FINANCIAL TIMES: Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coal miner would vote Republican. Mr Simpson’s remarks help explain why Mr Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, by 40 percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s primary election in the heavily white and rural state, according to recent opinion polls. West Virginia is hostile territory for Mr Obama because it has few of the African-Americans and affluent, college-educated whites who provide his strongest support. The state has the […]
THE BEATDOWN: Victims’ Lawyer Says Cops Are Lying
DAILY NEWS: AS A NEWS video of police beating and kicking three shooting suspects is seen around the world, attorneys for the battered men are claiming that Philly cops concocted their story to cover up for a case of mistaken identity — an allegation police vehemently deny. The attorneys said their clients — Brian Hall, 23, Dwayne “Lionel” Dyches, 24, and Pete Hopkins, 19 – were not involved in a shooting. But rather, police chased down their car and beat them because they mistook Dyches, a passenger in the car, for accused cop-killer Eric DeShawn Floyd, the attorneys said. At […]
ABC: Obama Takes The Lead In The Superdelegate Race
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] ABC: For the first time this campaign season, Barack Obama has surpassed Hillary Clinton’s support among superdelegates, according to the ABC News delegate estimate. Sen. Obama, D-Ill., picked up two superdelegates this morning giving him a new metric to tout in addition to his current commanding leads in pledged delegates, popular votes, states won, and money raised. Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., endorsed Obama. DeFazio was previously uncommitted. With these endorsements, Obama has the support of 267 superdelegates and Clinton has 265 superdelegates. Every news […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR W/ Guest Host DAVE DAVIES The United States is home to less than five percent of the world’s population — and almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. Adam Liptak, national legal correspondent for The New York Times, says that’s one of the ways America’s legal system differs from those of other countries. Liptak’s recent series for The Times, “American Exception,” looks at the ways the American justice system is unique — including high incarceration rates, the awarding of punitive damages, felony murder liability for accomplices and commercial bail bondsmen. “Americans are locked up for crimes — from […]
MAGIC NEGRO: Obama Brings Peace To Nigeria?
REUTERS: LAGOS — Rebels who have stepped up attacks on Nigeria’s oil industry in the last month said on Sunday they were considering a ceasefire appeal by U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April, forcing Royal Dutch Shell to shut more than 164,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd). “The MEND command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high […]
PENTAGON: Iraq Suicide Bomber Was Ex-Gitmo
AFP: A man who carried out a suicide attack in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul last month has been identified as a former Kuwaiti detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, US military officials said Wednesday. Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi, who was released from Guantanamo in November 2005, is the first suicide bomber to be identified as a former Guantanamo detainee, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman said. “We don’t know what motivated him. His family apparently was shocked to hear that he had conducted the bombing,” said Major Bradford Leighton, a US military spokesman in Baghdad. Al-Ajmi was one of three […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded ground troops in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, has since been speaking out about the conduct of the Iraq war — especially about what he calls the Bush administration’s “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan.” His views take book form in Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story, which also details his rise from an impoverished Texas childhood to become the Army’s highest-ranking Hispanic officer. When Sanchez relinquished command of group troops in Iraq to Gen. George Casey in 2004, investigations into torture at Abu Ghraib prison were being conducted. […]
Obama’s Binge Drinking Strategy Surprisingly Effective
NEW YORK TIMES: Senator Barack Obama captured a decisive victory in the Democratic presidential primary in North Carolina on Tuesday. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s loss combined with a tight race in Indiana, where the counting was continuing deep into the night, did nothing to improve her chances of securing the Democratic presidential nomination. If anything, Mrs. Clinton’s options for overtaking Senator Barack Obama may have dwindled further. For Mr. Obama, the outcome came after a brutal period in which he was on the defensive over the inflammatory comments of his former pastor. That he was able, at a minimum, to […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Al Gore, who galvanized public opinion with his advocacy on global warming, sees danger in another poisoned environment, this one metaphorical: In his book The Assault on Reason [CLICK TO READ EXCERPT], just published in paperback, he argues that what used to be called civil discourse is threatened by a combination of public apathy and political cynicism. In our infotainment-mad culture, Gore writes, the public attention span is short, the media are easily distracted, and a politics driven by fear and uninterested in facts has undermined the essential functions of democracy. “When evidence that any reasonable person can […]
NRA: Assault Rifles Don’t Kill Cops, Criminals Do
DAILY NEWS: Even with one of Liczbinski’s three alleged assailants still on the lam and the police sergeant – who would have turned 40 today – not yet laid to rest, a political war of words erupted yesterday over the gun that killed him. Mayor Nutter, facing his first real crisis since taking office in January, lashed out at the National Rifle Association for its effort to block a city law that would have outlawed many assault weapons. That included the SKS semiautomatic [pictured, left] allegedly fired by alleged killer Howard Cain, who was slain by police shortly after. “There’s […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Edgar Award-winning author Charles Ardai is founder of Hard Case Crime, a pulp-fiction publishing group that reprints classic crime stories as well as publishing new pulp. All Hard Case novels are published in mass-market paperback editions, much like the classic crime novels from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, with cover art inspired by images from the genre’s heyday. Under the pseudonym Richard Aleas — an anagram of his own name — Ardai writes crime fiction, too: His novels Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence detail the exploits of private investigator John Blake. Blake is no hard-boiled, flint-eyed […]
GUAM: Yes We Can
HAGATNA, Guam – Barack Obama defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton by seven votes in the Democratic presidential caucuses Saturday. The count of more than 4,500 ballots took all night. Neither candidate campaigned in the U.S. island territory in person, but both did long-distance media interviews and bought campaign ads for the caucuses. Results of the count completed Sunday morning Guam time show delegates pledged to Obama with 2,264 votes to 2,257 for Clinton’s slate. That means they’ll split the pledged delegate votes. Obama’s slate won in 14 of 21 districts. Eight pledged delegates will attend the convention, each with one-half vote. […]
DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT: The Sincerest Flattery?
The header banner on the Inquirer’s new bidness blawg looks, um, familiar. Oh, and we meant to say something about this weeks ago: Blinq‘s new header is winktastic! And while we are cutting and pasting, we would like to FYI you to the fact in the last week there has been a curiously high level of interest in our primary debate coverage from the Russkie Internets. Smells like KGB. Well, good luck with that, Boris & Natasha.