Articles of Interest 3-31-08
234 Days until Election Day
MORNING UPDATE:
Keith Butler did a great job at the Van Buren County Lincoln Day dinner last night. Another special guest was Chief Justice Cliff Taylor. Both posed for pictures with the Generation Joshua Club of Kalamazoo representatives, who led the Pledge of Allegiance. Congratulations to the Van Buren County GOP on a great event.
Tax Freedom Day® will fall on April 23 in 2008, the day Americans as a whole have paid their taxes and can start working for themselves! More below.
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2008/03/tax-freedom-day.html
Concern that the Governor and Democrats will come to Michigan’s taxpayers for more, is one of the main reasons folks are talking about enacting a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature to raise taxes. This maybe the only way to avoid another tax increase from being rammed down Michigan taxpayers’ throats.
I watched a very scary special on Fox News Sunday afternoon, “Jihad USA: Homegrown Terror”. This show will be put on DVD…for more info check:
THE REST OF THE STORY:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/
Tax Freedom Day® will fall on April 23 in 2008, according to the Tax Foundation's annual calculation using the latest government data on income and taxes.
Join our Internet celebration of the day Americans as a whole have paid their taxes and can start working for themselves!
That’s three days earlier than in 2007. Stimulus rebates and a projection of slow growth in 2008 are the principal reasons for the earlier celebration.
Five major categories of tax dominate the tax burden. Individual income taxes, both federal and state, require 42 days’ work. Payroll taxes take another 28 days’ work. Sales and excise taxes, mostly state and local, take 16 days to pay off. Corporate income taxes take 13 days, and property taxes take 12.
Alaskans kick off the celebration of Tax Freedom Day® on March 29, more than a week before any other state’s taxpayers. Three states will have to wait until May to celebrate their state-specific Tax Freedom Days: Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.
Find out your state's Tax Freedom Day® at:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/METRO/803310375
From meteoric rise to falling star
Promise of Kilpatrick's political savvy, pedigree fading under weight of text scandal
Ron French / The Detroit News
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tragedies don't begin tragically. They start with hope, which was on full display at the Marriott on election night 2001 with Kwame Kilpatrick sporting a bright smile and a piercing in his ear where a diamond used to shine. For a city desperate for a fresh start, nothing seemed fresher than 31-year-old Kilpatrick. He was the "hip-hop mayor," greeting political blue bloods with a chest-bumping embrace and telling white-haired business moguls to "hit" him on his SkyTel PageWriter. Those little black gadgets were part of the uniform of Team Kwame, high-tech badges of new leaders with new ideas.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/OPINION01/803310319/1007/OPINION
Editorial: Mayor's legal fund must be transparent
Detail donations and spending in timely public reports
Detroit News
Monday, March 31, 2008
Detroiters should know who is putting up money to pay for the legal defense of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and how the money is used. The mayor, charged with eight felony counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office, established a legal fund last week to pay his attorneys. He has that right, and it's certainly a better option than asking taxpayers to foot the bill. Kilpatrick's fund will require a major infusion of cash. The lead attorney defending the mayor, Dan Webb of Chicago, charges $750 an hour for his services. Kilpatrick also has hired a team of local lawyers, none of whom work cheap.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/OPINION03/803310317/1007/OPINION
Worthy's prosecution restores faith in the future of Detroit
Monday, March 31, 2008
Paul W. Smith
Outta my mind on a Monday moanin':
"Please tell Kym Worthy that her courageous action and undaunted willingness to do her job, has done more to restore the faith of many in the future of the city of Detroit than any other action taken by anyone in the last half century. Super Bowls, the World Series, Auto Shows and other events are important and nice. But unless the general public believes that the government is functioning above board, and that the rule of law is being followed, everything else is built upon sand and will not last." That is the e-mail I received from my older brother, Mark D. Smith, the attorney/insurance man from Monroe.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/OPINION03/803310333/1322/OPINION0301
Mayoral questions continue to mount
Monday, March 31, 2008
Daniel Howes
Just a week into the Kwame Kilpatrick-as-charged-felon era: The psychic exhaustion dragging down Detroit feels like this consuming distraction has been roiling for six months. Imagine the weariness by the time we get to football season. As this historic drama unspools, as some say this is all about "control" while others laugh at the notion, as more folks dig in to positions that could make this place feel more like the trenches of Verdun, circa 1915, here are some questions that deserve answers, if the mayor would care to oblige: How damaging will the divisions cleaving the city and city from many in the suburbs be to the long-term, if often stymied, efforts to push Detroit forward?
http://crainsdetroit.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/SUB/145545734
Governor should act now for the good of city, state
Crain’s Detroit Business
March 31, 2008
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has remained largely silent on the escalating legal problems swirling around Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Why? Officially, she says she wants to respect the legal process. At an anniversary celebration for Focus: HOPE last week in Detroit, she also said she plans to remain silent because she could have a role to play later. The state constitution clearly offers her a role now. Officials convicted of felonies automatically are out of office. But Michigan's constitution specifically gives the governor power to remove or suspend public officers if the governor is convinced wrongdoing has occurred. Regardless of any legal authority, the governor has a moral authority as the top elected official in the state of Michigan.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/METRO/803310408/1022/POLITICS
Clinton clings to delegate disputes
Presidential hopeful vows to take Mich., Fla. fights to Democrat's credentials committee.
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sen. Hillary Clinton said she will take the fight over disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida all the way to Denver by asking the Democratic convention's credentials committee to recognize both contests and their results and seat those delegates accordingly. "If we don't resolve (the delegate dispute), we'll resolve it at the convention -- that's what credentials committees are for," Clinton said in an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday. Her comments are likely to complicate the task of Michigan Democrats who have largely moved from trying to set up a do-over vote to seeking some sort of negotiated settlement that would give the state a seat at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Stem cell research could appear on November ballot
By Zack Colman
Published: March 30, 2008
The fate of embryonic stem cell research in Michigan might rest in voters’ hands if a grassroots campaign collects enough signatures by July 7. The Stem Cell Research Ballot Question Committee needs 380,126 signatures by its July deadline to put embryonic stem cell research on the November ballot. The proposal would be a state constitutional amendment allowing the donation of embryos produced in fertility clinics that would otherwise be thrown away. It would maintain that cloning is an illegal act Embryonic stem cells differ from other stem cells because they can become any sort of cell after being extracted, said Jon Miller, an MSU John A. Hannah Professor of Integrative Studies and political expert in the stem cell research field.
http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080330/OPINION02/803300318
Michigan imposes its dirty little secret property tax
By MIKE CONNELL
March 30, 2008
I wouldn't have known this if some guy hadn't mentioned it, but Déjà Vu has closed. For those not in the loop, Déjà Vu is -- or was -- a Fort Gratiot cabaret specializing in exotic dancers and, shall we say, esoteric literature and doodads. Its closing won't be universally lamented, but you know times are bad when the strip clubs start going under. Just how bad is the economy? So bad that the local unemployment rate is threatening to exceed the president's IQ. So bad that it's a race to see whether gasoline or milk reaches $5 a gallon first. So bad that residential property values in Port Huron rose 2.54% in the past year.
Recoup losses: Legislator wants costly criminal officials to repay public
March 31, 2008
From Lansing State Journal
Freshman Rep. Brian Calley, R-Portland, offers an intriguing legislative response to a thorny question: What can taxpayers do when a local government official commits a criminal act, which, perhaps through a lawsuit, ends up taking money out of the public's pocket? Calley's answer: Sue the disgraced official to get the money back. His House Bill 5923, whose co-sponsors include tri-county Republicans Rick Jones and Paul Opsommer, would allow the local government to sue its offending official to "recover the loss." Calley's bill was prompted by the revelations that the city of Detroit paid out $8.4 million in a civil settlement sparked by the actions of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
Legislation would allow compensation for wrongfully convicted
3/30/2008, 8:39 a.m. EDT
By TIM MARTIN
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Ken Wyniemko spent nearly nine years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. The Rochester Hills man says people wrongfully convicted and put behind bars should be compensated for the time they were denied freedom. He supports legislation pending in the state House that would allow the exonerated to sue the state for at least $50,000 for each year they spent locked up. The amount of compensation could go higher depending on the amount of lost wages and other costs associated with the imprisonment. The bill also would provide the wrongfully convicted with up to 10 years of physical and mental health care through the state employee system.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/NEWS06/803310344
Lights, cameras and big tax breaks
Some forecast gain in state jobs with movie bills
BY DAWSON BELL
March 31, 2008
LANSING -- The golden age of Michigan moviemaking is set to begin -- awaiting only the signature of Gov. Jennifer Granholm on a package of laws creating what state officials call the nation's most generous financial incentives for filmmaking. How generous? An uncontested state Senate Fiscal Agency analysis said the bottom-line cost of incentives for taxpayers for a single movie such as the $150-million production of "Transformers" -- partly shot in Michigan and released in 2007 -- would have been $47 million. And even a $4-million budget flick like suburban Flint native Michael Moore's 2002 hit "Bowling for Columbine" would have cost the state $300,000. The incentives approved last week by the Legislature include tax cuts and credits, loans and production assistance to lure movie, TV and videogame producers to bring their crews and equipment to Michigan.
http://crainsdetroit.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/SUB/311215073/1069
Law allows captive insurance companies to form in state
By Jerry Geisel
March 31, 2008
LANSING — Michigan is the newest U.S. captive domicile. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm this month signed legislation allowing the formation of captive insurance companies in the state. The law takes effect immediately. Captive insurance companies are subsidiaries of non-insurers that are formed primarily to insure some or all of the risks of its parent. Unlike many other states' captive laws, the Michigan measure does not impose premium taxes but instead charges captive parents fees linked to premium volume. Those annual fees will range from $5,000 for captives with premiums of less than $5 million to $100,000 for captives with premium volume of at least $75 million.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/BIZ02/803310352
Summer job market bleak for students
Area's weak economy means few firms hiring; teens must compete with older workers for spots.
Jennifer Youssef / The Detroit News
Monday, March 31, 2008
The odds are stacked against Metro Detroit high school and college students looking for jobs this summer. Few businesses plan to hire workers in the next few months in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 7.2 percent. That means teens will be competing for scarce summer jobs alongside veteran workers who are unemployed or are looking for a second income to help pay the bills. They'll also get competition from teens who have never worked before, but are feeling the pressure to chip in for their own living expenses to ease the strain on tight family budgets.
http://www.mlive.com/travel/index.ssf/2008/03/touristdependent_business_owne.html
Tourist-dependent business owners say Michigan needs to spend more on promotion
by Jerry Nunn
Sunday March 30, 2008
HOUGHTON LAKE - You would think a northern Michigan business owner experiencing double-digit growth this winter would proudly credit the success to her entrepreneurial skills. Not Denise MacKenzie, owner of Coyle's Restaurant and Gift Shop in Houghton Lake. MacKenzie knows her economic prosperity came at a severe cost - seven restaurants in and around this Roscommon County community either closed for good or shut down for the winter. "When this happens, you just stick your head down and go on as best you can," MacKenzie said.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/BUSINESS06/803310318
Detroit's house slump is attractive to investors
Some buyers look to get 100 or more
BY GRETA GUEST
March 31, 2008
Investors from as far away as Hong Kong and Hawaii are coming to Detroit to make their fortune buying foreclosed homes in bulk."This is a millionaire's market," said Jeremy Burgess, a 28-year-old investor from Washington state who has been living in Detroit for the past year. "I feel like I'm driving through the city and stopping to shovel diamonds in the back of my truck." His wife, Jeanna Kiehle, and partner Jared Pomranky formed Urban Detroit Wholesalers to scour the city for houses they can fix and rent. The idea is to generate cash flow until the market improves, and they then can sell the houses. They own 38 houses now and close on 15 more before the end of the month. Some buyers are looking to buy larger numbers of homes, perhaps 100 or more at a time.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/METRO/803310373
Metro Iraqis don't see solutions in '08 race
Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News
Monday, March 31, 2008
Members of Metro Detroit's Iraqi community -- one of the largest in the world outside that ravaged country -- are watching the presidential campaigns keenly. Does any candidate, they ask, have a viable plan for stabilizing Iraq and ending the war? Many say the candidates offer few specifics, let alone solutions that would improve the lives of families and friends immersed in a calamity. "I don't see any one politician who has stood up to say exactly what will be done in the future," said Amir Denha, publisher of the Chaldean Detroit Times. "Today, still, everything is covered by a question mark. And, one day, a politician has to explain to all Americans what is behind the question mark. No such politician exists."
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/OPINION01/803310320/1007/OPINION
Macomb County executive won't mean higher taxes
Detroit News
Monday, March 31, 2008
Macomb County voters ought to base their decision on creating a special commission to draft a county charter, which could include the new post of county executive, on the issue's merits -- not on fears of a possible tax hike somehow being hidden in the proposal. If a charter commission is created, county residents would not get any tax hike unless they specifically approve it. The issue of creating a commission to draft a county home rule charter will be on the May ballot. If the commission proposal is adopted, voters will next have to approve a slate of charter commissioners to draft the charter, and then would have to adopt the charter itself.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/METRO03/803310405/1409/METRO
Refuse breath test? Blood test is next for suspected drunk drivers in Macomb
The Detroit News
Monday, March 31, 2008
MOUNT CLEMENS -- The Macomb County Sheriff's Office said it will require drivers stopped on suspicion of drunk driving to face a blood test. The change in policy, which took effect Friday, requires officials to seek a search warrant to draw blood from drivers who refuse to take a breath test. Previously, blood tests had been sought for drivers involved in injury accidents or those with drunken driving convictions, Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel said. Hackel said the move was ordered following Oakland County prosecutors' decision last week not to charge a driver in Warren who refused to take a breath test.
NATIONAL STORIES
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129586
How to Win in a Knife Fight
The Democratic race could well come down to the first contested convention in years. Lessons on how to prevail.
Karl Rove
Apr 7, 2008 Issue
After the last Democratic primary is held in early June, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will have enough votes from delegates elected in caucuses or primaries to be declared the nominee. Obama would have to win 76 percent and Clinton 98 percent of the 535 delegates that are at stake in the final eight contests. Neither will happen.Both sides are frantically wooing the 330 uncommitted superdelegates, who will decide the race. Obama supporters emphasize that he's ahead in the popular vote and argue that superdelegates should respect the wishes of the primary voters (except in the states he lost, of course).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/opinion/31kristol.html?ref=opinion
Biography Isn’t Enough
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
March 31, 2008
The McCain campaign’s first general election ad, released Friday, includes moving footage of him as a prisoner of war. What was Democratic Chairman Howard Dean’s reaction? “While we honor McCain’s military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn’t understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years.” Most Americans want to be told we can leave Iraq sooner rather than later. McCain has chosen instead to tell Americans the hard and unpopular truths that we’ll be there for a while, and that there’s no sacrifice-free path to defeating our enemies and securing a lasting peace. This is “blatant opportunism”?
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/enough-distractions-lets-talk-about-me/
Enough Distractions. Let’s Talk About Me.
By Michael Cooper
March 30, 2008, 8:47 pm
MERIDIAN, Miss. — Senator John McCain is hoping to move the campaign narrative from the current events section of the popular imagination to the biography section with his tour this week of places important to his life story. Running on biography is hardly unusual in presidential politics, as presidents from the Rough Rider, Theodore Roosevelt, to the Man from Hope, Bill Clinton, can attest. But Mr. McCain’s life story — he survived the fire aboard the aircraft carrier Forrestal off Vietnam that killed 134 of his shipmates, was shot down over Hanoi, and endured five and a half years as a prisoner of war — is taking on added importance and seems to have helped him appeal to voters who disagree with him on some issues.
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/NATION/499689152/1001
Blogger outreach boosts McCain
March 31, 2008
By Stephen Dinan
Even as talk radio was brutalizing Sen. John McCain in the Republican presidential primaries, conservative bloggers reached a respectful truce with the Arizona senator over touchy issues and gave him what the campaign called a "tremendous positive psychological" boost. The main reason: Mr. McCain's blogger outreach, the most extensive of any presidential campaign in either party, helped keep him afloat in the dark days last summer when the major press was sizing up his campaign grave. During those times, Mr. McCain got attention and digital ink from the bloggers he invited to biweekly conference calls, and got a chance to talk policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/politics/31donate.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
McCain Faces Test in Wooing Elite Donors
By MICHAEL LUO and GRIFF PALMER
March 31, 2008
With attention focused on the Democrats’ infighting for the presidential nomination, Senator John McCain is pressing ahead to the general election but has yet to sign up one critical constituency: the big-money people who powered the Bush fund-raising machine. As he reintroduces himself to voters this week with stops like one at the Naval Air Station in Meridian, Miss., where he was a flight instructor, Mr. McCain will also attend to another crucial task by courting donors in Mississippi, Florida and Tennessee. Building up his fund-raising apparatus is essential at this point for Mr. McCain, who struggled for much of last year to raise money. To prevail in the general election, he will need to raise substantial amounts of cash to cut into the vast fund-raising edge the Democratic presidential candidates have shown over the Republicans this election cycle.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129660/output/print
The World According to John McCain
He's both the consummate pragmatist and a zealous crusader for causes he feels just. The question is which America needs now.
Michael Hirsh
Updated: 2:37 PM ET Mar 29, 2008
"We need to listen," John McCain was saying, "to the views … of our democratic allies." Then, though the words weren't in the script, the Arizona senator repeated himself, as if in self-admonishment: "We need to listen." A lot of meaning was packed into that twice-said line, which was a key theme of McCain's first major foreign-policy speech since becoming the GOP's nominee-apparent. McCain was telling America, and the whole world: if I'm elected there will be, at long last, a return to what Jefferson called "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." There will be no more ill-justified lurches into war, no more unilateralism, no more George W. Bush.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/30/AR2008033002401.html
Obama, McCain Forged Fleeting Alliance
Efforts to Collaborate on Ethics Reform Fell Apart Within a Week
By Paul Kane
Monday, March 31, 2008; Page A01
A year into his tenure on Capitol Hill, Barack Obama (D-Ill.) approached John McCain on the Senate floor to propose the two work together on a lobbying and ethics reform bill. The four-term Arizona Republican, 25 years Obama's senior, quickly saw a willing apprentice to help shake up the way business was done on Capitol Hill. "I like him; he's probably got a great future. We can do some work together," McCain confided to his top staffer. Instead, what began as a promising collaboration between two men bent on burnishing their reformist credentials collapsed after barely a week. The McCain-Obama relationship came undone amid charges and countercharges, all aired publicly two years ago in an exchange of stark and angry letters.
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_8733151?source=email
Paying for the DNC for years
When Democrats arrive in August, it will give the local economy a boost. But will it be worth the long-term expenses?
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 03/28/2008 06:19:41 PM MDT
The four-day Democratic National Convention in August is expected to pump $160 million directly into the regional economy. The economic shot-in-the-arm, whatever the total actually ends up being, will be a welcome boost. But we're beginning to question whether the short-term benefit is worth the long-term expenses. Denver, and Colorado, could be left holding the bag for years to come. Even before the Democrats awarded their national convention to Denver, Mayor John Hickenlooper had to promise a union-run hotel, the city's first. He delivered.
http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1243&Itemid=188
THE POLITICS OF BLACKNESS: Florida Democrats disenfranchise voters, blame it on Republicans
BY BARBARA HOWARD
March 30, 2008
Richard Pryor joked, “Do you believe me or your lying eyes?’’ Isn’t it strange that the bi-partisan bill changing Florida’s primary was passed by a unanimous vote, but now the Florida Democratic Party is blaming the change on the Republican-controlled Legislature and the Republican governor? Both Florida and Michigan changed their primary dates and got punished by Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for having the primaries too early, but do you hear the political commentators blasting the Michigan governor and Legislature? Of course not, because the Michigan governor is a Democrat.
Democrats face summer of bitter infighting
By David Wiessler
March 31, 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of Barack Obama backed away on Sunday from calls for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the presidential race as Democrats faced a long summer of bitter fighting to win the party's White House nomination. In an interview published in The Washington Post, Clinton said she would fight all the way to the late August nominating convention, where a candidate will be chosen to face presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the November election.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/30/AR2008033001832.html
Tweedle D's
By Robert D. Novak
Monday, March 31, 2008; A19
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. -- Taking his last question at a "town meeting" here on Saturday, Barack Obama encountered an issue he neither expected nor welcomed: abortion. The eloquent senator from Illinois, who normally extends his answers with multiple digressions, made short work of a passionate pro-life woman asking about a "moral crisis" caused by abortion. After quickly explaining why "I am pro-choice," he adjourned the event at Greater Johnstown High School. That brief encounter marked a rare departure from script last week as I followed the two contestants for the Democratic presidential nomination as they campaigned for two late primaries in states where, respectively, each is behind by double-digit margins in the polls -- Obama in Pennsylvania, whose primary is April 22; Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, which will vote May 6.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/03/30/2008-03-30_barack_obama_our_new_appeaser.html
Barack Obama, our new appeaser
Michael Goodwin
Sunday, March 30th 2008, 4:00 AM
For millions of Americans, the major attraction to Barack Obama is his call for national unity, a summoning to our shared values and common interests. With his charismatic eloquence, this inspirational ideal has single-handedly made him a political phenomenon and the Democratic front-runner. But Obama's unity appeal, it turns out, has a weak link, one that is dangerous in a President. For revealing it, we can thank the Rev. Jeremiah Wright or, more precisely, Obama's tepid reaction to the outlandish, anti-American things Wright has said. The more he talks about Wright, the more troubling Obama's approach becomes. In a word, he is guilty of appeasement.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120692054573175525.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
New Backing for Obama As Party Seeks Unity
By JACKIE CALMES
March 31, 2008; Page A1
WASHINGTON -- Slowly but steadily, a string of Democratic Party figures is taking Barack Obama's side in the presidential nominating race and raising the pressure on Hillary Clinton to give up. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is expected to endorse Sen. Obama Monday, according to a Democrat familiar with her plans. Meanwhile, North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are poised to endorse Sen. Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say. Helping to drive the endorsements is a fear that the Obama-Clinton contest has grown toxic and threatens the Democratic Party's chances against Republican John McCain in the fall.
Projection: Clinton Wins Popular Vote, Obama Wins Delegate Count
March 28, 2008 02:31 PM ET
Michael Barone
The Clinton campaign has taken to boasting that its candidate has won states with more electoral votes than has Barack Obama. True. By my count, Clinton has won 14 states with 219 electoral votes (16 states with 263 electoral votes if you include Florida and Michigan) while Obama has won 27 states (I'm counting the District of Columbia as a state, but not the territories) with 202 electoral votes. Eight states with 73 electoral votes have still to vote. In percentage terms, Clinton has won states with 41 percent of the electoral votes (49 percent if you include Florida and Michigan), while Obama has won states with 38 percent of electoral votes. States with 14 percent of the electoral votes have yet to vote.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120692261621575605.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
Hillary's Bad History
Wall Street Journal
March 31, 2008; Page A18
No, not sniper fire in Bosnia. We're referring to Hillary Clinton's lament last week that the U.S. is flirting with a 1990s Japan-style deflation. Perhaps it's a good time to remind everyone what really happened in Japan, so Mrs. Clinton and the rest of Washington don't make the same mistakes. "I don't think we can work our way out of the problems we're in the broad-based economy with monetary policy alone," Mrs. Clinton said in the interview with Journal reporters. "I think the Japanese tried that and tried and tried that." She added Japan should have relied more on fiscal stimulus spending and aid to banks and homeowners, which is what she wants Washington to try now.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article3645033.ece
Hillary Clinton flings the dirt but it’s sticking to her
Andrew Sullivan
March 30, 2008
A golden rule in the game of American (or any modern professional) politics is that if you are behind in a campaign and you’re running out of time, you “go negative”. Twenty years ago I actually took a class in professional campaign tactics at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government. We examined case studies of campaigns in recent years and saw the very precise metrics that the professionals use to gauge how much you lose if you throw mud at someone – because you look like a sleazebag – compared with how much damage you can inflict. The general conclusion is that even though your negatives can go up, the other guy always does worse. So fling away.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9259.html
Cash-strapped Clinton fails to pay bills
By: Kenneth P. Vogel
March 31, 2008 04:47 AM EST
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles. A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/927qnskg.asp
Plagiarism!
The sloppy hackery of the left.
by Dean Barnett
03/29/2008 12:00:00 AM
LAST THURSDAY, A controversy erupted in the blogosphere. Like most controversies that start in the blogosphere and die there as opposed to gaining a second and more meaningful life in the mainstream media, the entire affair was a tempest in a virtual teapot. But this incident was a particularly pregnant one, as it revealed the difficulties the left will have in developing a coherent attack against John McCain. It also highlighted Barack Obama's most significant weakness in a match against Senator McCain. In a campaign address to the Los Angeles World Council, McCain made a point of stressing his hatred for war:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/30/wuspols130.xml
Senior Democrats mull Al Gore's nomination
By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 2:23am BST 30/03/2008
Plans for Al Gore to take the Democratic presidential nomination as the saviour of a bitterly divided party are being actively discussed by senior figures and aides to the former vice-president. The bloody civil war between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has left many Democrats convinced that neither can deliver a knockout blow to the other and that both have been so damaged that they risk losing November's election to the Republican nominee, John McCain.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/editorials/stories/MYSA033008.02O.entitlements1ed.20bbd8f.html
Entitlement reform can't wait on politics
Web Posted: 03/29/2008 04:06 PM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
A new baseball season, college basketball madness and tax preparation — these are among America's rites of spring. In recent years, the trustees of the nation's two largest entitlement programs have added another seasonal ritual: annual reports and dire warnings about the condition of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. This year's reports vary from previous ones in only one respect. The dates at which the funds will begin paying out more than they take in will occur sooner than previously projected — 2017 in the case of Social Security, this year in the case of Medicare.
Homeowners’ Pleas Put G.O.P. Lawmakers in Bind on Defaults
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
March 30, 2008
HIALEAH, Fla. — In Los Portales, a pink and terra cotta condominium complex in this city of hard-striving Hispanic immigrants and often harder luck, many of Juan Carpio’s neighbors are losing their homes. To the right of his ground-floor unit, two apartments are in the early stages of foreclosure. Across the street, a three-bedroom unit has been seized by a bank. To the left, another one is up for auction. “The government should help,” said Mr. Carpio, 57, a former truck driver whose wife is a security guard. “Somebody ought to do something.” In Mr. Carpio’s view, that somebody could be Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, an eight-term Republican who represents Hialeah and whose district slices through Miami-Dade into Broward, two counties in the top 10 of foreclosures nationwide.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/BIZ/803310349/1022/POLITICS
Financial regulations out today
Fierce debate is expected over Bush administration's plan for an aggressive overhaul.
Martin Crutsinger / Associated Press
Monday, March 31, 2008
WASHINGTON -- In proposing the broadest overhaul of financial oversight since the Great Depression, the Bush administration has kicked off a fierce debate. It pits those eager to revamp an antiquated system against an industry opposed to excessive regulation. The administration is aware of the hardening lines. The 200-page plan set for release today comes with the financial system in the midst of the most severe credit crisis in two generations. That crunch has meant billions of dollars of losses for big banks and investment houses. It has caused the near-collapse of the country's fifth-largest investment bank, made it harder for consumers and businesses to get loans and pushed the country to the brink of a recession.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120675290699973527.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
Jindal's Progress
By DOUGLAS MCCOLLAM
March 29, 2008; Page A8
In Louisiana politics, an old saying goes, "reform" means moving the fat hogs away from the trough so the skinny hogs can eat. In the state's almost 200-year history many governors have vowed to change this attitude to public service, only to see their efforts – and often their careers – drown in the miasmal pit that is Louisiana politics. The latest knight-errant to sally forth is 36-year-old Bobby Jindal. Sworn in as the nation's youngest governor (and the only one of Indian descent) in January, the Ivy League graduate and Rhodes Scholar isn't wasting any time.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-nye30mar30,0,6538671.story
Is Bush our Woodrow Wilson?
The two presidents have their similarities, but history will probably judge them very differently.
By Joseph S. Nye Jr.
March 30, 2008
President Bush used the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq to reaffirm his belief that history will vindicate him. He likes to compare himself to Harry Truman, who left office with low poll ratings because of the Korean War but today is held in high esteem by most historians. Truman biographer David McCullough warns that about 50 years have to go by before a presidency can be historically appraised. But by this stage of Truman's presidency, the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were already judged to be solid accomplishments, whereas Bush lacks comparable successes to compensate for his mismanagement of Iraq.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120674959280273345.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
One Missed Call
Wall Street Journal
March 29, 2008; Page A8
In Michael Mukasey, President Bush finally seems to have an Attorney General worthy of the current moment. In Nancy Pelosi's hometown this week, the former judge who once tried terror cases told the Commonwealth Club audience that even he had no idea of the extent of the threat. Speaking of what he hears in his national security briefings, Mr. Mukasey said, "It is way beyond – way beyond anything that I knew or believed. So, if I was picked for the level of my knowledge . . . that was a massive piece of false advertising."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL3068682420080330
Muslims more numerous than Catholics: Vatican
Reuters
March 30, 2008
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday. Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent. "For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us," Formenti told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006. He said that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians made up 33 percent of the world's population -- or about 2 billion people.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120675195927473485.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
The Sunni-Shiite Terror Network
By AMIR TAHERI
March 29, 2008; Page A9
The American presidential election campaign took a bizarre theological turn recently when Barack Obama accused John McCain of not being able to distinguish Sunnis from Shiites. The exchange started when Sen. McCain suggested that the Islamic Republic in Iran, a Shiite power, may be helping al Qaeda, a Sunni outfit, in its murderous campaign in Iraq and elsewhere. Basing its position on received wisdom, the Obama camp implied that Sunnis and Shiites, divided as they are by deep doctrinal differences, could not come together to fight the United States and its allies.
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/FOREIGN/708327345/1001
Mass grave uncovered in Iraq
March 31, 2008
By Richard Tomkins
ZAHAMM, Iraq — The graves of more than 50 people thought killed by al Qaeda in Iraq during their two-year reign of terror in Diyala province's "bread basket" region have been found in a pomegranate orchard in a village near the town of Himbus. Excavations at the site began last week and were expected to continue after troops of the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment were tipped to the location by a man who claimed to have escaped from al Qaeda's "jail" there last summer. Only about a third of the untended orchard, located off a road leading from the village to Himbus, about three miles north, has been searched so far. Two nearby orchards thought to be burial grounds also have to be looked at, raising the prospect that the Zahamm farms could collectively rank as one of the largest al Qaeda killing fields found in Iraq.