**IF YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE, CONTACT US AT rays.list@comcast.net and we'll be happy to send the full article.
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WashingtonPost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011800546_pf.html
Bloomberg Tax Cut Could Help Any '08 Run
By SAMANTHA GROSS
The Associated Press
Friday, January 18, 2008; 5:18 AM
NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg keeps saying he's not a presidentialcandidate, but analysts are calling his new plan to extend a $1 billionproperty tax cut a shrewd political move if he does make a bid for the OvalOffice.
Despite declining tax revenue from New York's troubled financial sector, Thebillionaire mayor said in his State of the City address on Thursday that thetax cut would be included in next week's preliminary budget plan.
With Bloomberg set to travel to the important electoral states of Texas andCalifornia this week, political analysts said his tax-cutting proposal couldhelp his image with anti-tax proponents and show that he has confidence inthe city's economy.
"He would be ... wanting to project an image that he's smart about runningeconomic matters, which he would argue the country is going to be needingvery much in the next couple of years," said Lee Miringoff, director of theMarist Institute for Public Opinion.
The mayor has repeatedly said he is not a candidate for president, but he isengaged in a sophisticated analysis of his chances of running as anindependent.
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Pew Research Center
http://pewresearch.org/
Go to the website, above, for the following articles:
--
GOP Primaries: Three Victors, Three Constituencies
A new Pew poll finds the Republican nomination contest is being increasinglyshaped by ideology and religion, while the dynamics of the Democratic raceare more heavily influenced by class, race and gender. Read more
--
Race, Ethnicity and Campaign '08
Race, ethnicity and politics can sometimes make for a volatile mix, but apoll finds that race relations in this country are on a pretty even keel.Read more
Over There
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Italy's Malaise: La Vita Non É Cosí Dolce
Taken aback by critical depictions of their country's "collective funk,"Italians' spirits are flagging -- but not their sense of culturalsuperiority. Read morePrimary Watching
--
Catching Campaign News on the 'Net
Nearly a quarter of Americans say they regularly learn something about thecampaign from the internet, almost double the percentage at a comparablepoint in 2004. Read more
--
Clinton Wins Big in the Media Coverage Race
The resurrection in New Hampshire of John McCain's once-dead campaign didnot translate into a similar largesse of media attention. Read moreIn theStates
--
Do State Tests Make the Grade?
It's hard to overestimate the importance of standardized tests in publicschools today, but differences in state standards and the reluctance of somestates to spend money for high-quality, challenging tests have caused agreat disparity from state to state. Read more
--
Bioscience Bonanza: States Vie For Shares
As the pace of stem-cell research quickens, seven big states are financingthe science in hopes of attracting the world's best scientists. Read moreTheDaily Number
--
36% - Iraq War: Right or Wrong?
That's the number of Americans who now say that the decision to use militaryforce in Iraq was the right decision; a 56% majority call it the wrongdecision. Check back every weekday for another number in the news. Read more
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Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/18/the_dream_ticket/
The dream ticket
By Ellen Goodman, Globe Columnist | January 18, 2008
MAYBE I forgot to get my vaccination against the false-hope flu. Maybe thechange mantra has finally overwhelmed my immune system. Or maybe it's justthe spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. hovering over this week.
But I have a dream. Or at least a dream ticket. Why not the twofront-runners on one ballot?
Yes, I am aware that I must immediately hand over my press card to theprofessional cynic police. I also have to apologize to the two New Hampshireteachers who suggested this wistfully only to hear me snap back, "Not gonnahappen."
But the Democrats have just recovered from a panic attack over thepossibility that a primary fight between Hillary and Barack over race andgender will leave both in the dirt. At the kiss-and-make-up debate inNevada, a reassuring Obama said that "there's much more that we hold incommon than what separates us." Clinton said that "we're all family in theDemocratic Party." Exhale deeply.
"This is a moment worthy of celebration," Clinton said at an appearance thisweek. "Many of our parents and our grandparents - and, I dare say, probablymany of us - never thought they would see the day when an African-Americanand a woman were competing for the presidency of the United States."
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Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/18/black_voters_generations_apart/
Black voters generations apart
By Shannon McCaffrey, Associated Press Writer | January 18, 2008
ATLANTA --When civil rights elders signed on to support Hillary RodhamClinton's run for president, it was seen as a coup in the competition forthe black vote, especially in the Deep South.
Yet many younger black voters seem to be shrugging off the sway of leaderssuch as Rep. John Lewis and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, sidinginstead with Barack Obama's history-making bid to be the nation's firstblack president.
It's a generational struggle that should serve as a warning to Democrats asthey head into primary contests in states with large black populations: Theblack vote today is anything but monolithic.
It also suggests the influence the civil rights leaders have enjoyed aspolitical kingmakers is waning.
"The figureheads are not actually gatekeepers to the black vote," saidWilliam Jelani Cobb, a 38-year-old history professor at the historicallyblack Spelman College.
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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/opinion/18fri1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Editorial: One Argument, 12 Million Holes
January 18, 2008
The big fat immigration bill that died last year in Congress was, for allits flaws, an anchor that kept debate tethered firmly to reality. Like it ornot, it contained specific remedies for the border and the workplace. It hada plan for clearing backlogs in legal immigration and managing its futureflow. Perhaps most critical, it dealt with the 12 million illegal immigrantsalready here, through a tough path to earned citizenship.
Unmoored from a comprehensive federal bill, the debate was pushed into thestates and is now floating in the La-La Land of the presidential campaign.The Republicans have been battling over the sincerity of their sound bitesand trying to make their fixation on one dimension of the problem - toughborder and workplace enforcement - sound like the solution.
But it isn't, of course, because it ignores the fundamental question of whatto do about the undocumented 12 million. A locked-down border won't affectthem. There is no way to round them up and move them out all at once. Noteven the most eagerly anti-immigration candidate would dare talk aboutdetention camps. Amnesty is a Republican curse word. So what's the plan?
This is the cavernous hole in anti-immigration policy that its proponentswant to cover with chain link and razor wire. It's where swaggeringRepublicans get vague and mushy. The emptiness of their position was acutelyexposed in the Jan. 5 debate, when Mitt Romney, the former governor ofMassachusetts, ripped into Senator John McCain of Arizona for sponsoring an"amnesty" bill that did not call for the mass expulsion of 12 millionpeople.
MR. McCAIN: There is no special right associated with my plan. I said theyshould not be in any way rewarded for illegal behavior.
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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702243.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Callous Conservative
By Michael Gerson
Friday, January 18, 2008; A19
After watching Fred Thompson debate his Republican rivals, I have oftenwondered why he is not in the top tier of candidates. He seems to have JohnMcCain's honesty, without his razor-sharp edges, and Mitt Romney'sconservatism, without his jaw-dropping inconsistencies.
This contrast between Thompson's large political talent and his poorpolitical performance has led to persistent questions: Does he lackambition? Energy?
This week, he added one more to the list: Does he lack moral seriousness?
At a campaign stop attended by a CBS reporter in Lady's Island, S.C.,Thompson was asked if he, "as a Christian, as a conservative," supportedPresident Bush's global AIDS initiative. "Christ didn't tell us to go to thegovernment and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with.He told us to do it," Thompson responded. "The government has its role, butwe need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role ofus as individuals and as Christians on the other."
Thompson went on: "I'm not going to go around the state and the country withregards to a serious problem and say that I'm going to prioritize that. Withpeople dying of cancer, and heart disease, and children dying of leukemiastill, I got to tell you -- we've got a lot of problems here. . . . "Indeed, there are a lot of problems here -- mainly of Thompson's own making.
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Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-fri_stimulus0118jan18,0,2934188.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout
Amid rising recession fears, tax rebate gains favor as economic stimulusTax rebates favored to fight recession
By William Sluis and Robert Manor
TRIBUNE REPORTERS
January 18, 2008
Plans to stimulate the stumbling economy may point to a simple bottom line:Get ready to cash a check for several hundred dollars, or maybe even more.
While other ideas are being put forth, none appears as straightforward,potentially effective and as likely to win approval in an election year as ahefty tax rebate for everyone who filed a return in 2007.
On a day that brought more warnings and worry about recession, including a300-point drop of the Dow Jones industrial average, President Bush toldcongressional leaders Thursday that he favors personal income tax rebatesand tax breaks for businesses.
With the president expected to speak Friday in general terms about astimulus package, congressional sources told Dow Jones and Bloomberg Newsthat the White House wants to give individuals an $800 tax rebate andhouseholds $1,600, while letting businesses deduct half their new equipmentpurchases. Democrats would weigh in with their own proposals.
Besides expecting another interest rate cut when the Fed meets at the end ofthe month, economists said they believe a massive package of emergencygovernment spending could help keep the U.S. from slipping into an economiccontraction. They said any stimulus must come very quickly, and because thisis an election year, it probably will.
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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702241.html
A Demographic the Democrats Can't Forget
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, January 18, 2008; A19
This is a good time to put in a word for the white working class.
For days, the Democratic campaign for president was mired in a discussion,started by Hillary Clinton, about Martin Luther King Jr.'s role in winningpassage of civil rights laws. There was also much talk of the crucial partwomen played in the New Hampshire primary.
Clinton and Barack Obama were both so concerned about the racial detour thatduring Tuesday's debate in Las Vegas, they sounded like penitentschoolchildren apologizing for a playground brawl.
Still, there will be inexorable pressure on both candidates to use identitypolitics for their own purposes. Gender solidarity was important toClinton's campaign-saving victory in New Hampshire, and it could help heragain. African American support will be valuable to Obama, especially in theDemocrats' South Carolina primary on Jan. 26.
But the long term is another matter. To build a majority this fall and makehistory, both candidates would need a lot of help from a group with its ownreasons to be discontented: the white working class.
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Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2008/01/17/matthews_i_wronged_clinton_with_remark/
Matthews: I wronged Clinton with remark
By David Bauder, AP Television Writer | January 17, 2008
NEW YORK --With protests rumbling, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said Thursday thathe was wrong to say last week that the reason Hillary Clinton is a senatorand a candidate for president "is that her husband messed around."
Matthews discussed those remarks at the opening of his show "Hardball"Thursday, the same day feminist leader Gloria Steinem and the heads of fourprominent women's groups complained in a letter to his boss that Matthewshad shown a pattern of sexism.
"Was it fair to imply that Hillary's whole career depended on being a victimof an unfaithful husband? No," Matthews said. "That's what it sounded like Iwas saying and it hurt people I'd like to think normally like what I say(and), in fact, like me."
He said that while he has not always taken the time to say things right orbe appropriate, "I will try to be clearer, smarter, more obviously insupport of the right of women, of all people, to full equality of respectand ambition."
Matthews made the remarks about Clinton on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" programJan. 9, the day after the New Hampshire primary. Clinton's surprise victoryin the primary was ascribed, in small part, on women angry that the presscorps seemed to write her off after losing in Iowa.
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Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-080117-obama-nevada-break,0,6283649.story?coll=chi_breaking_500
Obama gets break with Nevada caucus ruling
By John McCormick and Michael Martinez
Tribune correspondents
10:21 PM CST, January 17, 2008
LAS VEGAS - Just two days before the Nevada caucuses, Sen. Barack Obamareceived a significant boost when a federal judge ruled Thursday that ninevoting sites on or near the Strip should remain open as planned.
But his leading opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, criticized him for notdenouncing a negative radio ad being run in Nevada on his behalf by a labororganization backing him.
"In Iowa, Sen. Obama and his campaign went out of his way to attack laborunions for independently promoting other candidates," Clinton spokesman PhilSinger said in a statement. "But in Nevada, he's looking the other way asthey falsely attack his opponents."
The Spanish-language ad, which is being run by the parent of a union backingObama in Nevada, suggests that Clinton does not respect Hispanics becauseanother union with ties to her tried to close the casino caucus locations.
"It's not our ad, the first we learned of its contents was from pressreports," said a statement issued by Obama's campaign. "If the Clintoncampaign has questions, they should contact the union that sponsored the adwhose support they sought throughout the course of this campaign. But comingfrom a campaign that is repeatedly launching absolutely false attacksagainst Senator Obama, it takes some chutzpah. The fact is their campclearly would like to have workers' voices silenced and they need to livewith that unfortunate position."
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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/us/politics/18south.html?ex=1201237200&en=190b486f4a6157df&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERNEWS
Southern Blacks Are Split on Clinton vs. Obama
By SHAILA DEWAN
January 18, 2008
ATLANTA - The People's Voice African-American Weekly News in tiny Roanoke,Ala., has not endorsed a candidate in the state's Democratic presidentialprimary on Feb. 5 - much to the frustration of its publisher, Charlotte A.Clark-Frieson, a Barack Obama supporter.
"I'm trying to get ready to endorse him, but my board is so split," Ms.Clark-Frieson said.
While letters to the paper are almost unanimously in favor of Mr. Obama, shesaid, the older of the state's two black political organizations, theAlabama Democratic Conference, endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton inOctober.
So great is the tension over the Democratic contest, Ms. Clark-Frieson said,that many of her newspaper's board members have refused to betray theirpreference even in private.
Across the South, a fierce competition is afoot for black voters, who areexpected to constitute 20 percent to 50 percent of voters in the SouthCarolina Democratic primary on Jan. 26 and in the four Southern states withprimaries on Feb. 5: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee. In manycounties, registration has spiked since Mr. Obama won the Iowa caucuses, andelection officials say interest is at its highest point in several electioncycles.
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Seatle Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004131084_broder18.html
A question of leadership
Friday, January 18, 2008 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - It was fascinating to watch the three top contenders for theDemocratic nomination discuss their concept of the presidency during Tuesdaynight's MSNBC debate in Las Vegas. But it was also stunning to realize thatthe three current and former senators who have survived the shakeoutprocess - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards - have not a day ofchief-executive experience behind them.
By contrast, the Republican field is loaded with people who are accustomedto being in charge of large organizations. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabeewere governors of their home states of Massachusetts and Arkansas, RudyGiuliani served as the mayor of New York City, and John McCain, as he likesto remind audiences, commanded the largest squadron in the Navy air wing.
In the past, voters have preferred to entrust the White House to those withexecutive credentials. John Kennedy was the last sitting senator to beelevated into the presidency. Since then, the former governors of Georgia,California, Arkansas and Texas have dominated the list of successfulcandidates.
All of them stumbled during their tenures in the White House, and onlyRonald Reagan left the presidency with his place in the history booksseemingly securely enhanced.
But the public remains convinced that the Oval Office is a place forexecutive talents - which makes the current Democratic field something of ananomaly.
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CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/18/national/main3726378.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_3726378
Waxman Challenges White House E-Mail Claim
WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2008
(AP) A White House chart indicates no e-mail was archived on 473 days forvarious units of the Executive Office of the President, a House committeechairman says.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., says a White House spokesman's commentssuggesting no e-mail had disappeared conflicted with what congressionalstaffers were told in September.
On Thursday night, Waxman said he was scheduling a hearing for Feb. 15 andchallenged the White House to explain spokesman Tony Fratto's remark that"we have absolutely no reason to believe that any e-mails are missing."
Fratto based his comment on the contents of a White House declaration filedin federal court casting doubt on the accuracy of a chart created by aformer White House employee that points to a large volume of e-mail gonefrom White House servers.
The brief description of the chart in the sworn declaration appears to matchWaxman's description of what White House officials showed his staff at aSept. 19 briefing.
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Detroit News
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080118/OPINION03/801180321&imw=Y
Still looking for GOP's Mr. Right on economy
Friday, January 18, 2008
Michelle Malkin:
I need a man. A man who can say "No." A man who rejects Big Nannygovernment.
The Michigan primary put economics at the top of the political radar screen,and the Democrat presidential candidates have been doling out spendingproposals, stimulus packages, housing market rescues and other election-yeargoodie pledges like Pez candy dispensers gone haywire.
Which leading GOP candidate represents fiscal accountability and limitedgovernment? Who will take the side of responsible homeowners and responsibleborrowers livid at bipartisan bailout plans for a minority of Americans whobought more house than they should have and took out unwise mortgages theyknew they couldn't repay?
I don't want to hear Republicans recycling the Blame Predatory Lendersrhetoric of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Jesse Jackson. Borrowers arenot all saints. There's nothing compassionate about taking money fromprudent, frugal families and using it to aid their reckless neighbors andco-workers who moved into McMansions they couldn't afford or went crazytapping their home equity and now find themselves underwater.
Economist Tyler Cowen points out the problem of predatory borrowing --something you never hear politicians spotlight. He notes, "As much as 70percent of recent early payment defaults had fraudulent misrepresentationson their original loan applications," according to research on more thanthree million loans done by BasePoint Analytics.
"Many of the frauds were simple rather than ingenious. In some cases,borrowers who were asked to state their incomes just lied, sometimesreporting five times actual income; other borrowers falsified incomedocuments by using computers. Too often, mortgage originators and middlemenlooked the other way rather than slowing down the process or insisting onadequate documentation of income and assets. As long as housing prices keptrising, it didn't seem to matter."
Message to Washington: Stop treating every defaulting borrower like MotherTeresa.
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Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5465405.html
Campaign Notebook: BET founder apologizes to Obama
From Wire Reports
Jan. 17, 2008, 11:17PM
Hillary Rodham Clinton and her campaign tried to mend ties to black votersThursday when a key supporter apologized to her chief rival, Barack Obama,for comments that hinted at Obama's drug use as a teenager. Clinton herselfpromised to assist with the rebirth of Compton, Calif., a troubled, largelyblack city.
Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, apologized forcomments he made in South Carolina on Sunday that hinted at Obama's use ofdrugs as a teenager. Johnson initially said he was referring to the Illinoissenator's days as a community organizer.
"In my zeal to support Senator Clinton, I made some very inappropriateremarks for which I am truly sorry," Johnson said in a written statement.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702243.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Callous Conservative
By Michael Gerson
Friday, January 18, 2008; A19
After watching Fred Thompson debate his Republican rivals, I have oftenwondered why he is not in the top tier of candidates. He seems to have JohnMcCain's honesty, without his razor-sharp edges, and Mitt Romney'sconservatism, without his jaw-dropping inconsistencies.
This contrast between Thompson's large political talent and his poorpolitical performance has led to persistent questions: Does he lackambition? Energy?
This week, he added one more to the list: Does he lack moral seriousness?
At a campaign stop attended by a CBS reporter in Lady's Island, S.C.,Thompson was asked if he, "as a Christian, as a conservative," supportedPresident Bush's global AIDS initiative. "Christ didn't tell us to go to thegovernment and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with.He told us to do it," Thompson responded. "The government has its role, butwe need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role ofus as individuals and as Christians on the other."
Thompson went on: "I'm not going to go around the state and the country withregards to a serious problem and say that I'm going to prioritize that. Withpeople dying of cancer, and heart disease, and children dying of leukemiastill, I got to tell you -- we've got a lot of problems here. . . . "Indeed, there are a lot of problems here -- mainly of Thompson's own making.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702242.html
The Hard Choice Is Now
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, January 18, 2008; A19
If it's any consolation, this is the hard part. When it comes time for thegeneral election campaign, voters will be faced with a clear choice on themajor issues. The primaries, meanwhile, are forcing us to figure out notjust who the candidates are but who we are as well.
On what is now the issue of greatest concern, according to surveys -- theflagging economy -- Democrats and Republicans truly seem to live indifferent solar systems. All three leading Democratic contenders have setforth elaborate stimulus plans, all three have ideas for rescuing familiescaught in the subprime mortgage trap, and all three serve up their proposalswith great heaping buckets of empathy. Message: They care.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee does the empathy part but then shiftsquickly to his weird idea about replacing the income tax with a consumptiontax. Mitt Romney -- who promises a stimulus package soon -- panderedsuccessfully in Michigan, vowing to bring back the state's long-lostmanufacturing jobs. But when asked how exactly he intends to perform thisincredible feat, Romney went all deus ex machina: He said he would spendbillions of federal dollars on energy-related research, which surely willinvent all kinds of wondrous new technologies, which then will swoop in tosave the day. Romney was asked in a National Public Radio interviewWednesday what he would cut to come up with the money for his researchproject -- he's supposed to be a fiscal conservative, remember -- and henamed federal job-training programs, which he said were wasteful andinefficient.
Aside from Ron Paul -- who, I believe, wants all financial transactions tobe conducted in pieces of eight -- the rest of the Republican field tends toanswer questions about the economy by quoting Adam Smith. Apparently,they're too busy campaigning to have noticed that stock markets around theworld are in turmoil or that the White House and the Federal Reserve are atthreat level orange.
On Iraq, the difference is even more stark. It's true that Hillary Clintonand John Edwards voted to authorize the war and that Barack Obama opposed itfrom the start, though he wasn't in a position to do anything about it. Andit's true that Edwards has apologized for his vote and that Clinton hasn't.But they all promise, basically, the same policy going forward: Bring thetroops home.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702239.html
Black Dreams, White Liberals
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 18, 2008; A19
Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passedthe Civil Rights Act of 1964. . . . It took a president to get it done.
-- Hillary Clinton, Jan. 7
So she said. And then a fight broke out. That remarkable eruption of racialsensitivities and racial charges lacked coherence, however, because thepublic argument was about history rather than what was truly offensive --the implied analogy to today.
The principal objection was that Clinton appeared to be disrespecting MartinLuther King Jr., relegating him to mere enabler for Lyndon Johnson. But itis certainly true that Johnson was the great emancipator, second only toAbraham Lincoln in that respect. This was a function of the times. King wasfighting for black enfranchisement. Until that could be achieved, civilrights legislation could only be enacted by a white president (and a whiteCongress).
That does not denigrate King. It makes his achievement all the moremiraculous -- winning a permanent stake in the system for a previouslydisenfranchised people, having begun with no political cards to play.
In my view, the real problem with Clinton's statement was the impliedhistorical analogy -- that the subordinate position King held in relation toJohnson, a function of the discrimination and disenfranchisement of thetime, somehow needs recapitulation today when none of those conditionsapply.
The analogy Clinton was implying was obvious: I'm Lyndon Johnson, unlovelydoer; he's Martin Luther King, charismatic dreamer. Vote for me if you wantresults.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702525.html
Corporate Impunity
Investors should be able to sue for losses caused by fraud.
Friday, January 18, 2008; A18
CONGRESS, in the wake of a Supreme Court decision this week, should step into ensure that companies that help other companies perpetrate fraud do notgo unpunished. It can do this in one of two ways: Either give the Securitiesand Exchange Commission more resources or give investors a limited right tosue.
The justices on Tuesday decided a case involving Charter Communications,which engaged its suppliers, Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola, in fraudulenttransactions meant to pump up its bottom line. Charter eventually restatedits earnings downward, causing its stock to plummet and investors to lose abundle. Four Charter officials were convicted on fraud charges. Investorssued Charter and settled for $144 million; their private lawsuit againstScientific-Atlanta and Motorola was thrown out by a lower court, a decisionthe Supreme Court affirmed this week.
The court ruled that current securities laws do not allow investors to fileprivate lawsuits against third parties, such as vendors and suppliers, whoaid and abet another's fraud. The justices concluded that private suitsagainst third parties were permitted only if the third parties had madepublic statements that investors relied on in deciding whether to buy orsell a particular stock. The court did not curtail investor rights; itsimply decided not to expand them to allow for such lawsuits.
"No member of the investing public had knowledge, either actual or presumed,of [Scientific-Atlanta's or Motorola's] deceptive acts during the relevanttimes," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the five-justice majority.Bottom line: "It was Charter, not [Scientific-Atlanta or Motorola], thatmisled its auditor and filed fraudulent financial statements," JusticeKennedy concluded.
But the facts in the case also make clear that Charter could not haveengaged in its fraudulent scheme had Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola notgone along. There is also ample evidence in the record to strongly suggestthat the two vendors knew Charter was involved in funny business.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011800851.html?hpid=artslot
World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer Dies at 64
By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 18, 2008; 10:35 AM
Bobby Fischer, the chess genius who careened during his life from Cold Warhero to eccentric international exile, died Thursday in Iceland, where hehas lived since 2005. He was 64.
Fischer's spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, told wire services that the formerworld chess champion died at a Reykjavik hospital. No cause of death wasgiven.
A solitary and combative figure, Fischer was born in Chicago, grew up inBrooklyn, and by age 15 had attained the rank of grandmaster. He thrilledAmericans in 1972 when, at age 29, he dethroned Russian grandmaster andthen-world champion Boris Spassky in a 24-game match held in the Icelandiccapital. He was the only American to ever hold the title.
Erratic in his behavior -- late to arrive for games and quick to complainabout lighting, television cameras and other annoyances -- Fischer stood asan iconic figure, a go-it-alone American battling the top product of theSoviet Union's Communist-party controlled chess bureaucracy. The match, abrutal competition with hints of superpower detente, was given suchimportance that then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reportedly calledFischer after hearing that he had considered abandoning his challenge ofSpassky.
Over a summer that included the Watergate break-in and the ideologicaldivide represented by President Richard Nixon's reelection campaign againstDemocrat George McGovern, the chess showdown in a remote northern capitalbecame a peculiar spectacle. The games were dissected play-by-play style ontelevision, and newspapers followed a psycho-drama that included Fischer'srefusal to play the second game, a relentless barrage of complaints from theAmerican that may have been designed to rattle his opponent, and -- asSpassky fell behind -- Russian allegations that Fischer had deployed somesort of secret weapon.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011700324.html?hpid=topnews
Mature Human Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 18, 2008; A01
Scientists at a California company reported yesterday that they had createdthe first mature cloned human embryos from single skin cells taken fromadults, a significant advance toward the goal of growing personalized stemcells for patients suffering from various diseases.
Creation of the embryos -- grown from cells taken from the company's chiefexecutive and one of its investors -- also offered sobering evidence thatfew, if any, technical barriers may remain to the creation of cloned babies.That reality could prompt renewed controversy on Capitol Hill, where thedebate over human cloning has died down of late.
Five of the new embryos grew in laboratory dishes to the stage thatfertility doctors consider ready for transfer to a woman's womb: a degree ofdevelopment that clones of adult humans have never achieved before.
No one knows whether those embryos were healthy enough to grow into babies.But the study leader, who is also the medical director of a fertilityclinic, said they looked robust, even as he emphasized that he has nointerest in cloning people.
"It's unethical and it's illegal, and we hope no one else does it either,"said Samuel H. Wood, chief executive of Stemagen in La Jolla, whose skincells were cloned and who led the study with Andrew J. French, the firm'schief scientific officer.
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