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Doug G. Ware, KUTV2, February 6, 2008

PHOENIX – A large-scale shooting rampage was mere minutes from unfolding at Super Bowl XLII last Sunday, authorities say — but was averted when the would-be shooter decided against it at the last moment.

Kurt William Havelock, 35, of Tempe, Ariz., turned himself into police on Sunday night at the urging of his family. According to authorities, Havelock was just less than a mile from the football stadium when he decided against the assault.

Havelock reportedly planned the massacre as a form of revenge against the Tempe, Ariz. City Council — because it overwhelmingly denied a liquor license for his restaurant last fall.

Officials say Havelock purchased an AR-15 assault rifle from a Phoenix-area gun store on Jan. 29, wrote a “manifesto”-style letter and mailed copies to authorities and acquaintances on Sunday night — just before the planned assault.

“No one destroys my dream. No one,” one of Havelock’s letters read. “I will test the theory that bullets speak louder than words… I will slay your children. I will shed the blood of the innocent.”

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MoveOn.org, February 1, 2008

In a resounding vote today, MoveOn.org Political Action’s members nationwide voted to endorse Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for President. The group, with 3.2 million members nationwide and over 1.7 million members in Super Tuesday states, will immediately begin to mobilize on behalf of Senator Obama. The vote favored Senator Obama to Senator Clinton by 70.4% to 29.6%.

Senator Obama accepted the endorsement stating:

“In just a few years, the members of MoveOn have once again demonstrated that real change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up. From their principled opposition to the Iraq war – a war I also opposed from the start – to their strong support for a number of progressive causes, MoveOn shows what Americans can achieve when we come together in a grassroots movement for change. I thank them for their support and look forward to working with their members in the weeks and months ahead.”

Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org’s Executive Director, issued the following statement on the group’s endorsement:

“Our members’ endorsement of Senator Obama is a clear call for a new America at this critical moment in history. Seven years of the disastrous policies of the Bush Administration have left the country desperate for change. We need a President who will bring to bear the strong leadership and vision required to end the war in Iraq, provide health care to every American, deal with our climate crisis, and restore America’s standing in the world. The enormity of the challenges require someone who knows how to inspire millions to get involved to change the direction of our country, and someone who will be willing to change business as usual in Washington. Senator Barack Obama has proved he can and will be that President.

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The Boston Globe, January 25, 2008

WASHINGTON – Paul Wolfowitz, the former World Bank president and former deputy secretary of defense who was instrumental in the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003, has been named chairman of a panel that advises the State Department on arms-control issues.

Wolfowitz, now a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, will head Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s International Security Advisory Board, the State Department said yesterday in a statement.

“The ISAB provides the Department of State with a source of independent insight, advice, and innovation on all aspects of arms control, disarmament, nonproliferation, political-military issues, and international security and related aspects of public diplomacy,” the State Department said.

Wolfowitz was among the senior US officials who warned of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction capabilities, a key justification for invading Iraq and toppling the late dictator Saddam Hussein.

“Disarming Iraq of its chemical and biological weapons and dismantling its nuclear weapons program is a crucial part of winning the war on terror,” Wolfowitz told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in January 2003, two months before the US-led invasion of Iraq.

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David G. Savage, The Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2008

Washington – The Supreme Court today dismissed a huge lawsuit growing out of the Enron debacle that sought to hold Wall Street bankers liable for scheming with the executives of the defunct Houston energy trader.

Lawyers for investment funds and pension plans, including the University of California’s pension plan, had sued Merrill Lynch and the other bankers, seeking to recover more than $30 billion that was lost when Enron folded in 2001. They argued that all the key players in the scheme that fooled stockholders should be forced to pay.

In dismissing the appeal of the Regents of the University of California vs. Merrill Lynch, the court appeared to doom the big lawsuits still pending against Enron’s bankers.

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Mary Foster, The Associated Press, January 21, 2008

JENA, La. — About 50 white separatists protested the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Monday in this tiny town, that was thrust into the spotlight months ago by 20,000 demonstrators who claimed prosecutors discriminated against blacks.

Police separated participants in the “pro-majority” rally organized by the Learned, Miss.-based Nationalist Movement from a racially mixed group of about 100 counter-demonstrators outside the LaSalle Parish Courthouse.

At least person was arrested after about six counter-protesters gathered in a semicircle around a podium where the separatist group’s leader Richard Barrett was to speak.

Dozens of state police forced the counter-demonstrators back before Barrett spoke Monday afternoon. One man who broke away from the crowd was arrested and booked with battery on a police officer; authorities identified him as William Winchester Jr. of New Orleans and said he was a member of the New Black Panthers.

Earlier, chants of “No KKK” from the mostly college-aged counter-demonstrators with met with a chant from the separatists that contained a racial epithet.

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Gromer Jeffers Jr., The Dallas Morning News, January 17, 2008

Dallas billionaire H. Ross Perot has weighed into the GOP presidential contest with a stinging rebuke of John McCain and an endorsement of Mitt Romney.

Mr. Perot told Newsweek magazine that Mr. McCain “is the classic opportunist” who is always reaching for “attention and glory.”

“Other POWs won’t even sit at the same table with him,” the article quoted Mr. Perot as saying.

Mr. McCain could not be reached for comment Thursday, and his campaign didn’t return telephone calls.

But the Arizona senator for years has denied the claims Mr. Perot made in the Newsweek story.

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Ananova, January 16, 2008

A controversial Virginia lawmaker is trying to introduce new legislation to ban rubber testicles from being fitted to the back of trucks.

Lionel Spruill, known for his failed attempt in 2005 to ban baggy pants, says the motivation for his latest idea came from a constituent.

The man complained that he had been left speechless when his six-year-old daughter spotted a pair and asked him what they were.

Mr Spruill agreed to act: “I said, ‘Sir, I’m going to be the laughing stock, but I’m going to do it’,” he told the Virginian-Pilot.

Truck drivers who sport fake testicles on the back of their vehicles would risk a $250 fine under his proposal.

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David Edwards and Muriel Kane, The Raw Story, January 15, 2008

The United States Constitution never uses the word “God” or makes mention of any religion, drawing its sole authority from “We the People.” However, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks it’s time to put an end to that.

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

When Willie Geist reported Huckabee’s opinion on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski was almost speechless, and even Joe Scarborough couldn’t immediately find much to say beyond calling it “interesting,”

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Terence Hunt, The Huffington Post, January 14, 2008

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – President Bush delivered a sophisticated weapons sale for Saudi Arabia on Monday, trying to bolster defenses against threats from U.S. adversary Iran and muster support in this oil-rich kingdom for a long-stalled Mideast peace agreement.

On a surprisingly cold day with blustery winds, Bush received a warm embrace from King Abdullah, whose family wields almost absolute rule. Among ordinary Saudis and across much of the Mideast, Bush is unpopular, particularly because of the Iraq war and unflinching U.S. support for Israel.

Bush and Abdullah were going to some lengths over two days to emphasize their strong personal ties.

Saudi Arabia holds the world’s largest oil reserves and surging fuel costs are putting a major strain on the troubled U.S. economy. But White House officials said it was unclear if Bush raised the subject with the king. The issue has come up in earlier stops on Bush’s eight-day trip, largely in the context of his quest for alternate fuels and sources of energy, the officials said.

White House counselor Ed Gillespie said Mideast leaders have “talked about the nature of the market and the vast demand that’s on the world market today for oil.” He said that was “a legitimate and accurate point.”

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Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico.com, January 8, 2008

Newt Gingrich’s on-again, off-again adulation of Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to be back on.

The leader of the 1994 Republican revolution – who as House speaker in the mid 1990s clashed fiercely with then-first lady Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton – attributed her surprise victory in New Hampshire to the Democratic presidential candidate’s courage, integrity and openness.

After Clinton’s third-place finish in the Jan. 3 Iowa Democratic caucuses, “it would have been very easy for her to have broken, accepted defeat,” Gingrich said in a weekly podcast e-mailed to supporters.

“Instead, starting on Saturday night, she fought back with greater and greater intensity, and she opened herself up,” Gingrich went on. “She talked as a person, without all the protection, without all the discipline, and she became more and more appealing.”

Gingrich said that shift demonstrated “the courage to learn” and enabled the New York senator to grow “in the space of three or four days to a much more attractive, much more aggressive and much more appealing candidate.”

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Richard Mellon Scaife, billionaire bankroller of conservative crusades, spent heavily to expose Bill Clinton’s “Troopergate” misbehavior. Now Scaife’s divorce from his second wife, Ritchie, is providing another unsavory saga—adultery! addiction! assault! dognapping!?!—as both parties let loose to V.F.

Michael Joseph Gross, Vanity Fair, February 2008

Over many years, in the five households the couple shared, the wife hired scores of servants to help take care of her rich husband. Then, in 2005, she hired someone to tail him. Margaret Ritchie Rhea Battle Scaife (whose friends call her Ritchie) suspected Richard Mellon Scaife (whose friends call him Dick) of committing adultery, so she enlisted the services of an investigator. It was a private act that would have very public consequences. Richard Mellon Scaife is the best-known living member of Pittsburgh’s storied Mellon clan, whose eponymous bank made the family a 19th-century fortune, which grew steadily with diversified investments, including major coal, steel, and real-estate interests, and Gulf Oil Corporation. Scaife, who owns several newspapers, is a major backer of conservative causes; his political donations fueled the rise of the New Right and its moral crusade against Bill Clinton, making Scaife the central figure in Hillary Clinton’s “vast right-wing conspiracy.” In the 1990s, his gift of $1.8 million to The American Spectator funded investigations into Whitewater and Bill Clinton’s personal life, including David Brock’s notorious “Troopergate” exposé, which led to Paula Jones’s sexual-harassment suit against the president.

In December of 2005, the private detective proved Ritchie’s fears to have been well founded: he took pictures showing the reclusive 75-year-old billionaire with a woman named Tammy Vasco, a tall, blonde 43-year-old whose criminal history includes two arrests for prostitution. The pair was photographed at Doug’s Motel, a roadside establishment near Pittsburgh, where rooms rent for $49 a night, or $31 for three hours.

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Abdon M. Pallasch, The Chicago Sun Times, January 1, 2008

JEFFERSON, Iowa — White House hopeful Barack Obama came out swinging Monday when asked if he would fight another “stolen presidential election” like some Democrats believe happened the last two times.

But his “fighting” stance contrasts sharply with the vote he took on his very first day in the U.S. Senate where he joined the 74-1 majority voting not to challenge President Bush’s disputed victory in Ohio. The Congressional Black Caucus urged him to be the second “yes” vote, but he declined.

At a town hall meeting in rural Jefferson on Monday, undecided voter Bruce Banister, 56, asked Obama, “The last two presidential elections have been very dirty, and for me there have been very serious questions about whether George Bush was even legally elected. I want to know if we have another dirty election and you are the candidate, if you think it is dirty, will you back off like Gore and Kerry did or will you fight?”

Obama replied, “I intend to whoop ‘em so good that it won’t even be close and they can’t steal the election.”

After sustained cheers, laughter and applause, Obama added that he would hope to win over enough independents and Republicans in the general election that, “We aren’t going to have 47 percent on one side, 47 percent on the other side, 5 percent in the middle and they all live in Ohio and Florida so you only campaign in two states.”

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Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John Solomon, The Washington Post, December 31, 2007

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took a break from the presidential campaign trail in March to fly to a posh Utah ski resort, where he mingled with hundreds of top corporate executives assembled by J.P. Morgan Chase for its annual leadership conference.

McCain’s appearance at the Deer Valley event, arranged by J.P. Morgan Vice Chairman James B. Lee Jr., a top McCain fundraiser, put him in a room with the chief executives of companies such as General Electric, Xerox and Sony. It was, Lee said, “a chance for him to let them see him for who he is and possibly decide to support him.” The effort paid off: J.P. Morgan executives have donated $56,250 to McCain’s campaign, two-thirds of which came after his Utah appearance. And his visit there was quickly followed up by dozens of smaller private meetings with corporate executives in New York City arranged by leading Wall Street figures.

“We tried to get him around to a lot of those kinds of things,” said McCain campaign manager Rick Davis. “We were very much in the friend-making business.”

It is common for politicians to court big money during a campaign. But private schmooze sessions such as the gathering in Utah pose a particular dilemma for McCain, who has spent a long career decrying “special interests” and politicians who offer special access to them in order to raise money. As a presidential candidate this year, McCain has found himself assiduously courting both lobbyists and their wealthy clients, offering them private audiences as part of his fundraising. He also counts more than 30 lobbyists among his chief fundraisers, more than any other presidential contender.

McCain has consistently fought in the Senate against pork-barrel spending from such interests and championed laws to restrict their lobbying and political donations. But his aides bridle at the notion that he might favor his big contributors. “There’s never been anybody who’s done more to rein in special interests and lobbyists than John McCain,” Davis said. “If you give to him, you know there’s no quid pro quo. People give to him because they want him to be president of the United States. They can’t be motivated by any other reason.”

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Billy Townsend, The Tampa Tribune, December 22, 2007

LAKELAND – Public floggings hurt, even when administered by satirical sacred noodles.

Ask the Polk County School Board. The panel made news last month when five of its seven members declared a personal belief in the concept of intelligent design, the religiously based explanation of the development of life believed in by many Christians.

Four of those five sympathetic board members said they would like to see intelligent design taught in Polk schools as an alternative to Darwinian evolution, at a time when new state standards mentioning evolution by name for the first time are under consideration.

Just like that, it appeared the Darwin wars had found their newest battlefield.

Yet a few weeks later, the controversy is dying with a whimper. There’s no board support for a challenge to the proposed standards. Some of the five school board members blame the local newspaper for trying to start a fight.

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