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The New York Times reports Sen. Barack Obama “sought on Wednesday to set aside the controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and steer the conversation in the Democratic presidential campaign back to the economy.” Obama campaigned in Indiana yesterday, where he held “a series of events intended to highlight his proposals for tax cuts for the middle class,” but campaign aides “conceded that the subject of Mr. Wright’s views and his relationship with Mr. Obama were hardly going away.” On NBC Nightly News Obama said: “If I wanted to be politically expedient, I would have distanced myself and denounced him right away. Right? That would have been the easy thing to do, that would have been the standard stock political advice. I don’t think anybody who watched me yesterday thought I was being calculating because it obviously wasn’t an easy thing to do.”

Much of the media coverage of the issue is now focused on the impact of the Wright issue on Obama’s candidacy. For example, the Christian Science Monitor says Obama’s break with Wright “could turn off some poorer and older, civil rights-era blacks who may already wonder about Obama’s ability to identify with their lives, say experts in black politics and some black voters.” However, The Hill reports lawmakers backing Obama “say they have no fears about a backlash against Democrats or their candidate because of the controversial remarks by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.” Long Island Newsday reports that in Indiana, “voters are likely to forgive Obama when it comes to his relationship with Wright, said Philip Goff, the director of the Center for Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.”

Clinton Weighs In Sen. Hillary Clinton weighed in on the issue last night in an appearance on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor, saying of Wright’s comments, “I take offense at it. I think it’s offensive and outrageous. … I sure don’t believe the United States government was behind AIDS. … It is so far out it’s hard to even understand and take seriously. … I think” Obama “made his views clear finally, that he disagreed. I think that’s what he had to do.” The New York Daily News says that Clinton “rubbed salt into Barack Obama’s wounds…suggesting her rival’s denunciation of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was overdue.” In a story headlined “HILL GIVES O WRIGHT CROSS,” the New York Post reports that Clinton’s “forceful condemnation of Wright and slap at Obama gave more life to the story, as new polling revealed it could deeply damage Obama’s image as a popular, unifying figure.”

Three Polls Show Tight General Election Race

Three new national polls out in the last 24 hours shows Sen. John McCain competitive with both Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in general election match-ups despite dismal approval ratings for both President Bush and the GOP. The polls also show Obama maintaining a lead over Clinton among Democrats dispute the re-emergence of the Wright issue. An NBC Nightly News /Wall Street Journal poll shows that while only 27% of voters have a positive view of the GOP, McCain trails Clinton only 45%-44% and Obama 46%-43% in general election trial heats. In the Democratic primary, that poll shows Obama leading Clinton 46%-43% among Democrats.

A CBS Evening News /New York Times poll shows Clinton leading McCain 48%-43%, while Obama and McCain are tied at 45% apiece. In the Democratic primary, Obama leads Clinton 46%-38%.

A FOX News /Opinion Dynamics poll shows Hillary Clinton leading John McCain 45%-44% in a general election trial heat. McCain leads Barack Obama 46%-43%. Among Democrats, Obama leads Clinton 44%-41%, about the same spread as a month ago, when Clinton led Obama by 2 points.

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Gas Tax Holiday Proposal Called Ineffective

Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain have proposed putting the 18.5 cent federal gas tax on hiatus during this summer in an attempt to ease the pain at the pump for American drivers, while Barack Obama opposes the idea. As the Boston Globe reports, Clinton highlighted the issue during a campaign stop at a gas station in Indiana yesterday, while the AP reports she is also touting her proposal in a campaign ad. Today, a number of media outlets are casting doubts on the effectiveness of the proposal. ABC World News, in its second story last night, ran a negative review of the proposals, reporting, “Economists have two basic concerns. First, the savings would be minimal. The average motorist would pocket $30 for the entire summer,” adding the “more fundamental concern, if you take away the gas tax, demand will spike. More people out on the roads, tapping into a finite supply of gas. Prices would likely go up.” In a front page story this morning, the Washington Post says that a “growing chorus — including a top congressional Democrat labeled” the plan as “ineffective and shortsighted.” In addition, the New York Times and the Washington Post both pan the idea in editorials this morning.

However, it is not all good news for Obama the AP reports that despite his current opposition, in 2000, Obama voted three times in the Illinois state senate to suspend state gas taxes.

Clinton Backers Fund Big Dollar Anti-Obama Ad

The AP reports Sen. Barack Obama is outpacing Sen. Hillary Clinton about 2 to 1 in ad spending in North Carolina and Indiana, which hold their primaries on Tuesday, but some Clinton backers are looking to even those odds. The Los Angeles Times reports backers of Clinton “have poured nearly $1 million into an independent ad campaign committee critical of” Obama in Indiana. The ad purchase, “including another $220,000″ yesterday, “means that the California-based American Leadership Project has spent more on ads in Indiana than in any other state, including the far more populous Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio.” The effort is “funded primarily by unions that are backing Clinton.” Obama is not taking the move lying down, as the AP reports Obama’s campaign “wants federal regulators to investigate fellow Democrats who are backing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s candidacy, taking intraparty discord to a new level of confrontation.” Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer “filed a complaint Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, accusing the pro-Clinton American Leadership Project of violating campaign finance laws by running ads against Obama.”

Husband Played Role In Outsourcing Case Often Cited By Clinton

McClatchy reports this morning that Sen. Hillary Clinton “loves to tell the story about how the Chinese government bought a good American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical defense technology work to China.” But what Clinton “never includes in the oft-repeated tale is the role that prominent Democrats played in selling the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that big-time Democratic contributor George Soros helped put together the deal to sell the company or that the sale was approved by her husband’s administration.” ABC World News also reported on the story last night, noting that “there’s one key part of the story that Senator Clinton tends to leave out, her husband’s role.” Over and “over again, Clinton blames President Bush for dropping the ball on a national security issue.” What Clinton “does not say is that her husband could have stopped it because the Chinese bought Magnequench in 1995, when he was president. And his Administration approved the deal despite national security concerns raised partly because the Chinese companies were run by sons in law of then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.”

More Superdelegates Declare, Mostly For Obama

There was more movement on the superdelegate front yesterday, most of it favoring Sen. Barack Obama. The Hill reports that Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley (D) yesterday backed Obama, while The Politico adds that California Rep. Lois Capps (D) also backed him, despite “long ties to both Clintons.” Perhaps more importantly, Indiana Rep. Baron Hill (D), in a state that holds its primary on Tuesday, also backed Obama, the AP reports. The Indianapolis Star reports that Hill “said he considers Obama and” Clinton “to be ‘formidable candidates’ but that Obama is best able to move the nation past partisan gridlock.” The AP reports this morning that Joe Andrew, who headed the Democratic National Committee under Bill Clinton, is expected to switch his allegiance today from Clinton to Obama. In an interview with the AP, Andrew said, “I am convinced that the primary process has devolved to the point that it’s now bad for the Democratic Party.”

However, Clinton did pick up the backing of superdelegate Bill George, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, the Easton Express-Times reports this morning.

The AP reports that with this week’s endorsements, Obama now trails Clinton in superdelegates 243-264, “cutting her lead in half in less than two months.” Obama “now leads in the delegate count overall 1731.5 to 1598.5 for Clinton. A candidate needs 2,025 delegates to win the nomination. About 230 superdelegates remain undecided, and about 60 more will be selected at state party conventions and meetings throughout the spring.” It is not clear if all of the declarations in the last 24 hours are counted in the AP total.

A great Op-Ed piece about how big an empty head Obama really is.

Op-Ed Columnist
How Obama Fell to Earth

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: April 18, 2008

Back in Iowa, Barack Obama promised to be something new — an unconventional leader who would confront unpleasant truths, embrace novel policies and unify the country. If he had knocked Hillary Clinton out in New Hampshire and entered general-election mode early, this enormously thoughtful man would have become that.

But he did not knock her out, and the aura around Obama has changed. Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal.

He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla airport, though his campaign was all over it. Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment.

Obama also made a pair of grand and cynical promises that are the sign of someone who is thinking more about campaigning than governing.

He made a sweeping read-my-lips pledge never to raise taxes on anybody making less than $200,000 to $250,000 a year. That will make it impossible to address entitlement reform any time in an Obama presidency. It will also make it much harder to afford the vast array of middle-class tax breaks, health care reforms and energy policy Manhattan Projects that he promises to deliver.

Then he made an iron vow to get American troops out of Iraq within 16 months. Neither Obama nor anyone else has any clue what the conditions will be like when the next president takes office. He could have responsibly said that he aims to bring the troops home but will make a judgment at the time. Instead, he rigidly locked himself into a policy that will not be fully implemented for another three years.

If Obama is elected, he will either go back on this pledge — in which case he would destroy his credibility — or he will risk genocide in the region and a viciously polarizing political war at home.

Then there are the cultural issues. Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News are taking a lot of heat for spending so much time asking about Jeremiah Wright and the “bitter” comments. But the fact is that voters want a president who basically shares their values and life experiences. Fairly or not, they look at symbols like Michael Dukakis in a tank, John Kerry’s windsurfing or John Edwards’s haircut as clues about shared values.

When Obama began this ride, he seemed like a transcendent figure who could understand a wide variety of life experiences. But over the past months, things have happened that make him seem more like my old neighbors in Hyde Park in Chicago.

Some of us love Hyde Park for its diversity and quirkiness, as there are those who love Cambridge and Berkeley. But it is among the more academic and liberal places around. When Obama goes to a church infused with James Cone-style liberation theology, when he makes ill-informed comments about working-class voters, when he bowls a 37 for crying out loud, voters are going to wonder if he’s one of them. Obama has to address those doubts, and he has done so poorly up to now.

It was inevitable that the period of “Yes We Can!” deification would come to an end. It was not inevitable that Obama would now look so vulnerable. He’ll win the nomination, but in a matchup against John McCain, he is behind in Florida, Missouri and Ohio, and merely tied in must-win states like Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A generic Democrat now beats a generic Republican by 13 points, but Obama is trailing his own party. One in five Democrats say they would vote for McCain over Obama.

General election voters are different from primary voters. Among them, Obama is lagging among seniors and men. Instead of winning over white high school-educated voters who are tired of Bush and conventional politics, he does worse than previous nominees. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira have estimated a Democrat has to win 45 percent of such voters to take the White House. I’ve asked several of the most skillful Democratic politicians over the past few weeks, and they all think that’s going to be hard.

A few months ago, Obama was riding his talents. Clinton has ground him down, and we are now facing an interesting phenomenon. Republicans have long assumed they would lose because of the economy and the sad state of their party. Now, Democrats are deeply worried their nominee will lose in November.

Welcome to 2008. Everybody’s miserable.

When Sen. Barack Obama faced the cameras Tuesday in Philadelphia, he was caught between his roles as politician and parishioner, forced to condemn his pastor’s words as he tried to advance his own campaign for president.

Experts on the black church say the comments of Obama’s former Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, have put Obama (D-Ill.) in an awkward and uncomfortable position. At the same time, however, they have given him a chance to discuss race with white Americans, including something about the black church.

“The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning,” Obama said in his speech at the National Constitution Center.

Though his speech was dedicated more to race than religion, Obama took pains to explain the ethos of some black churches. Church is where congregants may speak openly about racial tensions that often cannot be addressed elsewhere, and where songs and sermons reflect much of what is felt and heard in black communities.

“Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor,” Obama said. “The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.”

Some of Wright’s words, Obama said, reflect an anger and bitterness still felt within Wright’s battle-scarred generation. Such feelings should be addressed and understood, not wished away, Obama said, in an effort to heal and transcend racial divides.

“I think he took it as far as he can by contextualizing Jeremiah Wright’s comments on a history of American racism,” said Rev. Marvin McMickle, a Cleveland pastor and professor of homiletics at Ashland University in Ohio.

But McMickle, author of “Where Have all the Prophets Gone?”, a book endorsed by Wright, said Obama can only go so far with that message. It should be black ministers, not politicians, who explain black preaching to largely white America.

“It’s not just black people talking, and it’s not just black people listening,” said McMickle, a pledged delegate for Obama. “Black preaching has a third component . . . which is . . . addressing the gospel to the history of the black experience in ways that the white preacher could not do it, and a white congregation does not need to have it being done.”

Peter Paris, professor emeritus of Christian social ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary, worried that Obama’s condemnation of some of Wright’s words could hurt him in some black churches.

“So many black churches understand the role of prophetic speech alongside of pastoral speech, and I don’t think that Obama helped . . . communicate that strongly enough,” Paris said. “I hope that he doesn’t find black churches moving away from him in that respect.”

Paris said Wright’s comments about past slavery and modern-day segregated schools are not “distorted,” as Obama suggested.

“Jeremiah Wright is seen as a major prophetic voice in the black community, and there are many people who adore him,” said Paris, an Obama supporter and a divinity school classmate with Wright in the 1960s.

Even before Obama spoke Tuesday, some white observers who know his Chicago church said the context of Wright’s words might be lost on some Americans.

“We might like to think that racism is a thing of the past,” said the Rev. John H. Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ. “But on the gritty streets of Chicago’s South Side where Trinity has planted itself, race continues to play favorites in failing urban school systems, unresponsive health-care systems, crumbling infrastructure and meager economic development.”

Jim Wallis, a white evangelical activist, issued a letter Tuesday to faith leaders that defended the black church’s “prophetic truth-telling” role, and said some whites might be in denial about the anger felt by many black Americans.

“In 2008, to still not comprehend or seek to understand the reality of black frustration and anger, is to be in a state of white denial, which, very sadly, is where many white Americans are,” said Wallis, founder of Washington-based Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

At what point will the Fed lower interest rates to where they are paying us to spend money? I know you liberal idiots don’t understand this, but the way you get people to spend money is by allowing us to keep more of what we earn. The only way to do that is to lower taxes. Ronald Reagan proved that in 1981 when he slashed taxes and the economy took off like a rocket. Less taxes equals more spending power. JD

The Fed’s cut of three-quarters of a percentage point is less than investors were expecting, but markets rallied nonetheless.

After weeks of surprisingly aggressive moves to arrest the credit crunch, the Federal Reserve on Mar. 18 surprised the markets in the opposite direction—cutting interest rates a bit less than anticipated. It cut the federal funds rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, to 2.25%, rather than the 1% cut that most traders had been expecting.

What’s more, two of the voters on the Federal Open Market Committee dissented, saying they thought the cut was too aggressive. That indicates Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke might not be able to gather enough votes to push rates much lower if he thinks doing so is necessary to protect the economy.

But even though the Fed’s action fell short of expectations, it failed to wipe the smiles off the faces of market players. Investors have suddenly turned mildly optimistic, after weeks of panic. Stock prices dipped only briefly after the 2:15 p.m. EDT announcement before snapping back to around their daily highs. The Dow Jones industrial average surged 420 points, or 3.5%, to finish at 12,392. It was the largest one-session gain in more than five years.
Pacifying Inflation Hawks

Justifying the decision to cut rates, the Fed issued a statement saying “the outlook for economic activity has weakened further,” noting among other things “the tightening of credit conditions and the deepening of the housing contraction.” The FOMC acknowledged that “some indicators of inflation expectations have risen.” But it said the committee “expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters” as energy prices level out and the economy softens. Lowering rates threaten to drive up inflation.

The two biggest inflation hawks on the rate-setting committee, Federal Reserve Bank Presidents Richard Fisher of Dallas and Charles Plosser of Philadelphia, preferred less aggressive rate cuts at the meeting. Nodding in their direction, the committee said, “it will be necessary to continue to monitor inflation developments carefully.”
Analyst Reactions

Giving the financial markets a smaller rate cut than expected ran the risk of setting off a huge sell-off on Wall Street. The Fed was “risking the wrath of the markets,” wrote economist Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics. Ashworth said he expects the Fed to keep cutting the funds rate all the way to 1% by summer because, in his view, the economy is going to get much worse. “Once recessions start, conditions tend to get worse, very quickly,” Ashworth wrote in an instant analysis of the Fed’s action.

Still three-quarters of a percentage point is no small cut, especially since it comes on the heels of other big cuts. The federal funds rate—the rate that big banks pay to borrow funds from each other overnight to meet reserve requirements—is now fully 3 percentage points below the 5.25% rate of last summer. In a statement, Swiss Re (SWCEF) Senior Economist Arun Raha called the Fed move “yet another forceful move in its attempts to alleviate the liquidity crunch and to shore up a rapidly weakening economy.”

Coy is BusinessWeek’s Economics editor.
Reader Discussion

All I can say is WHAT DR.LAURA SAYS! I am by no means a Lauratron. In fact I think she treats her listeners like shit and sometimes gives the wrong advice. But when it comes to the issue of a cheating man, she hits the nail right on the head every time.

I was married to such a woman. I speak from experience. She did all of the above and more. Did I cheat? No!!! I got a divorce. But I don’t blame any man that cheats when he is married to a woman that neglects his needs and desires. Now go take on the day. JD

Dr. Laura Schlessinger has never been one to shrink from controversy, and she leaped headlong into one on Monday when she said that if a husband cheats, his wife may share some of the blame.

“When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs,” the popular psychologist and radio personality said.

More commonly known as just “Dr. Laura,” Schlessinger made the remarks while participating in one of several panel discussions on TODAY dealing with the breaking news that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer had been connected to a high-priced prostitution ring.

The comment touched off a storm of protest, both from other members of the panels and from viewers, who flooded the show’s online mailboxes with mostly conflicting views.

Schlessinger later emphasized that she was not excusing Spitzer’s behavior. Nor, she said, was she saying that his wife, Silda Spitzer, was in some way to blame for his indiscretion.

“I do not know anything about their personal lives,” she said.

But, she persisted, frequently when there is infidelity in marriage, both spouses share the blame.

“You’re saying the women should feel guilty that they somehow drove the man to cheat?” asked TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira.

“The cheating was his decision to repair what’s damaged and to feed himself where he’s starving,” Schlessinger replied. “But, yes, I hold women responsible for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need.”

Others who participated in the panels disagreed strongly.

“I refuse to believe that this adultery is the wife’s fault,” said anthropologist Helen Fisher, who had discussed the evolutionary reasons for infidelity.

Dina Matos, who had stood by the side of her former husband, then-New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, when he announced in 2004 that he had conducted a homosexual affair with one of his advisers, also took strong exception.

“This is absurd,” she said. “It’s just like blaming a rape victim. And we see this all too often. It’s just insanity.”

Another relationship expert, psychologist Jeff Gardere, said that trying to decide who’s at fault is beside the point. “It’s not about the blame game,” he said. “It’s about looking at what’s going on in this marriage that may have been ripe for this to happen. But the person who cheats is doing it for a very selfish reason. It’s a very selfish act.”

In a final appearance with TODAY’s Ann Curry and Hoda Kotb, Schlessinger stuck to her guns.

“The point is, what he’s done is wrong. The point is, what she’s done is wrong,” she said. “I have kept marriages together after affairs because I have reminded women that you have the power to turn this around. He had his children with you. He has his future life plans with you, his dreams, his whole mind, body and soul was wrapped up in the promise of you. If you now turn that back on, all that stuff you turned off because ‘I’m busy’ or ‘I’m irritated’ or ‘I’m annoyed’ or ‘I’m self-centered’ — if you turn that around, you have that man back.”

She said that there are reasons why men look outside the marriage for sex and companionship.

“I would challenge the wife to find out what kind of wife she’s being,” she said. “Is she being supportive and approving and loving? Is she being sexually intimate and affectionate? Is she making him feel like he’s her man? If she’s not doing that, then she’s contributing to his wrong choice.”

Once again the Associated Press completely and carefully omits the party affiliation of Governor Spitzer. If Spitzer were a republican it would be mentioned in the first two or three lines of the first paragraph. Let that be a lesson to all you rubes from the northeast that surround yourselves with liberal indiots and try to convince each other that Fox News is the root of all evil.

I checked 13 different articles from some of the nations leading news outlets on Google News about the Spitzer affair, and only 6 mentioned the fact that Spitzer is a democrat. Of those six, only one metioned it in the first three paragraphs. The rest mention it at the end of the article. They do this because they know most people don’t read the entire article. Most read the first three paragraphs.
JD

By SAMANTHA GROSS and DEVLIN BARRETT –

NEW YORK (AP) — Eliot Spitzer knew how to catch bad guys by following the money.

As attorney general, he once broke up a call-girl ring and locked up 18 people on corruption, money-laundering and prostitution charges. He ruthlessly investigated the pay packages of Wall Street executives and was so familiar with shady financial maneuvers that he rose to become the top racketeering prosecutor in Manhattan.

But in the end, it appears that Spitzer may have been done in by the same behavior he built a career out of prosecuting.

In fact, it seems he was tripped up by some of the very financial accounting methods he used so successfully against multibillion-dollar Wall Street firms.

For one thing, the governor initially drew the attention of federal investigators because of cash payments to an account operated by a call-girl ring, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of because of the sensitivity of the case.

Banks are required to file Suspicious Activity Reports to the government whenever they observe something they fear may be a crime.

In court papers, Client 9 — identified by another law enforcement official as Spitzer — hurried to get more than $4,000 in cash to pay a call girl at a Washington hotel.

That kind of activity, repeated over time, is just the kind of thing that would set off alarm bells with a bank’s compliance officer, who is trained to be on the lookout for what is called structuring or “smurfing” — a pattern of transactions aimed at hiding the nature or purpose of certain money.

Spitzer of all people should have known that, said Miami-based lawyer Gregory Baldwin, credited with coining the term “smurfing” in the 1980s as a federal prosecutor.

“I think he’s done enough cases where he’s charged money laundering that he would know exactly what kind of information you get from the banks. It’s such a perfect example of what goes around, comes around,” he said.

By the time the scandal broke this week, Spitzer’s financial transactions had been monitored, his phone calls had been caught on tape, and his actions had been scrutinized by federal prosecutors. It could have been straight out of the Spitzer prosecution playbook.

Whether Spitzer thought he was smarter than the feds because of his own professional experience is, for now at least, a matter for psychologists to speculate on.

As New York attorney general, Spitzer was also familiar with how to bust up a prostitution ring.

Spitzer proudly announced on April 8, 2004, that authorities had arrested 18 people on promoting prostitution and related charges — including money laundering and falsifying business records — in an investigation of escort services in New York.

“This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Spitzer said at the time. “It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring, and now its owners and operators will be held accountable.”

In the 2004 probe, investigators used wiretaps and other surveillance to build their case, said Vincent Romano, who defended the man accused of running the ring. Prosecutors also charged some of the defendants with enterprise corruption — a charge carrying heavier penalties than simple prostitution. No charges were brought against the ring’s customers, just those accused of working for or running the service.

“It was a big splash. They had the perp walk. He caused a lot of embarrassment to a lot of people in the case to his benefit. What he put their families through at the time, he’s probably experiencing now: the level of embarrassment and ridicule,” Romano said.

“He’s got this overzealous, mean-spirited prosecution, but behind closed doors in another state, he’s doing the identical thing that he’s accusing others of doing,” he added. “And the other irony of it is that you’ve made a career off of a wiretap, and your demise is by the same prosecutorial tool.”

The investigation that could spell Spitzer’s ruin found that Client 9 was apparently a repeat customer with the Emperors Club VIP, a lucrative prostitution service where some call girls pulled in $5,500 an hour. The governor has not been charged, and prosecutors would not comment on the case.

A person familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press that the probe began with a referral from banks to an Internal Revenue Service office on Long Island about suspicious transactions involving accounts ultimately traced to Spitzer. The IRS studied the records and then referred the case to federal prosecutors in October. It was then assigned to the public corruption unit of the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan.

The precise details of what set off alarm bells for federal authorities are still unclear.

But authorities believe Spitzer may have spent tens of thousands of dollars, apparently transferring only personal funds — not campaign contributions or state taxpayer dollars — between accounts to pay for the prostitute service, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A half-million or so times every year, banks alert the federal government that a suspicious transaction has occurred. Although the public sometimes thinks it requires a transfer of $10,000 or more to attract attention, banks can label transactions suspicious even if they involve far less money, said Walter Pagano, a former IRS agent who has testified in court on white-collar crime.

Spitzer might have tried to keep his transfers below the $10,000 threshold, underestimating the scrutiny that banks give to lesser amounts.

Spitzer prosecuted cases in New York for two decades before becoming governor. From 1986 to 1992, he was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. While there, he rose to become chief of the labor racketeering unit.

While attorney general, he also went up against two men he accused of using their tour company to promote “sex tourism” in the Philippines and Thailand — first suing them in civil court and then bringing criminal charges.

One defense attorney on the case said it was politically motivated.

“He prosecuted a couple of little guys who were easy targets when he was running for governor,” Daniel Hochheiser said. “The whole situation is marked by irony, hypocrisy and self-righteousness.”

Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett contributed to this report from Washington and AP Writer Larry Neumeister contributed from New York.

You have to love the New York Times and for that matter, all the national and international media for this one. The headline of this article published today in the New York Times and reprinted all over the world by the Associated Press is titled ” Long Range Rockets Fired into Israel.” But what is the focus of the N.Y. Times article? The retaliation by Israel and a six month old baby that was killed.

The people of Israel are sitting back minding their own business when a terrorist organization launches missiles into their neighborhoods. The Israeli Government retaliates and what gets covered? The plight of the terrorists. These people want to kill anyone they perceive as infidels. Jews Christians and anyone else that does not follow the Muslim religion. I am not trying to say that Israel does not stir up the shit down there. I am simply pointing out the liberal terrorists contained in the American Media and their defense of world terror. JD

NY TIMES ARTICLE

JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants in Gaza fired four rockets into the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Thursday, hitting a house, the Israeli police said. Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed at least 11 Palestinians, including four young boys, Palestinian medical officials said.

An Israeli girl suffering from shock after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed just outside the Israeli town of Ashkelon, Israel, on Friday.

No one was hurt in the attacks on Ashkelon, but the attack will probably be seen in Israel as an escalation of the conflict. Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people, has been an occasional target of rockets in the past, but the scale of attacks on Thursday was unprecedented.

The police in Ashkelon said six rockets were fired, and four landed in the city. It was the first time there had been a direct hit on a house. The Israeli Army said that five rockets had been fired into Ashkelon.

The rockets were manufactured Grad-type rockets, which are based on a Russian design and have a longer range than the homemade, relatively crude Qassam rockets that are usually fired at the Israeli town of Sderot and the farming communities bordering the Gaza Strip. The rockets were made in Iran, according to an Israeli security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give out such information.

Israel kept up its airstrikes Thursday against militants in the Gaza Strip, one day after an Israeli civilian was killed in a rocket attack on Sderot, the first such fatality in nine months.

The Israeli Army said it had carried out five airstrikes since the early hours of Thursday morning against armed men and rocket-launching squads in Gaza. Five militants were killed in those strikes, according to Hamas and Palestinian medical officials, bringing the total of Palestinians killed in Gaza since Wednesday to 17.

Two more militants were killed in two later attacks, according to local reports, and an airstrike in northern Gaza Thursday killed four young boys, aged 8, 9, 11 and 12, Palestinian medical officials said.

Among the dead in Gaza since Wednesday were six civilians, including three other young boys and a 5-month-old boy killed in airstrikes on Wednesday night, the medical officials said.

Most of the dead militants belonged to the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades. One of them was Hamza al-Hayya, the son of Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader and legislator. Hamza al-Hayya was killed on Thursday morning in what the Israeli military said was a strike against a squad about to launch rockets.

Seven members of the Hayya family and a neighbor were killed in May in an Israeli airstrike that hit the family home. Khalil al-Hayya was not in the house at the time. Military officials said at the time that the army had “identified and hit a five-member terrorist cell” that was the target of the attack. That month, Hamas had intensified its rocket fire from Gaza and two other Israelis were killed by rockets in Sderot.

Rockets again slammed into Sderot on Thursday, leaving the streets mostly deserted and the few people who ventured out running for cover.

Many residents were in a state of panic as a series of rockets fell in the center of town.

A bodyguard of Avi Dichter, Israel’s minister for public security, was lightly wounded by shrapnel when a rocket hit the campus of Sapir College, on the outskirts of Sderot, where the Israeli civilian was killed on Wednesday.

The Qassam Brigades issued a statement in Gaza on Thursday saying they had fired 70 rockets into Israel since Wednesday, with 41 aimed at Sderot.

The latest surge of hostilities started on Wednesday morning, when the Israeli air force carried out a strike in southern Gaza, hitting a minivan on a road west of Khan Yunis and killing five members of the Qassam Brigades.

Southern Israel then came under heavy rocket fire, with more than 40 rockets launched from Gaza on Wednesday, the Israeli Army said. Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, saying it had been retaliating for the Israeli strike.

In a second Israeli airstrike carried out amid the rocket fire, two Palestinian youths were killed and 12 other civilians were wounded, Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, director of emergency medical services in Gaza, said. A third boy died later. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the strike had been aimed at a rocket-firing squad, and witnesses in Gaza told Palestinian news media that the civilians had been hit while watching Hamas militants fire the rockets.

Late Wednesday night, Israeli aircraft fired more missiles into Gaza, hitting the empty building of the Hamas-run Interior Ministry and metal workshops in Gaza City and Khan Yunis. The 5-month-old boy, Muhammad al-Burei, was killed by shrapnel from the attack on the Interior Ministry, and several civilians were wounded, Dr. Hassanein said. The ministry building is in a residential area.

The army spokeswoman confirmed strikes against various locations in Gaza, and said they were all aimed at Hamas compounds and headquarters used by militants to plan or launch attacks.

The Israeli victim, Ronnie Yichia, 47, was struck in the chest by shrapnel from a rocket that landed in the parking lot of the Sapir College campus on the outskirts of Sderot. According to Israeli police figures, he was the 14th civilian to die from rockets fired from Gaza since 2001.

Wednesday’s rocket fire also struck Ashkelon. One rocket fell in the grounds of Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. A 10-year-old boy from Sderot, hurt in a rocket attack on Monday, was recuperating there after surgery.

Israel is engaged in what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has called a “daily war” against the militants launching rockets from Gaza. Responding to Wednesday’s events from Japan during an official visit, Mr. Olmert said that “no one in Hamas, neither the low-level officials nor the highest echelon, will be immune in this war.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Mr. Olmert in Tokyo on Thursday morning and said afterward that Hamas rocket attacks against Israel “need to stop,” The Associated Press reported.

Palestinians said two of the militants killed in the first Israeli strike were Abdullah Edwan, a rocket engineer, and Muhammad Abu Aker, a rocket squad commander. Residents said the men were going to a training camp in southern Gaza. Two were masked, they said, and returned from Iran three weeks ago.

Relatives of Mr. Edwan, who was said to have been the main strike target, said he was trained in Syria and Iran. Two other militants were wounded, medical officials said.

The chief of Israeli military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, told Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday that Gaza militants had undergone intensive training in Syria and Iran and had taken advantage of the recent 11-day breach of Gaza’s border with Egypt to return to Gaza.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Arye Mekel, called the Hamas practice of firing rockets at Israeli civilian centers from areas populated by Palestinian civilians a “war crime that hurts Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

Another militant group, Islamic Jihad, said that Israeli forces killed one of its gunmen near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza early on Wednesday.

But the army spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity under army rules, said that a Palestinian had been spotted approaching the border fence and had tried to lay a bomb, but that he was killed in a blast probably caused by explosives he carried.

Hamas took over Gaza last June after routing forces loyal to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. The two groups, which had shared power, are now bitter rivals. Mr. Abbas was quoted Wednesday in the London-based newspaper Al Hayat as saying that members of Al Qaeda had infiltrated the Gaza Strip with Hamas cooperation.

“I can say without doubt that Al Qaeda is present in the Palestinian territories and that this presence — especially in Gaza — is facilitated by Hamas,” he said.

Mr. Abbas has called for a halt to the rocket attacks from Gaza.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, said Mr. Abbas’s statements gave “justification for the Israeli aggression.” He forecast an escalation in violence.

Ms. Rice is to arrive in the region on Monday to follow up on talks that Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas began at the peace conference in Annapolis, Md., in November, Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, said Wednesday.

A Palestinian member of the armed wing of Fatah was killed Wednesday in a raid in Nablus by undercover Israeli commandos, the Israeli military and Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli forces were there to arrest five wanted men from the Fatah military wing and opened fire when they tried to escape, killing one of them, Ibrahim Masimi, 22, Israeli military officials said. They said Mr. Masimi was armed and had recruited suicide bombers in the past.

Omri Sharon, a son of Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister, began a seven-month prison term on Wednesday after being convicted in 2006 of violating party campaign finance laws, fraud and perjury. The sentence had been delayed because the elder Mr. Sharon, 80, had a severe stroke.

Apparently to prove that the US is filled with Muslim hating Yahoos, ABC went on the hunt to find “Islamophobia” in America and the result is “Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do?” Since they didn’t really know where to find any, ABC News decided to create their own prejudice against Muslims by hiring an actress to put on Muslim dress and get “confronted” by a Muslim hating coffee store server — also an actor hired by ABC. Then, they rolled the cameras, opened the doors to the public and, viola, ABC “found” prejudice in America. How hard is it to “find” something that you invented in the first place? Let’s find out…

ABC is “shocked” to find that their little manufactured moments revealed how some customers reacted. “Bystanders Turn Away When Muslim Actor Hired By ‘Primetime’ Encounters Hostility,” ABC proclaimed.

ABC begins their report assuring us all that “Islamophobia” is rampant in America.

The Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war and suicide bombings worldwide have changed not only the way we live but the way we look at those around us, especially Muslims. “Islamophobia” has entered the American vernacular, and the anti-Muslim attitudes and prejudice it describes remain common.

Prejudiced attitudes against Muslims “remain common”? Does it really? Is ABC telling us that Muslims are being widely discriminated against in this country since 9/11?

Well, ABC may be claiming this is so, but the FBI sure isn’t. According to Investor’s Business Daily, the FBI has found that anti-Muslim crimes in the USA is not so “common” as ABC wants to make us believe.

Not only are anti-Islamic hate crimes way down, but they’re a fraction of overall religious hate crimes. The overwhelming majority of such crimes target Jews, something CAIR and other Muslim groups don’t seem all that concerned about.

In 2006, a whopping 66% of religiously motivated attacks were on Jews, while just 11% targeted Muslims, even though the Jewish and Muslim populations are similar in size. Catholics and Protestants, who together account for 9% of victims, are subject to almost as much abuse as Muslims in this country.

So, how the heck did ABC find all this “Islamophobia” in America? They created it out of whole cloth and then stepped back to see people “react” to it.

ABC’s production crew outfitted The Czech Stop, a bustling roadside bakery north of Waco, Texas, with hidden cameras and two actors. One played a female customer wearing a traditional Muslim head scarf, or hijab. The other acted as a sales clerk who refused to serve her and spouted common anti-Muslim and anti-Arab slurs.

ABC then filmed the outcome of their set-up, their entrapping situation, and reported that… gasp… there is prejudice in America. But, even at this they only found one guy that expressed any measure of support for the anti-Islamic sentiment. And even that lone guy was more in favor of a business owner being permitted to run his business how he wanted to run it.

What ABC apparently found most “shocking” was that most regular folks would simply turn away, essentially trying to ignore the situation. ABC seemed to read this as some sort of inherent racism on the part of the stunned customers.

Even though people seemed to have strong opinions on either side, more than half of the bystanders did or said absolutely nothing. This is a familiar reaction for many Muslims such as Javed. “I was shocked because when these things happen to me in real life … I never see what happens after I walk out of that store,” she said. “I would try to justify … that they probably didn’t hear it … when I watched it, I realized, no, they hear it and they see it and they’re okay with it.”

No, sir, they weren’t necessarily “OK with it.” For most people who aren’t confronted with such situations on a daily basis, the shock of the altercation will leave them stunned, bewildered, and unable to act very quickly to such a situation. This is human nature, not any innate “Islamophobia.” Most people just fear getting themselves involved in any sort of altercation. It’s called the “flight” reaction. Many people just want to shrink from trouble and run away to preserve themselves.

In any case, even as ABC tried to pretend that everyone hates Muslims in America, even their own report revealed people who stood up for the young “Muslim” woman that they thought was being discriminated against.

So, in the end, what we have here is ABC sensationalizing a “racism” that doesn’t exist at the sort of so-called high rates that they are trying to make us all believe it is happening. ABC wanted to find “Islamophobia” so it went out and created it.

No wonder they “found” it, huh?

The Idea that Ms. Lohan would even attempt to compare herself to Marilyn Monroe sickens me. The only thing that they have in common is alcoholism and drug abuse. JD

In 1962, photographer Bert Stern shot a series of photos of Marilyn Monroe that have collectively come to be known as “The Last Sitting.” Taken during several boozy sessions at the Hotel Bel-Air, the photographs are arguably the most famous images ever captured of America’s most famous actress: Monroe, sleepy-eyed and naked, sips from a Champagne glass, enacts a fan dance of sorts with various diaphanous scarves, romps with erotic playfulness on a bed of white linens. Six weeks after she had posed, Monroe was found dead of an apparent barbiturate overdose.

The photos endure partly as artifacts—as the last visible evidence of the living woman (a legacy reinforced by Stern’s decision to publish the contact sheets Monroe herself had crossed out in red marker). But the pictures are also remarkable for the raw truths they seem to reveal. In them, we see an actress whose comedic talents were overshadowed by her sex appeal, a woman who is cannily aware of her pinup status, yet is also beginning to show her 36 years. In many shots, she is obviously drunk. This was an unhappy time for Monroe. Notorious for her on-set antics, she had been publicly lambasted by Billy Wilder after Some Like It Hot, then fired from the production of Something’s Got to Give; she’d endured two recent divorces and, in 1961, a brief stint in a psychiatric ward. To see the entire slideshow click here.

Stern excavated and preserved the poignant humanity of the real woman—beautiful, but also fragile, needy, flawed—from the monumental sex symbol. In our armored, airbrushed age, his achievement feels almost revolutionary.

Forty-six years later, Stern has revisited his classic shots with Lindsay Lohan, another actress whose prodigious fame is not quite commensurate with her professional achievements. Stern, who shot the photos on film rather than digitally, told me he was interested in Lohan because he suspected “she had a lot more depth to her” than one might assume from “those teenage movies.” Indeed, many in the film industry believe that Lohan has yet to pursue projects equal to her gifts. Without putting too fine a point on it, you might say Lohan has, like Monroe, a knack for courting the tabloids and tripping up her career. (Readers will remember that Lohan had her own Billy Wilder moment two summers ago on the set of Georgia Rule.) Stern said the project also grew out of his interest in “controversial women,” or “bad girls,” like “Britney, Paris, and Lindsay.” Monroe was, in a sense, the original tabloid queen.

Though Lohan’s willingness to reprise the photos might seem a sly nod to her scandalous past, the actress offered a straightforward explanation. “I didn’t have to put much thought into it. I mean, Bert Stern? Doing a Marilyn shoot? When is that ever going to come up? It’s really an honor.” During a break in the daylong shoot, Lohan sat cross-legged on a bed in the four-room suite and spoke to me, in that familiar throaty voice with its staccato rhythms, about her abiding obsession with Monroe. Her interest took root a decade ago with multiple viewings of Niagara during the London filming of The Parent Trap. She has even purchased an apartment where Marilyn once lived. “If you saw my house … I have a lot of Marilyn stuff,” she told me, including a huge painting of Monroe.

“It’s eerie,” Lohan said of the painting, a Christmas gift, “because it’s this picture of her, and it’s kind of cartoony, and there’s a big bottle of pills next to her, and they’ve fallen over.” Lohan called Monroe’s suicide “tragic,” and then added, elliptically, “You know, it’s also tragic what just recently happened to someone else.” I asked whether she was referring to Heath Ledger. She nodded: “They are both prime examples of what this industry can do to someone.” Why some and not others, I asked, since it has often seemed that the thrice-rehabbed Lohan might meet a similar fate. Lohan replied with a flicker of annoyance: “I don’t know. I’m not them. But I sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen to me.” Still, one wonders whether Lohan’s participation in this project, given all the spooky parallels, isn’t the photographic equivalent of moving into a haunted house. (Which, in fact, she may have already done.)

Lohan viewed the shoot as a theatrical performance, as a chance to inhabit the role of an idol. “I wanted to portray the book and get it point-on as much as I could, to bring it back to life,” she said. Hence the strict mimesis: scarves, nudity, and all. “Not more than fifteen minutes had passed since she’d arrived, and already she had agreed to take her clothes off!” Stern writes of Monroe in his swaggering introduction to The Complete Last Sitting, the book in which all 2,571 photos have been collected. He might have said the same about Lohan. “I was comfortable with it,” the actress remarked of the nudity (though she did confess to doing “250 crunches” the previous night). All made up, in winged eyeliner and shellacked blonde wig, Lohan, who has returned to her former voluptuousness, at times appeared more Marilyn than the thin, somewhat diminished woman of the original Marilyn photos. “It was very similar, déjà vu you might say, like revisiting an old street,” said Stern.

The original photos, however, were distinguished by an almost claustrophobic intimacy between photographer and muse. In the first session, Stern persuaded the entourage of stylists to leave him alone with Monroe. The shoot thus took on the symbolic (if not the actual) contours of a liaison. The rise of the celebrity industrial complex has rendered this sort of tense pas de deux all but impossible. At the Lohan shoot, the crowd included Lohan’s manager, her security guard, and her younger sister, Ali; a makeup artist and assistant, a hairstylist and assistant, a stylist, a manicurist, a sentry to watch the borrowed diamonds; Stern, his manager, and two photo assistants. Lohan and Stern worked in an adjoining room, while the rest of us hovered outside like groupies at a backstage entrance.

“Here is a woman who is giving herself to the public,” Lohan said, about the Monroe photos, when we spoke the next day by phone. “She’s saying, ‘Look, you’ve taken a lot from me, so why don’t I give it to you myself.’ She’s taking control back.” Like any tabloid veteran, Lohan understands the potency of a photograph, and that the best way to respond to a society that views you only as an image might just be on its own terms.

I can’t believe anyone even watches this show! It’s totally contrived and the main characters are a bunch of saw toothed crackers. That wife of his is straight out of a trailer park and his family is like a three ring circus. If Dog came at me with his paint ball gun and taser I would grab one of those braided bead things in his hair, pull him to the ground and kick his teeth in. I always wondered why he didn’t carry actual firearms. Its because he is a convicted felon. So A&E will put this drivel back on T.V. and get that whopping one share of the Neilson audience and all of the hillbillies in America will be happy once again.

JD

Duane “Dog” Chapman will be back in business and back on the air on A&E. Woof!

A network official confirms that the show is going back into production, but they’ve not yet set a premiere date. As of now, they’re gearing up — big time — in Hawaii and production will begin ASAP. Makeup artists and camera crews have been hired, and houses and cars have been rented, all for the return of the show.

A&E had suspended production on “Dog the Bounty Hunter” indefinitely after a recording surfaced featuring Chapman making racial slurs. Chapman immediately began a tour of forgiveness, working with CORE and other groups to promote racial equality. We’re told network execs were “very pleased” with Dog’s attempt to make amends and his reaching out to members of the African American community.

A&E isn’t just making this decision out of the goodness of their hearts either. The show was insanely popular for the network, here and internationally — airing in over 20 countries.

This should drive gasoline prices up a buck a gallon. JD

BIG SPRING, Texas (AP) - An explosion rocked an oil refinery today in a violent blast that shook buildings miles away and injured at least one person, the company said.

All workers were accounted for about an hour after the explosion, said Blake Lewis, spokesman for refinery owner Alon USA. The injured worker was in the hospital, but the person’s condition was not known, Lewis said.

The fire sparked by the blast was under control Monday morning, Lewis said. The Dallas-based company does not know what caused the explosion, he said.

The blast sent black smoke billowing into the sky, shut down a major interstate and left residents rattled.

“It was extremely scary. You shook you were so scared,” said Laura McEwen, the wife of Mayor Russ McEwen who lives about two miles from the refinery. “Our walls shook. It jolted your bed. It was like an earthquake.”

John Moseley, managing editor of the Big Spring Herald whose downtown office is also about two miles from the refinery, said, “I thought it would knock the walls down.”

The refinery employs about 170 people and produces about 70,000 barrels a day.

Interstate 20 was shut down near the plant, Big Spring police spokesman Roger Sweatt said.

“There’s some fire and a whole bunch of smoke,” Sweatt said.

Big Spring is about halfway between Dallas and El Paso.

Okay. This is one of my favorite groups to bash … Firemen. I am sick and tired of of these idiots living vicariously through the 343 firemen that died in New York on 9/11.

Respect is something you earn. It doesn’t come by default because you are a fireman. When someone talks to me like I am an idiot and has such a condescending demeanor about them that I want to vomit, that doesn’t get my respect. It gets my pity. I feel sorry for you. Your like that guy you see at the market with the parrot on his shoulder. The parrot is his personality. He uses the parrot to facilitate the fact that he has no people skills, and thats how I view most firefighters. JD

The Scooter Store ! Call for your free battery powered power chair ! Paid for in full by Medi-Care. Have any of you seen these commercials telling people to call a tool free number for their “free power chair?” How can it be free if in the next sentence these companies make claims that it will cost you “little or no money” and that it is paid for by Medi-Care?

It’s sheer lunacy and it pisses me off that they can claim these things are free in the first place. Congress should pass a law that says that EVERYTHING that is call free yet paid for with tax money should have to say at the end of each commercial something like “paid for by the tax payer of the United States of America.” JD

Thursday, January 31st 2008, 9:09 AM

Britney Spears was forced into a psychiatric ward early Thursday after “driving around her neighborhood like a mad woman” - and refusing to take her meds, it was reported.

The erratic pop star is on a “mental health evaluation hold” in the UCLA Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The drama went down around 4 a.m. New York time when cops on motorbikes and a fire department ambulance rushed onto the grounds of Spears’ gated Studio City mansion.

Once inside, Britney is said to have gone easily, without a struggle.

“The package is on the way,” cops radioed once Spears was in hand, the Times reported.

People.com reported that Spears’ mom, Lynne, friend Alli Sims, manager Osama Lufti were all there and The Times said that cops were called in by Spears’ psychiatrist.

What followed was a made-for-paparazzi spectacle: the international superstar was escorted down Coldwater Canyon Boulevard by a dozen motorcycle cops, two squad cars - and two police helicopters!

The Times reported that the line of emergency vehicles “stretched longer than a football field.”

There have been several reports that Britney’s family was looking to get her intensive psychological help, perhaps by holding an intervention. It seems as her family pulled the trigger on the plan to get her help after her latest bizarre behavior.

“She was driving around her neighborhood like a mad-woman,” says a Spears family source. “Britney has been prescribed medication which she refuses to take. This is just another sad, sad evening.”

Initially, several tabloid news websites widely reported Spears, 26, had killed herself - something that was later denied by Lutfi and Sims, People.com reported.

The singer was committed by her family and Lutfi on what is known as a 5150 in California - a law that allows someone to be held against their will if they’re found to be a danger to themselves or others because of a mental illness. That was the same reason used to get Spears committed to the mental ward at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center earlier this month after her standoff with cops over her two kids.

Lutfi told ABC’s Barbara Walters that Spears has been unable to sleep and is distraught because she can’tsee her tots - Jayden James, 1, and Sean Preston, 2. A judge has granted ex-husband Kevin Federline temporary full custody of the two and demanded Britney get psychological help.

“There is no question she is bipolar… she’s had manic episodes for years,” a source told People.

The eerie elements surrounding Heath Ledger’s terrible death last week have a new twist.

It turns out that Ledger made a video last year for a song by Nick Drake, the legendary British rocker who died of an antidepressant overdose in 1974.

The video, as it’s been described to me, is bleak. Ledger plays the main character in the song “Black Eyed Dog.” At the end of the video, Ledger directed himself dead in a bathtub from drowning. Drake titled the song after a description Winston Churchill coined about depression.

Ledger can be seen in a video from a 2007 Venice Film Festival press conference talking about his obsession with Drake, who died “in 1975 at age 25.” Ledger pauses, takes a deep breath and then adds: “Suicide.”
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“I was obsessed with his story and his music and I pursued it for a while and still have hopes to kind of tell his story one day.” He said he gave up the idea for fear of “taking too many liberties” with Drake’s story. Of course, that’s what will happen to Ledger’s story now.

Where is the video? Good question. Although several dozen blogs have picked up on the story, no one has a copy of it. It was shown exactly twice. Last fall, it was included in an anthology of short films about Drake titled “Their Place: Reflections On Nick Drake,” which received its world premiere at the Mods & Rockers Film Festival held at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles on Oct. 5, 2007. It was also shown on a small screen in a video festival in Seattle.

Mods & Rockers director Martin Lewis tells me, “We were delighted to have the film. It was excellent.”

But how strange is all this? More importantly: it stokes the fires of Hollywood lore. Already, fans have been making their own Nick Drake/Heath Ledger videos and putting them on YouTube.

In other Ledger news: Kudos to Daniel Day-Lewis, who dedicated his SAG Award for Best Actor in “There Will Be Blood” to Ledger. DDL didn’t even know the “Brokeback Mountain” star, but was moved by his work. That’s class.

The Tragic Jinx of ‘Dawson’s Creek’

My favorite headline 20 years ago in The New York Post was “The Tragic Jinx of ‘Hart to Hart.’”

That came after famed and beloved actor William Holden, the lover of Stefanie Powers, died. A little earlier, Natalie Wood, wife of Robert Wagner, met her watery fate. I’m not sure but I bet it was Vinnie Musetto, the great bard of Post headline writing, who came up with that.

So now, I give you in tribute: “The Tragic Jinx of ‘Dawson’s Creek.’” Heath Ledger, former fiancé of Michelle Williams, is dead. At the same time, Katie Holmes has been swallowed up into Tom Cruise’s bizarre world of Scientology and control. Her promising movie career is almost over. The one movie she made in two years, “Mad Money,” is a bust.

And to think: Katie nearly co-starred with Ledger in “The Dark Knight.” But the conventional wisdom is that Cruise nixed that plan, sending Katie into acting oblivion. Maggie Gyllenhaal, whose brother Jake co-starred with Heath in “Brokeback Mountain,” took her place.

That leaves, of course, the two male leads from “Dawson’s Creek.” James Van Der Beek, from his credits, looks like he’s headed into TV oblivion. Joshua Jackson hasn’t shown all his cards, and it’s still within the realm of possibility that he’ll make a go of his career on a bigger scale. If they don’t make it, “The Tragic Jinx of ‘Dawson’s Creek’” will be all the more relevant.

SAG Gives Oscar Indications

More than the idiotic Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards are the real indicators of the Academy Awards.

Sunday night’s biggest surprise? Veteran actress Ruby Dee over both Cate Blanchett and Amy Ryan for Best Supporting Actress. Ruby Dee made a lovely speech and recalled her beloved husband, Ossie Davis. But I still think the Oscar will go to Blanchett. Interesting, isn’t it?

The three other winners were easy to predict: Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem and the amazing Julie Christie. The ensemble award for acting went to “No Country for Old Men.” I also think that the Academy will somehow negate “No Country” with “There Will Be Blood.” The winner should be “Juno,” although “Michael Clayton” has a chance.

But what do these prognostications really mean? I recently read a two-week-old issue of Entertainment Weekly that used the predictions of a half dozen of those professional Oscar bloggers. No one got anything right! It was very funny. If all that energy was used to solve the Earth’s real problems …

The Grammys Are a Go

I’m very happy to report that the 50th annual Grammy Awards are on for Feb. 10. There was a question of the Writers Guild picketing the Grammys. I wrote in this space on Jan. 17: “Really, the Grammys have nothing to do with the WGA; Patrick Verrone et al would be wise to issue a waiver and let the show go on without pickets. Music artists and writers have a lot in common on the issue of the Internet. The writers should appreciate that, and let what’s left of the music biz proceed unimpeded …”

Indeed, this argument seems to have worked. It’s very true, too. The writers and the musicians, as well as the directors and actors in Hollywood, all have the same issues with the Internet. If they don’t figure out a way to get paid from it now, they never will.

Meantime, Grammy week is shaping up as one of the best in many years. Included in actual Grammy night are a NARAS tribute to Berry Gordy and a party for L.A. Reid. Each is connected to Universal Music Group, the last of the two successful music/record congloms.

BMG-Sony is the other, and they get their hit from Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy gala at the Beverly Hilton on Saturday night the 9th. Once Davis is finished trotting out Alicia Keys, Carrie Underwood and maybe even Whitney Houston, what else will be left? Oh yeah, he’s also got the Foo Fighters on RCA. Niiice.

Tom Cruise Toughs It Out

You have to give Tom Cruise credit. You may not agree with his religion or lifestyle or anything else, but he’s not going away.

Most people who had the double attack of a nasty biography on the best-seller lists and a slew of videos showing them in not the best light might just retreat.

Not Cruise. He appeared on Sunday night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards TV show, presenting the final award and looking every bit confident of his stature in Hollywood. It couldn’t have been easy, no matter how much positive thinking or science fiction went into that decision.

Now this really sucks. I liked Heath Ledger as an actor because of his strange decision making in the parts he took as an actor. Some not so popular ones like “Brokeback Mountain” but other more risky projects like “Monsters Ball.” In the words of The Dude, Bummer man. JD

NEW YORK — Heath Ledger, the talented 28-year-old actor who gravitated toward dark, brooding roles that defied his leading-man looks, was found dead Tuesday in a Manhattan apartment, face-down and naked at the foot of his bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said.

There was no obvious indication that the Australian-born Ledger had committed suicide, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Ledger had an appointment for a massage at the SoHo apartment that is believed to be the home of the “Brokeback Mountain” actor, Browne said. The massage therapist and a housekeeper found his naked body in the bed at about 3:30 p.m. They tried to revive him, but he was already dead.

“We are all deeply saddened and shocked by this accident,” Ledger’s publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement Tuesday night. “This is an extremely difficult time for his loved ones and we are asking the media to please respect the family’s privacy and avoid speculation until the facts are known.”

Outside the building on an upscale street, paparazzi and gawkers gathered, and several police officers put up barricades to control the crowd of about 300. Onlookers craned their necks as officers brought out a black body bag on a gurney, took it across the sidewalk and put it into a white medical examiner’s office van.

As the door opened, bystanders snapped pictures with camera phones, rolled video, and said, “He’s coming out!”

An autopsy was planned for Wednesday, medical examiner’s office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

While not a marquee movie star, Ledger was an award-winning actor who chose his roles carefully rather than cashing in on big-money parts. He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a gay cowboy in “Brokeback Mountain,” where he met Michelle Williams, who played his wife in the film. The two had a daughter, now 2-year-old Matilda, and lived together in Brooklyn until they split up last year.

It was a shocking and unforeseen conclusion for one of Hollywood’s bright young stars. Though his leading man looks propelled him to early stardom in films like “10 Things I Hate About You” and “A Knight’s Tale,” his career took a notable turn toward dramatic and brooding roles with 2001’s “Monster’s Ball.”

“I had such great hope for him,” said Mel Gibson, who played Ledger’s vengeful father in “The Patriot,” in a statement. “He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss.”

Ledger eschewed Hollywood glitz in favor of a bohemian life in Brooklyn, where he was one of the borough’s most famous residents. “Brokeback” would be his breakthrough role, establishing him as one of his generation’s finest talents and an actor willing to take risks.

Ledger began to gravitate more toward independent fare, including Lasse Hallstrom’s “Casanova” and Terry Gilliam’s “The Brothers Grimm,” both released in 2005. His 2006 film “Candy” now seems destined to have an especially haunting quality: In a particularly realistic performance, Ledger played a poet wrestling with a heroin addiction along with his girlfriend, played by Abbie Cornish.

But Ledger’s most recent choices were arguably the boldest yet: He costarred in “I’m Not There,” in which he played one of the many incarnations of Bob Dylan _ as did Cate Blanchett, whose performance in that film earned an Oscar nomination Tuesday for best supporting actress.

And in what may be his final finished performance, Ledger proved that he wouldn’t be intimidated by taking on a character as iconic as Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Ledger’s version of the “Batman” villain, glimpsed in early teaser trailers, made it clear that his Joker would be more depraved and dark.

Curiosity about Ledger’s final performance will likely stoke further interest in the summer blockbuster. “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan said earlier this month that Ledger’s Joker would be wildly different from Nicholson’s.

“It was a very great challenge for Heath,” Nolan said. “He’s extremely original, extremely frightening, tremendously edgy. A very young character, a very anarchic presence that taps into a lot of our basic fears and panic.”

Ledger told The New York Times in a November interview that he “stressed out a little too much” during the Dylan film, and had trouble sleeping while portraying the Joker, whom he called a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.”

“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” Ledger told the newspaper. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” He said he took two Ambien pills, which only worked for an hour, the paper said.

Ledger was a widely recognized figure in his Manhattan neighborhood, where he used to shop at a home and children’s store. Michelle Vella, an employee there, said she had frequently seen Ledger with his daughter _ carrying the toddler on his shoulders, or having ice cream with her.

“It’s so sad. They were really close,” said Vella. “He’s a very down-to-earth guy and an amazing father.”

Before settling down with Williams, Ledger had relationships with actresses Heather Graham and Naomi Watts. He met Watts while working on “The Lords of Dogtown,” a fictionalized version of a cult classic skateboarding documentary, in 2004.

Ledger was born in 1979 in Perth, in western Australia, to a mining engineer and a French teacher, and got his first acting role playing Peter Pan at age 10 at a local theater company. He began acting in independent films as a 16-year-old in Sydney and played a cyclist hoping to land a spot on an Olympic team in a 1996 television show, “Seat.”

After several independent films, Ledger moved to Los Angeles at age 19 and costarred opposite Julia Stiles in “10 Things I Hate About You.” Offers for other teen flicks soon came his way, but Ledger turned them down, preferring to remain idle than sign on for projects he didn’t like.

“It wasn’t a hard decision for me,” Ledger told the Associated Press in 2001. “It was hard for everyone else around me to understand. Agents were like, `You’re crazy,’ my parents were like, `Come on, you have to eat.’”

“Chill” on Obama? What the hell does that mean? Let me tell you idiots in the so called “African American” community something. Your man Barack Obama is running for President of the United States of America! He is as open to scrutiny as any other candidate when it comes to mud slinging regardless of the color of his skin.

Obama and his so called “black leaders” should shut the fuck up and man up to the situation. “Adversity builds character” is what Martin Luther King used to say. If I were a black man today I would be embarrassed to even mention those words or any other words used by such an incredibly inspirational man like Martin Luther King. Dr. King had a dream that has essentially been wiped out by the politically correct crowd and it is slowly but surely killing America. Crying foul to Bill Clinton for stumping for his wife and pointing out the weaknesses in her opponent and basing it solely on the color of her opponents skin is nothing more than cowardice. JD

(CNN) — The bitter back-and-forth between former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama has led a prominent black lawmaker to tell the former president Monday to “chill a little bit.”
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The two Democratic front-runners, Illinois’ Sen. Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, are locked in a battle for the key South Carolina primary this Saturday.

As their campaign sparring continues, the Illinois senator seems to be spending almost as much time responding to Hillary Clinton’s husband as he does to the candidate herself.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, one of the most powerful African-Americans in Congress, weighed in on the feud Monday, saying it was time for Bill Clinton to watch his words.

Bill Clinton has delivered full-throated attacks on Obama in recent days, accusing him of overstating his opposition to the war in Iraq, complaining about Obama’s union supporters in the Nevada caucuses last weekend and blasting his relatively mild praise for Republican icon Ronald Reagan during a Las Vegas newspaper interview.

Obama adviser David Axelrod said the Clintons have been playing “good cop, bad cop,” with him wielding the club while she stays positive.

And Obama said Monday that Bill Clinton “continues to make statements that aren’t supported by the facts.”

Bill Clinton’s attacks on Obama, Clyburn said in a CNN interview, were unfair because a former president’s viewpoint “carries with it extra weight.” Video Watch Clyburn tell Clinton to ‘chill’ »

“I think they would say in ‘Gullah Geechee’ country he needs to chill a little bit. I hope he understands what that means,” Clyburn told CNN.

“I can understand him wanting to defend his wife’s honor and his own record, and that is to be expected. But you can’t do that in a way that won’t engender the kind of feelings that seem to be bubbling up as a result of this.”

“Gullah Geechee” refers to African-Americans who live in South Carolina’s Low Country region near the Atlantic coast.

“He is revered in many sections of the African- American community, and I think he can afford to tone it down,” Clyburn added.

Black voters make up roughly half of the Democratic electorate in the state, and Obama seems to have reversed Clinton’s early lead in that demographic, posting a huge edge over the New York senator in most recent polls of African-American primary voters.

It’s a delicate situation for the Clintons, who have spent the month dealing with verbal missteps that have made waves in the African-American community.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Clyburn said he was disappointed with comments from Hillary Clinton that some took to suggest President Lyndon Johnson had more to do with passing the Civil Rights Act than Martin Luther King Jr.

“We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,” the South Carolina congressman said at the time. “It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone’s motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal.”

He also expressed frustration over Bill Clinton’s recent remark that the characterization of Obama’s record on Iraq as consistently antiwar is a “fairy tale.”

Last week, Clyburn said it was time for both Hillary Clinton and Obama to move on.

Clyburn insists he will not endorse any presidential candidate, upholding a pledge to the candidates and to the Democratic Party that he would stay out of the race ahead of his state’s key January vote.

After losing the caucus tally in Nevada this weekend, the Obama campaign took aim at the former president. In an interview that aired on ABC Monday morning, Obama himself took on the former president, saying that he feels as if he’s running against both Clintons.

In the interview, Obama said that the former president has been misrepresenting both “my record of opposition to the war in Iraq” and “our approach to organizing in Las Vegas,” as the dispute over Saturday’s Nevada caucus vote continues to grow. Video Watch Bill Clinton accuse the Obama campaign of strong-arm tactics »

“It’s very clear that Bill Clinton is playing fast and loose with the facts,” adviser Axelrod said. “It’s been a little crass, as someone who supported him and respects him, I think it’s disappointing.”

The Clinton campaign attributed the Obama camp’s anger to sour grapes over the Saturday caucus vote results.

“We understand Sen. Obama is frustrated by his loss in Nevada, but the facts are the facts,” said campaign spokesman Phil Singer. “President Clinton is a huge asset to our campaign and will continue talking to the American people.”

And Bill Clinton himself showed no sign of backing down. During an campaign stop in Buffalo, New York, Sunday night, the former president went after Obama for his comments to a Reno, Nevada, editorial board last week that said President Reagan had been a transformational president.
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Obama “said President Reagan was the engine of innovation and did more, had a more lasting impact on America than I did,” Bill Clinton said.

“And then the next day he said, ‘In the ’90s the good ideas came out from the Republicans,’ which will be costly, maybe, down the road for him because it’s factually not accurate.”

Today in society we are hit with a daily barrage of lunacy and here is yet another example of absolute stupidity. This lummox was stupid enough to dare police to come get him in a home made video he posted on Youtube. Well the local law enforcement abliged these two idiots and went and got them. I was wondering if they had jails where they supply cone shaped hats that say “Dunce” on them and make these retards sit in the corner for all to see. JD

MIAMI — A reputed gang member showed off his guns and taunted police on an Internet video to come and get him — and they did just that.

“Last night, we granted his wish,” said U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta on Wednesday.

“King Bird Road” Rudy Villanueva, 31, and another alleged gang member were arrested early Wednesday on federal weapons charges after the video appeared on several Internet sites in recent weeks. Investigators said they were incensed when they saw the video and heard the threats.

“We were offended, obviously,” said Lt. Israel McKee, head of the street gang unit at the Miami-Dade County Police Department. “They were threatening our lives.”

In the video titled “Bird Road Getting In Trouble” posted on the popular YouTube site and elsewhere, Villanueva and 22-year-old Anthony Logan are shown brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle, a shotgun and various handguns. Villanueva pulls the triggers of the unloaded weapons.
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The two are heard making threats against the Miami-Dade gang unit. Villanueva talks about being “out here fighting a cold war” and that “they come at us if they want to.”

“Here I am, baby,” he says at one point.

Villanueva, who has a long criminal history and three prior felony convictions, is the alleged leader of the Bird Road Boys and Logan is a purported member of the gang in an area southwest of Miami.

Investigators seized on the video, first posted Jan. 3, to arrest Villanueva on a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and Logan on a charge of providing firearms to a felon. The charges carry potential maximum prison sentences of 10 years and five years, respectively.

The weapons in the video were found in Logan’s apartment, where the footage was shot, according to court documents. Investigators also discovered 780 rounds of AK-47 ammunition and a number of other weapons and bullets.

Both suspects made brief initial appearances Wednesday in federal court to have lawyers appointed for them and set future court dates. Prosecutors said they would ask that both men be held without bail until trial because they are dangerous and a risk to flee.

Villanueva acknowledged to investigators that he was in the video and that he made it to “instill fear in people who will roll up on me,” according to an affidavit by Brian Eustice, an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

I don’t really understand the point of this article. Mexico is 120 miles south of where I live here in So. Cali. From what I read in the news out my way is that it has become routine in Tiajuana to see prostitutes as young as 10 years old turning tricks for cash. If you take into consideration that we have let the immigrants from south of the border bring with them their gangs, graffiti, cock fights, drug smuggling as well as all other types of contraband and let the latino activists tell us stupid gringos that its simply part of their culture . .. . … then what would you expect from these people? This is not news. It’s more of an “I told you so.” JD

FORT WORTH, Texas — Police have arrested several teenage gang members accused of forcing girls as young as 12 into a prostitution ring.

After befriending the girls and getting them high, the Varrio Central gang members took them to some regular customers and then sought other men by trolling apartment complexes, offering the girls’ services for $50, Lt. Ken Dean said Tuesday.

The gang apparently targeted runaways and other girls with unstable homes, and if the girls refused to have sex for money the members beat and sexually assaulted them and threatened their families, Dean said.

“The age of the victims and suspects is the surprising part of it,” Dean said. “To have such young individuals in a somewhat organized business, a forced prostitution ring, is somewhat alarming and such a horrendous crime against the 12- to 16-year-old girls.”

Detectives found five victims, ages 12 to 16, but believe there may be more. Those girls are back with relatives or in other safe places, he said, declining to elaborate.

A teenage girl who may be a gang member helped the group by going to the victims’ houses to pick them up under the pretense of going shopping or to a movie, which fooled the parents, said Lt. Dan Draper.

It’s unclear how much money was generated, but the gang members spent it on other illegal activities, police said.

“It seems the primary motivation was just to continue doing drugs and alcohol,” Dean said.

Four gang members were arrested Jan. 3 after they had taken a 14-year-old to a convenience store to have sex with the owner, a regular customer of the prostitution ring, police said.

Diego Rodriguez, 19, was charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, aggravated kidnapping, compelling prostitution and trafficking of a person. Rodriguez, who does not yet have an attorney, remained jailed Tuesday on more than $170,000 bond, and police said they were trying to verify his immigration status.

Martin Reyes, 17, was charged with two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity, aggravated kidnapping, the trafficking of a person and marijuana possession. Reyes remained jailed on $150,000 bond, and his attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

Two boys ages 16 and 15 were arrested two weeks ago. The 15-year-old girl accused of helping the gang was arrested Monday. They will be in the juvenile court system, and information on their cases could not be obtained.

Police expect more arrests as the investigation continues, Dean said.

The convenience store owner, Chang Hyeong Lee, 56, was charged with aggravated kidnapping, engaging in organized criminal activity and prostitution. He remained jailed Tuesday with bail set at $300,000. His attorney could not immediately be reached.

Police discovered the prostitution ring after a woman was caught in August in a neighborhood allegedly offering men sex for $50 with a 14-year-old girl. Police have declined to reveal the relationship between Debra Flores Castillo, 33, who was charged with compelling prostitution, and the teen gang members.

She was released on a $20,000 bond. Her attorney, Mark Scott, declined to comment.

Jorge Martinez, accused of paying for sex with the teen in August, remained jailed on $10,000 bond Tuesday on a sexual assault of a child charge. His attorney did not immediately return a call.