Mark Crispin Miller, who wrote extensively in Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform about how the votes cast in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election were stolen from Kerry and handed to Bush, said in an interview that the 2008 election can be stolen “through pre-emption of innumerable votes, as well as through the use of e-voting machines, both paperless touch-screen machines and op-scans.”

“It's safe to say that the entire federal government, insofar as it's controlled by BushCo's appointees, has been diligently working to suppress all but those votes that will support the [Republican] party,” Miller said. “The [Veterans Administration], for example, has announced that it will not help badly injured veterans register to vote, since those who've been thus damaged by Bush/Cheney's war aren't likely to be big McCain supporters.”

“On top of all this, there is, of course, the fact that somewhere between 85 and 90 percent of the electorate will either cast its votes on, or have its votes counted by, computerized e-voting machinery that was manufactured, and that is being serviced, by private companies with close ties to the GOP,” Miller added. Warren O’Dell, the former chief executive of Diebold, the top manufacturer of electronic voting machines, famously declared in August 2003 that his company was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president [Bush] next year."

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Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) is now a more popular choice among his Democratic Senate colleagues than rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.). Obama, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, received the backing of New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman on Monday, and now leads Clinton with 14 endorsements to 13. In addition, Bingaman is the latest in a string of committee chairmen to support the Illinois senator. While only two of Clinton’s 13 backers chair Senate committees, eight of Obama’s supporters head a panel. [MORE]

Gallup Poll: Hillary Clinton has Most Support from Uneducated Whites
Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama by 21 points among non-Hispanic white Democratic voters who don't have a college degree, while Obama leads Clinton by a 19-point margin among white Democratic voters who do have a college degree. [MORE]

The media still won’t admit that Barack Obama has already won the nomination. Hillary Clinton’s single-digit victory in the Keystone State was not enough to change the math, but now that she has “momentum” the race has moved to North Carolina and Indiana on May 6th. Obama is well ahead in North Carolina, and the media should define his victory in the largest state left as resolving the contest. Instead, pundits are focusing on the smaller Hoosier State, arguing that Obama must win to “prove” he can secure the votes of white working-class voters. But the media is paying no attention to Clinton's inability to win African-American or “creative class” voters, and her huge deficit to Obama in every Southern state but Florida. Nor do they acknowledge that Obama did better among the white working class in Pennsylvania than in Ohio, and that his weakness is limited to white working-class Catholics. Obama does not have to win Indiana to “prove” anything, as his expected victory in North Carolina will cement his lead in both delegates and the popular vote.

After Clinton won Pennsylvania by nine points (early returns had her ahead by 10 points, leading to false claims that it was a “double-digit victory”), her campaign has clung to the myth that the tide is turning. But that’s simply not true. “It’s like a football or basketball game,” said talk show host Cenk Uygur. “If you’re already down 45-10 in the fourth quarter, and you get momentum by scoring ten more points, it doesn’t matter because you’re still going to lose. Hillary Clinton is high-stepping after scoring a touchdown – when she’s still down by 28 points.”

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Last week was officially the moment that the race for the Democratic nomination slipped through the looking glass into surrealism. Here is a brief list of those people who are now actively supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy: Pat Buchanan, a charming man slightly to the right of Genghis Khan; Rush Limbaugh, the most voluble and incendiary of right-wing talk-show hosts; Richard Mellon Scaife, the media mogul who financed the virulently antiClinton crusades of the 1990s; and, if you read between the lines, even Karl Rove, the “architect” of the past decade or so of Republican dominance in electoral politics.

Am I hallucinating? I promise you I’m not. The merging of the forces that once persecuted the Clintons with the Clinton campaign itself has been a wonder to behold. Some on the once solidly anti-Clinton right have even been directly urging people to register as Democrats to vote for her.

Limbaugh began his pro-Clinton campaign when Ohio and Texas were at stake. Last Wednesday he claimed success in getting enough Republicans to vote for Clinton in Pennsylvania to keep her candidacy alive. Limbaugh calls his initiative Operation Chaos. “Were it not for Operation Chaos, [Barack] Obama could win this by winning the primary process. But he can’t now,” he bragged last week. Yes, this is the same Limbaugh who rose to fame hawking White-water and Lewinsky for eight years. Now he wants to save the couple he once wanted to impeach.

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House Democratic leaders are putting together the largest Iraq war spending bill yet, a measure that is expected to fund the war through the end of the Bush presidency and for nearly six months into the next president's term.

The bill, which could be unveiled as early as this week, signals that Democrats are resigned to the fact they can't change course in Iraq in the final months of President Bush's term. Instead, the party is pinning its hopes of ending the war on winning the White House in November. Bay Area lawmakers, who represent perhaps the most anti-war part of the country, acknowledge the bill will anger many voters back home.

The bill is expected to provide $108 billion that the White House has requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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From The FrontrunerThe New York Times (4/28, B5, Hicks) says Kevin Powell (D), an activist, writer and lecturer, announced on Sunday his bid to challenge 13-term Rep. Edolphus Towns (D) for the Democratic nomination, "calling the congressman invisible and ineffective." Powell said Town has "missed nearly 1,000 votes in Congress since 1993," he "hasn't held any major discussions about affordable housing or the mortgage crisis," and he "hasn't been heard of on any of the major health issues of the day," noting that Brooklyn "has one of the highest rates of H.I.V. and asthma." Powell, who is 42, "says he hopes to tap into the support of young and new voters, following the course set by Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, whom he supports as the Democratic candidate for the White House. (Mr. Towns is a superdelegate pledged to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.)" Towns, who narrowly won re-election in 2006, downplayed Powell as a newcomer who is little known by residents. Powell saisd, “I’m running because I’ve been a community organizer and not someone who’s been sitting behind a desk,” Mr. Powell said in an interview after his announcement at a restaurant in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. “I’ve lived in and have been involved in this district for 18 years. Mr. Powell, who is a former cast member of “The Real World” on MTV, said that the congressman’s electoral troubles two years ago were a reflection of his job performance.

DETROIT – Great timing. Two weeks before the Presidential primaries in North Carolina and Indiana and the NAACP deicides to have Rev Wright speak at their fundraiser. You would think these morons would be more interested in helping to elect the first black president than getting some cheap media coverage of their chicken dinner event and having another HNIC performance from Wright. One thing is for sure though, no matter what he says tonight, he will deliver nothing tangible to the blacks he claims to be helping out-not one job or benefit or registered voter or plan of action to do anything. Just talk. As one of the few black orgaizations that has been able to sustain itself as an institution for decades by not relying on the persona of one single leader, it is unfortunate that it would stoop down so low to pick up some chump change on the floor at a time like this.    

WHAT IS IT: The 53rd Annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner, a Sunday fundraiser for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Detroit branch.

WHO'S COMING: 10,000 people are expected to attend what's billed as the largest sit-down dinner in the nation.

WHAT IT COSTS: $150 a plate.

WHAT'S THE DRAW: A keynote speech by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. The outspoken former pastor of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has drawn fire from many in the wake of Internet-circulated sound bites from some his sermons. [MORE]

Although few believe that Mr. Kilpatrick can – or should – hang on until the end of his term next year, there is also much worry that, without him, his economic reforms will wither. That, actually, wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Mr. Kilpatrick's entire economic revival plan rests on attracting high-profile, flashy projects. True, he has been more successful than his predecessors because of his wily ability to cut deals and push them through a dysfunctional city bureaucracy. For instance, he managed to land the contract to host the 2006 Super Bowl and convince General Motors, Compuware and, more recently, Quicken Loans Inc. to relocate their offices downtown. He also succeeded in creating three casinos, and in convincing developers to restore old, historic hotels such as the Book-Cadillac to serve the casino patrons.

Mr. Kilpatrick lured each of these projects with targeted tax breaks and subsidies. Quicken alone received $200 million. But corporate giveaways are not the stuff of an economic revival. "If anything, they put small businesses, the true drivers of the economic engine, at a competitive disadvantage," observes David Littmann, senior economist at the Mackinac Public Policy Center. As a result, he says, "Many of them either shut down or just don't open."

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Let's not tiptoe around the elephant in the living room anymore. Too many of us within the Democratic Party are acting as if we suffer from collective amnesia as we understandably recoil from facing the ugly truth that now confronts us: Bill and Hillary Clinton chose to employ the theme of race against Senator Obama as a key component of their national strategy.

When even the corporate media shills admit that they are embarrassed by the continued race-baiting coming either directly from the Clintons themselves or indirectly through their campaign sock-puppets, you know that the proverbial cat is long out of the bag: The Clintons apparently have no problem with reminding voters in state after state that they are white and Senator Obama is not. In fact, they seem down right cozy doing so now.

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Political artist Dread Scott’s latest exhibition, “Welcome to America,” has been the source of controversy since its opening February 28 at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) in Brooklyn. The exhibit, which spans almost 20 years of Scott’s work, points to the continuing racial violence perpetrated by the United States: the effects of the “War on Terror” at home and abroad; the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and police brutality.

One piece in particular, “The Blue Wall of Violence,” has garnered attacks by both the mainstream media and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA). On the wall are six shooting targets with outstretched arms holding actual objects, such as a wallet or house keys, that the NYP D allegedly mistook for a weapon in various police shootings of black males. Originally created in the late 1990s in response to the numerous killings of unarmed black men by the NYP D, “The Blue Wall of Violence” is, unfortunately, as relevant as ever: the exhibit began the same week as the Sean Bell murder trial. [MORE]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) Hundreds of people marched through Haiti's capital on Saturday to demand the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The demonstrators also commemorated the killing of seven protesters on April 26, 1986, when army troops fired into a crowd outside a notorious prison.  As president, Aristide shut down the Fort Dimanche prison, where dissidents were tortured under the Duvalier family dictatorship. Aristide was ousted in a bloody 2004 revolt.

Haitian police and U.N. peacekeepers said Saturday's protest was peaceful. At least seven people died during food riots in Haiti earlier this month. U.S. Rev. Jesse Jackson and a delegation of ministers and Haitian nationals are expected to arrive Sunday for a three-day visit.

Jackson hopes to increase humanitarian aid efforts and help draft policies to avoid another crisis, according to a news release issued Saturday by his religious and social organization, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

The latest results, based on Gallup Poll Daily tracking from April 22-24, include two days of interviews conducted entirely after Tuesday's Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Support for Clinton is significantly higher in these post-primary interviews than it was just prior to her Pennsylvania victory, clearly suggesting that Clinton's win there is the catalyst for her increased national support.

Obama's lead dwindled steadily all week, falling from a high of 10 percentage points in interviewing conducted in the three days just prior to the Pennsylvania primary. However, the percentage of Democrats supporting Obama has changed little (declining from 50% in April 19-21 polling to 48% today). Most of Clinton's increased support (from 40% to 47%) has come from previously undecided voters. [MORE]

[From the JURIST] Over 3,000 prison inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses have had their sentences reduced under an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, according to a study released Thursday by the US Sentencing Commission. Of the 3,647 applications for early release, 3,075 have been granted and 572 denied, but most prisoners denied turned out to not actually be eligible for sentence reductions under the amendment.  more.

In December, the Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to give retroactive effect to an earlier amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that reduces penalties for crack cocaine offenders. The amendment, which took effect November 1, was intended to narrow the disparity between sentences for powder and crack cocaine offenses. Under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, the Sentencing Commission is authorized to retroactively apply amendments to the Guidelines that reduce penalties for classes of offenses or offenders. The final decision whether and how much to reduce a crack cocaine offender's sentence will rest with a federal sentencing judge, who will weigh public safety concerns. Retroactivity took effect on March 3, 2008. US Attorney General Michael Mukasey urged the Senate in February to block the amendment's retroactive effect, but his efforts were rejected [MORE].

As people around the world continue to protest the soaring prices of basic food items, the World Food Program has described the crisis as a silent tsunami. The head of the Food and Agriculture Organization blamed the current global food crisis on “inappropriate” policy decisions over the past two decades. Nowhere is this more clear than in Haiti, where hungry people are rioting in the streets because they cannot afford to buy rice. Haiti imports most of its rice from the United States, which in turn remains heavily subsidized.[MORE]

The North Carolina branch of the NAACP said Friday a Republican advertisement that includes a clip of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's former pastor is racially divisive.

NAACP leaders blasted the North Carolina GOP for producing an ad that shows footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery comments about the U.S. The group said the ad takes Wright's words out of context in an effort to smear the black community and "prophetic ministers." "It's a fundamentally race-baiting ad," said Rev. William Barber, state NAACP President. "And it inserts racist sentiments."

The sound bite shows Wright proclaiming from the pulpit "God damn America" for its racism and treatment of minorities. Obama has denounced the remarks. The ad was posted online Wednesday. State Republican Party officials still plan to begin airing the ad on television Monday despite the objections of high-ranking Republicans, including likely GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

The ad claims to target two Democratic gubernatorial candidates who endorsed Obama, though the ad overwhelmingly focuses on the presidential candidate. Two television stations in Raleigh and Charlotte have vowed not to air the piece, calling it inflammatory.

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