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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (29638)	6/2/2008 11:00:30 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224756

No Ken, his shady associations, poor judgment and light resume disqualify BO for the job.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (29638)	6/2/2008 11:51:24 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 224756

Ickes To Clinton Superdelegates: No Timetable Harold Ickes, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's liaison to superdelegates, convened a conference call with between 35 and 40 members of Congress loyal to the New York senator this afternoon, a gathering designed to take their temperature on her future in the presidential contest. The tenor of the call, according to a source familiar with it, was largely supportive of the New York senator. "New Yorkers don't like a quitter," Rep. Charlie Rangel (N.Y.) said. Rep. Marion Berry (Ark.) added that the Arkansas delegation was behind Clinton for as long as she wanted to stay in the race. Ickes, who championed Clinton's cause over the weekend at the Rules and Bylaws Committee, insisted that the New York senator had not given any serious thought to leaving the race and would not do so until after the primaries tomorrow in Montana and South Dakota. Ickes made no definitive predictions about Clinton's future in the contest. The idea that the race could end soon was broached but not pushed, according to someone on the call. Clinton's chances of remaining in the race rest in large part on keeping the remaining undecided superdelegates neutral and avoiding any defections within her own ranks. Obama is unlikely to win the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination in tomorrow's primaries, where only 31 delegates are at stake. But his campaign could crest the magic number of 2,118 delegates if a drove of superdelegates side with him over the next 24 hours. Rumors flew late Monday that a majority of the uncommitted senators would endorse Obama tomorrow and superdelegates trickled to the Illinois senator throughout the day. (Obama netted 4.5 supers for the day; Clinton two.) Many in the broader Clinton orbit warned against putting stock in reports that any decisions had been made about the New York senator's candidacy -- insisting that only an ever tightening inner circle (Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton, campaign manager Maggie Williams, communications director Howard Wolfson and former deputy White House counsel Cheryl Mills as well as a few others) had any idea what direction the campaign was headed over the next week. By Chris Cillizza \| June 2, 2008; 9:09 PM ET \| Category: Eye on 2008 washingtonpost.com's Politics Blog About This Blog \| Meet Chris Cillizza \| RSS Feed (What's RSS?)

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (29638)	6/3/2008 8:05:27 AM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 224756

'Snuff' the Gun Shop Owner, Priest Says By Susan Jones CNSNews.com Senior Editor May 29, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - An Illinois gun-rights group says it plans to complain to the Catholic Church after a Chicago priest at the weekend appeared to call for the murder of a suburban gun shop owner. During a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition protest at Chuck's Gun Shop & Range on Saturday, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina's Church, threatened to "snuff" shop owner John Riggio. The Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) has posted online what is says is a recording of Pfleger's remarks. In the audio clip, the priest is heard being introduced to the crowd by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Immediately therafter, Pfleger launches into a tirade. "I want the NRA [National Rifle Association] to understand - you have a lot of money, but money can't buy moral authority and it can't buy justice or freedom, and we will fight you, NRA," he says. "We will fight you on every angle [sic], no matter how much money you've got, we will embarrass you, and we will embarrass every legislator that takes money from you. We will call them out by name, by district. We will expose you, legislators." Pfleger then turns his attention to Riggio. "He's the owner of Chuck's. John Riggio. R-i-g-g-i-o. We're going to find you and snuff you out … you know you're going to hide like a rat. You're going to hide but like a rat we're going to catch you and pull you out. We are not going to allow you to continue to hide when we're here …" "We're going to keep coming back, and like Reverend Jackson says, it takes civil disobedience, if it takes whatever it takes … we're going to snuff out John Riggio, we're going to snuff out legislators that are voting … and we are coming for you because we are not going to sit idly. Keep on fighting, people. Keep on fighting, keep on fighting." St. Sabina describes itself as a "Bible-teaching" African-American Catholic Church. The day before the anti-gun protest, the church hosted former Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who was making a rare public appearance. Pfleger was quoted as describing the controversial Muslim activist as "a gift from God to a sick, sick world." ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson called it "shocking" to hear a priest advocate the murder of a gun shop owner "who has never committed a crime in his life." "Pfleger's comments were disgusting and dangerous," Pearson said. "And, I seem to remember that the Fifth Commandment frowns on murdering one's neighbor," he added. "This week, I'll be penning a letter to the Archbishop, expressing my concerns over Rev. Pfleger's comments," continued Pearson. "I would hope that the Archbishop would reply with words of comfort for Mr. Riggio, his family, state legislators, and all others who were injured by Rev. Pfleger's thoughtless, inflammatory remarks." In a message on the church's website, Pfleger says he believes that "we are called by God to build this church in a world filled with division, alienation and racism in order that we may be a witness to the world that it is possible and that the love of God is stronger than the hate of Satan." cnsnews.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (29638)	6/3/2008 9:03:31 AM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 224756

McClellan on Plame By Robert Novak WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In Scott McClellan's purported tell-all memoir of his trials as President George W. Bush's press secretary, he virtually ignores Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's role leaking to me Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee. That fits the partisan Democratic version of the Plame affair, in keeping with the overall tenor of "What Happened." Although the media response dwelled on McClellan's criticism of Bush's road to war, the CIA leak case is the heart of this book. On July 14, 2003, one day before McClellan took the press secretary's job for which many colleagues felt he was unqualified, my column was published asserting that Plame at the CIA suggested her Democratic partisan husband, retired diplomat Joseph Wilson, for a sensitive intelligence mission. That story made McClellan's three years at the briefing room podium a misery, leading to his dismissal and now his bitter retort. In claiming he was misled about the Plame affair, McClellan mentions Armitage only twice. Armitage being the leaker undermines the Democratic theory, now accepted by McClellan, that Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove aimed to delegitimize Wilson as a war critic. McClellan's handling of the leak by itself leads former colleagues to suggest he could not have written this book by himself. On page 173, McClellan first mentions my Plame leak, but he does not identify Armitage as the leaker until page 306 of the 323-page book -- then only in passing. Armitage, anti-war and anti-Cheney, cannot fit the conspiracy theory that McClellan now buys into. When Armitage after two years publicly admitted he was my source, the life went out of Wilson's campaign. In "What Happened," McClellan dwells on Rove's alleged deceptions as if the real leaker were still unknown. McClellan at the White House podium never knew the facts about the CIA leak, and his memoir reads as though he has tried to maintain his ignorance. He omits Armitage's slipping Mrs. Wilson's identity to The Washington Post's Bob Woodward weeks before he talked to me. He does not mention that Armitage turned himself in to the Justice Department even before Patrick Fitzgerald was named as special prosecutor. McClellan writes that Rove told him this about his conversation with me after I called him to check Armitage's leak: "He (Novak) said he'd heard that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. I told him I couldn't confirm it because I didn't know." Rove told me last week he never said that to McClellan. Under oath, Rove had testified he told me, "I heard that, too." Under oath, I testified that Rove said, "Oh, you know that, too." McClellan writes, "I don't know" whether the leaker -- he does not specify Armitage -- committed a felony. He ignores that Fitzgerald's long, expensive investigation found no violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, if only because Plame was not covered. Nevertheless, McClellan calls the leak "wrong and harmful to national security" -- ignoring questions of whether Plame really was engaged in undercover operations and whether her cover long ago had been blown. A partisan Democratic mantra began earlier in the book. McClellan writes George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign "acquiesced to certain advisers, including Roger Ailes and the late Lee Atwater," who opposed Bush's "civility and decency." (McClellan, then 20 years old, played no part in that campaign.) McClellan contends that thanks to Rove in 2002, "the first cracks appeared in the facade of bipartisan comity." McClellan's fellow Bush aides do not remember him ever saying anything like that. At senior staff meetings discussing policy, they recall, he was silent. His robotic performances from the White House podium seemed only to disgorge what he had been told, and "What Happened" has the similar feel of someone else's hand. The book so mimics the Democratic line that Ari Fleischer, McClellan's predecessor as press secretary, asked him last week whether he had a ghostwriter. "No," Fleischer told me that McClellan replied, "but my editor tweaked it." (McClellan did not return my call.) The bland book proposal McClellan's agent unsuccessfully hawked to publishers early in 2007 is not the volume now in bookstores. How and why McClellan changed is a story so far untold.