Tuesday, May 20, 2008

NATIONAL & WORLD NEWS May 20, 2008

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Obama Is Expected to Hit a Milestone in Today's Votes
Senator Barack Obama is poised to reach a milestone in the presidential raceon Tuesday by capturing a majority of pledged delegates, but he said hewould not declare victory against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or suggestthe Democratic primary should end until the final three contests arefinished on June 3.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/us/politics/20obama.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

-McCain Finds a Thorny Path in Ethics Effort
Sorting out the lobbying entanglements of his campaign advisers is provingto be a messy business for Senator John McCain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/us/politics/20mccain.html?hp

-Op-Ed Columnist: Let's Be Serious
The general election is about to unfold and we'll soon see how smart or howfoolish Americans really are. The U.S. may be the richest country on earth,but the economy is tanking, its working families are in trouble, it isbogged down in a multitrillion-dollar war of its own making and the price ofgasoline has nitwits siphoning supplies from the cars and trucks ofstrangers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20herbert.html?ref=opinion

-Op-Ed Columnist: Talking Versus Doing
In 1965, Mancur Olson wrote a classic book called "The Logic of CollectiveAction," which pointed out that large, amorphous groups are often lesspowerful politically than small, organized ones. He followed it up with "TheRise and Decline of Nations." In that book, Olson observed that as thenumber of small, organized factions in a society grows, the politicalculture becomes more divisive, the economy becomes more rigid and the nationloses vitality.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20brooks.html?ref=opinion

-Editorial: A Second Chance
With prison costs soaring, many states are understandably desperate for waysto cut recidivism and increase the chances that newly released prisonersbuild viable lives. The Second Chance Act, signed into law by President Bushlast month, would galvanize the re-entry effort, providing the states withmoney and guidance. Now Congress must appropriate the promised dollars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20tue3.html?ref=opinion

-Obama Talk on Iranians Draws Fire From McCain
Senator John McCain put Senator Barack Obama on the foreign policy defensiveonce again Monday, criticizing him here in his hometown for saying Iran didnot pose the serious threat to the United States that the Soviet Union oncedid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/us/politics/20campaign.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1211288552-M/Zug42MCwBpF94Fxz2Rnw

-Girls' Gains Have Not Cost Boys, Report Says
The American Association of University Women, whose 1992 report on how girlsare shortchanged in the classroom caused a national debate over genderequity, has turned its attention to debunking the idea of a "boys' crisis."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/education/20girls.html

-Editorial: Mr. Bush's Travels
President Bush's visit to the Middle East last week offered a graphic primeron his failed policies - and the many dangers his successor will face.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20tue1.html?ref=opinion


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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Why She Fights On
The New York Times recently ran down a list of women who might somedaybecome the nation's first female president. Out of both courtesy andcaution, it included Hillary Clinton, but the whole point of the exercisewas that it is not going to be her. Her campaign is all but over, but that'sno longer the point. She's ending it in a way to start all over.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902235.html

-The Hitler Analogy
"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists andradicals. . . . We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tankscrossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I couldonly have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' "
-- George W. Bush, May 2008
"Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing. . . . [and] inthese new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the samecontempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat inthe world."
-- Vladimir Putin, May 2007
No, I am not drawing comparisons between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin,two vastly different men, by citing these statements. Nevertheless, it isclear from the above that Bush and Putin, despite their vast differences,share a common contemporary ailment: Each suffers from the inexplicable needto inject the Nazis into current political debate, whether they belong thereor not.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902234.html

-King as He Was
We should all be able to agree that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was"confrontational." He was also wise, measured, visionary, good-natured andgenerous of heart. Like most great figures in history, he was complicated.
But he didn't ask for an end to Jim Crow repression, he demanded it; hedidn't request equal justice, he required it. Confrontation, basically, wasthe whole point.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902233.html

-Creationism's Latest Mutation
Red-herring arguments about 'academic freedom' can't be allowed to undermine the teaching of evolution.
NO ONE would think it acceptable for a teacher to question the existence of gravity or to suggest that two plus two equals anything but four. It's mystifying, then, that a movement to undermine the teaching of evolutionarybiology is attracting some support. Equally perverse is that this misguided effort is being advanced under the false guise of academic freedom.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902616.html

-Court Denies Parental Status Of Ex-Partners
Maryland's highest court ruled yesterday that someone who lives with andhelps raise a child before a relationship with the child's legal parentdissolves has virtually no rights to custody or visitation, in a decisionthat disappointed advocates for same-sex couples.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902461.html

-Meddling in Gay Marriage
California's Supreme Court intrudes into a social issue that the state's
political process was handling well.
BESTOWING THE full rights and obligations of marriage on all loving,committed relationships -- whether heterosexual or homosexual -- is a matterof social and political justice. There should be no room in this country forthe kind of discrimination that would relegate same-sex couples tosecond-class status. The California Supreme Court, which last week struckdown that state's prohibition against same-sex marriage, correctlyrecognized that government bears the highest burden if it decides to treatdifferently the relationships between opposite-sex and same-sex couples.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902640.html

-John McCain's Rapid-Fire Responders
Aides Turn the Media Rebuttal Into a Savvy Campaign Tactic
When Newsweek ran a story last week on how John McCain and his allies mayattack Barack Obama in the fall, the Arizona senator's top adviser fired offa letter calling the article "offensive" and "scurrilous" -- and threatenedto kick the magazine's reporter off the campaign plane.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902728.html


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Sun-Sentinel.com
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Time has come to allow gay marriage
The California Supreme Court got it correct, and the impact of that decision is reverberating across the country to Florida. With last week's gutsy 4-3 ruling allowing same-sex couples to marry, there are now exactly two states in the country - Massachusetts is the other - that have legalized gay marriage.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-editgsmarriagesbmay20,0,7024346.story


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Fort Report
http://www.fortreport.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Senate loads up Iraq war funding bill with other things
Despite numerous veto threats, senators in both parties have loaded upPresident Bush's war funding bill with a grab bag of domestic programs,including work permits for immigrant farm labor and heating subsidies forthe poor.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/05/20/senate_loads_war_funding_bill_with_domestic_programs/

-To many white voters, race still matters
Rural Kentucky points up a difficult reality for Barack Obama
Mike Rife is white, a semiretired factory worker with a high schooleducation and a 2-foot-square sign on his lawn that makes friends andneighbors flip him the finger as they drive by.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-kentucky-votersmay20,0,3690855.story

-Obama warns critics against taking jabs at his wife, family
Michelle Obama is, as her husband the presidential hopeful often says, astrong woman. But Barack Obama warned Republicans yesterday not to attackher.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/20/obama_warns_critics_against_taking_jabs_at_his_wife_family/

-When political spouses join the fray, they're fair game
Responding to an ad from the Tennessee Republican Party that reruns MichelleObama's now famous "proud of my country" line, Barack Obama warned Mondaythat his opponents should "lay off my wife." Regardless of whether theRepublicans listen to him, he is trying to establish some limits.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/when-political.html


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