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By Yalman Onaran $23.40
By James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales $14.91
$22
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 nettavison.no
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The election for Zimbabwe’s presidency made one reluctant step forward Friday as poll results were finally announced after over a month of intimidation, violence and other acts of political thuggery. Opposition candidate Morgan Tsangirai managed to beat out incumbent-for-life Robert Mugabe but failed to receive more than 50 percent of the ballots, forcing a second round of voting.
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 AP photo / Gerald Herbert, file
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By Bill Boyarsky — We are letting religious fanaticism dominate the presidential campaign. The candidates have brought it on themselves with tedious references to their churchgoing piety. Now we’re all paying for it. Who cares what their preachers say?
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Director Michael Moore paid a visit to “Larry King Live” on Wednesday night, holding forth on a number of timely topics, including his decision to endorse Barack Obama, his newest documentary (about the ‘04 presidential election), Hillary Clinton’s interview the same day on “that other station” and the persistent controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
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 flickr.com
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Looks like there may be life after the campaign trail. Presidential hopeful Ron Paul, who has kept swinging long after media types started calling Sen. John McCain “the Republican presumptive nominee,” has a best-seller on his hands with his new book, “The Revolution: A Manifesto”—at least according to Amazon.com’s list of top titles.
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 AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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By Robert Scheer — Would President John McCain forget who made that 3 a.m. call to the special White House phone? I suspect that his aides would not just let him nod off back to sleep, even if they were intimidated by the prospect of one of his alleged intemperate outbursts, but might our septuagenarian president be less than fully focused?
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 blogs.trb.com
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Why is it that the U.S. economy is on a serious downswing? Could it be that we’re in the midst of a super-expensive war with little sign of scaling down in the near future that has jacked up oil prices to new heights and strained the federal budget? According to Bush, he’d have worked out our economic woes if it weren’t for those meddling congressional Democrats.
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 flickr.com
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All right, people, it’s high time someone dealt squarely with this question: Does John McCain have anger-management issues? Monday brought word on this potential problem, the Republican Party’s sword of Damocles, from provocateur Christopher Hitchens, who dares to ask “whether [McCain’s] elevator goes all the way to the top.”
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The competition between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to win their Senate colleagues’ endorsements is still very close, but Obama moved one notch ahead of Clinton Monday with the addition of Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico to his list of supporters, which has now grown to 14.
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Hey everyone, John McCain has his own controversial preacher on his team! And look, he’s not wearing a flag pin on his lapel either! These points weren’t driven home by media types like George Stephanopolous, whom Jon Stewart accuses of taking a ride on the “Sweet Talk Express” instead of giving McCain a proper grilling.
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 boston.com
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President Bush announced that rebate checks will start winging their way to taxpayers as early as Monday, helpfully observing that Americans need a little help paying for necessities like groceries and gas during this economic “slowdown”—a slightly different story from his initial justification for this economic stimulus plan, and one that wasn’t lost on his critics.
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 www.flickr.com/photos/emilymills
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By Bill Boyarsky — When looking at Sen. Barack Obama’s primary election results, I always check the white vote first. I imagine many Democratic National Convention superdelegates do, too. The reason is obvious: Obama is the first African-American with a strong chance of winning the presidency, and his prospects depend on whether whites will give him a vote.
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 ohiomm.com
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy strode into office a year ago after talking big about economic growth, but by early 2008 he complained that “the till’s already empty”—as he sported flashy accessories and stepped out with an even flashier new partner, Carla Bruni. Now, “Sarko” is doing crisis management and offering apologies for his past mistakes.
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There’s a seasonal sport going on in the media: the age-old tradition of primary prediction. Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary gave a whole host of TV hosts and pundits another shot at handicapping yet another big race between dueling Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—but alas, as the contest concluded, heady excitement gave way to darker sentiments.
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 AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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Sen. John McCain has a tough path and a lot to prove in his presidential campaign: that his age isn’t an issue, that he doesn’t have an anger problem and that he’s like Bush in ways some voters admire but unlike him in other ways. Thursday was a day for McCain to make himself appear very different indeed as he campaigned in New Orleans.
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 flickr.com/photos/ttoes
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After yet another big push—and facing more of the same—Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are, unsurprisingly, feeling the strain of the long campaign trail. Meanwhile, top Dems Harry Reid, Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi may make their own push—to urge superdelegates to make their presidential preferences known by July 1.
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 wyff4.com
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Pastor Roger Boyd claims he just wanted to get folks thinking last Thursday when he chose a controversial message to run on the sign in front of the Jonesville Church of God in Jonesville, S.C.: “OBAMA OSAMA HUMM ARE THEY BROTHERS?”
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 AP photo / Elise Amendola
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Hillary Clinton has scored a big, if expected, victory in Pennsylvania, a win crucial to her big-state argument to superdelegates. According to exit data, Obama won over new voters while Clinton appealed to those who made up their minds in the aftermath of the ABC debate. Clinton needed a double-digit win and she nearly achieved that, beating Obama by 9.2 points. Updated.
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Sen. Hillary Clinton paid a (virtual) visit Monday to Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown,” where she offered explanations for why she used an image of Osama bin Laden in her new campaign ad and why she accepted the support of Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh-based media mogul who was once considered a key figure in the “vast right-wing conspiracy” against the Clintons during Bill’s tenure in office.
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 johnmurneysblog.blogspot.com
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For presidential candidates, celebrity endorsements can be a mixed bag—especially when the star in question is a polarizing figure, as is the latest famous figure to give the nod to Barack Obama: audacious auteur Michael Moore.
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Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films crew has a little fun at ABC host George Stephanopoulos’ expense in this clip, imagining their own version of Stephanopolous’ interview with John McCain on Sunday.
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Is former President Jimmy Carter on a peace mission or a mission impossible? As this Mosaic Intelligence Report explains, Carter will try to mediate the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit as a goodwill gesture on the part of Hamas, which is reported to be seriously considering Carter’s proposal.
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 AP photo / Jae C. Hong
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By Bill Boyarsky — Journalists are famous for their dogged drive to “get the story.” But when it comes to situations like Wednesday’s campaign debate in Philadelphia, they have the ability to make stories, too—and the story ABC’s pundits created that night buried the most important issues of the day, at Americans’ expense.
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 AP photo / Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi
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Last month’s election in Zimbabwe is yet to be resolved. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai believes he defeated President Robert Mugabe fairly, but a recount and a runoff may happen before the contest is finally decided. Meanwhile, opposition supporters say Mugabe’s party is attacking them as he holds on to power.
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With just five days left before Democratic primary voters go to polls to decide whom they want to be their presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois are locked in a battle that is too close to call, the latest Newsmax/Zogby telephone poll shows.
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 The Star-Ledger / Saed Hindash
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Bruce Springsteen, the iconic musician of the working-class U.S., endorsed Barack Obama on Wednesday. The announcement comes less than a week before the Pennsylvania primary, in which blue-collar voters may play a significant role in determining the Democratic nominee.
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 AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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John McCain joined Hillary Clinton in critiquing Barack Obama’s characterization of small-town Pennsylvania’s (and by extension, perhaps, America’s) “bitter” outlook, telling a crowd of magazine and newspaper editors on Monday that Obama’s description represented “a contradiction from what I believe America is all about.”
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 AP photo / Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi
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President Robert Mugabe’s regime is refusing to release the results of Zimbabwe’s March 29 election, as opposition leaders from the Movement for Democratic Change cry foul and call for their countrymen to stay away from work Tuesday in protest.
Posted on Apr 15, 2008
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There are many opportunities, in every heated political campaign, for one candidate’s perceived slip-up to quickly provide the plot for another’s next TV spot. Here, Hillary Clinton’s camp has some Pennsylvania supporters weigh in on Barack Obama’s recent statements about their home state.
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Satire by Andy Borowitz —
Maybe what the economy needs is for George Bush to go to Disney World ... and stay there.
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 AP Photo/Alex Brandon
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Barack Obama has apparently decided to stand by his observation, first delivered in San Francisco on April 6, that some Americans in small-town Pennsylvania are “bitter” about the lack of available jobs. After Hillary Clinton and John McCain criticized his views as elitist and condescending, Obama repeated, and elaborated upon, his original statement Friday. Updated
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By Eugene Robinson — No, it’s not your imagination: The “debate” about Iraq, and I use the word loosely, becomes ever more surreal as the occupation drags on.
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 Staff Sgt D. Myles Cullen, U.S. Air Force
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Gen. David Petraeus tells NBC‘s Brian Williams that if ordered by the president to get out of Iraq, he could: “Absolutely. ... I firmly believe whoever it is that is elected in the fall will sit down and look at the various interests, try to figure out the competing risks, because there are risks beyond Iraq.”
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 The Sydney Morning Herald
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Iranian President and up-and-coming schoolyard brawler Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared in a televised address Wednesday his country’s willingness to “bloody the enemy’s nose” in order to defend its national sovereignty. At issue is Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which Ahmadinejad has declared is negotiable only with U.N. nuclear officials, not the politicized Security Council.
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 AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Scheer — General Betray Us? Of course he has. MoveOn.org can hardly be expected to recycle its slogan from last September, when Gen. David Petraeus testified in support of escalating the U.S. war in Iraq, given the hysterical denunciations that worthy group received at the time. But it was right then—as it would be to repeat the charge now.
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 White House photo / Paul Morse
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George W. Bush has said that history will determine the greatness of his presidency. According to an informal poll by George Mason University’s History News Network, 98 percent of historians polled rated Bush’s presidency a failure. Sixty-one percent ranked him last among presidents, while only 4 percent placed him among the top two-thirds.
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 commons.wikimedia.org
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Hillary Clinton has released seven years of tax returns, which she filed jointly with her former president husband. While there is much poring over to do, one piece of information stands out: The Clintons are rich. America’s most famous power couple made about $109 million in seven years, thanks in large part to Bill Clinton’s speaking fees.
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 Washington Post / Karen Ballard
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A recently declassified memo shines the spotlight once again on John “Take Them to the Point of Death” Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor and once deputy legal counsel in the Justice Department.
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 Agence France-Presse
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As the train that is the Bush administration begins to slow, the president has attended his last ever NATO summit. Speaking to alliance leaders Wednesday, Bush asked for patience and resolve to “finish the fight” in Afghanistan, a war now in its seventh year.
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 AP photo / Nabil al-Jurani
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OK, John McCain, still “fine” with the U.S. staying in Iraq for another 100 years? And as for the Democratic presidential hopefuls, how does the whole troop withdrawal scenario change in light of the outbreak of heavy fighting in Basra this week? These are just a couple of the questions that couldn’t be more timely—or pressing—on the campaign trail this weekend.
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 AP photo / Jorge Rey
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Be it through changes in cell phone restrictions or proposed legislation recognizing same-sex unions and transgender rights, Cuba’s political future is looking up for many of its citizens.
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 AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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Former rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney looked like fast friends as Romney joined McCain in Utah and Colorado for a little campaigning Thursday. Could this be the beginning of a beautiful ticket?
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Even some Hillary Clinton supporters have expressed reservations over the role of the former president in the campaign. Others have argued that the media and the Obama campaign exaggerate when it comes to his comments. Whatever the case, Bill’s mouth has gotten him into trouble again.
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 The New York Times / James Hill
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By Patrick Cockburn — All governments lie in wartime, but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any other conflict since the First World War.
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By The Rev. Madison Shockley — Missing from the media hullabaloo surrounding the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright Jr.‘s now-infamous sermon (a particular sample of which is still playing in heavy rotation on countless broadcast stations) were some key contextual details about Wright’s church, black Christianity and Barack Obama’s personal history.
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By Eugene Robinson — The Democratic presidential candidates squabble over real or imagined racial sensitivities, the Republican presidential candidate stages photo opportunities with the troops in Iraq, and meanwhile the financial system is coming apart at the seams.
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 flickr.com
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By Bill Boyarsky — Sen. Barack Obama’s latest, and possibly greatest, challenge is to overcome a simplistic view that the United States is hopelessly split by a racial divide that could badly damage his candidacy.
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 news.bbc.co.uk
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Gruesome details are emerging from the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor (above, right), the former president of Liberia. The leader of one of Taylor’s death squads has testified that the president ordered his militias to cannibalize their enemies, including African and U.N. peacekeepers.
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 AP photo / Carolyn Kaster
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After a good 48 hours or so of pandemonium triggered by her racially charged comments about Barack Obama’s candidacy, a still-not-sorry Geraldine Ferraro resigned Wednesday from her post as “Honorary New York Leadership Council Chair” for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Meanwhile, Clinton herself said she did regret Ferraro’s comments ... and then some.
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Adm. William Fallon, head of the U.S. Central Command, resigned on Tuesday, explaining that his reputation as an obstacle to President Bush’s military designs had become too much of a distraction. Fallon was often reported to be a thorn in the side of the president and his other military advisers, a role both the admiral and administration officials strongly deny.
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 youtube.com
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As Barack Obama supporters reacted angrily to her claims that the Illinois senator wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has in the ‘08 race if he was white or female, former VP candidate and Clinton fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro said her statements were taken out of context and warned that Obama “shouldn’t antagonize people like me.” Updated
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