegal aliens now?"

Prominent Republicans/Dems Disagree

The harsh tone of the presidential campaign is threatening to alienate voters and undermine the perceived legitimacy of the winner, prominent members of both parties said today.

"Kerry and Bush must conduct themselves in a way that when Nov. 2 comes, whoever wins, they are going to have to have legitimacy and the authority to govern this country and keep this coalition together for another four years," Mr. Hagel said on the ABC News program "This Week."

"We may find ourselves over the next four years unable to sustain any of our policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and in our war against terrorism because the politics have so divided this country," Mr. Hagel added.

Zapatero backs off,

"The second [consequence of the Socialists' victory] will be that the Spanish troops will come back," he told a Spanish radio station.

"Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush must do some reflection and self-criticism... you can't organize a war with lies."

"A lot would have to change (in Iraq). The return of Spanish troops is a decision that will be difficult to avoid," Zapatero told El Pais newspaper, rebuffing U.S. government calls for Spain to stay in the Iraq "coalition of the willing."

"The only viable form of occupation would be for the U.N. to take political control, for more multinational forces including many Arab countries led by the Arab League to be involved," Zapatero said.

The Ornstein Pledge

Ted Kennedy on MTP

"My belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops [to provide security in Iraq]."

The RSN has been finished

On the Sunday Morning Talk Shows

Clarke: 'Rumsfeld Wanted to Bomb Iraq"

Saddam must still be laughing at all the free lawyers he is getting in the Western press. He'll parrot all of this at his trial, and the media will eat it up. You watch. There is a segment of this country that would vote for Saddam if he were running against Bush in November. Believe that.

Richard C. Clarke's 15-minutes on 60 Minutes

Richard Clarke, a top advisor on terrorism for each administration since Ronald Reagan, resigned from the Bush White House last year. He criticizes the president's handling of intelligence reports before the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaida attacks on the United States, and the invasion of Iraq despite what he said was no evidence of a link with al Qaida. The criticism comes in a new book and on CBS' 60 minutes Sunday.

The Homeless in Washington, DC

Al Franken a diehard Dem, not a Lefty

Britain needs "more American" economy

"Thirteen Reasons Republicans Will Lose"

This election is no laughing matter. The threat of global Islamic terrorism and of the rogue states allied with it remains a grievous one, and the civilized world sorely needs to rally behind its only possible leader, the United States. Should Mr. Bush remain in office, this isn't likely to happen. I wish I could tell you that Mr. Kerry is capable of rising to this challenge. His record indicates no such thing. Nor, however, does it suggest that he is likely to self-destruct as a candidate. And he enjoys all the advantages of non-incumbency. If he's to lose, the Republicans will have to beat him.

New Columns on the RSN site and on Watchblog

Being President must be the most difficult job in the world. The responsibilities, pressures and conflicts are enormous, the consequences of actions staggering, the push and pull of myriad groups and ideologies and forces overwhelming.

To be a practicing Christian and be President must be enormously more difficult. For example, if one is a Democrat and wishes to be President he must support such non-Christian positions as abortion and homosexuality, while trafficking with those whose outright hostility to the faith is palpable. [MORE]

When will candidate John Kerry implode? It seems a matter of time, when the i's have been dotted and the t's crossed on the tea leaves, but another question stands in the way of our answer: Will the media let him fall apart? After all, Kerry was foisted upon the Democratic Party in a truncated, McAuliffe-ized nominating process wherein momentum was mistaken for electability. It was over after Iowa, but the nation's political press wants a race. This race could be over now… [MORE]

Liberal University President?

Mr. Judd had an earlier run-in with university officials in March 2002, when he was reprimanded by the board after his arrest on charges of impersonating a police officer two months earlier. The board voted to express its "displeasure" with Mr. Judd, who admitted he used the oscillating headlights on his state car to pull over a motorist he believed was speeding.

Kerry on CBS's Face the Nation

During his campaign stop on FTN, candidate John Kerry hinted that he will vote for the President’s $87-billion request but that he and Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) will introduce an amendment linking the money with a repeal of the “Bush tax cuts, at the high end.” He called it a “shared sacrifice.” If it is going to be a repeal only at the high end -- “the very wealthy” -- why then is it a sacrifice in Kerry’s terms? According to the word of Kerry, the very wealthy sacrifice nothing in taxes. (Has he talked this over with his fantastically wealthy wife who has a pre-nup?)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Worth noting: On LE, Senator Biden claimed complete credit for calling for the repeal of the tax cuts to pay for the $87-billion, excluding Kerry. He said that it would be a “delay in implementation” of the tax cuts for the “top one-percent,” which he defined as those making over $300,000 a year. Everyone has to sacrifice, he said, and “these people are patriotic.” That’s a sure way to be thrown out of his Senate Democratic Caucus, portraying the wealthiest 1% as patriots.

"I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible."

Kerry argued that his amendment offered a way to do it properly, "but I don't think anyone in the Congress is going to not give our troops ammunition, not give our troops the ability to be able to defend themselves. We're not going to cut and run and not do the job."

"John Kerry has years and years of public statements — including recent ones — that the Republicans seem to have more thoroughly catalogued and at-the-ready than the Kerry campaign does."

C-SPAN is 25

Open C-SPAN phones, Lew Ketcham moderating: Who should the President nominate next?

Lew: "Hello, you're on C-SPAN."

me: "He should nominate Orrin Hatch. [pause] The Senator from Utah." [pause]

Lew: "As the nominee?"

me: "Yes." [pause]

Lew: "Okay, next caller."

Female caller: "If it's Orrin Hatch, I'm against him. Same with Ted Kennedy. Orrin's too far to the right, Teddy's too far to the left."

Sandra Day O'Conner: More than a Jurist

The Taliban Flip-Flop

"We will attack American forces if they launch attacks in these areas, on both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan," said the spokesman, identified as Mulla[h] Abdul Latif Hakimi.

``I have not given any such interview,'' Abdul Latif Hakimi told Reuters after Al Jazeera television broadcast a video in which a man with the same name made the threats. The man's face was covered.

``None of the Taliban spokesmen have issued any statement like that,'' Hakimi said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

``We do not interfere in other countries' affairs,'' said Hakimi. ``It is up to Pakistan wherever it wants to conduct an operation. What objection can we have? We have our own country.''

New Column on RSN Site

When the British government took away all guns from law abiding citizens in 1997, they said it was for a safer England. The preceding first step of gun registration, that they assured the public had nothing to do with a plan to confiscate all guns, had been couched as for safety also.

Now guns in England are squarely in the hands of criminals. English citizens are subject to skyrocketing criminal assaults, and have no means to defend themselves in their homes or on the street. Guns have been criminalized, so only the criminals have guns. Seems the criminals didnt bother to obey the law, a fact that is always and ever a complete surprise to gun control proponents. [MORE]

Priceless Kerry Line

It's time for George Bush to start being consistent on Iraq.

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.

The poet de Villepin on Iraq and Terror

''Terrorism didn't exist in Iraq before,'' [the poet] de Villepin said. ''Today, it is one of the world's principal sources of world terrorism.''

''We have to look reality in the face: we have entered into a more dangerous and unstable world, which requires the mobilization of the entire international community,'' [the poet] de Villepin said.

Villepin ™ writes poetry, but his poetry sucks. On top of it, he makes French taxpayers underwrite the promotion of his garbage. So this summer's burning question is: who will sell more books? Rumsfeld or Villepin ™? Rambo or Rimbaud? Villepin ™ can hang it up. His [expletive deleted] is too tired.

Move Over, Jayson…

The nationally distributed paper, based in McLean, said Jack Kelley, the reporter, "conspired to mislead" those who were investigating his work at USA Today, in part by using a snapshot of a Cuban hotel worker to authenticate a made up story about a woman who died fleeing Cuba by boat.

Justice Ginsberg Told to Recuse Herself

The 13 House Republicans who wrote Ginsburg are Joseph R. Pitts of Pennsylvania; Dave Weldon of Florida; Walter B. Jones and Sue Wilkins Myrick of North Carolina; Kevin Brady of Texas; Barbara Cubin of Wyoming; Paul Ryan of Wisconsin; W. Todd Akin of Missouri; Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Mike Pence of Indiana; Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland; Steve King of Iowa, and Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey.

New Column on RSN site

Where have all the jobs gone? Well... nowhere, really. There is much hysteria regarding current employment trends that are leading many to believe that we are losing significant numbers of jobs overseas. Even more frightening is the fact that these conclusions are leading many to believe that we should impose unjust and misguided trade restrictions.

As I am rather fond of doing, let's take a moment and look at the numbers. The number of private-sector jobs in the United States increased by 17.8 million between 1993 and 2002. This means that a grand total of 327.7 million jobs were added. However, an astonishing 309.9 million jobs were lost! [MORE]

How Many Goats for Bin Laden?

To better appeal to people in remote, rural areas, the bill says rewards could be paid in the form of vehicles, appliances, commodities and other goods instead of cash.

Kerry: No More Foreign Endorsements!

I think Kerry would be much more willing to listen to the voices of people and of the rest of the world," Mahathir, who retired in October after 22 years in power, told The Associated Press in an interview.

"But in the U.S., the Jewish lobby is very strong, and any American who wants to become president cannot change the policy toward Palestine radically," he said.

The Muslims will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and the Jews.

It cannot be that there is no other way. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way.

[. . .]

Of late because of their power and their apparent success they [Jews] have become arrogant. And arrogant people, like angry people will make mistakes, will forget to think."

“John Kerry rejects any association with former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an avowed anti-Semite whose views are totally deplorable. The world needs leaders who seek to bring people together, not drive them apart with hateful and divisive rhetoric.

“This election will be decided by the American people, and the American people alone. It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in America’s presidential election. John Kerry does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsements.”

Two New Columns on the RSN site

Osama Bin Laden sees the West as a soft, decadent society that is unwilling to stand up for any values it might still retain. He has no respect for our way of life, seeing us as immoral, greedy philanderers who will sacrifice anything so long as we can still make enough money to pay for our Internet porn site memberships. We are the modern day Rome, a shell of our former self and unable to stop our inevitable decline. We are weak. Unable to muster the resolve to stand up for what is right. A global bully, who if you slap in the face will run home crying to its mommy (i.e. the United Nations). The sad fact is Bin Laden is right in many ways, particularly in regard to our European allies. The Spanish peoples unconditional surrender to the forces of evil has punctuated this fact in stark reality. Now, since it is quite evident that we stand alone in the world in the fight for freedom, we Americans must look inside ourselves and decide if we actually have the will to win the War on Terror. Or are we, like the Europeans, going to bury our heads in the sand and hope that the problem of international terrorism just goes away. [MORE]

Anti-gun Republicrats in the U.S. Senate have proved that they can pass an extension to the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. They succeeded in part because most of the public and even the majority of its core supporters don't begin to understand the most important truths about the legislation. [MORE]

In three hours…

McCain Opens His Mouth

This kind of rhetoric, I think, is not helpful in educating and helping the American people make a choice,” McCain said on “The Early Show” on CBS. “You know, it’s the most bitter and partisan campaign that I’ve ever observed. I think it’s because both parties are going to their bases rather than going to the middle. I regret it.”

“No, I do not believe that he is, quote, weak on defense. He’s responsible for his voting record, as we are all responsible for our records, and he’ll have to explain it. But, no, I do not believe that he is necessarily weak on defense. I don’t agree with him on some issues, clearly. But I decry this negativism that’s going on on both sides. The American people don’t need it.”

Zawahiri captured

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury notes fell on reports that the top aide to terrorist Osama bin Laden was captured near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Demand for government debt weakened on optimism that the capture of Ayman al-Zawahiri as reported by Sky News may lead to fewer terrorist attacks.

`The threat doesn't go away, but as terrorism restricts growth, this will be good for growth and good for the world community,'' said Drew Forbes, head of government bond trading at Daiwa Securities America Inc. in New York. Terrorism ``creates uncertainty and hurts consumer confidence. Treasuries do poorly and we'll probably see stocks do extremely well.''

Kerry Voted For/Against funding our troops

"I actually did vote for his $87-billion, before I voted against it."

Kerry's tortured response to the West Virginia ad underscored the difficulties of defending Senate votes on massive spending bills loaded with hundreds of unrelated provisions.

Moveon.org versus Donald Rumsfeld

Address Problem

New Column on RSN site

CALL ME a crooked liar, but it seems to me that things are improving in Iraq. Consider, for example: [MORE]

House GOP's Speak (of the) Spanish

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) told reporters, "If we follow the example of the new Spanish government, and we accept failure in Iraq and permit victory of the terrorists there, there will be no counting the number of people around the world who will suffer the consequences." He said he hoped the government of Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero "will realize we're all at war, and that Iraq is central to winning that war. Al Qaeda understands that, even if many in Europe and the United States prefer to ignore the fact that Iraq is the single most important battle that the war on terror will ever know."

"And Yet We've Just Begun…

White House political chief Karl Rove said Wednesday that President Bush had just begun to demonstrate the kind of targeted, multi-front campaign he plans against Democratic rival John Kerry.

[. . .]

The Bush campaign has material ready to go on Kerry based on his votes and speeches, said a Republican who attended the session. Whenever Kerry raises an issue, the Bush-Cheney campaign will be prepared to hand out leaflets, and run ads on TV and radio.

Dean does a Reverse-Perot

Dean has been seeking to build excitement among those supporters with a promise to announce Thursday his plans “about the future grass-roots campaign built from the principles of Dean For America,” the former presidential campaign said in a posting to its own Web log. “We will show solidarity in our continued campaign to take back the core of power in American politics from back rooms and special interests to a political ethos based in, and built from, community.”

MoveOn.org's Sloppy Commercial

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat is not imminent, that Saddam was at least five to seven years from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain."

"No terrorist state poses a more immediate threat to the safety of our people and the security of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."

Cheney: Unwavering vrs. 'Nuanced'

Cheney said Kerry indicated his support for regime change in 1998, with ground troops if necessary, and even voted in October 2002 to authorize military action against Saddam if the dictator refused to comply with the resolutions.
Cheney said a neutral observer looking at Kerry's voting record on Iraq and his public support for past military action against Saddam Hussein, if necessary, means Kerry supported the war in Iraq.

"The senator himself now, tells us otherwise. In January he was asked on TV if he was 'one of the anti-war candidates.' He replied, 'I am.' He now says he was voting only to 'threaten the use of force, not actually use force,'" Cheney said.

"Even if we set aside these inconsistencies and changing rationales, at least this much is clear: Had the decision belonged to Senator Kerry, Saddam Hussein would still be power today in Iraq. In fact, Saddam would almost certainly still be in control of Kuwait," the vice president said.

Cheney rejected Kerry's criticism that the U.S.-led 34-nation coalition on Iraq -- which lacked some major traditional allies who refused to go along with the war -- was merely "window-dressing" and a "coalition of the coerced and the bribed."

"If such dismissive terms are the vernacular of the golden age of diplomacy Sen. Kerry promises, we're left to wonder which nations would care to join any future coalition," Cheney said.

He said Kerry speaks "as if only those who openly oppose America's objectives have a chance of earning his respect."

Cheney said the November election offers a contrast like the 1984 election, when Reagan ran for re-election against Democrat Walter Mondale. He said the next president must be "unwavering until the danger to our people is fully and finally removed."

Why was this Survey Taken?

The WashPost on WHY AZNAR LOST

By Friday night, police found new leads -- the discovery of a sports bag containing undetonated explosives and a mobile telephone. At a news conference, however, Acebes continued to insist ETA was the main suspect. "How is it that after 30 years of attacks, they are not going to be the prime suspects?" Acebes said. Still, he said, "We haven't closed off any line of investigation."

At the makeshift shrines set up to honor the victims, young people gathering to light candles and lay flowers were starting to voice skepticism about the ETA claim.

On Saturday night -- hours before the polls opened -- the government announced the arrests of three Moroccans and two Indians, and the discovery of a videotape from a purported al Qaeda official asserting responsibility for the attacks. Thousands of Spaniards responded by taking to the streets, banging pots and pans in protests and denouncing the government.

That voter anger swept the Socialists back to power for the first time in eight years.

New Dennis Campbell Column

Is John Kerry the ideal candidate for Democrats? Probably not, since he voted for the war in Iraq. Oops - of course, he did not mean it. He also voted in favor of free trade - um, but he did not mean that, either. As this could go on indefinitely, let's forget about Kerry and create a fictional ideal liberal candidate.

He (we will assume our candidate is a man) would not be captive to traditional morality - in fact, let's say that he once lived outside of wedlock with his "significant other." [MORE]

Primary Day in Illinois

New SARTRE column

Elections in Spain and Russia - one a surprise, the other a forgone conclusion. The Spanish are ready to yell Yankee go home and Russians give the Kremlin the green light to expand their dominion. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, no household name, benefits from the Madrid bombings. Vladimir Putin, a known commodity, counts the returns with the backdrop burning of the Manege building. The Iberian peninsula turns toward socialism while Chechnya readies for a return to steps that are reminiscent of the past. [MORE]."

Republicans for Nader

Through the process of gathering signatures and overcoming the hurdles for ballot access we intend to build a grass roots foundation for the fall campaign. Ballot access, while a challenge, should not only be seen as an opportunity to make our democracy more vibrant, it should also be seen as an opportunity to organize your neighborhood, your community and your state.

"Wictory Wednesday" is today

"That Kerry Don't Much Care for Soldiers"

The military has rules limiting troops in ads to avoid the appearance of an endorsement by a certain branch or a service member. But a Pentagon official who reviewed the ad said it doesn't appear to violate any Army regulations or Defense Department directives because the commercial does not clearly show the identity of the soldiers or any insignias of a branch.

Iran is not quiet tonight

Noise of fire crackers' explosions and celebration have started to echo in most Iranian cities before the night fall. Millions of Iranians have come into the streets, in the late hours of the afternoon, in another show of defiance to the regime and its security forces which are staying, for right now, afar contenting to look the crowd.

In practically each street and avenue of main cities, such as, Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, Mashad, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Hamadan, Oroomiah (former Rezai-e) large fire crackers are exploding as a prelude to a massive and unprecedented celebration of one of main Iranian cultural heritage and Islamic taboo breaking events.

Iranians danced in the street, threw firecrackers and jumped over bonfires Tuesday night as authorities openly tolerated an ancient fire festival for the first time in 25 years.

Halted each year since the 1979 Islamic revolution because hardliners considered it un-Islamic, the Chaharshanbeh Suri, or Red Wednesday, festival was officially recognized in Tehran where the city council set aside dozens of parks for people to enjoy the boisterous celebrations.

The Islamic republic regime's anti-riot units and plainclothes men have opened the charge, at this time 21:35 local time, against the demonstrators in southern Tehran, Esfahan's Tchahr Bagh and the city of Mashad by using knives, clubs and chains. Unconfirmed reports are stating about the use of plastic bullets in Esfahan and the Sadeghieh square of Tehran.

Several have been badly wounded during the attacks but fierce resistance is being made by thousands of young Iranians, male and female, who are opposing the attacks by the use of all available tools and especially Molotov cocktails which were made for such eventuality.

Sporadic and minor clashes have started in several areas of the Iranian Capital, Tehran and its suburbs, especially in the southern, eastern and western areas as the night has fall and streets are enflame with thousands of fire set for celebrating the traditional but banned "Tchahar Shanbe Soori".

This time is no more the security forces that are taking initiative of attack but young exasperated Iranians who are throwing hand made grenades and powerful fire crackers against them and forcing them take distance. Several security patrols cars and bikes caught in the middle of the crowd have been damaged by fire or abandoned as its occupants preferred to escape from crowd which is making use of the sirens and speakers of governmental confiscated repressive tools for broadcasting songs under the desperate eyes of the regime forces.

"We have nothing against celebrations and merry-making," [Tehran] police chief Morteza Talaie was quoted as saying, "as long as the limits are not exceeded."

Libya Ticked Off

Tragic News

Blogger Scott Elliott lost both of his parents yesterday - Larry Thomas Elliott, 60, and Jean Dover Elliott, 58, of Cary, N.C., were two of the four Christian missionaries killed in Iraq, where they were doing humanitarian work. They were killed while scouting the best location for a water purification project. Islamist terrorists killed them while they were trying to help Muslims. Click here and also scroll up.

Also killed in Iraq in recent days was blogger Bob Zangas, a Marine Corps Reservist working in a civilian capacity for the Coalition Provisional Authority.

All three died in the service of a great cause: bringing of democracy, freedom and hope to a people that have for centuries known only oppression and fear. Pray for God's blessings on their surviving family members and friends.

South Dakota Abortion Ban

The bill faced another vote in the Senate because Gov. Mike Rounds issued what is sometimes considered a technical veto. The style-and-form veto allows a governor to send a bill back to the Legislature with suggested revisions. If lawmakers agree with the suggestions, they vote and send it back. If they disagree, the bill dies.

Who's to Poll the Pollsters?

The repudiation by a major ally of Mr Bush's war in Iraq has come at the worst possible moment for him: just as the White House attempts to use the first anniversary of the invasion to justify its policies.

The U.S. Economy Rocks!

US industry massively boosted production in February, Federal Reserve data showed Monday, reviving beaten-down hopes for an escape from years of labor market lethargy.

Combined, the United States' factories, mines and utilities raised output 0. 7 percent in February, slightly higher than expected, following a 0.8-percent increase in January.

Critically, manufacturing output shot up 1.0 percent, with gains across a swathe of products.

Mining output crept up 0.1 percent.

Utilities cut output 0.7 percent as milder winter weather cut demand for power.

"It certainly indicates the economic recovery is sustainable at a strong pace. It should only be a matter of time before factories start to hire again."

According to the Glendale-based global staffing firm's Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, 28 percent of U.S. employers expect to add jobs in the second quarter, compared with just 6 percent who expect to cut jobs. Sixty-two percent of employers see no change in employment levels, while 4 percent remained uncertain.

The improved employment outlook even includes the hard-hit durable goods manufacturing sector, where employers see a moderate increase in jobs over the previous quarter and significant growth compared with a year ago.

Kerry's Cuban Lie

[A] local television journalist [ posed the question that any candidate with Florida ambitions should expect:

What will you do about Cuba?

As the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kerry was ready with the bravado appropriate for a challenger who knows that every answer carries magnified importance in the state that put President Bush into office by just 537 votes.

''I'm pretty tough on Castro, because I think he's running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world,'' Kerry told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney in an interview to be aired at 11:30 this morning.

Then, reaching back eight years to one of the more significant efforts to toughen sanctions on the communist island, Kerry volunteered: ``And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him.''

It seemed the correct answer in a year in which Democratic strategists think they can make a play for at least a portion of the important Cuban-American vote -- as they did in 1996 when more than three in 10 backed President Clinton's reelection after he signed the sanctions measure written by Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dan Burton.

There is only one problem: Kerry voted against it.

Asked Friday to explain the discrepancy, Kerry aides said the senator cast one of the 22 nays that day in 1996 because he disagreed with some of the final technical aspects. But, said spokesman David Wade, Kerry supported the legislation in its purer form -- and voted for it months earlier.

"You've gotta beat this guy…"

"The whole point of Tony Blair is that he's interested in who's in power. He's not particularly interested in ideology."

One wonders if that sharp divide might drive Blair to whisper to President Bush, "I can't go out and say this publicly, but boy, I look at you and say, 'You've got to win this, you've got to beat this guy...."

Boneheaded Statement

WASHINGTON - Spanish voters rejected President Bush by proxy on Sunday, by ousting the party of his ally Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Will American voters be influenced to do likewise?

Iraq to U.N.: 'STAY HOME!!!'

Several members of the Iraqi Governing Council, which clamored for United Nations help on elections weeks ago, now say they are reluctant to give the organization a big role either in helping to prepare the Iraqi government to stand on its own or in readying the country for nationwide elections -- to take place as early as December.

. . .

"We have had bad experiences with the U.N. in the past," said Yonadam Kanna, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. "There is a difference of opinion on what their role should be here."

But some Iraqi leaders continued to express deep skepticism about whether the United Nations should be allowed to return to take a role in Iraq. Intifad Qanbar, a spokesman for Ahmed Chalabi, a member of the council, said that while the United Nations might have a role in the country, it ought to be strictly limited.

"There is a track record that shows the U.N. is not efficient in these things," Mr. Qanbar said. "We cannot have anyone overseeing or managing this Iraqi process from outside Iraq."

"[UN Envoy] Lakhdar Brahimi has achieved what the United States wanted from him," charged Hamed Al Bayati, a spokesman for the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the leading Shiite political party. "I don't recall anything agreed that suggests that the UN will be invited back to help. It may be just a common presumption."

Spain Results: A Victory for Terrorists?

Kerry's Foreign Leaders

John Kerry's campaign has taken on a Jayson Blair-like feel, with anonymous sources invented for convenience.

Without naming anybody, Kerry said he had received words of encouragement from leaders abroad who were eager to see him defeat Bush on Nov. 2.

"I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy they look at you and say, 'You've got to win this, you've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy,' things like that," he said.

"The first thing I will do when I am elected is to go to the United States and support John Kerry."

Sharpton backs Kerry

"It would be misleading and futile to campaign for the nomination, but it continues for the platform and direction of the party," Sharpton told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "My campaign continues now to pick up delegates so that we can go to the convention to coalesce with other delegates."

Kerry gives Bush Green Light…

" ... After September 11th, President Bush went to New York, stood at Ground Zero, stood with our firefighters. I wish the president would go back now and ask whether he has stood with you since that day."

Putin Coasts to Victory

Kerry's Veepstakes, Part ???

French almost catch bin Laden

"Our men were not very far. On several occasions, I even think he slipped out of a net that was quite well closed," he [French defense chief General Henri Bentegeat] told Europe 1 radio. He did not specify a time frame.

"He [bin Laden] symbolizes September 11 and is certainly not completely innocent in what happened in Madrid," he said, making a link between the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington and the Spanish train bombings last Thursday.

New Column on RSN web site

In last week's column, I urged the silent majority to take a vocal stand against gay marriage. Such a stand would be in opposition to the liberal media, activist judges and lawyers and lily-livered leaders who would prefer to issue statements of vague concern rather than taking substantial action. Courage is required, because anyone who criticizes any aspect of the gay agenda is labeled a bigot.

I am immune to accusations of bigotry, because I consider myself an equal opportunity bigot -- I expect the worst from everyone, regardless of race, gender, religion or national origin. Like most Americans, I take a fairly libertarian view of sexual activities among consenting adults. I wouldn't even ask gays to stay closeted --call your self whatever you want -- but, keep sex in the bedroom; and for Pete's sake, close the doors and draw the shades! Don't try to force our nation to accept your sexual behaviors through judicial fiat (which is really what gay marriage is all about). Homosexuality is a destructive behavior and lifestyle that must be discouraged. [MORE]

Spain's Contribution to the "Unilateral" Force

Another Reason to Kill Babies?

Penn researchers hope to one day isolate stem cells in an adult scalp and transplant those cells to other areas of the scalp, generating new follicles and hair growth. Using the stem cell transplant as a treatment for hair loss, however, is at least 10 years away, says Cotsarelis.

Spain Corrects Itself

[T]he pressure from Spain [on the UNSC to name ETA] was constant, with diplomats reporting that then-Foreign Minister Ana Palacio even called German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer after the German delegation in the council questioned the wisdom of naming ETA.

Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali said on Friday he thought it was important that the resolution condemned the attack. But, he said, "if it is established in two days that it was someone else, that would be really embarrassing."

New Column on RSN Site…

When the next bomb goes off--perhaps this time in Poland--the families of the dead should blame the people in Spain who voted to run from terrorists and cower before them instead of standing strong against them.

Sound cruel? Perhaps, but it is the sad truth. The majority of Spaniards decided to follow the illogical path of blaming their President for the attack in Madrid instead of the people who actually carried out mass murder. In doing so, they handed the butchers a victory. Terrorism and murder have been handsomely rewarded this day. [MORE]

All the World Loves Kerry...?

I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy, they look at you and say, `You gotta win this, you gotta beat this guy, we need a new policy,' things like that."

"Were they people like Blair or were they people like the president of North Korea?" he asked, referring to the British prime minister, Tony Blair. "Why not tell us who it was? Senator, you're making yourself sound like a liar."

The Truth behind the campaign claims…

New Government in Spain

2,000 (Count 'Em) Voted in Kansas' Dem Caucuses

A Kerry Character 4 Late Night

[T]he nation's late-night comedians still haven't quite pegged him. They haven't completed the ritual of turning a presidential candidate into a stock character like Bush the Dumb Frat Boy, Gore the Know-It-All Stiff, Clinton the Gluttonous Lecher or Reagan the Amiable Dunce.

"We're just starting to get a bead on Kerry," said Mr. Quinn, the host of "Tough Crowd," a daily comedians' roundtable on Comedy Central. "He should eventually be an improvement on Bush, who's getting played out, but right now Kerry is not a real lively one. We need more information on him. People are waiting for something funny to happen, like the choking-on-a-pretzel thing."

Candidate Kerry's Subtle Racism

HOST CHRIS WALLACE: Hans Blix, the former head of U.N. weapons inspectors, has just written a new book, and I want to show you what he has to say about your presentation to the Security Council that day in February of 2003.

"Much of the material in Powell's presentation had been made available to us by the U.S. and other countries. We had inspected most of the sites he described and taken samples from them for analysis that could detect traces of chemicals or biological agents if there were any. We had examined records and interviewed people at these sites. In no case had we found convincing evidence of any prohibited activity."

And then Blix concluded with this: "It is hard to avoid the reflection that Colin Powell had been charged with the thankless task of hauling out the smoking guns that, in January, were said to be irrelevant and that, after March, turned out to be nonexistent."

Mr. Secretary, Blix says that the White House was using your credibility to build its case.


SEC. OF STATE COLIN POWELL:Well, I disagree with Dr. Blix. And you can look at Dr. Blix's reports to the United Nations during this period — very extensive reporting. And you will see that he lists many, many unanswered questions that he couldn't answer with respect to what Saddam Hussein was doing.
He found the declaration that Saddam Hussein presented 30 days after the U.N. Resolution 1441 was passed that was so inadequate, there were questions that were unanswered. And so, Dr. Blix's own presentation to the U.N. left many, many unanswered questions. And so, I don't think...

WALLACE: Well, what about this argument that somehow the White House was using your credibility, your standing in the international community?

POWELL: Well, it's what you keep saying, Chris, because it's, you know, it's the story you want to keep putting out there and Dr. Blix wants to put out there. [ital. mine]

WALLACE: Senator Kerry also has had something to say about you. He says that you've been undercut on a regular basis by the more hawkish members of the Bush administration. Here's what he said: "I think, simply, Powell, who I know, like and admire, has never been permitted to be fully secretary of state in a way that I envision the secretary of state."

Does he have that right?


POWELL: No, I don't think he has that right. The president has me right now on the lead on so many issues, whether it has to do with our relations with China, what we're doing with the new Republic of Georgia, whether it has to do with Haiti, whether it has to do with Iraq, whether it has to do with negotiations with our European friends and the IAEA on Iran, whether it has to do with Russia, where I was last month. I'm on my way to the subcontinent now.

Name a specific issue where it looks like I have been marginalized. I was part of the team that took this case to the United Nations for Iraq. I am working on the North Korean issue. And so this is also an easy charge.

Are there differences of view within an administration? Sure. And we resolve those differences of view. But I know what the president wants, I know what his agenda is, and he knows that I am working his agenda. So these sorts of charges are always interesting to read and fun to gossip about, but don't have any standing in reality.

The Sunday Rightsided Newsletter

Kerry should be in Finland

I am very sure that the Finns would have elected him [Gore]. They seem to like being bored to death by non-emotionalist leaders. I think I'm on to something. Maybe Gore could become the next President of Finland. He could show Tarja [Finnish President Tarja Halonen] a thing or two about who could look more unintersted and emotionally deviod. Thats it! We can ship all our failed politicians to Finland to continue their careers!

This Morning's Talk Shows

Kerry and the Patriot Act

John Kerry Lied About Water Policy and Karl Rove

A major fish kill and other problems in the drought-plagued region have "fueled the flames of suspicion and distrust," Devaney wrote in the letter dated March 1 and released Friday by the Interior Department.

"However, we conclude that the (Interior) Department conducted itself in keeping with the administrative process, that the science and information utilized supported the department's decisions, and that no political pressure was perceived by any of the key participants," Devaney's letter said.

"There are too many examples in this administration of politics trumping science, not to be concerned."

Kerry wins Kansas Caucuses

Kerry's Debates: the deal

Together Again, At Last

The Presidential Race

``The pace of our Internet fundraising is encouraging,'' spokesman David
Wade said in an interview in Boston while traveling with Kerry. ``Democrats will always be financial underdogs against George Bush, but our base is energized.''

Ockham's Razor: Bruckner, Scandals, and Nuance

Why such hysterical over-reaction? Maybe because Leahy and Schumer hope to distract attention from what actually was in those strategy memos.

When asked by TIME about President Bush's hate of the word 'nuance' and his opinion of the word, Kerry says, "Some of these issues are very complicated and deserve more than a simplistic this or that," says Kerry. As he speaks, Kerry heats up, grows loud, almost angry. His message shifts: Don't for a moment think all that worldliness means he has no convictions."

"I refuse ever to accept the notion that anything I've suggested with respect to Iraq was nuanced. It was clear. It was precise."

New Column on the RSN site

A seemingly personal dispute may not immediately identify a global conflict. But the recent feud between the New York Times critic Frank Rich and the Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly, points out why the world is so dysfunctional. On the Imus morning radio program, both men had an opportunity to make their case and present their viewpoint. What was this controversy all about? Depending on your values, is how the answer to this question may well be shaped.

Rich hates "The Passion of the Christ", as a movie - or so he says. O'Reilly wrote a "Talking Points" called - Defining the Elite Media, that excoriates Rich as the epitome of the secular media culture. Both men have a well defined public persona and staunch followers. Each have faultfinders who eagerly pounce on any opportunity to savage either news celebrity. In the world of open ideological warfare, the mainstream media seldom participated and rarely departed from the 'PC' path of content. The mere fact that such an intense dispute has become possible, illustrates that the strangle hold that media elites once held, is starting to unravel. [MORE]

When the ACLU Sues

The state had argued that the plaintiffs were free to find a legislator to sponsor a bill for a ''Pro-Choice'' license plate as the ''Pro-Life'' advocates had done. Until the plaintiffs did so, the state attorney general's office contended, they could not claim that they had been denied the opportunity.

John Kerry: War Hero

FLORENCE, Ore. — The eyes still get watery 35 years later, and Jim Rassmann — former Green Beret, retired California cop — doesn't want anybody to see. He turns away or uses his beefy hands to cover up.

But he gets through it, recalling in vivid detail the day, March 13, 1969, when John F. Kerry snatched him out of a muddy brown river in Vietnam and saved him from a watery end.

Martha Stewart is a Democrat

Besides the $1,000 that went to [Hillary Rodham] Clinton's Senate campaign, Stewart reportedly donated $157,000 to Democrats within the past few years.

Records show that in all, $170,000 went to the party and its candidates, including $6,000 for President Clinton's two White House campaigns, $2,000 for Al Gore's presidential quest in 2000 and $75,000 -- the largest single donation -- to the Democrats' Unity campaign, $25,000 to the congressional campaign committee and $10,000 to the DNC.

A study by the Internet group TalkLeft -- which tracks crime-related political news -- claims that if felons were able to vote, 70 percent of them would vote Democratic.

Don Rumsfeld's "Souvenir"

Living in China

The State Department's most recent global human rights report, issued last month and covering 2003, said China's human rights performance remained poor.

It cited among other things arrests of Internet essayists and labor protestors, harsh repression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, and a continuing crackdown on Muslim Uighurs under the guise anti-terrorism action.

Bush "Attacks," Kerry "Challenges"

Dennis is still a player

Kucinich agreed that Cleveland will play an important role in November and pointed to Democrat Al Gore's strong showing in that area before the former vice president decided to pull out of the state in the 2000 race.

"Historically, you've got to come out of Cuyahoga County with a huge vote," Kucinich said. "That's my back yard. That's me. That's where I'm working."

Colorado Needs a Senator

"Doctors have assured me that after treatment for prostate cancer, the recovery rate is 98 percent. But I believe Coloradans deserve a 100 percent guarantee of service."

"At some point in the future I may feel compelled to run for the U.S. Senate, but this is not the right time for me," Beauprez said from Washington.

The Senate Passes its Budget version

``The deficits are far too high,'' Nickles said during the debate on the Senate floor. ``We charted a path to bring it down and bring it down rather abruptly.''

Kerry Wraps it UP!

Both CNN and CBS said their tabulations show that Kerry has gathered the 2,162 delegates needed at the Democratic National Convention in July to win the nomination and face Republican President Bush in the general election.

CNN said on Thursday Kerry had collected exactly 2,162 with wins in all but three of the Democratic electoral contests so far. CBS previously said on Tuesday the four-term senator had passed the magic mark.

Mr. Kerry has a similar problem for a different reason: It's not always clear what, if anything, he's committed to. The senator's supporters say that what sometimes looks like indecision reflects his devotion to thinking through a problem, to weighing every nuance and potential consequence before leaping to a decision. That's an admirable trait in a world more complex than Mr. Bush at times seems to recognize. But the hedging and subsequent grandstanding on Haiti raise the same question as do Mr. Kerry's campaign-trail straddles on a wide range of issues (trade, No Child Left Behind, the Patriot Act and more): Where are the bedrock principles that would guide him in office?

New Column on RSN site

My friend and prolific web-writer Jan Ireland likes to say that what liberals need is a good dose of parenting. A couple of recent items in the news proves her right -- the inhabitants of the left are just, well, self-centered, rude, disruptive and dominated by their emotions.

In other words, like your typical 2-year-old. [MORE]

UNSC Resolution Condemns ETA for Spanish Blasts

Party Time at Judiciary

Democrat staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee had plotted ways and strategies to block President Bush's judicial nominees. The Democrats successfully turned the outrage away from their own malfeasance and to the identity of the people who discovered and leaked the Democrat staffers' computerized memos. Manuel Miranda was forced to resign.

With no Democrats and about a half-dozen Republicans present, committee chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, announced on Thursday evening the panel would not be able to reach agreement and he would leave it up to the Senate sergeant-at-arms William Pickle to decide what to do.

In fact, the Code of Ethics for Government Service states that it is a government employee's duty to "expose corruption wherever discovered." This is a whistleblower provision that eliminates any doubt as to the ethical obligations of Senate employees who read documentation of wrongdoing. How would corruption be otherwise discovered?

New Column on the RSN site

John Kerry gets mad enough to make his botox crinkle when he talks about President Bushs leadership in the War on Terror. According to Kerry, Bush has led the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history. So much for a positive campaign. However, Kerry must use fanatical, veins popping out of his neck rhetoric for him to have any chance of confusing some voters into not noticing that we are winning the War on Terror under Bush. Despite Mr. Kerrys tooth gnashing, he falls short on the specifics of exactly were President Bush has failed. Senator Kerry has a very good reason for this. On the official John Kerry for President website, you will find his Homeland Security Plan contains more distorted facts than the New York Times. [MORE]

"Democrats United Around Kerry

"During the campaign, we often focused on what divided us, but the truth is we have much more in common, beginning with our fervent desire to send George Bush back to Crawford, Tex.," read a statement from Dean, released following the meeting.

On Thursday, Kerry went to Capital Hill to shore up support among key House and Senate Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and former campaign rival Sen. John Edwards. He also met with both the congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses.

On-Air Decency

The National Association of Broadcasters ``believes that voluntary industry initiatives are far preferable to government regulation when dealing with programming issues,'' said Eddie Fritts, head of the radio and television broadcasters' group.

DeLay as Newton

Mr. DeLay, Texas Republican, presented his vision for the party's future to colleagues in a closed-door meeting. The plan includes securing the country by winning the war on terror, doubling the size of the economy and strengthening the family.

The details of the plan are still being fleshed out, but [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi told her colleagues that they should be prepared to implement a strategy that will erase all distinctions between centrists and right-wing Republicans, lumping them together as reliable votes for DeLay and casting them in high relief with Democratic challengers.

New Column

THIS WEEK'S Reason to Support John Kerry is: He's smarter than you!

According to his vainglorious wife, TEH-RAY-ZAH, his interests are "insatiable," and according to the equally supercilious Maureen Dowd, he has a "vast palette of cultural preferences," in addition to "an almost comically vast palette of aggressive masculine sports and hobbies." (He married all members of the latter group.)

Apparently he has a "phantom Irish side," and he can even be a little "corny." He likes "The Deer Hunter"- I'm surprised he didn't say he was the movie's inspiration, as Al Gore said of "Love Story"-and he loves "Keats, Yeats, Shelley, and Kipling." [MORE]

JF Kerry says...

To CNN: "I didn't say it about the Republicans, I said it about the attack dogs."

"I have no intention whatsoever of apologizing for my remarks," Kerry told reporters as Senate Democratic leaders stood behind him. "I think the Republicans need to start talking about the real issues before the country."

Kerry not Electable?

John Kerry of the VVAW

A
U.S. INFANTRY
COMPANY JUST
CAME THROUGH
HERE!

If you have been Vietnamese --

We might have burned your house

We might have shot your dog

We might have shot you...

We might have raped your wife and daughter

We might have turned you over to your government for torture

We might have taken souvenirs from your property

We might have shot things up a bit...

We might have done ALL these things to you
and your whole TOWN!


If it doesn't bother you that American soldiers
do these things every day to the Vietnamese
simply because they are "Gooks", then picture YOURSELF
as one of the silent VICTIMS.

HELP US TO END THE WAR BEFORE THEY TURN YOUR SON INTO A BUTCHER

or a corpse.

VIETNAM VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR

Baseball and Steroids: 'Oh the humanity!'

"Baseball is the national pastime, but it's the repository of the values of this country," he intoned. "There's something simply un-American about this. This is about values, about culture, it's about who we define ourselves to be."

Is Kerry Sorry?, II

"Senator Kerry's statement ... was unbecoming of a candidate for the presidency of the United States," [Bush/Cheney Chairman Marc] Racicot said.

Kerry has called for repeal of some of Bush's tax cuts, which Republicans insist would amount to tax increases. However, Kerry has said he wants to retain the tax cuts geared to people in the middle class, whom he says face burdens from higher property taxes and rising costs for health care and education.

The Rightsided Newsletter

IT IS NOT JUST THE KERRY. Aside from John Kerry and the DNC, campaigning against President Bush for the next eight months will be the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy to defeat the President, which I'll call the VLWC. Unlike Hilary Rodham's VRWC, comprised mostly of small bands and freelancers, the VLWC is coordinated, organized, and well-funded. [MORE]

New Column on the RSN Site

Abortion is on a lot of people's minds lately, even as other cultural issues have taken up the front-pages of our newspapers for weeks now. Abortion is still an issue that makes this nation divided. Many people have indicated that their decision about who our next President will be will at least take into consideration what that candidate's stance is on the abortion issue.

What is your stance? Are you adamantly pro-life because you believe what the Bible says about life beginning at conception? Or are you a "foaming at the mouth" defender of a "woman's right to choose"? Or do you fall somewhere in the middle? [MORE]

When Kerry mutters…

"These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary."

At every turn, John Kerry has claimed to be the victim of an imaginary smear machine. Today, John Kerry made a comment that showed his true colors: a relentlessly negative campaign that is negative and pessimistic and offers no positive plan or agenda."

Investigating the Leakers, etc.

Enraged Republicans suspect the unredacted version — intended only for senators’ eyes — was given to the press accidentally on purpose.

Sessions sent a letter to Pickle demanding a full explanation of how the media obtained the sensitive file. As a result, the sergeant at arms is facing the oddly postmodern task of investigating a Senate leak of a report on the investigation of a Senate leak.

“Some may say that this is just a mistake and it must be forgotten, but I don’t think so,” Sessions wrote in his letter. “I believe it was an error of major proportions and it should not be taken lightly.”

Vice President McCain?, II

Kerry would be seen as crossing party lines and as selecting a "brother in arms," or whatever he calls his fellow Vietnam vets. He could claim that he is doing to because McCain is a good friend and this country would be decimated by another four years of George Bush.

The press would love it. McCain could recycle his old lines from 2000, but the GOP would be forced to attack their own chairman of Senate Commerce. Yikes!

Update: On Good Morning America, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was asked if he'd accept an offer to be Kerry's number two: "John Kerry is a very close friend of mine. We have been friends for years. Obviously, I would entertain it. But I see no scenario, no scenario, no scenario where -- I foresee no scenario where that would happen."

McCain would only do something like that if he was convinced that President Bush was going to lose the War on Terrorism and Senator Kerry was going to win it.

RNC Already Running Against Kerry/Edwards?

John Kerry's voting record has been rated the most liberal in the U.S. Senate. Following closely behind in a tie for fourth is Senator John Edwards. Both Senators outranked staunch liberals Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton on the National Journal's scores.

Rehnquist Backs Coin

There was one light moment. Rehnquist was barely audible when he began reading his prepared remarks [to the House Financial Services Committee], and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., interrupted to ask that Rehnquist adjust his microphone.

"I never thought I'd be interrupting a chief justice," King said by way of apology.

"You're lucky you're here and not in court," replied a smiling Rehnquist.

Is Kerry Sorry?

"John Kerry is not a black man — he is a privileged white man who has no idea what it is in this country to be a poor white in this country, let alone a black man," said Paula Diane Harris, founder of the Andrew Young National Center for Social Change.

It was Toni Morrison, the first African American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, who, tongue-in-cheek in a 1998 piece in the New Yorker, called Clinton "our first black president."

She wrote, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working class, saxophone playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

"They told stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires with portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan."

"He knew as an officer that those were lies. It never happened," said Vietnam veteran Carlton Sherwood. "He was principally responsible for cementing the image of Vietnam veterans as drugged-out psychopaths who were totally unrestrained and who were a murderous hoard."

He is not sorry, at least not in the apologetic sense of the term.

Kerry's Walk in the Sun

"Wictory Wednesday"

Clinton Won't Run

"I can't imagine the circumstances under which it would be something I would consider," Clinton told business leaders at a breakfast meeting in Manhattan. "I think Hillary's doing a good job, and one of us in politics is probably more than enough."

"I'd love to be mayor of New York. It's probably the second-best job in America, but there are lots of good people who want to be mayor of New York, and they should have their chance," Clinton said.

Euro-Fascists

Internet users who illegally download music face having their homes raided and properties seized under a crackdown on piracy backed yesterday by the European Parliament.

The new directive will create a single set of rules that will apply to the entire EU, including the 10 nations that join on 1 May.

Kerry's Cabinet

A Rube Goldberg Mind

Gay Marriage: Advice from the Dutch

The political narrative of how the Netherlands came to accept the idea of gay marriage, and make it a legal reality for [Anne Marie] Thus and [Helene] Fassen and about 6,000 other gay couples since April 1, 2001, offers lessons for both sides of the emotional debate in the United States. Thus and Fassen, along with several prominent politicians who wrote the Dutch legislation, offer words of caution to U.S. advocates of gay marriage. They warn that America should not move too fast. As Thus put it: "Americans need to spend more time talking about it."
.
These Dutch proponents of gay marriage recommend that their U.S. counterparts take more time to help the wider population see the issue from their perspective, and then let voters have their say. Otherwise, they say, the religious right will polarize the debate and tie it up for years. At the same time, some opponents have acknowledged that in the three years since gay marriage became a reality, the institution of marriage has not collapsed, as many warned it would.

Kerry and TIME Magazine

TIME: Obviously it's good that Saddam is out of power. Was bringing him down worth the cost?

KERRY: If there are no weapons of mass destruction— and we may yet find some—then this is a war that was fought on false pretenses, because that was the justification to the American people, to the Congress, to the world, and that was clearly the frame of my vote of consent. I said it as clearly as you can in my speech. I suggested that all the evils of Saddam Hussein alone were not a cause to go to war.


TIME: So, if we don't find WMD, the war wasn't worth the costs? That's a yes?

KERRY: No, I think you can still—wait, no. You can't—that's not a fair question, and I'll tell you why. You can wind up successful in transforming Iraq and changing the dynamics, and that may make it worth it, but that doesn't mean [transforming Iraq] was the cause [that provided the] legitimacy to go. You have to have that distinction.

New Kerry Campaign Slogan

The Dem Nomination

Post-November Advice for Candidate Kerry

Kerry defeats Bush

Among registered voters, Kerry's lead over Bush narrowed from 8 percentage points to 5 points in a two-way race and from 6 points to 2 points in a three-way race.

Heard on Special Report

Prefab Christ?

Another New Column

If you believe that Martha Stewart is an enemy of the state, you are right. However, is she a desperado that deserves the fate of corporate plungers? Well, the art of stealing from public companies is often rewarded for the skilled crook; but if you are caught in a lie, you are the worst of the worse. The focal point in this soap opera is missed by the media. Back in June of 2002, in Steward of the Public Trust, we asked: "Should Ms. Stewart be tarred and feathered for using etiquette banned by the SEC? Or are we supposed to swing Martha's stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, from the highest tree for getting her out of a down market?"

In the rush for a hangmans noose, most forget securities fraud charges were dropped against Martha Stewart. U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum ruled: "I have concluded that no reasonable juror can find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant lied for the purpose of influencing the market for the securities of her company". Since this was the most serious charge, isnt it curious that Sam Waksal, the former ImClone CEO, didnt have his jail time interrupted to testify against Martha? If they were so close, why didnt Sam just give the heads-up to sell, and avoid the Bacanovic loop? [MORE]

Kerry's Upcoming Election Lawsuits

Kerry, a lawyer and former Massachusetts prosecutor, said his campaign was assembling a legal team to examine districts which had problems.

"We're going to pre-check it, we're going to have the legal team in place. ... We're going to take injunctions where necessary ahead of time. We'll pre-challenge if necessary," the four-term Massachusetts senator said.

"I don't think we ought to have any vote cast in America that cannot be traced and properly recounted," he said.

Kerry Cites Unnamed Leaders

Without naming anybody, Kerry said he had received words of encouragement from leaders abroad who were eager to see him defeat Bush on Nov. 2.

"I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy they look at you and say, 'You've got to win this, you've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy,' things like that," he said.

A New Column

If a Constitutional amendment is the only way to prevent the tide of gay marriages spreading across our nation like a disease, then I am going to have to support it. However, it is a bad option. There are better ways to stop this plague, but our "leaders" are too cowardly to pursue them. [READ MORE]

Gore Watch

After Gore's endorsement of Dean, however, the Kerry camp has not reached out to him for advice or campaign help.

Signed as Read

"We must put the interests of our nation above all of our interests. The world is waiting and expecting us to work in the service of our nation," council president Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum told the meeting before the show of hands.

Chalabi Says Weapons Exist

"This is a ridiculous situation. Every story that comes out in the press says: 'Defectors have an axe to grind, don't believe them'...Before the war, they kept saying that...So why did (the CIA) believe them so much?" Chalabi questioned.

The INC gets paid 350,000 dollars a month by the United States to provide Iraqi intelligence and taxpayers also funded Chalabi's defectors program, according to CBS.

Kerry's "unenthused" potential veeps

Host Schieffer sat former Florida Governor (Senator) Bob Graham, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania down, via satellite from their home States, and said: Hands-up, who doesn't want to be vice president? Richardson raised his hand and waved it a little: "I love being governor of New Mexico. I'm very happy with my job."

Rendell took an interesting tack. While he would accept the nod if asked, he said: "I think it should be someone who could be President." Someone with the foreign policy experience, he said, that he himself lacked. He thinks Kerry should pick someone from a "Red State" (voted for Bush in 2000), whereas his State (Commonwealth) of Pennsylvania went Blue in 2000. He suggested Graham, Senator John Breaux of Louisiana, and Congressman Dick Gephardt of Missouri. When asked, he said that John Edwards was fine -- a little soft of foreign policy, but that could be learned. (Couldn't he, Rendell, then pick it up as well? Or is he a slow learner?)

Vice-President McCain

On TW, Senator John McCain told Steph that he would not run on a Presidential ticket with Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts). In fact, McCain seemed to found the suggestion exceedingly amusing.

Wes Clark on CNN's Late Edition

Matalin and Carville on Meet the Press

Carville: "Very good news for the Republican Party when Ralph Nader declared his candidacy."

Matalin: "He's not going to get 6-percent [of the vote]. It's not going to have a major impact on this race.

Pause

The Rightsided Newsletter

The Sunday Morning Talk Shows

Strauss Opera Deemed a "goofy anti-abortion paean"…

"A review of Los Angeles Opera's 'Die Frau Ohne Schatten' in Tuesday's Calendar section incorrectly characterized the work as 'anti-abortion.' In fact, there is no issue of abortion in the opera, which extols procreation."

"As the correction should have made clear, the lead paragraph submitted by the reviewer was incorrectly changed to include the term ‘anti-abortion.’"

MoveOn.Org Ads illegally funded

"As a broadcaster licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, you have a responsibility to the viewing public, and to your licensing agency, to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity," said the RNC's chief counsel, Jill Holtzman Vogel, in a letter sent to about 250 stations Friday.

"Now that you have been apprised of the law, to prevent further violations of federal law, we urge you to remove these advertisements from your station's broadcast rotation."

9-11 Families Support President Bush

"There is no better testament to the leadership of President Bush than Sept. 11," the letter [from the families] states. "In choosing our next leader we must not forget that day if we are to have a meaningful conversation."

The "Open Letter to America," signed by 22 people who lost loved ones in the trade center, comes as other victims' families asked that the ads be pulled from the airwaves. The spots also show firefighters carrying a flag-draped stretcher.

"In the November election we will have a clear choice laid before the American people," the letter reads. "President Bush is rightly offering us that choice and the images of Sept. 11, although painful, are fundamental to that choice. The images in President Bush's campaign television ads are respectful of the memories of Sept. 11."

Defying the Courts

[Topless Shirley] Mason, executive director of the pro-nude beach Beaches Foundation Institute, has battled other government agencies over their topless policies. She is one of 10 women suing Brevard County over its anti-nudity ordinance.

They'll cover Kerry no matter what

He [candidate Kerry] called the president "a walking contradiction" who had also failed to make good on vows to change the tone in Washington.

"It's the worst it's ever been. This is the biggest 'my way or the highway' group of people I've ever met in my life," Kerry said.

"As the phrase goes, Houston, we've got a problem." He was referring to the now-legendary report of trouble aboard the U.S. Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970.

Martha Stewart (II)

The Interim Constitution of Doom

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In a spectacular embarrassment to U.S. occupiers, Iraq's Governing Council postponed signing an interim constitution Friday because of last-minute objections by Shias that the charter would limit their sect's power."

sought by the Kurds to ensure that the eventual permanent constitution, to be put to a national referendum, does not encroach on their self-rule zone in the north. The clause says that if two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces reject the permanent charter, it will not go into effect. The Kurd self-rule region includes three provinces in the north.

The draft approved Monday set up a single president with two deputies. But al-Bayati said the Shiites were reviving their demand for a five-person rotating presidency.

Under that proposal, which was raised in the debate over the final accord, the presidency would rotate between three Shiites, a Kurd and a Sunni -- giving the Shiites a dominant role.

Howard Stern (II)

``The plug is about to be pulled on me,'' he told his audience, which he estimated at about 16 million listeners nationwide. ``I'm saying my goodbyes now. There's nothing you can do about it. . . . Vote George Bush out of office. That's all I ask. Remember me when you go to the voting booth.''

Until recently, Stern has stayed away from politics. ``I just want to do fart jokes and have stripper chicks in here,'' he said Friday.

More Kerry Veepstakes

Has he no shame?

Surmountable Vulnerability

By effectively conceding the South to Bush, however, Kerry would be hurting the chances of the Democrats in key Senate races. Five Senate Democrats from the South, including John Breaux (La.), have announced their retirement.

Kerry Endorsement

"We must have cooperation and support from the federal government," said Sebelius, flanked by state and local Democratic leaders.

Martha Stewart

William Pfaff on Kerry's Foreign Policy

Kerry's Vietnam service had demonstrated that he is a serious man who has experienced war, proved himself in battle, confronted war's moral and political dilemmas, and gone against the tide of convention and public opinion by condemning the war in which he had fought.
.
Nothing of this can be said of President George W. Bush. The dimensions of his evasion of active military service in the Vietnam War have yet to be clearly established, but the truth could prove devastating to his re-election campaign.
.
Bush nonetheless maintains that he is a "war president." Some of his followers, also military virgins, are all for still more war. In their book "An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror,"Richard Perle and David Frum write that we are all cowards if we don't overthrow the governments of North Korea and all the Arab states that look like they might make trouble. This neoconservative argument is not likely to help the Bush campaign.

There is a connection between Kerry's war and Bush's war. Intervention in Vietnam, like the invasion of Iraq, was something the Kennedy and Johnson governments owed to naïvely ideological thinking - about domino theories, the global menace of Chinese Communism, and all that.

Kerry's DNC Chairman

Democrat Unity!

The also-rans in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination have supplied plenty of rhetorical ammunition that Republicans could refire in the fall campaign, although the strategy is not without risks.

"The problem with the Republicans using it is that the Democrats agreed in every debate that anyone on the stage was better than George Bush," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Any time the Democrats' critical words are revived, the author of the words can step forward to explain them away and speak in praise of Kerry.

Who is John Kerry?

Probably the most likely outcome is that Kerry will present an amalgam. He's offering neither a rejection nor a revival of Clinton's policies, but a more combative synthesis that reflects the country's new challenges and the demands of a party virtually unified in hostility to the Bush agenda.

Tony Blair's Speech

It is… my fervent view that the nature of the global threat we face in Britain and round the world is real and existential and it is the task of leadership to expose it and fight it, whatever the political cost; and that the true danger is not to any single politician's reputation, but to our country if we now ignore this threat or erase it from the agenda in embarrassment at the difficulties it causes.

I accept, incidentally, that however abhorrent and foul the regime and however relevant that was for the reasons I set out before the war, for example in Glasgow in February 2003, regime change alone could not be and was not our justification for war. Our primary purpose was to enforce UN resolutions over Iraq and WMD.

Of course the opponents are boosted by the fact that though we know Saddam had WMD; we haven't found the physical evidence of them in the 11 months since the war. But in fact, everyone thought he had them. That was the basis of UN Resolution 1441.

But the key point is that it is the threat that is the issue.

The characterisation [sic] of the threat is where the difference lies. Here is where I feel so passionately that we are in mortal danger of mistaking the nature of the new world in which we live. Everything about our world is changing: its economy, its technology, its culture, its way of living. If the 20th century scripted our conventional way of thinking, the 21st century is unconventional in almost every respect.

This is true also of our security.

The threat we face is not conventional. It is a challenge of a different nature from anything the world has faced before. It is to the world's security, what globalisation is to the world's economy.
It was defined not by Iraq but by September 11th. September 11th did not create the threat Saddam posed. But it altered crucially the balance of risk as to whether to deal with it or simply carry on, however imperfectly, trying to contain it.

[W]hat galvanised [sic] me was that it was a declaration of war by religious fanatics who were prepared to wage that war without limit. They killed 3000. But if they could have killed 30,000 or 300,000 they would have rejoiced in it. The purpose was to cause such hatred between Moslems and the West that a religious jihad became reality; and the world engulfed by it.

Kerry's Veepstakes

The President's Ad Controversy

George W. Bush tripped over the wreckage of the World Trade Center and stumbled into controversy yesterday as he tried to take the high road with an expensive advertising campaign for re-election but was immediately attacked for playing politics with tragedy.

Ignoring family pleas, White House officials defended the ads as highlighting a pivotal moment in the nation's history and suggested politics was behind some of the criticism, reports [CBS aging glamour boy/haircut John] Roberts."

A New Column

We like to celebrate the content of the character. Something a black conservative once recommended. The values of the Democrat party Martin Luther King, Jr., supported would be Republican today. Black history suffers immensely by pretending conservative blacks don't exist.

With luck, Black History Month 2005 will reflect the black experience all of it.

Another National Poll: Associated Press

The "Jewish Vote"

The Republican Jewish Coalition, the main voice of Jewish Republicans to Republican decision makers and the Jewish community, expressed concern recently about Sen. John Kerry's stance on Israel, based on differing statements he has made at various times during his candidacy.

"We understand they have been inclined to support Democrats," Racicot said of Jewish voters in an interview with the JTA. "But we feel the president’s policies and his values in regards to the Middle East lead to the possibility to be much more successful in the Jewish community."

Leadership vrs. Credibility

North Korea backs the Kerry candidacy

John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic candidate, is also getting good play in Pyongyang.

In the past few weeks, speeches by the Massachusetts senator have been broadcast on Radio Pyongyang and reported in glowing terms by the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), the official mouthpiece of Mr Kim's [dictator Kim Jong-Il] communist regime.

The President's Enemies Unleashed

"What do you think Hitler would have thought if Roosevelt would've lost the election in 1944? He would have thought American resolve was" (weakening), Cole said, according to a spokeswoman.

"[I]f George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election" since enemies of the United States would interpret it as a sign of weakness.

California Rep. Robert Matsui, chairman of the Democrats' House campaign committee, compared Cole's comments to Bush's new campaign commercials that use images from the terrorist attacks.

"The Republican Party's continuing attempt to politicize the 9/11 tragedy is an insult to the victims' families and our entire nation," Matsui said in a statement.

Howard Stern Takes on President Bush

Stern's loyal listeners, Clear Channel foes and many Bush administration critics immediately reached the same conclusion: The notorious jock was yanked off the air because he had recently begun trashing Bush, and Bush-friendly Clear Channel used the guise of "indecency" to shut him up. That the content of Stern's crude show hadn't suddenly changed, but his stance on Bush had, gave the theory more heft. That, plus his being pulled off the air in key electoral swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania.

Candidate Kerry's Issues

Hi Mark,

Issues??? Here's the Dems strategy:

Bush is not allowed to mention or promote the leadership he has provided in the aftermath of the most serious attack and threat in our history.

But Lord Kerry is free to obscenely promote his 4 month tour in Vietnam.

They may question Bush's Guard service by innuendo and through subsidiary mouth-pieces.

But Kerry's post Vietnam treachery is off-limits.

Kerry's Senate record is to be written off as "history", or haughty reminders that we "don't understand the process", or that Kerry "grew", he, "was not inflexible like Bush".

The new Houdini will then try to convince he can do the following:

Reduce the deficit, but expand handouts. Remain strong while kneeling before Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac. Become stronger while lowering our defense. Oppose same sex marriage, but endorse its practice. Note: They are very skilled on this sort of "sleight of hand". It's the old, "I personally oppose abortion, but I support its practice."

And finally, you must not believe your lying eyes, and mind, when they tell you that Lord Kerry is a lame, disingenuous, opportunistic elitist geek. In other words please abandon the unavoidable conclusion that he is nothing more than a leftist con-man, who actually aspires to the Presidency. This despite the fact that he has done absolutely nothing to earn and hold a seat in the U.S. Senate, despite that body's very low standards for membership and performance.

Jim

New Columns

Thus I propose a bit of a radical plan. Instead of Bush campaigning sporadically in places like Pennsylvania and attending $2000-per-plate fundraisers in New York City, he ought to start at one corner of the country and campaign for weeks at a time, non-stop. It would be very Trumanesque.

The challenge to them is this: Rather than looking to our cumbersome and monumentally inefficient federal bureaucracy to use money confiscated from others to solve these problems, use the considerable assets of liberals to do it.

Electronic Hanging Chads

The Tony Snow Show

"The universally agreed upon tenets of Islam."

The proposed constitution does not indicate what those tenets are, or any source where they may be found. This vague formulation risks empowering unelected religious authorities to override basic rights in determining what is "Islamically correct." It could also lead to further sectarian violence in a struggle over interpretation.

George Mitchell is New Disney Chairman

Angry Families of 9-11™ Victims

"It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," said Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin tower attacks. "It is unconscionable."

Gabrielle and several other family members said the injury was compounded by Bush's refusal to testify in open session before the 9/11 commission.

. . .

Mindy Kleinberg said she was offended because the White House has not cooperated fully with the commission and because of the sight of remains being lifted out of Ground Zero in one of the spots."

New Columns on RSN Site

There are many reasons that the government cares about marriage. One of the primary reasons is simple economics. The same Democrats now advocating gay marriage will be advocating "fighting poverty" in the next breath. But isn't there a connection here? Don't economics and marriage go hand-in-hand down the aisle of prosperity? They most certainly do.

Many people, I'm sure, are prepared to take issue with that assertion. These same people would be shocked to find out that only seven percent of children living in poverty live with parents that have been married to each other during the child's entire life. That means that ninety-three percent of children living in poverty come from what liberals love to refer to as a "broken home." Fifty-one percent of these children live with a mother that has never been married. Only twenty-seven percent of all children live in single-parent families. However, sixty-two percent of the children living in poverty live in a single-parent family. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence. It must be simply a "quirk" of the numbers.

Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution reads "In all other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." H.R. 3799 and S. 2082, titled "The Constitution Restoration Act of 2004", uses this clause to ban the Supreme Court from reviewing cases that involve "acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." It also denies district courts jurisdiction over any case the Supreme Court can't review.

The very worthy intent of the legislation is to use the "Exceptions" clause to deny the federal courts jurisdiction over Ten Commandment or Christmas displays, prayer by City Councils or school children, and "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. If passed and declared legal by the courts it would give Congress unlimited power to ignore the Constitution by simply adding a line to every bill denying to the federal courts the right to review the issue. If it wanted Congress could ban all political speech but its own before an election, ban all firearms ownership, or actually establish a religion. It would be an even more dangerous assault on the separation of powers than unconstitutionally allowing judges to legislate from the bench has become.

Bush/Cheney '04 Commercials

Reggie the Registration Rig

Today, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie officially kicked off National Voter Registration Week at a news conference from the helm an 18-wheeler named "Reggie the Registration Rig" that was parked out in front of RNC headquarters.

"There are millions of unregistered Republicans all across America," said Chairman Gillespie.

"The President's steady leadership in these changing times is exciting more Americans to participate and when more Americans participate that is good news for Republicans from the State House to the White House."

The 56 foot, 80,000 pound, 18-wheeler, designed expressly for registering voters, is fully equipped with interactive multimedia capabilities, Xbox systems, a sound stage and much more. Today's debut of Reggie the Registration Rig begins a nationwide voter registration tour as Reggie stops at college campuses, NASCAR and other sporting events, parades, ethnic festivals, and many other public events until Election Day 2004.

The Wrong Choice Too Early

Once the Democratic voters had discarded Howard Dean and embraced Kerry, they did not have the dexterity to rethink Kerry in the light of the Edwards alternative.

Too bad for the Democrats: Edwards would have been a much stronger candidate in November than Kerry will be.

. . .

In the coming weeks, Bush will hammer at Kerry until we look back and wonder why we ever thought the Massachusetts senator could have won in the first place.

By then, of course, it will be too late. The nominating process is so frontloaded that the Democrats will be stuck with the flawed Kerry candidacy for months as he slowly twists in the wind.

Senator Campbell calls it quits. Should Kerry?

Dennis wins Primary

Kucinich didn't win a single one of the 30 state contests, including the ten on Super Tuesday. He's collected just 18 delegates, compared to more than 11-hundred amassed by John Kerry. Still, Kucinich tells The Associated Press he wants to force a debate within the party on such issues as Iraq, health care and trade. And he says that debate will occur only if he stays in the race.

It's not clear how Kucinich plans to get his message out, but he is due to get federal matching funds this week.

Rohrabacher defeats Dornan

"The vote today indicates that most people believe that Bob Dornan is a self indulgent, arrogant bigot, and that's not the type of person they want representing them in Washington," the incumbent said.

Notes from Tuesday Night

Post-Democrat Party "Wictory Wednesday"

L'Extrémité

NBC Projections

Fox Projections

NY mayor charged after breaking the law

Jason West, the 26-year-old Greenie mayor of New Paltz, NY, had been marrying homosexual couples. Groovy. Today, according to Newsday, West "was ordered to appear in court Wednesday to answer charges that he broke state law by solomizing about two dozen weddings without a marriage license."

He faces up to a year in jail and a $500 fine.

What, then, of San Francisco's lawbreaking Mayor Gavin Newsome?

Mars is Wet

"Opportunity has landed in an area of Mars where liquid water once drenched the surface," NASA associate administrator Ed Weiler told a news conference.

"Moreover, this area would have been good habitable environment."
That does not mean that evidence of life has been found -- but it suggests that life could have evolved on Mars just as it did on Earth, NASA said.

It does mean NASA can go ahead with a plan to eventually send people to Mars.
Opportunity landed on Jan. 24 in a small crater on the vast flat Meridiani.

More Phony Gun Control Mania

Will Kerry Select a Veep?

Rupert Murdoch becoming Conservative?

The latest development comes just a couple of months after Mr Murdoch publicly declared he may be willing to back Mr Howard at the next election.

He said he was still worried about more power being given to Europe and wanted to see if Mr Howard could turn Tory fortunes around.

Either way, with one simple invitation to speak, Mr Murdoch has again displayed just how central he and his newspapers can be on the British political scene.

Long GOP History of opposing freaky marriage

In 1906, the country was still mired in issues from the 1896 admission of Utah into the Union, which sparked a debate over Mormon practices of polygamy. Dalton said that the Women's Christian Temperance Union met with Roosevelt to get his support for traditional marriage, and that the president already was upset at the wealthy, who could afford to use divorce laws in Reno to get out of their marriages.

Tuper Suesday Super Tuesday

Separation of Church and State

The California Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a Catholic charity must offer prescription contraceptives in its employee health insurance plan even if church teaching opposes birth control measures.

The state's highest court upheld a lower court decision rejecting Catholic Charities of Sacramento's claims it did not have to offer prescription contraceptives because it considered itself obliged to follow the Roman Catholic Church's religious teachings, which hold that the use of artificial birth control is a sin.

The state supreme court said the charity, incorporated separately from the church, was not a "religious employer" exempt from legislation mandating such coverage.

While affiliated with the Catholic Church, the charity's purpose is not to inculcate religious values, a majority of court justices noted.

Check out Howard Kurtz

No, the French did it

The White House and Pentagon on Monday dismissed allegations that Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped by U.S. forces eager for him to resign and flee into exile.

With U.S. military forces already on the ground in the Caribbean nation and more on the way, chief presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said, "It's nonsense, and conspiracy theories do nothing to help the Haitian people move forward to a better, more free, more prosperous future."

John Kerry / Arlen Specter

With this catalogue of votes, the RNC makes Kerry look as radical as...well...Arlen Specter.

On all of the above votes, taken from the short list of the lowlights of John Kerry's record, Arlen Specter voted with John Kerry. But the Republican establishment is backing Specter, still.

George W. Bush thinks he can win Pennsylvania. He seems to think having Arlen Specter on the ticket below him will help. Trying to convince voters to vote for Bush and Specter will be a tough row to hoe, especially when it comes to explaining his positions on taxes, cloning, school choice, the life of the unborn, and the direction of the federal courts. Kerry and Specter would be the more natural pair for voters to choose.

New Column…

Harkin: Aristide more popular than Bush

"He's got more support there than Bush got in this country," said the Iowa Democrat in a conference call with Iowa reporters. "He's a legitimate, democratically elected president."

Added Harkin: "Bush did not win the popular election in this country. He won because he got one more vote in the Supreme Court of the United States in a case that never should have been decided by the Supreme Court. I'm saying Aristide got a higher percentage of the vote in Haiti than Bush got in this country."

"It [Iraq] may not be Vietnam, but, boy, it sure smells like it. And every time I see these bills coming down for the money, it's costing like Vietnam, too."

"Go visit Vietnam, as I've done several years ago, and find out how the people are getting along there," said Harkin, who voted for the congressional resolution authorizing the president to take military action against Iraq, but has been increasingly critical since.

"They seem to be getting along fine," he said on the Senate floor. "I still may not approve of the kind of government they've got, but the people seem to be getting along fine. Saigon is bustling. Hanoi is bustling. Roads are being built. Tourist industry is going up. Manufacturing is going up.

"It might not be the mirror image of our government but they seem to be doing all right."

And that's why I say that what's wrong in this country today is that there are too many people making money on money and not enough people making money in agriculture and mining and manufacturing and transportation and doing the things that create real wealth in our society.

It's time to go to the American people with a new message. And like Franklin Roosevelt said in the 30s, after taking over from the gluttons of privilege who used the 20s for their own gain at the expense of the rest of the country, "We've always known that greed was bad morals. Now we know it's bad economics."

I'm not making this up…

"I'm very touched by the knowledge that one of my relatives was in the Holocaust," [candidate John] Kerry said in an interview last night. "It gives an even greater personal sense of connection [to the Holocaust] that is very real and very touching. It makes you wonder how horrible their lives must have been."

When Hillary Speaks…

Clinton also saw a likelihood that the new Iraqi government would repress women’s rights which, she said, had been expanded by Saddam Hussein.

“I have been deeply troubled by what I hear coming out of Iraq. When I was there and met with women members of the national governing council and local governing councils in Baghdad and Kirkuk they were starting to express concerns about some of the pullbacks in the rights they were given under Saddam Hussein,” she said.

“He was an equal opportunity oppressor, but on paper, women had rights. They went to school, they participated in the professions, they participated in government and in business; as long as they stayed out of his way, they had considerable freedom of movement.”

Instead of a Constitutional Amendment…

A means of devolving popular authority, to be exercised by individual states, could be obtained by removing jurisdiction from the Supreme Court in matters having to do with marriage. Article III, Section 2 gives Congress the necessary authority to do this.

"...the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."

The Brits and the Debate

"Give me a living room, a bar, one on one," he said. "I think I can talk to anyone in the country."

Bush expects to trail or run-even

Mr. Bush himself, the strategists said, will refine his stump speech so that it is less about his accomplishments so far than about the opportunities he has created for the future, and the stark choices facing the voters in November. Chief among them, Republicans said, would be whether the country wants to entrust its security to a Democratic challenger that the White House is busily portraying as too liberal and lacking in principle.

"Democrat Debate Watch"

Edwards: … These are great arguments about what he intends to do going forward. But it's similar, for example, Senator Kerry has consistently said that he can pay for all the things that he's proposing and substantially reduce the deficit, I think I've heard him say cut it in half, in his first term.

Well, The Washington Post today just analyzed his proposals, and its the same old thing. Here we go again. In fact, in fact, he overspends, in terms of being able to pay for all of his proposals, he overspends by $165 billion in his first term, which means he would drive us deeper and deeper into deficit.

[Dennis then talks but is ignored.]

KERRY: And John has just made some very important statements, and I want to respond to them.

I think John would have learned by now not to believe everything he reads in a newspaper. And he should do his homework, because the fact is that what's printed in The Washington Post today is inaccurate.

A stimulus is by definition something that you do outside of the budget for one year or two years. The Washington Post included the stimulus when they figured the numbers. The stimulus is what you do to kick the economy into gear so that you can reduce the deficit.

Secondly, they did not include the reduction of the $139 billion of the Medicare bill which I have said I am sending back to Congress because it's a bad bill. I voted against it, it's bad.
Now, when you add up my stimulus that's outside of the budget and the Medicare numbers that they didn't even include, you do not go over, I do not spend more...

ELIZABETH BUMILLER OF THE NEW YORK TIMES: Senator Kerry, let me...

KERRY: No, no, I insist on being able to finish.

BUMILLER: I want to ask a really important question.

KERRY: This is important.

But a review of his campaign proposals shows that the Democratic front-runner is promising to spend at least $165 billion more on new programs during his first term in office than he could save with his tax plan, a mix of breaks for the middle class and increases for corporations and the most affluent. The $165 billion figure does not include the cost of several proposals Kerry has not fully detailed or backed with estimates.

Kerry and Edwards Favor Preemption

The two top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination -- John Kerry and John Edwards -- were quick to try to highlight Haiti as an issue ahead of November's elections, alleging President Bush did too little too late to stabilize the impoverished nation.

Kerry said Bush had "empowered the insurgents" by failing to step in sooner and added, "I never would have allowed it to get out of control the way it did."

Edwards suggested it fit a pattern of "do nothing, do nothing, and when it gets to crisis stage, then we act."

John Edwards's Victory Strategy

The RSN has been sent

Jean-Bertrand Aristide is out.

What will follow in Haiti, very much in doubt.

The Sunday Morning Talk Shows

Cuomos for Kerry

We Democrats must unite so that the entire nation can unite because surely the Republicans won't bring this country together. Their policies divide the nation - into the lucky and the left-out, into the royalty and the rabble. The Republicans are willing to treat that division as victory. They would cut this nation in half, into those temporarily better off and those worse off than before, and they would call that division recovery.

"Although "any number" of Democrats could do a good job as vice president, Mario Cuomo singled out Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who is running second in delegates to Kerry.

"He'd be a natural favorite, I would think, to a lot of people. But there's a lot of analysis I'm sure that has to go into it," said Cuomo.

Assisting the Incumbents

Cheney praised Bartlett as an ally of the Bush administration in the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq, and he lauded the veteran lawmaker's experience and bipartisanship.

"In this time of testing, the president and I have been grateful to have Congressman Bartlett at our side," Cheney said. He left unmentioned the fact that Bartlett had been among the White House's Republican critics in the buildup to the war, arguing for more debate and perhaps a formal declaration of war by Congress.

E.U. wants Congress to raise taxes

The history of the dispute goes back to 1997 when the E.U. filed a complaint about the Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) law that benefits many large U.S. exporters like Microsoft. [CNS link]

After years of rulings and appeals, the WTO ruled that the tax breaks add up to illegal subsidies of exports and authorized the sanctions, which the E.U. voted last year to begin by March 1 if the law was not repealed.

A bill to repeal the [tax cut] measure in the Senate could reach the floor next week, and another bill is also being worked on in Congress.

"There is a consensus in Congress and in the administration that the U.S. does need to come into compliance," said the [U.S. government] official.

Lieberman: post-mortem

South Dakota v. Roe v. Wade

South Dakota v. Roe v. Wade

In a Presidential election year, is it time to test Roe v. Wade from the Right? Republican South Dakota State Representative Matt McCaulley thinks it is, and he was the chief sponsor of the State's HB 1191 [pdf text], "[a]n Act to establish certain legislative findings, to reinstate the prohibition against certain acts causing the termination of an unborn human life, and to prescribe a penalty therefor."

Representative McCaulley said that the bill was designed to call challenge the notion in Roe that the Supreme Court did not know when human life begins.

From HB 1191:

The Legislature finds that since neither constitutional law nor Supreme Court decision has resolved the question of the beginning of life, it is within the proper sphere of state legislative enactment to determine the question of fact in light of the best scientific and medical evidence. The Legislature finds that the life of a human being begins when the ovum is fertilized by male sperm.

McCaulley avvered that the time for the measure, which passed the South Dakota State House, 54-15, is now: "We are ready to fight for the right to life, as opposed to waiting for it." He told me last week:

"The moral issue of abortion is a battle for the legitimacy of our otherwise civilized society -- it is our treasured Republic that we are trying to save by returning this issue to the control of the democratic process."

It is a novel concept: removing from the purview of unelected courts a matter of life and death, and returning it to those who were democratically elected by the people to whom the laws apply. It is contrary to our form of government that such a concept has become so offbeat. Ironically, whether or not this happens will be a matter of judicial opinion.

Richard Thomas of the Thomas Moore Law Center [press release] has noted:

"This is new and unique legislation that has never been considered by the Supreme Court. The Law Center and our Associate Counsel, Harold Cassidy, are pleased we could be of assistance to Matt McCaulley and South Dakota in their efforts to protect the unborn. While we cannot predict the future, we do know that this legislation establishes significant facts that the courts will not be able to ignore."

South Dakota's Senate has to pass the legislation first [Lifenews.com story], and the Senate State Affairs Committee, fearing that a court would strike down the law, fashioned an amendment which removed the abortion proscription and changed the bill into one which would require doctors only to notify women seeking abortions of the possible risks involved. (The Senate committee's version does, however, hold that South Dakota agrees that science has definitely proven that human life begins at conception.)

The Senate, if it chooses, can reject the amendment and pass the bill as it passed the State house, but at least one Senator has said that he will not support a bill that the courts will overturn, choosing instead to pass a bill which will reduce the number of abortions. The choice, then, is between passing a mild bill which accomplishes very little, or passing a bill which could be all or nothing.

The nothing could be important, as well. South Dakota right to life, according to a story from the Associated Press, opposes the measure because it could offer the Supreme Court a chance to further entrench Roe v. Wade at the expense of South Dakota. The problem with this excuse is that the Roe decision as written, with its trimesters derived "emanations of the penumbra" is bad law and has been treated as such by the Court beginning essentially in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, while the general finding of Roe, that abortion is a civil right, is decided and established law.

If one considers abortion to be the ending of a human life, it strikes me as hypocritical to reject a measure which could end the practice in so-moved States in favor of a measure which might or might not save a few lives. Abortion is currently a judicially established federal right almost separate from the terms of the Roe decision itself, so offering the Court an opportunity to throw the decision out or to defend it by different means is worth the hazard. This is not a matter on which a strong advocate of either direction has an opportunity for cowardice.

Representative McCaulley told me last week:

"The first challenge to the law will come from Planned Parenthood who has promised to fight this bill in the courts. The court system is the primary way that a vocal minority imposes their morality on society -- a morality the minority could not impose on the rest of us if they were forced to work through the democratic process. The court challenge could come as early as July 1, 2004 when the law (if passed) would go into effect."

McCaulley has vowed to fight the Senate amendment and have the Senate vote on his original language. South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds is staunchly Pro-Life and is expected to sign it, meaning it could be working its way through the judicial system during the height of the Presidential campaign season. It would be difficult for a "practicing Catholic" like John Kerry to dodge this question. (John Edwards could repeat that there are "two Americas.")

Kerry talks Terror War at UCLA

Kerry said that to replenish what he called "our overextended military," he would add 40,000 active-duty Army troops, "a temporary increase likely to last the remainder of the decade."

Kerry's strange ideas

''This administration has been engaged in very manipulative and wrongful ways,'' Kerry said. ``They have a theological and an ideological hatred for Aristide. They always have. They approached this so the insurgents were empowered by this administration.''

New Column

Jobs one doesn't want

You want a job? Have you ever seen, "sorry, there are no jobs available this week," in the classifieds? I see commercials for joining the military everyday, not to mention I've never seen a McDonald's that isn't hiring.

For many of the unemployed, it isn't any job they want -- they must have "their" job. Sorry, but the job doesn't belong to you and, if you really need a job, you might have to take a pay-cut and work harder. The point is: if you really want a job, you can find one.

Chirac's Regime Change

France, Haiti's former colonial power, has already proposed a U.N.-backed multinational force to stabilize the politically troubled nation.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in Paris on Thursday that France would like to see a force deployed ''within days.''

''The regime (in Haiti) has reached an impasse and has already shaken off constitutional legality,'' he said.

John Edwards… "Not Yet"

U.S. - German Relations in Fine Shape

"We have differences - in the past," Bush said as he and Schroeder sat side-by-side in the Oval Office, both men relaxed and smiling and frequently leaning in toward each other as they spoke. "But there's nothing wrong with friends having differences and we have both committed to put the differences behind us and move forward."

Likewise, Schroeder declared his first White House visit in two years a success. The two had been at odds over the German leader's fierce opposition to the Iraq war.

"We talked not about the past," Schroeder said. "We very much agreed that we have to talk about the present and the future now."

Florida Democrat apologizes for racist remarks

"I apologize right up front," Brown, D-Fla., said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "But I am concerned about the crisis that is about to happen in Haiti and about the blood and about the government collapsing and about the people suffering and I just pray that we will intervene before it's too late."

John Kerry: The Most Liberal Senator

NATIONAL JOURNAL on Friday claimed Democrat frontrunner John Kerry has the "most liberal" voting record in the Senate.

The results of Senate vote ratings show that Kerry was the most liberal senator in 2003, with a composite liberal score of 96.5 -- far ahead of such Democrat stalwarts as Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.

NATIONAL JOURNAL's scores, which have been compiled each year since 1981, are based on lawmakers' votes in three areas: economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy.

“‘Look at National Journal ratings – Kerry is way to the left of the American mainstream,’ said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia.”

Notebooks for Haiti

"He knows the situation in Haiti extremely well and knows the cost that widespread violence will cause not only in Haiti, but on our shores."

President Campaigns Against Kerry

"On national security, Americans have the clearest possible choice," Mr. Bush told 1,000 supporters in a 10-minute speech. "Our opponents say they approve of bold action in the world, but only if no other government disagrees. Yet America must never outsource our national-security decisions to leaders of other governments."

Turned it Off

Democrats Debate at 9 (ET)

Pelosi won't let Tauzin lobby