March Madness

And then there were ones.
Four No. 1s, that is. The Jayhawks will play overall No. 1 seed North Carolina on Saturday, and UCLA and Memphis will round out the party at the Alamodome.

Obama Says He'll Throwback To Bush 41, Reagan

Barack Obama promised that his foreign policy would be a return to what he says was the realist approach practiced by George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

"My foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional realistic policy of George Bush's father, of John F. Kennedy, of in some ways Ronald Reagan," he said Friday. A voter at the town hall in Greenburg had asked Obama to respond to charges that his foreign policy was naïve.

"It is George Bush who has been naïve and it's people like John McCain and unfortunately some democrats that have facilitated him acting in these naïve ways that have caused us so much damage in our reputation in the world," Obama said.

Drawing on the example of the first Gulf War, Obama said that the first President Bush had "conducted a Gulf War with allies that ended up costing twenty billion dollars and left us stronger because they were realistic."

"Remember, people were saying why didn't you go into Baghdad and overthrow Saddam Hussein? The realists understood that that would be a nightmare. And it wasn't worth our national interests," Obama added.

He described this President Bush's world view on foreign policy as a big stick approach.

"Certainly George Bush's foreign policy has been dominated by the idea that because we are so militarily powerful we can dictate events around the world," he said. "If people don't like it doesn't matter because we are the biggest, toughest thing on the block. Now that is naïve."

Obama claimed that since 9-11, the way foreign policy was viewed had turned from one that understood the limits of military power and had placed a greater emphasis on diplomatic and economic strength to one that placed its sole emphasis on country's military might.

He described the conventional thinking in Washington on foreign policy as "bipartisan" and this "both ideological and highly political."

That foreign policy he argued operated from the assumption that United States could act "as a lone super power" and said that "Senator Clinton is as captive to it in some ways as John McCain and George Bush."

"I do think that Senator Clinton would understand that George Bush's polices have failed," Obama added. "But in many ways she has been captive to the same politics that lead her to vote for the war in Iraq. Since 9-11 the conventional wisdom has been you have to look tough on foreign policy by voting and acting like the republicans. And I disagree with it."

Sadr Calls for Cease-Fire?

Great news, potentially. According to the AP, "Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Sunday that he was pulling his fighters off the streets nationwide and called on the government to stop raids against his followers and free them from prison."

The Iraqi government quickly welcomed al-Sadr's apparent move to resolve a widening conflict with his movement, sparked Tuesday by operations against his backers in the oil-rich southern city of Basra.

Al-Sadr's nine-point statement was issued by his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf and broadcast through loudspeakers on Shiite mosques. It said the first point was: "taking gunmen off the streets in Basra and elsewhere."

He also demanded that the Iraqi government stop "haphazard raids" and release security detainees who haven't been charged, two issues cited by his movement as reasons for fighting the government.

Followers handed out sweets in Baghdad's main Mahdi Army militia stronghold of Sadr City.

"In exchange for brokering the cease-fire, al-Sadr demanded that the government give his supporters amnesty and release any of his followers that are being held," CNN says.

Sadr's forces still appear to be in control of "wide swaths" of Basra. But "the Mahdi Army has suffered major losses," notes Bill Roggio, just back from Iraq. "The Mahdi Army has not faired well over the past five days of fighting, losing an estimated two percent of its combat power, using the best case estimate for the size of the militia."

A look at the open source press reports from the US and Iraqi military and the established newspapers indicates 145 Mahdi Army fighters were killed, 81 were wounded, 98 were captured, and 30 surrendered during the past 36 hours.

Since the fighting began on Tuesday 358 Mahdi Army fighters were killed, 531 were wounded, 343 were captured, and 30 surrendered. The US and Iraqi security forces have killed 125 Mahdi Army fighters in Baghdad alone, while Iraqi security forces have killed 140 Mahdi fighters in Basra.

Courtesy Danger Room

Cash-strapped Clinton fails to pay bills

Reports her campaign has been putting off paying $8.7 million in hundreds of bills and some companies are warning others to get payment upfront when doing business with her.

If she had paid off her tab, “the cash she would have had available at the end of last month to spend on television ads and other up-front expenses would have been less than $2 million.”

Indiana Now a "Must Win" For Clinton

"Mrs. Clinton's aides said they could see no circumstance in which she would withdraw unless she lost Pennsylvania on April 22. Two senior advisers and one close ally said they would urge her to quit the race if she lost Indiana two weeks later, on May 6." New York Times

Hillary as the Black Knight...only a flesh wound?

Fighting Spreads Across Baghdad

The fighting between Iraq's Shi'ite factions appears to be metastasizing. What started in Basra and jumped to Baghdad's Sadr City has now spread across the capital, eyewitnesses tell Iraqslogger. Here's one set of reports, just from the Sha'b district.

Clashes erupted again on Thursday in the Sha'b area, including Thursday afternoon in the Sabah al-Khayat square of the northeastern district. Three cars carrying at least five Mahdi Army gunmen armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and PKC launchers passed through the square in front of an Iraqi forces checkpoint, security sources said. The militiamen fired into the air as they approached. Iraqi forces returned fire and a clash ensued. Three militiamen and one policeman were killed in the firefight, along with five militiamen and one policeman injured.

At 1:00 am in Sha'b on Wednesday night, more than 70 Mahdi Army fighters attacked a police station. Two policemen were killed along with seven Mahdi Army members, and eight militiamen were injured in the fighting. Locals also report that a sound bomb had landed in Sha'b's main market Wednesday, forcing people to close their shops. Some suspect that Mahdi Army elements may have been involved in the attack as a way to force Iraqis to observe the "civil disobedience" called for by the Sadrist leadership.

On Thursday evening, a Sahwa [neighborhood watch] checkpoint was attacked in Sha'b, locals say. Two cars filled with armed men approached from different directions firing Kalashnikov rifles at the installation, then a gunman in one of the vehicles fired an RPG rocket. Sahwa forces returned fire and forced the attackers to run...

In the last two days, as Sahwa checkpoints have drawn attacks from Mahdi Army militiamen, locals say that several of the installations have been merged together to make them more defensible. Iraqi authorities also brought reinforcements from other Sahwa councils into Sha'b on Thursday. Locals say that Mahdi Army militiamen have targeted the residences of some Sahwa members in the area.

Read more at Danger Room.

Obama on Indiana

The Start of a Drum Beat?

Leahy Urges Clinton to Quit Race

Is this the start of a drum beat?
Following yesterday's declaration by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) that Sen. Barack Obama has already won the Democratic presidential race, Vermont Public Radio reports that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is calling on Sen. Hillary Clinton to drop out.
Said Leahy:

"There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination. She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama. Now, obviously that's a decision that only she can make frankly I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate."

Courtesy Political Wire.

Growth Nearly Halted By End of 2007

New numbers released by the government Thursday highlighted the continued weak performance of the national economy, with the Commerce Department reporting an anemic 0.6 percent increase in the gross domestic product in the final three months of 2007.

The GDP, which measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States, was expected to perform even worse in the first three months of 2008, but final numbers will not be available on that until late April.

One positive number to come out Thursday could be tied to the continued weak value of the American dollar compared with other currencies. Sales of U.S. goods and services to other countries grew at a 6.5 percent pace. That was better than the 4.8 percent growth rate previously estimated.

Thursday's report underscored the damage to the economy from the collapse in the housing market, which has crippled housing prices, forced many homeowners into foreclosure and weakened consumer confidence in their finances.

Reaction from the campaign trail...

Republican standard bearer Sen. John McCain, who has said the government should only intervene to address systemic problems in the economy, dismissed both Democratic senators addresses in a statement Thursday.

"There is a tendency for liberals to seek big government programs that sock it to American taxpayers while failing to solve the very real problems we face," McCain said.

Obama countered that McCain's plan to assist the economy "amounts to little more than watching this crisis happen."

Climate Change...

The Wilkins ice shelf is collapsing:

A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday.

....British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan attributed the melting to rising sea temperature due to global warming.

....Vaughan had predicted the Wilkins shelf would collapse about 15 years from now.

All the usual caveats apply. However, this is one more data point suggesting that global warming may be happening faster than our current models predict, not slower.
Courtesy Los Angeles Times

N.C., Line in the Sand?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s dwindling chances to be president may hinge on what happens in North Carolina.

Jerry Meek, the chairman of the N.C. Democratic Party, laid out Clinton’s problem in the national delegate totals.

“I think it’s very, very unlikely that if Obama won both the popular vote and the pledged-vote count, that the nomination would go to Clinton,” said Meek, who has not endorsed either candidate. “The public outcry as a result of that would be so intense that it would not happen.”

A poll released yesterday by a Democratic polling firm in North Carolina showed Obama leading Clinton by 21 points in the state. A week ago, another poll by the firm, Public Policy Polling, showed Obama with a lead of just 1 point.

Tom Jensen, an analyst with Public Policy Polling, attributed Obama’s large jump in the poll to a change in the sample of voters that was polled and to the media attention he received last week from his visit to the state.

If Obama gets a resounding win in North Carolina, it could help clinch the nomination for him, said Pearce, the Democratic consultant.

“Unless either she or he wins a state they should not win, I think this thing is probably over after North Carolina,” Pearce said.

Even former president Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife on Friday, alluded to North Carolina’s importance, saying, “This whole thing could come down to what you all decide to do in North Carolina.”

Comic Relief

Erin Jackson is a DC-based comedian doing big things. She's part of the Black Comedy Project family and will be coming soon to Comedy Central's Live at Gotham series.

McCain: Let's Add $4 Trillion More To The Debt

According to his website, McCain wants to do the following:

(a) Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.
(b) "John McCain will fight the Democrats' crippling plans for a tax increase in 2011." That "tax increase" is what is more commonly known as "letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule."
(c) "Cut The Corporate Tax Rate From 35 To 25 Percent."
(d) "Allow First-Year Deduction, Or “Expensing”, Of Equipment And Technology Investments." From the Gordon/Kvaal report:

"Under current law, corporations must generally deduct the cost of an investment over that investment’s useful lifetime, a tax and accounting practice known as depreciation. McCain’s proposal will allow corporations to depreciate the entire cost of investments in the first year of the purchase, a practice known as expensing. This would create extra incentives for business investment by letting corporations claim these tax breaks immediately."

There are a few other tax proposals, none of which would do anything to offset the cost of these.

The Gordon/Kvaal report estimates the cost of these changes at $2.17 trillion dollars over ten years. They think their estimates are conservative: for instance, they do not count increased spending on debt service.

The Wall Street Journal, everyone's favorite bastion of radical leftism, writes: "In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain campaign."

That would make the cost over ten years $4 trillion.
Read more of Andrew Olmsted

Signs your campaign is in trouble...

Apparently retailers haven't heard the electoral votes theory.

The Impact of Obama's Speech

The latest CBS News poll on the Wright speech suggests that Obama scored well. 71 percent thought he did a good job explaining his relationship with Wright, with 24 percent saying a poor job. 63 percent mostly agreed with his views on race. The poll shows no real shift from the speech in voters' intent to vote for him or not vote for him.

Which Evil Anti-American Racist Demagogue Said This?

"God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place...[God will say:] And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."

Answer Click Here
To read more check out E. J. Dionne Jr.

State Dept. Employees Targets Obama

The State Department says it is trying to determine whether three contract workers had a political motive for looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport file. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that for now it appears that nothing other than "imprudent curiosity" was involved in three separate breaches of the Illinois senator's personal information, "but we are taking steps to reassure ourselves that that is, in fact, the case."

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, called for a complete investigation. "This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years," Burton said. "Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes."

"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," he said.

The breaches occurred on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14 and were detected by internal State Department computer checks, McCormack said. The department's top management officer, Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, said certain records, including those of high-profile people, are "flagged" with a computer tag that tips off supervisors when someone tries to view the records without a proper reason.

In answer to a question, Kennedy said the department doesn't look into political affiliation in doing background checks on passport workers. "Now that this has arisen, this becomes a germane question, and that will be something for the appropriate investigation to look into," he said.

The disclosure of inappropriate passport inquiries recalled an incident in 1992, when a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport records. At the time he was challenging President George H.W. Bush.

The searches may violate the federal Privacy Act, and Kennedy said he is consulting State Department lawyers. The State Department inspector general's power is limited because two of the employees are no longer working for the department. McCormack said it was premature to consider whether the FBI or Justice Department should be involved.

Today, Sec. of State Rice says she called Obama to apologize for passport file breach.

Doug Hattaway, a spokesman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady who is challenging Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, said of the current breach: "It's outrageous and the Bush administration has to get to the bottom of it."

New Mexico's Richardson endorses Obama

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, calling him a "once-in-a- lifetime leader" who can unite the nation and restore America's international leadership.

Richardson, who dropped out of the Democratic race in January, is to appear with Obama on Friday at a campaign event in Portland, Ore., The Associated Press has learned.

The governor's endorsement comes as Obama leads among delegates selected at primaries and caucuses but with national public opinion polling showing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton pulling ahead of him amid controversy over statements by his former pastor.

McCain Downplays Mideast Gaffe