IRAN RELEASES U.S. PRISONERS & TO RECEIVE BILLIONS FROM OBAMA ADMIN

IRAN RELEASES U.S. PRISONERS & TO RECEIVE BILLIONS FROM OBAMA ADMIN:

ONE-SIDED NUKE DEAL NOW GOES INTO EFFECT.

Sources:  Washington Post, Fox News, PBS, Youtube

A plane carrying Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and two other Americans released by Iran left Tehran en route to Europe on Sunday after the implementation of a landmark agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.

Once the prisoner flight was well on its way, the Obama administration announced new sanctions related to participation in Iran’s ballistic missile program. The sanctions, which applied to 11 persons and companies, were issued under U.S. restrictions that remain in place despite the lifting Saturday of international sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program.

As the Swiss plane carrying the three Americans was airborne, President Obama hailed the implementation of the nuclear agreement and the prisoner exchange with Iran that led to the release of the imprisoned U.S. citizens. In televised remarks Sunday morning, he said that although “profound differences” remain between Washington and Tehran, the Iranian people now have a chance to end their isolation and pursue closer ties with the rest of the world.

U.S. and European officials lifted the harshest economic sanctions against Tehran after the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog certified that the Islamic republic had fully complied with promises to curtail key parts of its nuclear program. Hours before diplomats in Vienna heralded the official activation of the nuclear deal, Iran confirmed the release of Rezaian and the other American detainees, set free in exchange for U.S. clemency offered to seven Iranians charged or imprisoned for sanctions violations and the dismissal of outstanding charges against 14 Iranians outside the United States.

Rezaian and two other released Americans were flown out of Tehran on Sunday, after a delay. They were expected to go to Switzerland, then to a U.S. military facility in Germany to be examined by medical personnel. One of the Americans, Nosratollah ­Khosravi-Roodsari, did not fly out with the others, U.S. officials said.

We can confirm that our detained U.S. citizens have been released and that those who wished to depart Iran have left,” a senior administration official said. “We have no further information to share at this time and would ask that everyone respect the privacy of these individuals and their families.”

A fifth American was released in a separate gesture by Iran and left Iran individually before the plane carrying the three Americans departed.

The coordinated moves cemented a major diplomatic victory for the Obama administration, which won significant nuclear concessions from Iran in an effort to defuse an international crisis that threatened to spark a new Middle East war. The agreement also frees Iran from crippling economic sanctions and opens the way for ending decades of diplomatic and economic isolation.

“This evening, we are really reminded once again of diplomacy’s power to tackle significant challenges,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said after the implementation was announced. “We have approached this challenge with the firm belief that exhausting diplomacy before choosing war is an imperative. And we believe that today marks the benefits of that choice.”

But the agreement also contains significant political risk for a White House that is staking its legacy on Iran’s willingness to comply with unprecedented curbs and extensive monitoring of its nuclear program. The pact — which has been repeatedly condemned by the Israeli government as well as by members of Congress from both parties — drew fresh attacks Saturday from Republican presidential contenders, some of whom blasted the deal as a sellout to Iran’s clerical rulers.

The nuclear pact calls on Iran to dismantle key nuclear equipment in a deal designed to ensure that Iranian officials could never accumulate enough fissile material to build a nuclear bomb. The agreement also requires unprecedented inspections and monitoring covering all aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, from uranium mining to research facilities.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed Kerry’s remarks, saying on Twitter that “diplomacy requires patience, but we all know that it sure beats the alternatives.” Implementation of the deal, Zarif said, meant that “it’s now time for all — especially Muslim nations — to join hands and rid the world of violent extremism. Iran is ready.”

The release of prisoners had not been officially part of negotiations between Iran and the six world powers: the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. But Kerry frequently raised the plight of imprisoned U.S. citizens during last year’s nuclear talks.

The Obama administration had come under heavy criticism for concluding the nuclear accord without winning the release of American detainees, including Rezaian, 39, whose 544-day detention is the longest ever by a Western journalist in Iran. White House officials confirmed that the swap was clinched during months of secret talks that gained momentum in the days before the nuclear pact was formally implemented.

Friends and colleagues at The Washington Post are elated by the wonderful news that Jason Rezaian has been released from Evin Prison and has safely left the country with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi,” said Frederick J. Ryan Jr., publisher of The Post. “We are enormously grateful to all who played a role in securing his release. Our deep appreciation also goes to the many government leaders, journalists, human rights advocates and others around the world who have spoken out on Jason’s behalf and against the harsh confinement that was so wrongly imposed upon him,” he said.

“Now a free man, Jason will be reunited with his family, including his brother Ali, his most effective and tireless advocate. We look forward to the joyous occasion of welcoming him back to the Washington Post newsroom,” Ryan said.

Iran’s judiciary announced the release in Tehran as part of an exchange. The United States is releasing seven people charged with violating sanctions against Iran, U.S. and Iranian officials said.

A senior U.S. official said the “Iranians wanted a goodwill gesture” in response to the release of the Americans. A list of Iranians submitted to U.S. authorities was “whittled down” to exclude any crimes related to violence or terrorism, said the official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity under administration ground rules.

Another official said the exchange was a “one-time arrangement because it was an opportunity to bring Americans home” and should not be considered something that would “encourage this behavior in the future” by Iran.

The officials did not tie the release directly to the nuclear talks and said they had not wanted the detained Americans to be “used as leverage” in the negotiations. But, they said, completion of the nuclear deal last July greatly accelerated talks about the prisoners.

In addition to Rezaian, the Americans freed Saturday included Saeed Abedini, 35, of Boise, Idaho; Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, 32, of Flint, Mich.; and Khosravi-Roodsari, U.S. and Iranian officials said.

A fifth American, identified as language student Matt Trevithick, was also released Saturday but was not part of the exchange deal. Trevithick’s parents said in a statement that he had been held for 40 days in Evin Prison. A senior U.S. official said Trevithick, 30, has already left Iran.

Abedini is a Christian pastor who had been imprisoned since July 2012 for organizing home churches. Hekmati is a former Marine who spent more than four years in prison on spying charges following his arrest in August 2011 during a visit to see his grandmother.

The detention of Khosravi-Roodsari had not been previously publicized. Iranian state television identified him as a businessman. Little else was known about him.

A senior administration official said of Trevithick, “We wanted him, obviously, to be a direct part of this, and made clear to Iranians that [his release] would be an appropriate humanitarian gesture.”

The exchange quickly became political fodder in the United States among Republicans vying for the GOP presidential nomination.

Republican front-runner Donald Trump said it was “a total disgrace” that the release of the Americans took so long. “This should have been done three, four years ago, when the [nuclear] deal was struck. Before the deal was made­ . . . they should have said, ‘We want our prisoners back,’ ” Trump said at a rally in New Hampshire.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said in a television interview Saturday: “We’d be very happy for the families of the Americans who are going to be home and for those Americans, but I’d also want to hear what the other side of the deal is, if this president is releasing more terrorists from Guantanamo to go back and reenter the war on terror. . . . We shouldn’t have to swap prisoners. These folks were taken illegally in violation of international law, and they should have been released without condition.”

Rezaian’s ordeal damaged his health, drew protests from media and human rights groups, and hampered efforts to improve relations between Washington and Tehran. It also exposed fault lines and infighting in Iran’s opaque political system, where Rezaian and other detained Americans appeared to become pawns in a larger internal struggle between hard-liners and reformists seeking to improve ties with the West.

Rezaian was tried last year behind closed doors on vague charges of espionage and other alleged offenses and was sentenced to an unspecified prison term.

His 2014 arrest and subsequent trial and conviction in Iran’s secretive Revolutionary Court system — on charges that were never publicly disclosed or substantiated — appeared to reflect a power play by hard-liners fiercely loyal to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, against more moderate reformist elements under President Hassan Rouhani. The hard-liners control Iran’s security forces, intelligence apparatus, judiciary and most other levers of power, while Rouhani — though answerable to Khamenei — has been given relatively free rein to manage Iran’s foreign affairs and improve its economy.

In recent weeks, Iran took significant steps to meet its obligations under the deal.

Increased U.S.-Iranian cooperation appeared to be on display Wednesday when Iran released 10 U.S. sailors within a day after they were seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps naval forces in the Persian Gulf. The Americans were on two small riverine boats that strayed into Iranian waters.

Against this backdrop, the signs of rapprochement raised hopes for a resolution in Rezaian’s case.

Rezaian was arrested along with his wife when security forces raided their home July 22, 2014. Yeganeh Salehi, 31, a journalist who worked for the Abu Dhabi newspaper the National, was released on bail in October, but Rezaian languished in Evin Prison for months without trial or even specific charges.

Rezaian holds both U.S. and Iranian citizenship. But Iran, which does not recognize dual nationality, barred any U.S. role in the case, including consular visits by Swiss diplomats representing U.S. interests. Diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran were severed in 1980 during the Iranian hostage crisis.

The last of four Revolutionary Court sessions was held in August, but it was not until October that a court spokesman announced a conviction — without providing any details. In November, the court said Rezaian was sentenced to a prison term, again with no elaboration.

In the meantime, Iranian officials floated the idea of a prisoner swap with the United States. Rouhani even suggested that Tehran could free Rezaian and at least two other Iranian American prisoners if Washington reciprocated by releasing 19 Iranian citizens convicted in the United States of circumventing sanctions.

As if to buttress that proposal, state-run news media in Iran then reported that Rezaian was accused of “spying on Iran’s nuclear programs” and giving the U.S. government information on people and companies evading sanctions.

Rick Santorum Out Polls Mitt Romney Among GOP Women Voters (Washington Post)

Karen Santorum & Contraception: "Rick Is Not Anti-Women & Not Opposed To Contraception"






Rick Santorum doesn’t have a (Republican) woman problem


Judging from the coverage of Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign over the last few weeks, you might think that the former Pennsylvania Senator’s numbers would be cratering among women.

But you would be wrong. Way wrong.

In a new Washington Post-ABC poll, Santorum’s numbers among Republican and Republican-leaning women have soared over the past month. He now has the highest favorability rating among that group of any of the top-tier Republican presidential candidates.

The poll numbers reinforce findings from recent exit polls that suggest Santorum is holding steady — if not strengthening — among Republican women. In Alabama, Santorum beat former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney by eight points among women; in Mississippi, Santorum took 35 percent among women to 32 percent for Romney.

There are a variety of theories as to why Santorum’s numbers among women have improved even amid an onslaught of negative press regarding comments he has made about contraception and women’s rights.

One is that Santorum’s rise in favorability among women in the Post-ABC poll is due less to the positions he has taken on women’s issues than to the fact that he went from a largely unknown figure in January to the main alternative to Romney in March. Santorum’s numbers among men have also bumped up — although far less significantly — over the past few months.

The second theory is that all of the negative press has convinced many Republican women that Santorum is the victim of a relentless attack from the national media, which most GOP voters — men and women — believe to be biased in favor of Democrats. Being hammered by the media then — regardless of the reason — is a sort of badge of honor for Santorum.

The third potential reason for Santorum’s improved position among Republican women is that he has successfully framed the issue as one of government imposing on people’s personal beliefs — an argument that hits home with the GOP base. Karen Santorum, the candidate’s wife, made that case during an appearance on CNN Monday night. “I think the issue is the government forcing people to go against their conscience,” she said. “That’s really the issue here.”

Regardless of the reason, it’s clear that Santorum’s comments have not hurt him one bit with his target audience at the moment: Republicans — and, in particular, Republican women.

That said, if Santorum does become the Republican presidential nominee, his positions almost certainly will be far more problematic for independent women who are widely assumed to be the swing voting bloc this fall.


View Larger Map


Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Komen Reversal On Planned Parenthood Decision FALSE! Board Member: "No Reversal"! WashPo Reports

From 1973 through 2008, nearly 50 million Legal ABORTIONS occurred!
Sources: Guttmacher Institute
Jones RK and Kooistra, K., Abortion incidence and access to services in the United States, 2008, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2011, 43(1):41-50.




Komen Board Member Official Statement Per Washington Post

As you may have heard, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation just announced that it was reversing its decision to ban Planned Parenthood from applying for grants to cover breast cancer screenings — after a massive outcry that spread from women’s groups to social media to Capitol Hill.

The question now is what its announcement actually means.

I just got off the phone with a Komen board member, and he confirmed that the announcement does not mean that Planned Parenthood is guaranteed future grants — a demand he said would be “unfair” to impose on Komen.

He also said the job of the group’s controversial director, Nancy Brinker, is safe, as far as the board is concerned.

As some were quick to point out, the statement put out by Komen doesn’t really clarify whether Planned Parenthood will actually continue to get money from the group. The original rationale for barring Planned Parenthood was that it was under investigation (a witch-hunt probe undertaken by GOP Rep Cliff Stearns).

Komen said today that the group would “amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.”

Does that mean Planned Parenthood will get Komen grants in the future?

I asked Komen board member John Raffaelli to respond to those who are now saying that the announcement doesn’t necessarily constitute a reversal until Planned Parenthood actually sees more funding.

He insisted it would be unfair to expect the group to commit to future grants.

“It would be highly unfair to ask us to commit to any organization that doesn’t go through a grant process that shows that the money we raise is used to carry out our mission,” Raffaelli told me. “We’re a humaniatrian organization.

We have a mission. Tell me you can help carry out our mission and we will sit down at the table.”

Pushed on whether this means the new announcement wasn’t really a reversal, Raffaelli pushed back, arguing that Komen, in response to all the criticism, had removed politics from the grant-making process. “Is it really unclear that we’re changing the policy to address criticism?” he said.

Others have pointed out that Komen’s handling of this issue should lead to skepticism of its announcement. Brinker had repeatedly said Komen’s funding decision was rooted in a larger policy change and wasn’t directed at Planned Parenthood in particular, suggesting the decision wasn’t related to the fact that Planned Parenthood was under assault by the GOP.

This was contradicted by at least one account. More broadly, the group’s rationale for the decision shifted over the last week.

Pressed on whether Brinker had been forthcoming, Raffaelli insisted: “Nancy was not trying to mislead anyone.”

Asked if there would be an internal look at how Brinker handled the episode, Raffaelli only said there would be some kind of general look at how to prevent the politicization of grant-making in the future.

Raffaelli blamed himself for the failure to handle the politics of this mess adequately, and stressed that Brinker’s career had been devoted to breast cancer prevention, and not politics.

Asked if Brinker’s job was safe, Raffaelli said: “Yes.” He added that the board “unequivocally” stood behind her.

Though Komen had hoped today’s announcement would defuse the politics of this fight, it seems plausible that pressure from both sides will only continue.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Is the Susan G. Komen Foundation backing down?

The Susan G. Komen Foundation has just released a new statement from CEO Nancy Brinker. The first line is a mea culpa: “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.”

But what does this mea culpa mean?

Brinker goes on to make clear that they will amend their guidelines so only “criminal and conclusive” investigations affect their funding decisions.

They will ensure that “politics has no place in our grant process,” and they will “continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.”

So they are, perhaps, backing down. Or perhaps not. Yesterday, the Komen Foundation said the investigation was not the cause of their reduced support for Planned Parenthood, and that the real issue was that Planned Parenthood did not directly provide mammograms. This statement doesn’t address that concern at all.

So it would appear to leave open the possibility that the foundation intends to reject Planned Parenthood’s future grant applications — albeit on less overtly political grounds.

I posed these questions to Leslie Aun, vice president for communications at the Komen Foundation. “I think our statement speaks for itself,” she replied. You can be the judge of that. The statement follows in full:

Statement from Susan G. Komen Board of Directors and Founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker:

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen.

We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation.

We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.

That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer.

Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process.

We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women.

We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work.

We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.


View Larger Map


Sources: CNN, Susan G. Komen Foundation, L.A. Times, MSNBC, Washington Post, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

8.8% Unemployment Rate Great But Not Low Enough

So The Nation's Unemployment Rate Has Dropped To 8.8% Versus 9.8% Last November. Great News For Pres. Obama's Re-Election Bid, However More Than 200,000 People STILL Remain UNEMPLOYED! Instead Of Waiting Around For The Gov't To Help I Strongly Suggest You Create Your OWN GIG! Start A Small Business & Become A JOB Creator! Or If Applicable Take Advantage Of Gov't Sponsored Short-Term Job Training Programs Like QUICK JOBS.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Political importance of the unemployment trend line


In Politics, perception often matters more than reality. And that goes double for the politics of the economy.

Economists spend their lives poring over numbers that provide detailed information about how and whether the economy is growing. Average people, on the other hand, tend to look at a single number to assess the economy’s relative health: the unemployment rate.

And, it’s not even the exact number that most people fixate on. It’s the trend line. Are things getting marginally better, marginally worse or staying about the same?

That trend line is the single most telling image of how the American public feels — and how they are likely to vote on — the economy heading into the 2012 election.

Given that, today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is good news for President Obama. The unemployment rate is still at 8.8 percent — that is down from 9.8 percent last November — and 216,000 jobs were created.

According to an analysis by Matt McDonald of Hamilton Place Strategies, a communications and policy consulting firm, if the economy can create roughly 185,000 jobs a month between now and November 2012, the unemployment rate will drop below eight percent by election day.

“This projection is down from last month’s benchmark of 190,000 new jobs and continues a string of modest good news on the jobs front for the President,” wrote McDonald.

The last time the unemployment rate was below eight percent was just prior to Obama taking office in January 2009, a fact Republicans will undoubtedly focus on in the campaign to come.

But, a downward trend line on the unemployment rate — if not a drastic reduction in the actual number — will allow the President to make the case that the economic policies he put into place over his first term in office are working and, therefore, he needs a second term to make things even better.

One need only to look as far as Ronald Reagan for evidence of the power of the economic trend line.

In March 1983, the unemployment rate stood at 10.3 percent. It steadily declined over the intervening 20 months and in October 1984 it stood at 7.3 percent.

While a 7.3 percent unemployment rate was no one’s economic dream scenario, the movement was in Reagan’s direction. And voters reacted accordingly — handing him a 49-state re-election victory over Walter Mondale.

Obama has to hope the unemployment trend line follows that same pattern for the remaining 19 months of his first term. If it does, his hand will be considerably strengthened in his bid for a second term.


Sources: MSNBC, Washington Post, WCNC, Youtube

Clarence Thomas vs Lillian McEwen: She Comes Forth Years Later: Supports Hill

Lillian McEwen Breaks Her 19-Year Silence About Justice Clarence Thomas



For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent -- a part of history, yet absent from it.

When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in an effort to deflect Hill's allegations.

Lillian McEwen was that woman.

At the time, she was on good terms with Thomas.

The former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel had dated him for years, even attending a March 1985 White House state dinner as his guest.

She had worked on the Hill and was wary of entering the political cauldron of the hearings. She was never asked to testify, as then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who headed the committee, limited witnesses to women who had a "professional relationship" with Thomas.

Now, she says that Thomas often said inappropriate things about women he met at work -- and that she could have added her voice to the others, but didn't.

Over the years, reporters and biographers approached her eager to know more about Thomas from women who knew him well. But McEwen remained mum. She said she saw "nothing good" coming out of talking to reporters about Thomas, whom she said she still occasionally met. She did not want to do anything to harm her career, she added. Plus, she realized, "I don't look good in this."

Today, McEwen is 65 and retired from a successful career as a prosecutor, law professor and administrative law judge for federal agencies. She has been twice married and twice divorced, and has a 32-year-old daughter. She lives in a comfortable townhouse in Southwest Washington.

And she is silent no more.

She has written a memoir, which she is now shopping to publishers. News broke that the justice's wife, Virginia Thomas, left a voice mail on Hill's office phone at Brandeis University, seeking an apology -- a request that Hill declined in a statement. After that, McEwen changed her mind and decided to talk about her relationship with Thomas.



"I have nothing to be afraid of," she said, adding that she hopes the attention stokes interest in her manuscript.

To McEwen, Hill's allegations that Thomas had pressed her for dates and made lurid sexual references rang familiar.

"He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners," McEwen said matter-of-factly. "It was a hobby of his."

McEwen's connection to Thomas was strictly personal. She had even disclosed that relationship to Biden, who had been her boss years earlier.

In her Senate testimony, Hill, who worked with Thomas at two federal agencies, said that Thomas would make sexual comments to her at work, including references to scenes in hard-core pornographic films.

"If I used that kind of grotesque language with one person, it would seem to me that there would be traces of it throughout the employees who worked closely with me, or the other individuals who heard bits and pieces of it or various levels of it," Thomas responded to the committee.

McEwen scoffs softly when asked about Thomas's indignation, which has barely cooled in the 19 years since the hearings. In his vivid 2007 memoir, the justice calls Hill a tool of liberal activists outraged because he did not fit their idea of what an African American should believe.

McEwen's memoir describes her own "dysfunctional" family in the District and, ultimately, a long legal career. She charts how she developed an "inner self" to escape the chaos of her childhood. Her story also includes explicit details of her relationship with Thomas, which she said included a freewheeling sex life.

Given that history, she said Hill's long-ago description of Thomas's behavior resonated with her.

"He was obsessed with porn," she said of Thomas, who is now 63. "He would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting."

McEwen added that she had no problem with Thomas's interests, although she found pornography to be "boring."

According to McEwen, Thomas would also tell her about women he encountered at work. He was partial to women with large breasts, she said. In an instance at work, Thomas was so impressed that he asked one woman her bra size, McEwen recalled him telling her.

Presented with some of McEwen's assertions, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Thomas was unavailable for comment.

However bizarre they may seem, McEwen's recollections resemble accounts shared by other women that swirled around the Thomas confirmation.

Angela Wright, who in 1984 worked as public affairs director at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- which polices sexual harassment claims -- during Thomas's long tenure as chairman, shared similar accounts with Senate investigators.

Once, when walking into an EEOC seminar with Thomas, he asked her, "What size are your breasts?" according to the transcript of her Senate interview.

Her story was corroborated by a former EEOC speechwriter, who told investigators that Wright had become increasingly uneasy around Thomas because of his comments about her appearance.

But Wright also had problems that made committee Democrats nervous. She had been fired by Thomas, and previously by a member of Congress. She also had quit a third job in government, accusing her boss of incompetence and racism.

Concerned about Wright's credibility, Biden lifted a subpoena for her to testify at the hearing. Instead, transcripts of the interviews with Wright and her corroborator were simply entered into the record, drawing only modest press attention.

Another woman, Sukari Hardnett, who worked as a special assistant to Thomas in 1985 and 1986, wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee that "If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female" by Thomas.

For his part, a parade of women who worked with Thomas defended him before the Judiciary Committee, calling it impossible that he would engage in the type of inappropriate behavior described by his accusers.

McEwen recalls writing Thomas a short note before the confirmation hearings, curious about what she should say if she were quizzed about their relationship. She said Thomas preferred that she would take "the same attitude of his first wife," who never talked publicly about their relationship.

In 2007, the Howard University Law School graduate retired and grew reflective on her life. Her career had included stints as an administrative law judge for both the Social Security Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission. She also had turns as a law professor and a private attorney -- all after her work as a federal prosecutor and Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer.

She spends her days in her Southwest townhouse. She frequently meets up with friends for movies, golf and other outings. Regularly, she stops by the National Museum of the American Indian for lunch.

In her short leather jacket, ankle-high boots and leather cap, she looks younger than her age. And when she talks about Thomas, her tone is devoid of rancor. She sees him mainly as someone who occupied a chapter of her life.

Still, McEwen, a Democrat, acknowledges growing increasingly irritated with Thomas's conservative jurisprudence and his penchant for casting himself as a victim in the Hill controversy.

Thomas himself has obliquely referred to the McEwen both in his 2007 memoir and during his confirmation hearing.

In an exchange with Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who was then a Republican, he said there appeared to be tension between Hill and him "as a result of the complexion of the woman I dated and the woman I chose as my chief of staff." Both are light-skinned.

McEwen met Thomas in 1979, when both were among a tiny handful of young, black Capitol Hill staffers. A group of them would hold monthly meetings at neighborhood watering holes, and soon enough McEwen and Thomas had struck up a close friendship.

At the time, Thomas was married to his first wife and working for then-Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.). McEwen, meanwhile, had recently separated from her first husband.

Over time, she said, Thomas would come by her place for drinks. She said the relationship grew intimate after Thomas left his wife in 1981. She said they broke off their relationship in about 1986.

Through the years, McEwen said, she has remained reasonably friendly with Thomas. On two or three occasions, she said, she brought friends to his Supreme Court chambers where they sat for long conversations.

But now, she says, "I know Clarence would not be happy with me."

"I have no hostility toward him," McEwen said. "It is just that he has manufactured a different reality over time. That's the problem that he has."



Sources: CNN, Washington Post

GOP & 2010 Black Voters: Ignore Nixon's "Southern Strategy"

"The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”
Richard Nixon

GOP Should At Least Try With Black Voters


If there’s one thing we can predict with confidence about the upcoming election, it’s that Black voters will overwhelmingly vote Democrat. “This is perfectly rational political behavior—but in many ways it’s a shame,” writes Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post.

Yes, Robinson believes in the Democrats’ progressive platform, “but I also believe that in politics, as in business, competition is good. Monopolies inevitably take their customers for granted.”

Democrats have surely done that, but Republicans just haven't tried to capitalize. Their problems date back to Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” the idea that, as one strategist put it in 1970, “the more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”

But that was long ago, and if Republicans would at least try to address black issues, they might make real gains with suburban or socially conservative blacks. Instead, African Americans will once again back the Democratic Party, “which at least asks for our votes.”





Why Won't The GOP Compete For African American Votes?


This has been such an unpredictable political year that it's hard to have confidence in any of the forecasts for November. How unpredictable? Well, I'd like to meet the pundit or prognosticator who imagined that a major-party candidate for the U.S. Senate would begin a campaign ad by declaring, "I'm not a witch."

Christine O'Donnell's sorcery problem aside, there's one thing I can say with confidence about next month's midterm election: African Americans will vote overwhelmingly for Democratic Party candidates at every level. This is perfectly rational political behavior -- but in many ways it's a shame.

Don't misunderstand. I'm firmly convinced that the progressive agenda championed by the Democrats is much better for African Americans, and for the nation as a whole, than the conservative agenda favored by Republicans. But I also believe that in politics, as in business, competition is good. Monopolies inevitably take their customers for granted.

And this, frankly, is what Democrats have been doing with black voters for decades. As far as African Americans are concerned, the only issue is whether they'll turn out in substantial numbers for the midterm balloting. No one wonders how they'll cast their votes.

African American support for the Democratic Party hovers around 90 percent. This qualifies as monolithic, even though black Americans are increasingly diverse -- economically, socially, culturally and geographically. There are millions of affluent black suburban households who fit the demographic profile of independents or Republicans. There has been an unprecedented influx of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean who view the political landscape with fresh eyes. Polls show that on some hot-button social issues, such as gay marriage, many African Americans are quite conservative. You'd think that somewhere, somehow, the GOP would have managed to get a foothold.

The problem is that the Republicans haven't tried -- not seriously, at least. And it will take a lot more than appointing a figurehead like party chief Michael Steele, or nominating a surprising congressional candidate like Tim Scott in South Carolina, to overcome decades of indifference and antipathy.

The history of the Republican Party's estrangement from African Americans is well known. In 1960, Richard Nixon won 32 percent of the black vote. In 1964, Barry Goldwater -- who had opposed the landmark Civil Rights Act -- received just 6 percent of the black vote. This dramatic shift made possible Nixon's "Southern strategy," which political strategist Kevin Phillips explained to the New York Times in 1970, using some archaic terminology:

"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that," Phillips said, "but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

In other words, the idea was to capitalize on the racial fears and grievances of Southern whites -- by letting black voters drift away from the GOP and even encouraging them to stay away.

Ours is a different era, and I'm not suggesting that the old Southern strategy persists in unreconstructed form. The Republican Party's dominance among white Southerners is not based on the kind of raw, unambiguous race-baiting that we saw decades ago.

What I am saying is that the Republicans have made no serious effort to appeal to black voters. Such an initiative would begin with an acknowledgement of the specific problems that African Americans face -- including the legacy of centuries of oppression and discrimination -- and a proffer of policies to address those problems. But this would contradict the GOP's dogmatic stance that government should be severely limited in its ambition.

Democrats, at least, are much better at talking the talk. But is the Democratic Party offering any new ideas -- or even the promise of meaningful resources -- to eliminate the stubborn, multigenerational poverty and dysfunction in which far too many African Americans are trapped? Are Democrats addressing the vast gap in wealth between middle-class blacks and their white counterparts?

Given the stakes, I see no real choice for African Americans but to go to the polls in November and stick with the Democratic Party, which at least asks for our votes. The Republicans haven't offered an alternative. I wish someday they would.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com


View Larger Map


Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Newser, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Votergate 2010: Stealing Elections Via Electronic Voting Machines (Videos)

Hacker Infiltration Ends D.C. Online Voting Trial


Last week, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics opened a new Internet-based voting system for a weeklong test period, inviting computer experts from all corners to prod its vulnerabilities in the spirit of "give it your best shot." Well, the hackers gave it their best shot -- and midday Friday, the trial period was suspended, with the board citing "usability issues brought to our attention."

Here's one of those issues: After casting a vote, according to test observers, the Web site played "Hail to The Victors" -- the University of Michigan fight song.

"The integrity of the system had been violated," said Paul Stenbjorn, the board's chief technology officer.

Stenbjorn said a Michigan professor whom the board has been working with on the project had "unleashed his students" during the test period, and one succeeded in infiltrating the system.

The fight song is a symptom of deeper vulnerabilities, says Jeremy Epstein, a computer scientist working with the Common Cause good-government non-profit on online voting issues. "In order to do that, they had to be able to change anything they wanted on the Web site," Epstein said.

Because of the hack, Stenbjorn said Monday, a portion of the Internet voting pilot -- which was expected to be rolled out this month -- is being temporarily scrapped.

The program, called "digital vote by mail," is intended to allow military or overseas voters to cast secure absentee ballots without having to worry whether the mail would get them back to elections officials before final counting.

Those voters, about 900 of them, still will be able to receive blank ballots via the Internet for the Nov. 2 general election, but they will not be allowed to submit their completed ballots via the DVM system, Stenbjorn says. Instead, they'll have to put them in the mail or send them unsecured via e-mail or fax.

The security hole that allowed the playing of the fight song has been identified, Stenbjorn said, but it raised deeper concerns about the system's vulnerabilities. "We've closed the hole they opened, but we want to put it though more robust testing," he said. "I don't want there to be any doubt. ... This is an abundance-of-caution sort of thing."

Last week, Common Cause and a group of computer scientists and election-law experts warned city officials that the Internet voting trial posed an unacceptable security risk that "imperils the overall accuracy of every election on the ballot." But board officials said the system provides security and privacy upgrades over a method of Internet voting that's already legal: filling out a paper ballot, then scanning it and attaching it to an e-mail.

Stenbjorn says he hopes that the Web-voting system's security vulnerabilities will be addressed in time for a D.C. Council special election expected next spring. The board has spent about $300,000 in federal grant money on the project.

A D.C. Council hearing on elections issues, which will include the Internet voting test, is set for Friday.

UPDATE, 5:30 P.M. Verified Voting, another nonprofit concerned with election integrity, has released a statement that "applauds" BOEE's decision to cancel the digital vote return. The release details the hack: "The test pilot was apparently attacked successfully shortly after it began by a team of academic experts led by Prof. J. Alex Halderman at the University of Michigan.

The attack caused the University of Michigan fight song to be played for test voters when they completed the balloting process." The group promises "[f]ull details of the hack and its impact on submitted test ballots ... in the coming days."

The group also identifies a separate issue, which it calls a "very serious vote loss problem that caused voters to inadvertently return blank ballots while believing that they had submitted complete ballots." This affected users of "at least two widely used computer/browser configurations." Stenbjorn said Monday that the problem had been identified as affecting certain browsers using the Macintosh operating system, which do not support inline PDF forms. Mac users, he said, can download the file and open it in a standalone PDF reader instead.

CORRECTION, 10/7: The Michigan fight song is "The Victors," not "Hail to the Victors." Mea maxima culpa.






















View Larger Map


Sources: ACORN, Common Cause, Fox News, DC Board Of Elections, University Of Michigan, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Kathleen Parker Intentionally Calls Pres. Obama "A Black Woman"

Obama: Our First Female President


If Bill Clinton was our first black president, as Toni Morrison once proclaimed, then Barack Obama may be our first woman president.

Phew. That was fun. Now, if you'll just keep those hatchets holstered and hear me out.

No, I'm not calling Obama a girlie president. But . . . he may be suffering a rhetorical-testosterone deficit when it comes to dealing with crises, with which he has been richly endowed.

It isn't that he isn't "cowboy" enough, as others have suggested. Aren't we done with that? It is that his approach is feminine in a normative sense. That is, we perceive and appraise him according to cultural expectations, and he's not exactly causing anxiety in Alpha-maledom.

We've come a long way gender-wise. Not so long ago, women would be censured for speaking or writing in public. But cultural expectations are stickier and sludgier than oil. Our enlightened human selves may want to eliminate gender norms, but our lizard brains have a different agenda.

Women, inarguably, still are punished for failing to adhere to gender norms by acting "too masculine" or "not feminine enough." In her fascinating study about "Hating Hillary," Karlyn Kohrs Campbell details the ways our former first lady was chastised for the sin of talking like a lawyer and, by extension, "like a man."

Could it be that Obama is suffering from the inverse?

When Morrison wrote in the New Yorker about Bill Clinton's "blackness," she cited the characteristics he shared with the African American community:

"Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

If we accept that premise, even if unseriously proffered, then we could say that Obama displays many tropes of femaleness. I say this in the nicest possible way. I don't think that doing things a woman's way is evidence of deficiency but, rather, suggests an evolutionary achievement.

Nevertheless, we still do have certain cultural expectations, especially related to leadership. When we ask questions about a politician's beliefs, family or hobbies, we're looking for familiarity, what we can cite as "normal" and therefore reassuring.

Generally speaking, men and women communicate differently. Women tend to be coalition builders rather than mavericks (with the occasional rogue exception). While men seek ways to measure themselves against others, for reasons requiring no elaboration, women form Obama is a chatterbox who makes Alan Alda look like Genghis Khan.

The BP oil crisis has offered a textbook case of how Obama's rhetorical style has impeded his effectiveness. The president may not have had the ability to "plug the damn hole," as he put it in one of his manlier outbursts. No one expected him to don his wetsuit and dive into the gulf, but he did have the authority to intervene immediately and he didn't. Instead, he deferred to BP, weighing, considering, even delivering jokes to the White House Correspondents' Association dinner when he should have been on Air Force One to the Louisiana coast.

His lack of immediate, commanding action was perceived as a lack of leadership because, well, it was. When he finally addressed the nation on day 56 (!) of the crisis, Obama's speech featured 13 percent passive-voice constructions, the highest level measured in any major presidential address this century, according to the Global Language Monitor, which tracks and analyzes language.

Granted, the century is young -- and it shouldn't surprise anyone that Obama's rhetoric would simmer next to George W. Bush's boil. But passivity in a leader is not a reassuring posture.

Campbell's research, in which she affirms that men can assume feminine communication styles successfully (Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton), suggests holes in my own theory. She insists that men are safe assuming female styles as long as they meet rhetorical norms for effective advocacy -- clarity and cogency of argument, appropriate and compelling evidence, and preempting opposing positions.

I'm not so sure. The masculine-coded context of the Oval Office poses special challenges, further exacerbated by a crisis that demands decisive action. It would appear that Obama tests Campbell's argument that "nothing prevents" men from appropriating women's style without negative consequences.

Indeed, negative reaction to Obama's speech suggests the opposite. Obama may prove to be our first male president who pays a political price for acting too much like a woman.

And, perhaps, next time will be a real woman's turn.

kathleenparker@washpost.com




CNN’s Co-Host Kathleen Parker Thinks Obama’s Problem Is He Talks Like A Girl


Apparently Kathleen Parker, WaPo columnist and newly minted CNN host, swallowed a MoDo pill yesterday.

How else to explain her column pondering whether Barack Obama is our first "female president" (listen closely), that’s Hillary Clinton ripping the wood off of whatever podium she’s at today.

Parker’s column may lack the trite comparisons to fictional cartoon characters, however the message is the same: Obama throws like a girl. Too much Woody Allen, too little John Wayne. And to top it off he may be losing his presidency because he speaks like a girl:

No, I’m not calling Obama a girlie president. But . . . he may be suffering a rhetorical-testosterone deficit when it comes to dealing with crises, with which he has been richly endowed [pun intended?]…

The masculine-coded context of the Oval Office poses special challenges, further exacerbated by a crisis [BP] that demands decisive action. It would appear that Obama tests Campbell’s argument that “nothing prevents” men from appropriating women’s style without negative consequences.

Indeed, negative reaction to Obama’s speech suggests the opposite. Obama may prove to be our first male president who pays a political price for acting too much like a woman.

It’s hard to know where to begin. Does this mean that Hillary Clinton would not have been able to deal with the BP Oil crisis? Or that Hillary Clinton is better at speaking like a man that Obama (hello again MoDo!)

Or that Obama is paying the price for speaking intelligently? Or that Joan Walsh was right, and this nation has been so infantalized by a combination of overreaching government policies and the media we really just crave a daddy who will tell us it’s all right. No grey area allowed.

Perhaps it’s that grey area that’s been causing the trouble all along. The grey area of empty coverage space needed to be filled. And the grey area of where Obama fits in the national storyline.

At some point it will be easier to make a list of the things and people Obama hasn’t been compared to in the mediasphere’s continuing effort to pinpoint exactly who Obama is than it will be to comprise a list of the actual comparisons.

In the meantime, it’s hard not to wonder if this column is a preview of what we can expect from Parker and Spitzer’s new CNN show…lord knows the world is dying to discover whether Eliot Spitzer thinks Obama is man enough. In the meantime I suppose we can be grateful that no Bambi references made it into this piece.

Sources: ABC News, CNN, McClatchy Newspapers, mediaite, Washington Post,