Linebacker53's Blog

  

Congratulations! Just one week ago we asked you to launch a massive movement against pardons by signing a petition to your Representatives. Over 46,000 of you took action and Congress took notice.

On Friday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) introduced H.Res. 1531  urging President Bush not to pardon senior administration officials for crimes the President authorized. It notes:

President George W. Bush may have committed crimes involving the mistreatment of detainees, the extraordinary rendition of individuals to countries known to engage in torture, illegal surveillance of United States citizens, unlawful leaks of classified information, obstruction of justice, political interference with the conduct of the Justice Department, and other illegal acts

and that

Bush has been urged to grant preemptive pardons to senior administration officials who might face criminal prosecution for actions taken in the course of their official duties

Nadler's resolution urges Congress to investigate those crimes and any pardons relating to them, and urges the Attorney General (current or future) to appoint an Independent Counsel to prosecute those crimes.

These are major steps towards holding George Bush, Dick Cheney, and other senior officials accountable for their crimes and thereby upholding the rule of law, rather than allowing Presidents to become dictators.

Rep. Nadler's leadership is crucial because he chairs the House Judiciary Committee's  Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties  and can use his credibility and clout to move the resolution forward either during the lame duck session in December or when the next Congress convenes on January 6.

So our next step is to persuade as many Representatives as possible to co-sponsor H.Res. 1531. Please sign our new petition:
http://www.democrats.com/nadler-pardons?cid=ZGVtczQ4ND
k2NWRlbXM=

We also encourage you to call your Representative at 202-224-3121 and speak with the Legislative Assistant who handles Judiciary matters.

If your Representative says (s)he will co-sponsor, please let us know by commenting on our resolution "whipping" page:
http://www.democrats.com/nadler-pardon-resolution

 

Thanks for all you do!

Excerpts from a 'Jack & Jill politics' newsletter:

...as hard as it is to accept a black president, it's even harder to accept a black first lady. First Lady has always held a beloved sentimental mother/wife of the nation symbolism. Conservatives are not ready to have to look at this very BLACK woman with her degrees and her fierceness and see her as the epitome of the American mother/wife.

This will be a first for white people. They do not want this black woman in the White House as their first lady. That New Yorker cartoon was [actually] about Michelle - she was its focal point...look closely... she is the leader, the one starting the 'revolution' they want you to imagine....

MSNBC's Chris Matthews said; in the course of covering the Obama candidacy, 'He(Barack Obama) brings none of the ' bad stuff, you know?'  By 'Bad Stuff', he meant the legacy of [whites] enslaving Africans in this country, keeping them as second-class citizens until 1965, a mere 11 years before this country celebrated its 200th anniversary. You know, 'the original sin', or ' the birth defect', as Condi Rice called it. Barack escapes this 'bad stuff' only because his mother was white and may have had ancestors involved in the slave trade; and also because Barack's father was not African American. He was full blooded African and therefore Barack had no ancestors enslaved by America - and so the white guilt factor is missing when they think of him. HOWEVER, NO SUCH LUCK WITH MICHELLE!

Michelle Obama is a direct threat and lightening bolt against White Superiority. Because, she's Black. VISIBLY BLACK. But it's important to note, she does not, in any way, shape, or form, contour to the acceptable Black Pathologies that enable White Supremacy to sigh with relief. [welfare mother, fatherless child, druggie, etc.] Michelle was raised in a neighborhood. In a home. With TWO parents. No child revolving in and out of jail.

Raised by a Black man who not only provided for his family, but did so, WITH A DISABILITY. Her mother had a working class job - secretary- but it was taken ONLY after she had seen her youngest child settled into HIGH SCHOOL.

Michelle Obama's poise, her confidence, her aura - that was created by that humble Black man, who by all accounts, adored her. He told her that she is worthy, and so, wh en you have that told to you by the first man who loves and protects you, you seek that validation of that in your choice of mate,  you'll settle for nothing less, and Michelle hasn't.

Michelle Obama, doesn't fit any of the acceptable Black pathologies.   And when you don't fit the acceptable Black pathologies, then you must be destroyed. Michelle Obama has become the face of the Black America whose existence is routinely denied by this country. Think about it.

In ONE generation, the face of this 'Invisible America' has gone from living on the top floor of a bungalow, to the possibility of living in The White House. And yet, Michelle Obama, refuses to say ' I'm special', in order to give white America its usual security blanket [that she is one of the exceptions rather than the rule], So what should be done?

Beat her down into submission?

Michelle Obama represents everything we black women want our daughters to be. When we stand up for her we stand up for ourselves. No other women in the world are more neglected and abused as African women period. Michelle looks like [our] daughters, her daughters look like us. We love the way Barack looks at her we adore the way he looks at his daughters.  The Obama’s represent the hope that we can be loved by our men and they will support us in whatever we do. Little African American girls need a vision and
dream of what it is like to be loved by a man who looks just like them.

Is America ready for a First Lady who looks like her? A regular black woman?  Not a passable biracial curly haired girl that they call black, but a regular black woman from the south side of Chicago ? With dark skin?

Is she going to be the face of The Woman on the largest pedestal in the country?  A self-confessed 'loud-mouth' black woman? If the Obama’s succeed, it turns white supremacy upside down. And not because a black man is in the White House; but, because a black woman will be there who didn't have to come in the back door to lie in bed with the president.

On a date that has been written down in history for the nation and for Barack Obama it has also been written down in the Shelby County Court House in Memphis, TN, but not for the winning election. The President-elect and future 44th President of The United States would likely have been ‘bench warranted’ for not appearing in court for an illegal placement of campaign advertisements by City of Memphis Public Works employee, Gene Soucy, who cited Barack Obama personally and not the local campaign office for the placement of campaign signs. According to Soucy, 512 campaigns signs were illegally placed on right-of-way land in the city which is an area that the City of Memphis prohibits. The bench warrant was actually intended to be placed for Barack Obama on the date of election, November 4th, the same day he was voted into office as President of the United States of America by millions of voters.

After the original court date of November 4th was missed, a bench warrant in General Sessions Div 14 was about to be ordered by a judge who was sitting in for Judge Potter who was absent from his bench that day.

However, the date was reset after attorney Javier Bailey a Democratic State party member was notified.

Currently, under the booking number 08725976, the name Barack Obama is listed under a Class C action for Illegal Posting/Advertising Signs with now a court date of December 8, 2008 at 1:30 PM

Iraq's approval of the security pact shows that Obama's diplomatic approach is already paying dividends. Now, he must talk to Iran.

Nov. 18, 2008 | Barack Obama isn't even president yet, but he has already helped bring the Iraq war closer to an end.

On Sunday, the Iraqi cabinet voted overwhelmingly to approve a security agreement calling for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces by the end of 2011. The agreement, which the U.S. has been negotiating with Iraq for almost a year, could still be rejected by the Iraqi parliament, but it has a good chance of passing.

This is a momentous event. If the pact is approved, it would set in motion the end of America's long and calamitous Iraq adventure. And it also clearly demonstrates why Obama's diplomatic, realistic approach to the Middle East is infinitely more effective than the Bush administration's hard-line, ideological one.

One of the major stumbling blocks to the agreement has been Iran. Iran wields great influence with Iraq's Shiite-dominated government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ISCI party, formed in Iran by exiled Shiite Iraqis, maintains close ties to Iran. As long as Iran thought that the U.S. would continue its threatening, militaristic stance toward it, it was determined to undermine any agreement. This made perfect sense: Why would Iran encourage a U.S.-Iraq rapprochement if it left the U.S. in a position to use Iraq as a base to attack it?

Bush's hard-line Iran policy thus directly contradicted his Iraq policy. By threatening Iran, he gave it every reason to make trouble in Iraq. His hawkish stance toward Iran simply ignored the unpleasant reality that Iran has both enormous influence over Iraq's government and legitimate security concerns over what happens in its neighboring state. It also ignored the fact that Iran and the U.S. actually have a shared interest in a stable Iraq. And by refusing to engage in diplomacy with the charter member of the "Axis of Evil," he prevented the U.S. from trying to work out an agreement with Tehran that would maximize Iraq's stability while U.S. forces leave.

The Sunday security pact represents a humiliation for the once-triumphalist Bush administration, which has always denounced timetables for withdrawal as tantamount to surrender. The administration that dreamed of using Iraq as a launching pad to invade Iran was forced to include language in the pact stipulating that U.S. forces will not be allowed to launch attacks on Iraq's neighbors from its territory.

But despite these concessions, if John McCain had won the election, Tehran, fearing it would be attacked anyway, would probably have pressured Maliki to scupper the agreement. But Obama won -- and Iran signed off on it.

Obama, unlike Bush, has suggested that he will talk to Iran. It is far less likely that he will attack it. Moreover, he has called for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in 16 months, not the 36 called for in the security pact. These factors made it possible for Iran to accept a security pact that it would otherwise have rejected. As Karim Sadjadpour, a Middle East expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the New York Times, "If George Bush's presidency were going to continue through 2012, I think people would be a lot more concerned. Having this administration really lightens the blow for the Iranians."

Ironically, one of the few tangible achievements that Bush may be able to point to in Iraq was thus made possible by the election of someone who rejects Bush's entire approach to foreign policy.

This episode holds lessons that go beyond the security pact. It demonstrates that, contrary to the Bush doctrine, the U.S. cannot simply impose its will by using force or the threat of force --  indeed, that the threat of force can undermine our national interests. It shows that moralistically dividing the world into good guys and bad guys, while emotionally satisfying, is reductive and self-defeating. In the real world, states are driven by a complex mixture of self-interest and ideological conviction. By ignoring the self-interest of problematic states like Iran, the Bush administration succeeded only in acting against its own self-interest in Iraq. Painful reality forced it to grudgingly recognize this only at the end of its disastrous tenure.

Obama has a chance to start his administration far ahead of where Bush's ended. As the Mideast analyst Robert Dreyfuss noted, Tehran's acceptance of the security pact sends a message that it is open to negotiating with Obama. He must seize this opportunity. Iran plays a key role in the region, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A diplomatic breakthrough with Iran would make it easier to achieve all of America's goals in the Middle East.

Talking with Tehran would represent a 180-degree turn from Bush's demonizing approach. And much of the foreign policy establishment continues to support that hawkish strategy -- including Dennis Ross, a senior Middle East advisor to the Obama campaign. Citing Iran's alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon, these figures -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- insist that the new president must maintain the same all-stick, no-carrot approach toward Iran maintained by Bush. Obama, who himself used bellicose rhetoric about Iran during the campaign, will thus be under considerable pressure to toe the conventional line on Iran.

But that would be a disastrous mistake. In an important new policy recommendation, a group of leading Middle East experts including Gary Sick, Thomas Pickering, James Dobbins, Juan Cole, Trita Parsi and Stephen Kinzer called for the U.S. to reject threats of force and sanctions and engage in a robust diplomatic engagement with Iran. Saying threats and sanctions "have not solved any major problem in U.S.-Iranian relations, and have made most of them worse," the American Foreign Policy Project paper argues that "Paradoxical as it may seem amid all the heated media rhetoric, sustained engagement is far more likely to strengthen United States national security at this stage than either escalation to war or continued efforts to threaten, intimidate or coerce Iran." And they point out that the best way to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions -- which are murky in any case -- is within the context of a larger U.S.-Iranian dialogue.

If Obama continues the U.S.'s hard line toward Iran, he will be applauded by many in the foreign policy establishment as sober and sensible. But he will be strengthening the hand of Iranian rejectionists, and threatening U.S. interests throughout the region -- including our troops in Iraq. He is about to inherit Bush's Iraq mess. The last thing he needs to do is make it even harder to clean up.

Credit: Gary Kamiya

So, what ever happened to Linda Tripp? She's the woman made famous for taping her “friend“; Monica Lewinsky's confessions about adult activities with then-President Clinton. Well, someone managed to track her down. The Web site Wowowow found out that Tripp now owns a store in Middleburg, Va., with her husband. The store's called the “Christmas Sleigh” which specializes in handmade and handcrafted traditional holiday wares. Tripp answered an email from the Wowowow staff, asking for her impressions about President-elect Obama.

She emailed back: “I am so very proud that as a nation we might finally be getting it right. I believe Sen. McCain is an American hero and a deeply honorable public servant, something one seldom sees in Washington. I also believe he could have been a strong president. That said, I believe President-elect Obama possesses an instantly recognizable purity of soul that, coupled with his brilliance, and, of course, his eloquence, brought quite unimaginable and long-awaited magic to the country, transforming red and blue states, quite literally, into 'The Color Purple.' I believe the entire country will stand behind him.”

Remember before the election, all those conservatives said crime would be rampant if Obama was elected? Turns out they were right, and they’re the ones causing it.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to attacks. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders. This includes cross burnings, schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama,” black figures hung from nooses, and racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Crime committed by McCain supporters is on the rise, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

There are thousands of examples of racial crime going up, Mark Potok highlights several.

Four North Carolina State University students wrote anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: “Let’s shoot that BLEEP in the head.”

At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: “Osama Obama Shotgun Pool.” Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. “Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count,” the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written “Let’s hope someone wins.”

Racist graffiti was found in many places, including New York’s Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and “Go Back To Africa” were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

Madison County, Idaho was once dubbed “the reddest place in America”, but that didn’t make it any less shocking when second-graders were chanting “assassinate Obama” on the school bus.

University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. “It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork,” Houston said.

Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.

Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted ‘Obama.’

In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying “now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house.”

And of course we can’t forget Ashley Todd, who beat herself up and claimed that a black person had done it.

So when conservatives said crime would rise with Obama, they were right. But I’m not sure if it is fair to credit them with this prediction, since they’re the ones causing the new crime.

It’s easy to scoff at the title, but we have every reason to be alarmed: This Obama guy is big trouble. All those right-wing Conservatives warned us about him. And yet many of us were just too damn smitten by the Obama rhetoric to listen to reason. Silly us. What price will we pay for our failure to heed their warnings? A tragic and terrible price, of course.

We were warned about Obama’s rabid nutso America-hating mongrel-loving minions and their socialistic agendas. An agenda which includes policies like restoring diplomacy and regulating fraud and striving for energy independence and…well, the list goes on and on. If their agenda comes to pass, America will never again be the same. Imagine the repercussions. Foreigners might like us. Corporations might be coerced into doing the right thing every once in a while. We might even have to reconsider our love affair with Exxon’s ever-present voluptuous BLEEP. Who knows how bad it might get? We could find ourselves living in a country where pap smears are affordable and water-board dealers are unemployed. This could get bad, folks. Really bad.

Let’s face it. Obama supporters are a religious cult. And not just your ordinary run-of-the-mill cult. No, sir. This is a bad bunch. We haven’t seen anything this sinister since Tom Cruise pounced on Oprah’s couch. If you thought the Spanish Inquisition was bad, just wait till Obama Nation takes over. These people aren’t just your average garden variety whackadoos who speak in tongues and join militias and blow up mailboxes and terrorize chickens. These people ride mountain bikes and eat organic tomatoes and watch nature shows on PBS. They’ve been totally indoctrinated in socialist theology. After years of attending secular Madrassas (trendy coffee shops) in places like Berkeley and Boulder and Greenwich Village, their brainwashing is complete. Don’t bother attempting interventions with these people. Trying to deprogram Obama’s slobbering minions is like trying to inspire toughness in French people. It’s futile.

It’s not just the educated hippies who have joined the Obama cult. His minions are recruiting members from all demographic groups. For starters, he has incredibly strong support in the African-American community, many of whom are rumored to be black. These people are particularly sinister, often demanding handouts like good jobs and decent schools. Hispanics have joined the Obama ranks, too. They claimed that the “Si Se Puede” chant was nothing more than a slogan of support for Obama, but we know what they were really saying--“Let's Go Run Over the Gringos With Our Low Riders.” Even some poor white people allegedly joined the Obama cult. This is particularly disconcerting. Apparently they haven’t been informed that America’s real enemies are polar bears and gay people.

As dangerous as the Obama minions are, however, they pale in comparison to the nefarious nature of the man himself. This guy is so diabolical that he doesn’t even have to take office to wreak havoc. It’s not even two weeks since the election and it’s already happening. Consider the demise of the stock markets. Obama managed to destroy American capitalism without even lifting a finger. All that nonsense about the markets failing because of long-term economic problems and greedy corporations and lack of oversight was mere propaganda. Obama did it. We know this because the great intellectual minds of our time (conservative talk radio hosts) have told us so. Shaun Hannity and Rush Limbaugh (world renowned economists, both) have categorically placed the blame for the failing economy at the feet of Obama. Not that he’s actually done anything just yet. He doesn’t even need to. That’s just more evidence of how powerful he is.

The Conservative brain trust (Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, Palin) is feverishly trying to formulate a plan to save America from the rest of us nincompoops. Step one is purging their ranks of the few remaining moderates and intellectuals among them--let them crawl off to the Obama camp where they belong. Step two is…

Wait a minute…why even bother?

It’s over. We all know it. The American dream is doomed. As heroic and selfless as the conservative pundits are, they are no match for Obama. He’s already made the stock market collapse. He’s ruined the housing industry, the auto industry, and the banking industry. He’s invited our enemies to attack us at their leisure. And that’s just for starters. He hasn’t even warmed up yet. Just imagine how much damage he and his minions will do after inauguration day.

This much is clear. The age of pedigreed purebreds being in charge of America is over. The Era of the Mutt has begun. My advice? Simple. Put the poodles down real slow, back away nice and gentle like, then flee for your damn lives.

Credit:  Ian Walter Authentic Brawling Centrism November 15, 2008

*Note:  These are not my words but words of 1_Irritated_Mother from another blog site

I am not a special interest group.  Neither are the millions of other Americans that gave Barack Obama their hard earned money to run that freight train of a campaign right through John McCain’s House of Whacks.  I have to say;  I was surprised to hear McCain and Palin, every one of their surrogates, the Fox News robots, and others (especially, sanctimonious Joe Scarborough who seems to honestly believe that Floridians are stupid) whine about public/private financing and the unfairly enormous ad campaign of Barack Obama and how he broke his word to the American people and to John McCain.  First of all, who gives a damn … not me.  The tired nonsense about Obama “lying” to the American people and John McCain and the outrageous “typical Chicago politician” line are still being mumbled in the background … it’s just a matter of time before Sarah Palin pulls it out of her bedside table and tries to drive it home again.  She’s already resurrected Tito the Builder and Joe the Plumber. 

  ((sidenote:  if anyone from her “camp” is reading this … GET HER SOME NEW LINES AND TELL HER NOT TO DO THAT GROWLY, LOW, TEETH-CLENCHED THING WITH HER VOICE WHEN SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT SHE’S TALKING ABOUT … WE ALL KNOW THAT TELL … so with that in mind ~ don’t get her a guest spot on any of those celebrity poker shows either … although … I would love to see her in a remake of “Rounders” … she would be as natural as a “Worm” … she lies all the time; she already has a relationship with Matt Damon … but, the truth is, I just want to see her get her BLEEP beat by the Russians (because I guess they can see her from over there, too) and be left broken and alone in a church gymnasium … still scheming.  This could really be a break-out role for her … plus getting her to Hollywood early will make it easier for Oliver Stone to get busy on his next project.))

 

OK ~ back to what I was saying before …

 

Now, I hear the pundits talking about who is expecting favors from the new President Elect.  “Who” got him elected and what “they” will be expecting in return … what??? … you’ve got to be joking, right??? 

 

       

(1)    Hispanics ~ voted for Obama in record numbers over Amnesty Man, John McCain …

(2)    African Americans ~ voted for Obama in record numbers over Whitey (seriously man ... get some bronzer), John McCain

(3)    Hillary Supporters ~ voted for Obama because Hillary told them to … except for the duchess or princess or whoever

(4)    Pennsylvanians (taking time out from clinging to guns & religion) ~ voted blue, as usual, for Obama, even though John McCain pimped Sarah Palin out to them for two whole months

(5)    Jews and other old people ~ gave the nod to Obama instead of their fellow AARP member

(6)    Gays and Lesbians ~ voted overwhelmingly for Obama even though he opposes gay marriage … (that topic is discussed enough … I’ll just leave that there)

Educated white people, Duke fans, Teachers, Nurses, Middle class, middle income families, Catholics, Grandmothers … this list could go on and on …

Here’s my point ~ None of us are “special interest”.  Contributing to a campaign and casting your vote is not like buying a hooker … there is no twenty dollar special. We don't lobby our vote to whatever “category” exit polls force us into and we don't reject our democratic principles in exchange for presidential favors ... we are Americans. 
We choose for ourselves when that curtain closes.  So, I don’t care who you are or what group you belong to or don’t belong to … You’re Not Special and Barack Obama Doesn’t Owe YOU Anything.

Dear Democrats,

Congratulations on the fabulous and historic election of President Barack Obama!!!

As we celebrate our new President-elect and all the changes he will bring to our nation, we must not turn a blind eye to the final actions of George Bush.

Incredibly, Washington is already buzzing with Bush's plans to block all investigations of his crimes  and even to pardon everyone involved  - including Cheney and himself. Chris Matthews is even counting down the days .

Does Bush have the power to pardon everyone in his administration? Yes.

Will he abuse that power to stay out of jail? Only if we let him.

We must create a groundswell of opposition to any pardons by George Bush, so he understands that he will be impeached and prosecuted for issuing corrupt pardons.

Please help us launch a massive movement against pardons by signing our petition to Congress and telling your friends:
http://democrats.com/pardon

We will announce additional plans to stop Bush's pardons in the coming days. Read more about our efforts and join our discussion here:
http://democrats.com/bush-pardons

Thanks for your inputs and all you do!

Clinton, the former first lady who pushed Obama hard for the Democratic presidential nomination, was rumored to be a contender for the job last week, but the talk died down as party activists questioned whether she was best-suited to be the nation's top diplomat in an Obama administration.

The talk resumed in Washington and elsewhere Thursday, a day after Obama named several former aides to President Bill Clinton to help run his transition effort.

The two Democratic officials who spoke Thursday did so on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering Obama and his staff. Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines referred questions to the Obama transition team, which said it had no comment.

Other people frequently mentioned for the State Department job are Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and New Mexico's Democratic governor, Bill Richardson.

© 2008 The Associated Press

Barack Obama is planning to appoint Republicans to key positions in his cabinet as part of a new bipartisan approach in Washington.

The head of his transition team said the President-elect wanted to make genuine efforts to reach out across the parties.

John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said Republicans and independents would be in Mr Obama's cabinet and lower-level jobs at "not just a token level".

The news came as Mr Obama revealed he had asked two leading Democrat and a Republican figures to meet delegates on his behalf at the G20 financial summit in Washington at the weekend.

Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under Mr Clinton, and Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman, will represent him during the talks.

Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser to Mr Obama, said: "There is one President at a time in the United States, so the President-elect has asked Secretary Albright and Congressman Leach, an experienced and bipartisan team, to be available meet with and listen to our friends and allies on his behalf."

Among the Republicans under consideration for senior posts in the cabinet are Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, a possible Secretary of State, Colin Powell, being looked at for Pentagon chief or Education Secretary, and Robert Gates, who could be kept on at the Pentagon.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Vietnam veteran who has lambasted President George W. Bush for his conduct of the Iraq war, is also a possible Republican in the 14-member cabinet.

Presidents traditionally appoint one member of the opposing party to their cabinet. Mr Bush kept on Norman Mineta, Mr Clinton's Transport Secretary, while Mr Clinton gave William Cohen, a Republican former Maine senator, the job of Pentagon secretary.

The last president to have truly bipartisan cabinet was John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, who appointed Douglas Dillon, a Republican, as his Treasury secretary, and Robert McNamara, an independent, as Pentagon chief. The cabinet was just 10 strong at that time.

Most presidents select a token member of the other party and often one who is ideologically at odds with their party colleagues.

President Richard Nixon appointed John Connally, a conservative Democrat, as his Treasury Secretary in 1971 while President Ronald Reagan picked the neoconservative Jeanne Kirkpatrick as his United Nations ambassador, a cabinet-level job.

A week before he defeated John McCain to become the first black president of the United States, Mr Obama told ABC News that he would include Republicans when dealing with issues such as energy independence, health care reform and education.

"On a whole host of these issues, I think we need Republicans, not just as show pieces," he said. "In some cases, Republicans have good ideas.

"And, you know, I've always been more than happy to steal good ideas from whatever the source."

Thus far, Mr Obama is conducting a highly efficient and leak-free transition process, much like his successful election campaign. Mr Podesta estimated that 450 people would take part in the transition process, which would cost about $12 million.

Mr. Obama's emphasis during his campaign on government ethics is already being turned into as policy. Under new rules, practicing lobbyists will be barred from participating in transition activities.

Those who have been lobbyists in the past year will be barred from joining the administration to work on issues they dealt with as lobbyists.

Mr Podesta indicated that Mr Obama might make cabinet appointments faster than previous presidents and, mentioning that President George H W Bush in 1988 was the only recent incoming president to make a cabinet-level appointment before December.

"We're going to try to accelerate that," he said.

According to a new Human Rights Center/Center for Constitutional Rights report, former prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay and released without charge went home with “psychological and emotional problems” and found themselves “stigmatized and shunned” and viewed either as terrorists or U.S. spies. In a forward to the report, former DC appeals court judge Patricia Wald compared the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody to the treatment Bosnian Muslims received at the hands of their Serbian captors:

The officials and guards in charge of those prison camps and the civilian leaders who sanctioned their establishment were prosecuted — often by former U.S. government and military lawyers serving with the tribunal — for war crimes, crimes against humanity and, in extreme cases, genocide.

Last June, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (ret.), the Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, also accused the Bush administration of committing “war crimes” and called for those responsible to be held to account.

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow. He was educated at the School of Military Engineering in Saint Petersburg, but abandoned his military career in 1844 to devote himself to literature. His first novel, Bednye liudi (Poor People; also known as Poor Folk), appeared in 1846 and won immediate praise from Russia’s most prominent literary critic, Vissarion Belinsky. Structured as a series of letters, the work is both a sentimental novel and a penetrating psychological study of its main character. The book that followed, Dvoinik (1846; The Double), is a startling psychological study of a disintegrating personality, but it was much less popular than Poor People. Over the next three years Dostoyevsky published ten undistinguished short novels and stories that barely rise above the literary conventions of the day.

In the late 1840s Dostoyevsky became involved with a group of idealistic young men who met in secret to discuss social problems and social reform in Russia. The repressive Tsar Nicholas I, fearing the spread of revolutionary ideas, regarded the group as highly dangerous. In April 1849 Dostoyevsky and 23 others were arrested, tried, and condemned to death; however, the sentence was changed to imprisonment in Siberia. For the next four years Dostoyevsky lived in a prison in Omsk, sharing a barracks and doing hard labor with some of Russia’s most desperate criminals. During this time, the epileptic seizures that he had begun to experience intensified, possibly as a result of the hardship and stress of prison life. In 1854 he was released from prison but required to serve in an army unit stationed in Siberia, where he married a widow with one son. Only in 1859 was he allowed to return to Saint Petersburg.

Dostoyevsky’s prison experiences left him with a firsthand knowledge of the criminal mind and of the human potential for evil. His youthful belief in the possibility of creating a good society by applying various social theories was replaced by the conviction that human life must be guided first of all by religious principles.

MILFORD, Conn. - Barack Obama's former pastor complained Thursday that the media used him as a "weapon of mass destruction" in an attempt to derail Obama's campaign for the presidency.

Speaking at a forum about race and religion, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright accused the media of taking out of context videos that showed him cursing the government and accusing it of conspiring against blacks from the pulpit of the Chicago church where Obama had worshipped for 20 years.

The videos, which included Wright thundering "God damn America!", dominated cable television for weeks. The public outrage that followed caused the president-elect to sever ties with his longtime spiritual leader.

Wright told an audience of about 200 people at the forum that he was trying to convey the anger and desire for vengeance that people felt after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He said the media failed to mention that he was a proud Christian who was raised in a Christian home.

"Their intention was to use me as a weapon of mass destruction, to tear down that man's integrity," said Wright, former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

In a question-and-answer session with the audience, Wright said he didn't believe Obama shared his opinions publicized on the videos.

"Do you agree with everything your pastor says?" he asked. "Ninety percent of the people sitting in church don't agree with everything their pastor says. What I saw is not an index on what he did or does not believe."

Wright's comments were a stumbling block for Obama's campaign. In an impassioned speech about faith and race, the Democrat at first expressed support for Wright, saying that "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother."

But six weeks later during a speech at the National Press Club, Wright offered eyebrow-raising opinions about the U.S. government, praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and hinted that Obama was distancing himself from the pastor for political expediency.

Did you hear the news about the Republican Party

Well, they couldn’t find enough people to show up at one of McCain’s political rallies so, they decided to bus 14,000 high school students to one of his rallies just to portray the interest that this country had in him.

When the hundred or so school buses arrived at the event which, was held in a stadium, the students alighted the buses and filed into the stadium as if a football game were scheduled to be played. After a while, the students became confused and restless about why they were there.

During this time, John McCain came out on the stage and started his rally speech. One reporter caught the expressions on most of the students faces, noticing that there composure had become more noticeable and wondered what the discombobulated looks were about. So, he decided to stroll through the seating area trying to figure out what was happening and why the long faces. Eventually, he stopped and ask a group who were talking soflty and in a hasty manner between each other about their disgusted looks and why they were acting in this manner…

One of them waving both hands up in disgust stated; Why did they bring us here to watch Santa Clause come this early, in October,  to have us watch him get mad and throw a temper tantrum…

The reporter just looked in amazement and then, looked up to the sky and walked away…